Why the Church is against family planning

(From the column "Eureka!" of Dr. Sydney Shahid)

WHY is the Catholic Church so adamantly opposed to any scientific method that ensures proper birth control? Why has the Catholic Church stubbornly maintained its ridiculous position against family planning during the last 64 years? Why has the Catholic Church been so opposed to birth control in spite of all the available scientific data clearly showing the dangerous consequences of large families on the physical, mental and spiritual health of parents and children?
 

The more logical question is, why does the Catholic Church provide all the irrational, unhealthy, unscientific, ignominious and ridiculous excuses to support their vague and baseless arguments against any family planning based on scientific methods of contraception?
 

The answer lies on the Pope’s stand on papal infallibility (ultramontanism).
 

Stephen D. Munford, PHD, president of the Center for Research on Population and Security, Chapel Hill, North Carolina wrote in his article “Why the Church Can’t Change:
 

“Hans Kung, the renowned Swiss Catholic theologian, best summed up the problem of Catholic Church accounting against contraception when he said, ‘It is not possible to solve the problem of contraception until we solve the problem of infallibility.’”
 

In his book, “How the Pope Became Infallible,” Catholic historian Bernhard Hasler describes in great detail what Küng meant: Hasler wrote: “For more than a millennium, the Vatican had possessed temporal power which ensured its survival. With the loss of the Papal States in 1870, it appeared all but certain that a strong Papacy would simply disappear. The Vatican urgently needed a new source of power. Papacy needed a group of conservative and influential leaders including Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) who came up with a brilliant idea for a new source: ‘an infallible pope.’”
 

What is infallibility of the pope? According to Catholic dogma, the pope is God’s representative on earth and God guides him as he cares for His flock. When the pope formulates a doctrine, he is simply transmitting this dogma on God’s behalf. Therefore, the teaching cannot be in error. Thus, the pope’s teachings are absolute, final and infallible. Such an arrangement placed enormous control and power in the hands of the pope. (To be continued next issue)

(WLWE Jan. 3-9, 2011)