Catholics want contraception ban lifted

Catholic groupings from Europe to the Americas last week called on the Vatican to reverse its stance on contraception. The call came in an open letter published in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. The letter was timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the original Vatican document that introduced the ban Humanae vitae (On the Regulation of Birth).

Dissident Catholic bodies from countries including Britain, Brazil, Canada, France and the United States said the effects of the Roman Catholic Church’s condemnation of artificial birth control had been “catastrophic”. They said the world's poorest and weakest were suffering the most from the doctrine, saying that Catholics should be able to “plan their family life with certainty and in good conscience.” The letter said the stance “puts the lives of women in danger and exposes millions of people to the risk of contracting the AIDS virus.” It said the impact of the Church's position had been "disastrous in the southern hemisphere, where the Catholic leadership exercises considerable influence on the politics of family planning.” The authors of the letter said the encyclical had “completely failed in its aim” to convince Catholics to avoid modern contraceptive methods.

The Vatican, however, dismissed the idea that its stance on contraception contributed to the spread of AIDS as “obviously unfounded”. It also described the signatories as “unrepresentative” of the Catholic Church. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi stated that the letter was not about expressing a “theological or moral position but paid propaganda in favour of the use of contraceptives.” “The spread of AIDS is totally independent of the religious denomination of populations and of the influence of religious hierarchies,” Lombardi said, adding that policies aimed at preventing the spread of the HIV virus through condom use had largely failed.

In 2006, the Vatican denied it was ready to ease its ban on the use of condoms amid growing pressure from religious groups.

The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano said on Friday that the encyclical, which has the status of a law for Catholics, was ahead of its time, given “the worrying developments in genetic engineering.”

01 August 2008