The Church & Contraception
The biggest problem that the Church faces in backing off its condemnation of contraception is a potential loss of religious authority, which is no small matter in a hierarchical church.
It is always difficult to decide whether a religious tenet of a hierarchical religion, such as Roman Catholicism, reflects religious belief or institutional strategy. The Roman Catholic Church is a huge “corporation,” one that reached its present size, wealth, and influence in a competitive environment, where it had first to confront paganism and Judaism, and later Protestantism and secularism. The Church has long been hostile to contraception, but the nature of its hostility has changed, and may be changing yet again with the Pope’s recent acknowledgment that the use of condoms may sometimes be justified as a way of preventing the spread of AIDS.
