CATHOLICS AND BIRTH CONTROL
SIR,—'Catholic Parent' in your issue of September 13 is afraid that his mind is 'not fine or subtle enough to appreciate the distinction between taking a contraceptive pill and the use of hormones to lengthen the safe period.' The distinction (and it does not seem to me to require a fine or subtle mind for its appreciation) is that the first action totally frustrates, while the second regularises, a natural process.
I should like to have chapter and verse for these mediaeval theological arguments about angels and needle-points. They have always evaded me in St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, Duns Scotus and William of Occam, and I'm beginning to suspect that they belong to pcpular mythology rather than mediaeval theology.
It is quite true that most non-Catholics condemn murder and adultery yet approve of contraception.
I can testify that many non-Catholics approve of divorce and abortion in certain circumstances. Does 'Catholic Parent' think this argument from non- Catholic approval a valid one for him?
A careful re-reading of Erika Fallaux's letter has failed to discover how its argument makes love 'something almost debased, part of our lower natures, something we must feel guilty about and derive no pleasure from when we respond to it.' To maintain that the expression of love in intercourse can be under the rule of reason and conscience like any other activity is neither to debase it nor under- value it.
Lastly, might I assure Mr, Flint that the Roman Catholic Church does not regard the procreation of children as the sole purpose of marital intercourse. If it did, would it not condemn intercourse after conception, or in marriages of proven sterility, or in all marriages after the menopause? Or perhaps some people believe it does.
• JOHN COGGRAVR
6 Hillcrest East, Middle Herrington, County Durham
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