IN THIS, THE fiftieth anniversary year of the publication of Humanae Vitae, Pope Francis set up a low-key commission to study material in the Vatican’s secret archives in order to clarify how Pope Paul VI’s encyclical came to be written. His move immediately set off alarm bells in certain quarters that there was a covert attempt by him to undermine – or even re-write – the encyclical, which re-asserted the Church’s opposition to artificial contraception. This was never the case.

Mgr Gilfredo Marengo, the coordinator of the commission, told me this week that the research into the archives revealed three important details ...