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This document issued by Pope Paul VI in 1968 defends the sanctity of married life and the holiness of conjugal relations. It contains the central elements of the Catholic Church's teaching on the sacrament of married love and on the calling to responsible parenthood and the transmission of life properly understood within the Christian vocation.

After the questions surrounding the current moral norms in force, it sets out the Magisterium's competence to reply to them. This develops in the second and central part (Doctrinal Questions) to a careful reiteration of the Church's teaching and the practice concerning the regulation of births. The final part is a broad appeal to all of goodwill to consider the encyclical diligently and to measure how the Church's teaching would enhance man's dignity and confer benefits on human society.

Describing the Church as Mother and Teacher, in one central passage, Paul VI states that 'the Church cannot adopt towards mankind a different attitude from that of the divine Redeemer. She knows their weaknesses; she has compassion for the multitudes; she welcomes sinners. But at the same time she cannot do otherwise than teach the law. For it is in fact the law of human life restored to its native truth and led by the Spirit of God'.

Pope Paul VI