Where did the idea of founding the Pope Paul VI Institute begin?
What was your inspiration? Hilgers: I was in medical school when all the discussion on birth control was occurring in the Catholic Church. Pope John XXIII had appointed the papal birth control commission who were meeting and listening to experts in medicine, philosophy, theology and sociology and they were going to be looking into the Churchs position on contraception. As news was leaking out from this commission, it seemed to me that they were probably going to recommend a change in the Churchs position –but I was only getting one side of the story. When “Humanae Vitae” came out in July 1968 I thought I better read a copy of it. So I went up to my Newman Club chaplain at the University of Minnesota and I asked him where I could find a copy of “Humanae Vitae.” And his comment to me was, What do you want to read that kind of trash for? This irritated me. It was not his role to make an editorial comment to me. He was a priest, a Catholic priest. He ought to at least be sharing what the
