Pope Benedict XVI Blog

John Paul II’s ‘Rule’ for married couples discovered, published by newspaper

Rome, Italy, Apr 17, 2009 / 09:45 am (CNA).- In its Thursday printed edition, the Italian daily Il Messagero published an unknown booklet written by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla in 1968 to help married couples in his Polish diocese implement the Encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” released that same year by Pope Paul VI. The text, entitled “Rule for Spouses,” was never made public outside the Archdiocese of Krakow, but was recently discovered by a student from the John Paul II Institute for Life and Family in Rome.

The booklet will be officially presented on April 24, but on Thursday Il Messagero published a full version in Italian, as well as Wojtyla’s introduction to the Rule on its website (in Italian).

“In the future Polish Pope’s observation,” Il Messagero writes, “there is a prophetic concern for the crisis of values that affects the destiny of Western civilization and its models.

In his introduction, Wojtyla wrote that “the present Rule sprouts from a series of pastoral experiences with some married couples and, at the same time, from the marriage experience of couples themselves.”
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posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 4:02 PM