This Week in Christian History: Amazing Grace, Birth Control, and Antidisestablishmentarianism

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, July 23, 2017

Catholic Church Denounces Contraception – July 25, 1968

A pharmacist holds two packs of birth control pills. | (PHOTO: REUTERS)

This week marks the anniversary of the Roman Catholic Church reaffirming its stance against the usage of artificial birth control methods, released a few years after the conclusion of Second Vatican Council.

In an encyclical published by Pope Paul VI on July 25, 1968 and titled Humanae Vitae (or "Of Human life") the Church denounced the usage of artificial birth control.

"We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children," read the encyclical in part.

"Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation — whether as an end or as a means."

Humanae Vitae continues to be a source of controversy, with the Catholic Church's position against birth control methods becoming a source of legal action between many of its organizations and the Obama Administration during the 2010s.