The Church on Contraception

The moral doctrine of the Church judges human behavior but is silent on chemical compounds. Most people do not know that it is permissible for Catholic women to use the birth control pill under carefully defined conditions when the intent is not to impair their fertility. Sometimes a young woman will take the Pill for…

Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) is Pope Paul VI’s famed 1968 encyclical on contraception and reproductive ethics. Written in light of a study commissioned by the Vatican on modern reproductive issues, its timing coincided with the sudden prevalence of contraception and concerns about overpopulation in society at large. Pope Paul VI’s writings reaffirmed long-held Church…

“Contraception cannot be an expression of total self-giving, because in contraception, something is done to oneself to destroy the power to conceive a child.  That same selfishness that wants to prevent the child by contraception will grow until it wants to kill the child already conceived.  We must fight selfishness with a true, generous and…

Surveys in many countries consistently show that most Catholics believe that decisions of conscience about contraception rightfully belong with those who must bear and rear children.  The legitimacy of teaching requires that it be embraced by the faithful.  Your teaching has no such legitimacy.  It is a marginalized minority view in our church, defended largely…

A Personal Story Years ago, I had the privilege of accompanying Human Life International’s founder, Father Paul Marx, on several of his parish weekends. His homilies usually covered the complete range of Church teaching on sexuality, from contraception to abortion to homosexuality. Several times after these Masses, I witnessed irate parishioners publicly berate him, telling…

There are times when priests, ministers and pro-life activists encounter what might be called the “ultimate hard case” involving condoms. This is the situation where a husband and wife are serodiscordant; one is HIV positive and the other is not. The question inevitably arises as to whether or not they may use condoms to prevent…

Some people refer to sexual sterilization as “Catholic birth control.”  This erroneous term, along with the misguided assertions of a number of well-known dissenters, has led to significant confusion regarding the Catholic Church’s teaching on sterilization. Because it separates the marital act from the transmission of human life, sterilization is condemned on the same grounds…

There is a very high level of confusion among Catholics regarding the abortifacient action of various forms of birth control.  Unfortunately, this uncertainty is actively promoted by the very profession that should be trying to clarify health issues to the public.   Misinformation Regarding Contraception The modern medical profession acknowledged for decades that the beginning…

What Does “Infallible” Mean? There are two primary means by which the Church may declare a teaching infallible: The first and most definitive statement of infallibility is the Pope’s solemn declaration ex cathedra that a matter of faith or morals must be assented to in order for a Catholic to attain salvation. One example of…