Australian Cardinal George Pell has denounced the contraceptive pill for triggering a “redistribution of wealth and power from women and children to men”.“This year is the 50th anniversary of the contraceptive pill, a development that has changed Western life enormously, in some ways most people do not understand,” Cardinal Pell of Sydney wrote in The Australian.
“While majority opinion regards the pill as a significant social benefit for giving women greater control of their fertility, the consensus is not overwhelming, especially among women.
“In an article in the ecumenical journal First Things that month, North American economist Timothy Reichert approached the topic with “straight-forward microeconomic reasoning”, concluding that contraception had triggered a redistribution of wealth and power from women and children to men,” Cardinal Pell wrote.
“Today’s advocates of the primacy of personal conscience urge Catholics to pick and choose among the church’s teachings on marriage, sexuality and life issues, although they generally allow fewer liberties in social justice or ecology.
“These changes, regarded as progressive or misguided depending on one’s viewpoint, are not coincidental but follow from the revolutionary consequences of the pill on moral thinking and social behaviour; on the broadening endorsement of a moral individualism that ignores or rejects as inevitable the damage inflicted on the social fabric. This revolution was reinforced by the music of the 1960s, for example Mick Jagger’s Rolling Stones, or the Beatles.
“While early Catholic supporters of the pill claimed it would diminish the number of abortions, this has not eventuated.
“Real-life experience suggests that the “contraceptive mentality” pope Paul VI warned about in 1968 has had unforeseen consequences. To paraphrase Reichert, an unwanted baby threatens prosperity and lifestyle, making abortion seem necessary,” Cardinal Pell concluded.
SIC: CTH/AUS