Why the Catholic Church teaches that using artificial contraception is immoral...

So, if you've ever had questions about why the Church teaches what she does about contraception (and even if you never did)...here is a very good article written by Dr. Janet Smith. This weekend marks the 42nd anniversary of Pope Paul VI's prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life). This is a topic that, in my opinion, is bigger and more impacting than most of our time (and thats saying alot). Go ahead, take a chance, listen to what the Church has to say about it. One suggestion: even if you think the Church is crazy on this topic...no ESPECIALLY if you think the Church is crazy on this topic, take a few minutes and read this but make sure you read the WHOLE thing.

Contraception: Why Not?

JANET SMITH

Janet Smith explains why the Catholic Church keeps insisting, in the face of the opposite position held by most of the rest of the modern world, that contraception is one of the worst inventions of our time.

My topic for tonight is the Church's teaching on contraception and various sexual issues. As you know, we live in a culture that thinks that contraception is one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind. If you were to ask people if they wanted to give up their car or their computer or their contraceptive, it would be a hard choice to make. It's really considered to be something that has really put us, greatly, into the modern age and one of the greatest advances of modern medicine and modern times. Yet, there's this archaic church that tells us that, really, this is one of the worst inventions of mankind. According to the Church, contraception is one of the things that's plunging us into a kind of a disaster.
So we have this great polarization: a world that thinks contraception is one of the greatest inventions of our time and the Catholic Church that says it's one of the worst. I am going to try to help people see tonight why the Church's teaching certainly deserves serious consideration.

Most people don't know that every Christian church up until 1930 taught that contraception was wrong. There was a universal teaching against contraception within Christian churches. It was only in 1930 that the Anglican church first broke with that unbroken tradition and approved contraception within marriage for serious reasons. In 1931, Pope Pius XI wrote the Encyclical,Casti Connubii, which is usually translated On Christian Marriage, and there he reiterated what had been the constant teaching of the Church. Within the Catholic Church there was virtually no debate on the issue until the mid-1960's. The debate starts about 1963. There was really a great acceptance of the Church, of those in the Church, of the teaching of the church. In 1960, some 66% of Catholics were living by the Church's teaching. Sixty-six percent. Now they say some 80% of Catholics are contracepting. Thirty percent of Catholics are sterilized, which is the same rate as the rest of the population. Only 4% of Catholics are using Natural Family Planning. I personally think that might be a high estimate.
So, how have we in the last 30 years gone from 66% compliance to at best 4% of compliance?
Read the rest of the article here.