Birth Control Blues

Roman Catholics who hope that the church will change its mind about birth control seize upon any reasonable rumors. Several were floating about last week, including a suggestion in the Italian weekly Panorama that Pope Paul VI might be planning a revision of his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which condemned all artificial contraception.

One source of the speculation was a letter from the Vatican to bishops' conferences round the world suggesting responses to the current United Nations population year. One section of the 5,000-word document included a recommendation that couples should take into account "the demands of common welfare" in determining the size of their families. To some, this implied that decisions on birth control could be left to the partners themselves. The hope for an impending policy revision was also nurtured by a recent Vatican document on confession that warned priests not "to probe where it is not necessary."

Rome, however, is not quite ready to change. A Vatican spokesman has categorically denied that any revision of Humanae Vitae's teaching was being planned. Rome notwithstanding, millions of Catholics in Europe and the Americas have long since decided the issue for themselves. Indeed, bishops' conferences in some nations have in effect told married couples that the decision to practice contraception, while still questionable, is theirs. Moreover, surveys indicate that 60% to 75% of U.S. priests and laity do not consider artificial birth control sinful.

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