Roman Catholic attitudes to contraception

Sorry that this post is out of date order! Many of you will know that my girlfriend is a Roman Catholic, and you can imagine that even with a convinced anglo-catholic like me there are issues of, if not disagreement, then at least divergence between our understanding of what is required of us as Christians. Perhaps one of the big differences between the Church of England and the Catholic Church is found in our attitudes to contraception. (And yes as unmarried Christians this is a theoretical discussion for us!) The Church of England has the 'distinction' of being the first of the main protestant Churches to change its attitude to contraception. What many people won't be aware of is that until the twentieth century all Christian Churches were against contraception. At the Lambeth Conference in 1930 this changed with the decision that if there appeared to be ethical reasons why the couple should not have more children and should at the same time continue to have a sexual relationship the Conference agreed 'that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of Christian principles.' Today it is a pretty uncontroverted issue in the Church of England, and an extremely controversial one for the Roman Catholic Church. What I think we find it hard to get our heads around is that this is not simply an issue of mechanics for Catholics. For most people within the Church of England it appears to be a matter of semantics. Catholics are able to use non artificial methods of birth control, is there really such a big difference between a scientifically informed use of sexual abstinence and condoms and artificial methods of birth control? Modern methods of natural family planning are as statistically effective as artificial ones. Leaving aside the fact that many of the methods of birth control available are abortifacients, the Roman Catholic answer is that there is a difference, because of the attitude that the use of contraception and a 'contraceptive attitude' encourages. For someone who is concerned with the unity of our two churches (and indeed Christian unity in general) as I am this is challenging and worth thinking about. So last Thursday I went to hear Janet Smith give a lecture on this subject in London. Janet Smith is a catholic professor of Ethics from the United States and a very powerful speaker. There was little in her lecture that required you to be a Catholic, simply drawing on basic Christian attitudes to family life and marriage and an examination of scientific and statistical evidence she made a very strong case for the fact that the widespread use of contraception in the West has been a significant contributory factor in the break down of family life and the appalling and rising number of abortions. If you feel like being challenged to think about this, and at least come to understand our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters on this a little more then I have a CD of her lecture I am happy to lend out, or you can find out more about her here. In the live talk she also pointed out that Natural Family Planning is also a way to shrink your carbon footprint.....