Pope Leo XIV to Open Fertility Congress in Rome
Ahead of Oct. 16–18 events, the congress will highlight therapies consistent with Christian ethics and the dignity of human life.
Pope Leo XIV will open a three-day international congress on human fertility and infertility on October 16 at the Rome campus of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. The gathering continues through October 18.
The congress marks the 25th anniversary of the Paul VI International Scientific Institute and the 50th anniversary of the Center for Natural Fertility Regulation. It will address scientific, anthropological, and ethical challenges related to sexuality, reproduction, and procreation in line with Catholic teaching on responsible parenthood.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi will celebrate the opening Mass, followed by a papal audience. Cardinal Pietro Parolin will deliver the keynote address on the dignity and beauty of procreation.
Life, Science, and Christian Ethics
Sessions will examine the transmission of life between society and science, fertility roadmaps for couples, preconception health, and the prevention of infertility. Speakers will also consider how to safeguard the human person amid hypertechnology and the culture of waste.
The congress promotes therapeutic approaches compatible with Christian ethics. It is framed as a response to ideologies that devalue human life from conception, and as an affirmation of the dignity of every person created in the image of God.
Catholic teaching holds that spouses are called to responsible parenthood within a marriage open to life. Natural fertility regulation, long advanced by the institutes commemorated this week, offers couples a path that respects the moral law and the integrity of the marital act. The Church walks with those who suffer the trial of infertility while rejecting practices that separate procreation from the conjugal union or treat the human embryo as material to be discarded.
Under the Holy Father’s patronage, the Rome meeting seeks to unite scientific rigor with fidelity to the Magisterium. By placing the dignity and beauty of procreation at the center of the keynote, the program recalls that questions of fertility touch the vocation of the family and the defense of life from its beginning. In an age shaped by powerful technologies of reproduction, the congress insists that authentic care for the human person cannot abandon the truth about sexuality, marriage, and the gift of children.