(7 of 7)
Once again, Paul expressed the hope that "Christian husbands and wives will understand how our word, though it may seem severe and arduous, wants to interpret the authenticity of their love." Later, the Pope indicated that Humanae Vitae was not his final word on birth control—and there were rumors in Rome that a second encyclical on the subject might be forthcoming. Whether or not the new document might contain any modification of the ban on contraception was, to many Catholics, relatively unimportant. It did not matter so much how Rome made up its mind. On this issue, a great part of the church—represented by millions of individual Catholics—had already done so.
* In a similar, secret message to the Italian hierarchy, Amleto Cardinal Cicognani warned that the Pope "turns to his brothers, the bishops of the Catholic world, to ask them to stand at his side in this circumstance. The Pope counts on the attachment of his brothers in the episcopacy to the Chair of Peter. It is necessary that in the confessional, as by preaching and by the press and by the other mass communications, every pastoral effort be made so that no ambiguity whatsoever remains among the faithful regarding the position of the church."
* The Pope is infallible only when he explicitly speaks ex cathedra, as supreme teacher of the church on matters of faith and morals. There has been only one infallible papal pronouncement in this century: the proclamation by Pius XII in 1950 of Mary's assumption into heaven as a dogma of faith.