the assumption that the substantive debate on contraception is over and that the conversation can simply go on under the aegis of papal politics would seem to be premature. Some commentators then and now have suggested that Paul’s decision was basically made because of his fear of admitting any error, no matter how slight, on the part of the magisterium, thus leaving room for more challenges to papal authority.2 Some argue that Paul’s decision was only a continuation of the failure at Vatican II to actually admit that Dignitatis Humana’s teaching on religious freedom was a development that was a reversal: if only they had told the truth, then perhaps Paul VI would have felt freer to admit the change that was necessary.3 Arguments like these presume that the case for a development in doctrine allowing for contraception has been made decisively, allowing for speculation of an ad hominem variety to explain why Paul VI and his heir John Paul II have not revised the teaching. Many have suggested that the teaching was ripe for a change, either in the form of a complete reversal or at least a development which might have approved some, though not all, forms of contraception. Of course, Paul VI must have had some reasons for renewing this condemnation of contraception even though aware of such great opposition.

Paul VI’s condemnation of contraception flew in the face of a great percentage of Catholics using and approving of it thirty-five years of official Protestant decisions in opposition, beginning with the Lambeth Conference’s cautious 1930 approval for married couples and the majority opinion of his own commission set up to deal with such questions involving marriage. If any single event seems to epitomize the divided state of the post-Vatican II Catholic Church, it is the promulgation of the encyclical Humanae Vitae (hereafter HV).

Contraception by John T. Noonan Jr.