Catholics And Contraception

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31631, 18 March 1968, Page 1

Catholics And Contraception

Contraception was the most controversial and emotionally charged issue in modern church life, Dr J. O’Hagan, of Winton, said at the Roman Catholic Christian Family Movement convention on Saturday.

It was not good enough for people to wait passively for the long-expected Papal statement on the issue. It was their duty to reveal the full depths of married love to the clergy who had foregone that experience so that the clergy could interpret God’s plan of salvation in marriage. "I find it difficult to see

that in 1975 we Catholics will hold the same views on family planning and contraception as we do today,” he said. “I predict that whether we like it or not, and I am not sure that I like all of it, in the near future we will most probably take a more liberal stance resembling the current position of non-Catholic Christians. In fact this process of change is already taking place. But how quickly it will develop and where it will stop we can only guess.”

The main reason that a change in attitude toward contraception was possible was an appreciation that the Christian understanding of married love and of reproduction had been evolving throughout the centuries. “In response to new social and scientific realities further change seems inevitable,” said Dr O’Hagan.

“Although Pope Pius XII had reaffirmed the official blanket condemnation of all contraception it seemed to an increasing number of Catholics that having taken the momentous steps of acceptance of responsible family planning, the safe period, and the new morality of sex, the reasons used in earlier years no longer applied fully.

"This has led to the current re-evaluation of the arguments on which contraception had been totally condemned,” he said. “While the total condemnation of contraception will no longer hold, we will still recognise all current methods as having offensive elements,” said Dr O’Hagan.

It would be recognised that there would be some occasions where, for the total good of the married life, couples would legitimately use birth control, selecting

I the method which was least offensive and most appropriate to their individual problem. “If we feel reform is indicated we should speak out loudly and clearly in its favour but, at the same time, unless there are some exceedingly grave circumstances we should reaffirm our faith and allegiance to the church in this time of crisis. “Contraception, as it exists in 1968, is a very unsatisfactory answer to the family planning problem. NonCatholics will be the first to agree that liberalisation of our Catholic view will only solve some of our problems and will certainly create some new ones.

“Our best course in the meantime is to prepare ourselves for change by looking more deeply into Christian attitudes to family planning and sexuality,” he said.