Contraception and the Church

I'm reading about the history of the Catholic Church'sobjection to "artificial birth control." It blows me away that this 1950s issue has come to the fore again, what with 98% of Catholics admitting to using birth control!. But it has, due especially to strong support from Evangelical Christians.

Anyway, I came across a 1930 encyclical by Pius XI that's I'd never heard of, but which seems significant.

In what's gotta be the longest and most abstruse sentence I've ever read, the Pope states that "God has entrusted [the Church] with the defense of integrity and the purity of morals."

Yea, right.

"In response to the Church of England's approval of artificial birth control, Pope Pius XI issued his encyclical "Casti Connubii" on December 31, 1930, stating, 'Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such away that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.'"

Anyway, I hope the passage contributes to your deeper understanding of the Church's Medieval stand on contraception.