40 years

A prophet is not respected in his own Country and when it came to Pope Paul VI, a prophet is not much respected in his own Church.  Today is the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae and sadly every prediction that Pope Paul VI made have come true. We hear so many people today who say they have a prophetic voice and they are almost always the same ones who have ignored the prophetic voice of the Church.  The real prophets always preached a message that was out-of-touch with the society, which was why they had to preach it in the first place.  An easy general test for false prophets is if you do not have to change anything to conform to their message then they are a false prophet.  The false prophets of today have the same message that the false prophets in Ahab's day did, that is to tell him "everything is going fine."  The false prophets of today see the breakdown of marriage, family, and the treatment of women and then demand that have more of the same that lead to the problems in the first place.  The hubris of false prophets prevents them from being embarrased that all the predictions they made on wide availibility of contraception were not only incorrect, but exactly contrary to what they said.  Every child a wanted child has turned into every child is wanted by an abortionist.

Mary Eberstadt has written a great essay in First Things the Vindication of Humanae Vitae which goes through the predictions and concequences and uses secular sources to back this up.  A real worthwhile read.

Marcel LeJeune has commented on the above article with some good commenary.

In addition Joseph Bottum adds his own thoughts.