The Vatican's teaching that bans the use of contraceptives is ignored by nearly all practising Catholics, according to a survey. The Tablet , a weekly Catholic magazine, surveyed 1,500 Catholics from parishes across England and Wales and found that nearly half had never even heard of Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical that set out the teaching.
However, most did know that the Church's official stance on contraception was that it should never be used. More than half believed that this teaching should be revised.
The survey found that half of otherwise faithful Catholics are using a range of artificial contraceptives, especially condoms and the pill. More than half of those aged 18 to 45 had lived with their partner before getting married.
Most would not dream of discussing issues of family planning, such as the number of children they intended to have and whether or not to use condoms, with a priest.
The vast majority stil backed marriage as the ideal life-long commitment but nearly three-quarters of Catholics said that separation or divorce would be better than an unhappy marriage.
The same amount also said that the Church should revise its teaching that divorced people who remarry be excluded from receiving communion.
Tablet editor Catherine Pepinster says in the article published tomorrow. "When I was growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, it would not be unusual to find a pew filled by one family mother, father, and five, six, seven or eight children. Today, a family at Mass is far more likely to be parents with one or two children, with maybe the more affluent having three or four. "
She continues: "One of the greatest ironies of the last 40 years is that the pressures on couples now seem to have reversed. For many of them, the difficulty is not avoiding pregnancy but getting pregnant at all."
She says in the comment article in The Tablet, that the Church's stance has damaged its message: "This is all too evident not just in the field of personal morality but in a wider context. The Church has much to teach society about the needs of the developing world and the nature of justice. Yet dialogue between secular society and the Catholic Church over climate change has been painfully limited and stymied until very recently. With the impact of a rapidly escalating world population playing its part in climate change, birth control has been the elephant in the room in discussions."
She warns: "Large numbers of the laity, at least in the West, have developed a kind of moral autonomy. Some would argue that individualism suits matters of the bedroom. But for a Church founded on a belief in the importance of communion and community, and that once had such a strong identity, something has gone seriously awry."
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