Catholics and contraception

11 April 2012 | Leicester Mercury

(Headline by Leicester Mercury)

Why Catholics should consider contraception a virtue

The reason why orthodox Catholic teaching bans artificial contraception is well explained by Mark W. Jacques. (Get the story straight on the Church and contraception. Mailbox April 3)

However, most Catholics, such as myself, believe that the teaching should be changed. In fact, it would not surprise me if, in the future, theologians reclassified the use of artificial contraception as a virtue.

Consider Uganda, where there is little family planning. It is the same size as the UK and is 40% Catholic.

Since 1950, Uganda has experienced an accelerating growth in population.

In every ten years since 1950-60 until the foreseeable future the growth has increased or is expected to increase by a greater amount.

In 1950-60 the increase was 1.6 million. In 2000-2010 it was 9.2 million. In 2040-2050 the increase is expected to be 17.8 million.

The population has gone up from 5 million in 1950, to 35 million now, and an expected 94 million by 2050.

Uganda already suffers extreme poverty and it needs effective family planning urgently if disaster is to be prevented.

The ban is one of the reasons why it does not have family planning already. Theologians, even authoritative ones, do sometimes make mistakes.

Gerald Danaher