Germain Grisez, RIP

Wednesday marks the start of National Marriage Week USA, while Sunday will be World Marriage Day .  Later this year, July 25, will mark the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's beautiful encyclical on marriage/family/sexuality, Humanae Vitae. 

Last Thursday, February 1, marked the passing of a great lay scholar, Professor Germain Grisez, who worked tirelessly in defense of Humanae Vitae: 

"Rev. John C. Ford, S.J., a very able moral theologian who had worked on marriage questions,....was asked by Pope Paul VI to serve on the Pontifical Commission for Population, Family, and Birthrate—the so-called birth control commission. Grisez helped Ford with that work from the spring of 1965 until early July 1966....In July 1968, Pope Paul VI finally reaffirmed the constant and very firm teaching of the Catholic Church regarding contraception, sterilization, and abortion in his encyclical, Humanae vitae....[Several years later, Ford and Grisez demonstrated] that the Church’s day-to-day catechesis over many centuries had already infallibly affirmed that choosing to contracept is always gravely wrong. The article appeared in the June 1978 issue of Theological Studies: 'Contraception and the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium' (About Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus).

In his The Way of the Lord Jesus, Volume 3, Difficult Moral Questions, Professor Grisez demonstrated another powerful and "on the money" response:

"87:	How far may Catholic hospitals cooperate with providers of immoral services?"