By Jim May 10 2018 Roman CatholicHumanae VitaeBirth ControlFifty years ago this July, Pope Paul VI promulgated his encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s traditional prohibition of artificial birth control and set off one of the most divisive debates in modern church history. Catholics have overwhelmingly rejected the document’s teaching. A 2014 Univision poll found that large majorities of self-identified Catholics in traditional strongholds of the faith favored the use of contraceptives: 93% in Brazil, 84% in Italy and 68% in the Philippines. In the U.S., a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center found that only 13% of weekly Mass-going Catholics thought contraception was morally wrong. 525 reads
