The Conference, while declining to lay down rules which will meet the needs of every abnormal case, regards with grave concern the spread in modern society of theories and practices hostile to the family.
We utter an emphatic warning against the use of unnatural means for the avoidance of conception, together with the grave dangers—physical, moral, and religious—thereby incurred, and against the evils with which the extension of such use threatens the race.
In opposition to the teaching which, under the name of science and religion, encourages married people in the deliberate cultivation of sexual union as an end in itself, we steadfastly uphold what must always be regarded as the governing considerations of Christian marriage.
One is the primary purpose for which marriage exists—namely the continuation of the race through the gift and heritage of children; the other is the paramount importance in married life of deliberate and thoughtful self-control.
We desire solemnly to commend what we have said to Christian people and to all who will hear. Here we have a refusal to go into detail about abnormal 'hard cases,' but a quite general condemnation of contraceptive methods.
The recent Conference, on the contrary, has given a restricted approval of them. To be quite fair we will analyse the Resolutions 13—18. Resolutions 13 and 14 are on the lines of the latter part of the pronouncement of the earlier Conference, emphasizing the dignity and glory of parenthood and the necessity of self-control within marriage. Resolution 16 expresses abhorrence of the crime of abortion. Resolution 17 repudiates the idea that unsatisfactory economic and social conditions can be met by the control of conception. Resolution 18 condemns fornication accompanied by the use of some contraceptive as no less sinful than without such accompaniment. It also demands legislation forbidding the exposure for sale and advertisement of contraceptives. But Resolution 15 (carried, it is noted, by a majority of 193 votes over 67, which would seem to imply that there must have been some forty bishops who did not vote), which contemplates cases where 'there is a clearly felt obligation to limit or avoid parenthood,' while giving the preference to the self-discipline and self-control which makes abstinence from intercourse possible, and recording the 'strong condemnation' by the Conference 'of the use of methods of conception-control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience,' yet admits the legitimacy of these methods 'where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence.'
Now put on your big girl shoes and say "Verga you are correct once again."