Pages

Friday, October 24, 2014

HOW A REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH PIONEER BECAME AN 'INSTANT CONVERT' READING HUMANAE VITAE


By Elise Harris and Alan Holdren







As founders of an institute studying reproductive healthcare, Thomas and Susan Hilgers have seen the benefits that natural family planning can offer in the realms of health, sexuality and human relationships.

But the couple was not always focused on advocating Church teaching on sexuality and family planning. Their years of dedication to the subject were largely inspired by reading Blessed Pope Paul VI’s “Humanae Vitae” and later St. John Paul II’s “Familiaris Consortio,” documents that they say bring “great hope and joy to the people to utilize them.”

“This whole concept is rich. I said in another place we should be shouting out from the mountain tops as a Church, we shouldn’t be crawling under like it’s something we have to be embarrassed by,” Dr. Thomas Hilgers told EWTN News on Oct. 15.

The Hilgers were present in Rome for the Oct. 19 beatification of Pope Paul VI at the end of the Synod of Bishops on the Family. During the Mass, the doctor read aloud one of the Prayers of the Faithful in English.

Together with his wife, Dr. Hilgers founded the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction and the National Center for Women's Health in Omaha, Neb., in 1985 after reading Paul VI’s encyclical letter “Humanae Vitae” on the regulation of birth.

continue reading at http://www.ewtnnews.com





No comments:

Post a Comment