"In the Catholic Church, this is NOT a personal matter. Church teaching clearly outlaws any form of artificial birth control."
I know, and it doesn't work does it? It has just caused the laity to show contempt for the Latin Church's teachings.
"However, any priest who approves (not absolves) them of this sin is complicit."
Catholic "priests" absolve people of their sins? Remarkable; another difference with Orthodoxy.
NFP works ... in fact, it is rapidly growing as the form of choice by the Evangelicals! How comforting to know that what the Catholic Church has always taught is now being picked up by non-Catholic denominations.
It has just caused the laity to show contempt for the Latin Church's teachings.
You're really stretching it here, aren't you, K? Even you conscience dictates that the Church should never legitimize abortafacients to their members.
Actually, I don't know of any Catholic families practicing illict methods for preventing pregnancy. Our parish is refered to as Humane Vitae parish by our pastor. Of the Catholics I went to school with, all are very open about how their marital lives are in complete harmony with the Church's teachings.
I am surrounded by those who hold the Church's teachings in the highest regard. So, from my personal experience, it's working just fine.
You have repeatedly made a rather serious error in stating that the Latin faithful have rejected Humane Vitae. Those who have rejected it are not faithful. They are dissenters. Furthermore, K., rule by majority action and opinion of the laity is a category never employed in Orthodoxy as you have outlined it. The faithful respond in the affirmative to the wisdom of their spiritual fathers. The faithless go their own way. It is the same for Rome as it is for the Orthodox world.