Bertrand Russell Quotes
I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind.
Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. Edited by Paul Edwards, Simon and Schuster, 1957.
Condoms and other birth control usage had been forbidden by the Catholic Church. However, most American Catholics utilized artificial birth control devices anyway. However, the official church positions inhibited and influenced politicians throughout the nations. Even as late as 1963 selling birth control devices was illegal in parts of America. A pharmacist was sentenced to jail for filling a prescription for a condom for a couple where the woman could not bear a child safely as the result of a physical condition. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction.
The Prime Minister’s wife, a Roman Catholic, like most Roman Catholics in Europe and America practice contraception despite the fact that the Catholic Church still maintains that artificial means of birth control is a sin. Rarely are such personal matters discussed with the media in Great Britain which respects the personal privacy of public figures more so than the United States. However, Mrs. Blair and her husband have been particularly open throughout their public career.
The power of the Catholic hierarchy on the politicians had waned and the laws against contraception and divorce were being relaxed to the chagrin of the Archbishop who described the change as a curse upon the country. However, Ireland then was the only industrial democracy in the world where contraceptives were illegal and divorce impossible. Three years later contraceptives were made legal by prescription and a train full made the journey from Belfast in more modern Northern Ireland to the South. See {639627}.
In addition to being a Roman Catholic priest, Father Coughlin was an outspoken radio commentator who was well known for his controversial political opinions, see {598783}, {598784}.
when the encyclical Casti Connubii was promulgated This was written before he was elected Pope. At the time there was some movement within the Catholic Church towards the possible liberalization of the traditional prohibition against birth control of any kind. At the time Montini was in the minority on the Commission, and after he assumed the Papacy, he became a majority of one.
The official position of the church was against the child molestation and rape by pedophile priests as it was against artificial contraception. Harris based his conclusion on the effort the church leaders and priests were making for each of the two issues. While the Pope condemned in no uncertain terms the pedophilia of the priests, the sermons and the literature of the church dealt with contraception much more frequently. At the time, the church was still covering up the sex scandal and some church officials were still in denial as to the extent. When the Pope was a cardinal, he also contributed to the cover-up, claiming to be hamstrung by the limitations of cannon law with regard to defrocking perverted priests.
This is a very important quotation because it is the official ban of the Roman Catholic Church against birth control of all forms. Prior to 1930, there was no official prohibition against birth control although individual Roman Catholics had argued that it was sinful. For example, see St. Augustine {625106}.
In America (and Europe) while the Roman Catholic Clergy oppose contraception but the majority of Catholics did not agree and used artificial contraception. There is a small proportion of the Evangelical churches who oppose contraception, but at this time over 90 percent of Evangelical clergy did not.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio. This quotation was reprinted in religious and secular organs of almost all religions as the message was universal and could apply also to non-Roman Catholic Churches and non-Christian religions. The Pope in this statement did not change church doctrine one bit. It urged a major change in tactics, context, emphasis and style. Extreme fundamentalists within the Roman Catholic church and without, however, saw the statement as a softening of the moral position of the church regarding these controversial areas. Most however welcomed his quotation as long overdue and a stylistic throwback to a different time where people were less educated and less informed by media.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS was a British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. Bertrand Russell was one of the most influential and widely known intellectual figures of the twentieth century. In 1950 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his extensive contributions to world literature and for his “rationality and humanity, as a fearless champion of free speech and free thought in the West.“
