Letters

Exaggeration?

Noel Keith Roberts

Contents - Oct 2013 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Postscript on the Australian elections - Peter Westmore Pope Francis to consecrate world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary - Peter Westmore News: The Church Around the World Frassati Australia and the New Evangelisation - Fr Paul Chandler OSCE Conference: The new face of religious intolerance - Bishop Mario Toso The Catholic Church is holy, despite its members' sins - Audrey English Interview: Why science needs faith - Professor Dominique Lambert The priesthood and the Catholic faith - Fr John O'Neill PP Church of Divine Mercy in Singapore: an amazing discovery - Kazimierz Kozlowski Blessed Jacinta Marto: heroine of Fatima - Cedric Wright Letters: Dr Mobbs replies ... - Frank Mobbs Letters: Exaggeration? - Noel Keith Roberts Letters: Humanae Vitae - Ron Graham Letters: Moral failure - John Wynter Letters: Harmful effects - Richard Grant, Willie Chenhall, Maryse Usher Letters: Creator's plan - Clare Ryan Letters: Culture of life needed - Fr Bernard McGrath Letters: Anti-religious bigotry - Peter Kamsma Events: Spiritual Exercises in Bowral, December 2013 Books: A Book of Saints and Heroes, Heroines, by Joanna Bogle - Val Prendergast (reviewer) Books: COURAGE AND CONVICTION, by Joanna Bogle - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: ON THE LEFT BANK OF THE TIBER, by Fr Gerald O'Collins SJ - Frank Mobbs Books: THE FREEDOM OF LOVE, by Rafael de Santiago - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Support: Launch of 2013 Fighting Fund - Peter Westmore Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: Bishop Fisher: Young Catholics must be Christ in the world - Bishop Anthony Fisher

Dr Mobbs' letter labels Anne Lastman's article ( AD2000 July) an exaggeration of the beneficial effects of Humanae Vitae.

Contraception, Mobbs tells us, "causes no harm to anyone "

Can he be ignorant of the well-documented adverse physical and social effects of the contraceptive pill? Even the most ardent promoter of contraception, Carl Djerassi, the Austrian chemist who helped invent the contraceptive pill, now says that his co-creation has led to a "demographic catastrophe" and he laments the "horror scenario" in Europe where there is now "no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction."

John Paul II's monumental work The Theology of the Body highlights the prophetic nature of Paul VI's encyclical letter and encourages married couples to live up to its teaching.

Paul VI "believes that our contemporaries are particularly capable of seeing that this teaching is in harmony with human reason" (HV12). Surely, then, nothing but beneficial effects can flow from such a document.

Sadly the encyclical is rarely mentioned and almost never taught.

NOEL KEITH ROBERTS (DR)
Lenah Valley, Tas

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 26 No 9 (October 2013), p. 14