Nothing will ever change the Catholic Church’s stand on contraceptives, says Suva, Fiji, vicar-general Father Sulio Turagakacivi. Responding to concerns by the Catholic Women’s League members regarding the church’s stand on contraception and the expensive exercise of raising children in a money-driven society in this era, Fr Turagakacivi said no laws or ideology would change Read more
An MIT spinoff called MicroCHIPS has announced plans to market an implantable contraceptive chip that can be turned on and off remotely, and lasts for as long as sixteen years. Funded by the (Bill) Gates Foundation to the tune of $5 million, the chip contains enough of the contraceptive drug levonorgestrel to provide contraception for Read more
Prompted by Pope Francis, for the first time in history, Catholics throughout the world are being asked our opinion in preparation for a synod. Like many others, I have been answering the questionnaire put out by the Vatican in preparation for the Extraordinary Synod on the Family to be held next October. In fact, even Read more
Holly Grigg-Spall is a young woman who calls herself a feminist but who is deeply unpopular with some of the sisterhood right now. English, 30-ish, married to an American and living in California, she has written a book criticising the contraceptive pill. Actually, Sweetening the Pill: Or How We Got Hooked On Hormonal Birth Control is more than Read more
For the faithful it (birth control) is a sad and agonizing issue, for there is a cleavage between the official teaching of the Church and the contrary practice in most families. — Former Patriarch Maximos IV Saigh of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church quoted in What Happened at Vatican II, by John W. O’Malley. Recalling that Thursday was Read more
While pondering last week’s sapphire anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life) and the continuing controversy over the so-called “birth control encyclical” throughout both Church and society, I came across a striking passage in an essay by Polish Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz, written shortly before his death in 2004. “Increasingly the institution Read more
A Blenheim woman says her GP refused to give her the birth control pill because she had not yet done her “reproductive job”. Melissa Pont, 23, said her family practitioner, Dr Joseph Lee, would not renew her pill prescription, instead lecturing her on a baby’s right to live and on using the rhythm method. Lee is Read more
A public opinion poll in the United States has shown a significant gap between what the Catholic Church teaches and what American Catholics actually believe. Asked if they believe the pope is infallible when he teaches on matters of morality or faith, only 40 per cent of the total sample (and 45 per cent of Read more
Most young American Catholics believe the Church’s teachings on sexuality and birth control are “out of date” and find Mass attendance an onerous obligation, according to a new survey. The online survey by the Barna Group covered 1296 Christians aged 18-29, including 536 “who had experience attending a Catholic church prior to age 18.” Among Read more
Catholic doctors in Bangladesh often ignore Church teaching on abortion and birth control because they are afraid they will lose their job or lose patients. The doctors’ predicament came to light during a “Faith in the Life of Medical Professionals” workshop organised by the Catholic Bishops’ Commission for Healthcare and the Association of Catholic Doctors. Read more