Greetings!
The Catholic teaching on contraception has been in the news after the Obama administration required free contraception coverage be provided by all religious employers (excluding "worshipping communities"). This is a brief list of my observations concerning Rome's teaching on the use of contraceptions and its relationship to religious liberty:
1) The papacy has consistently condemned artificial contraception methods. Humanae Vitae (released during Vatican II) states that it is "intrinsically evil." It is considered a violation of natural law.
2) The spiritual consequences to the Catholic couple who use "artificial" contraception is the commission of a mortal sin, which if not confessed to a priest results in eternal damnation. For non-Catholics who use contraceptives, the option of absolution is unavailable!
3) The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2368) teaches that while artificial contraception methods are evil, using the "rhythm method" to avoid conception is allowed. Thus, the mechanics of the sex act are placed above the motives of the participants.
4) The Commission assembled during Vatican II to investigate contraception surveyed 3,000 Catholic couples. 63% said that the rhythm method harmed their marriage, and 65% said that it did not prevent conception. The Commission's investigation included testimony from doctors who stated that nature itself provided women with their greatest sexual desire at just the fertile times that rhythm marked out of bounds. They felt that the rhythm method is actually the "unnatural" method of contraception. Testimony from Catholic couples produced dramatic evidence of the moral evil of "natural family planning."
5) The Commission voted 30-5 to change the Church's position on contraception. The Bishops who participated on the Commission voted 9-3 in favor of changing. Three bishops abstained, one of whom was Karol Wotjyla, a/k/a John Paul II.
6) Pope Paul VI overrode the will of the bishops and the laity. It could be argued that this violated a main tenet of Romanism: the primacy of the Bishops in an ecumenical council. The pope released the encyclical, denouncing artificial contraception methods. After all, how could many centuries of papal teaching be deemed fallible? How could Rome condemn to hell millions of people, and then change her mind?
7) The encyclical instructed the bishops to enforce the mandate. It is Catholic teaching that the faithful must submit to the Pope and the Magisterium (teaching authority of the Bishops) in all matters of faith and morals. Even in teachings that are not deemed infallible, the faithful are to "receive with docility the teachings and directives of their pastors" (CCC 87). Many Catholic theologians teach that the Papacy's teaching on contraception should be considered infallible.
8) The immediate response of many Conferences of Bishops around the world was to thumb their collective noses at the directive. The bishops of the Netherlands wrote: "The assembly considers that the encyclical's total rejection of contraceptive methods is not convincing on the basis of arguments put forward." The Scandanavian bishops wrote: "Should someone, however, for grave and carefully considered reasons, not feel able to subscribe to the articles of the encyclical, he is entitled ... to entertain other views than those put forward." The U.S. Conference of Bishops got around the encyclical by allowing for "norms of licit dissent." Five years after its release, 42% of the priests in America thought that issuing the encyclical was an abuse of the Pope's authority. Another 18% thought it was an inappropriate use of that authority. These reactions to the encyclical deeply disturbed Pope Paul VI, who stated "Through some crack in the Temple of God, ths smoke of Satan has entered."
9) Around 95% of Catholic women of child-bearing age ignore the directive and use artificial means of contraception.
10) The Catechism of the Catholic Church permits contraception, just not artificial: "For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children." (CCC 2368).
11) The Catechism also teaches that the State is authorized to promote contraception: "The State has the responsibility for its citizens' well-being. In this capacity it is legitimate for it to intervene to orient the demography of the population." (CCC 2372). This is to be done in a manner that does not "usurp the initiative of spouses, who have the primary responsibility for the procreation and education of their children."
12) The current controversy is more about the power of the Pope and Bishops than it is contraception. It is amazing to me that almost all Catholics, liberal and conservative, are up in arms concerning this mandate. It reveals how deeply even lapsed Catholics feel about the ultimate authority of their "Church."
13) The Papacy sees the use of artificial contraceptive methods as a violation of natural law. As such, Rome believes that governments should restrict their use. If it were up to the Papacy, no woman in the world would be allowed the use of contraceptives, whether Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, or Agnostic. In the U.S. the promotion and use of contraceptives was made illegal as a result of influential Catholics such as Monsignor John A. Ryan in the FDR administration. As late as 1961, it was a crime to use birth control in Connecticut -- the chairman of the Yale Medical School Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics was arrested for distributing contraceptives.
14) Pope John Paul II was an energetic promoter of Humanae Vitae. He wrote an even stronger encyclical on marital sex entitled Familiaris Consortio. In this encyclical, he states that a husband can commit adultery in his heart by looking at his wife in a lustful manner. To prevent this, the Pope recommends the periodic abstinence of the rhythm method. Garry Wills, in his book Papal Sin, writes concerning the encyclical: "In order to be entirely perfect, in the Pope's eyes, the sex act must express its apparent opposite -- continence and abstinence." He goes on: "For John Paul, sex is only holy when you have proved that you can give it up, can remain free of concupiscence toward the partner, preserving a pure heart, a kind of would-be virginity, even in marriage."
15) Almost all U.S. Catholic reporters and bloggers see the HHS mandate as an assault against religious liberty. They feel like they are being persecuted by the Obama administration.
16) Ignoring the silly make-believe that the contraceptives must be "free" (isn't somebody paying for them???), and the constitutional argument that people should not be forced to buy insurance, should the Catholic Church and its parachurch organizations be exempt from the contraception mandate? I am not a doctor or a health professional. I don't know whether contraceptives promote women's health and reduce the number of abortions. But if they do, then the Catholic Church is in a bind in saying that the Government can and should promote family planning while at the same time denying that right. | 
