Marcel LeJeune at Aggie Catholics calls it a "masterpiece," I suspect he's right: The Vindication of Humanae Vitae. Taking Marcel's lead, I'll summarize the article as follows: contraception is bad for women, bad for marriage, bad for babies, and bad for sex. And that's actually a summary of only Part II. You need to read the rest to see great stuff, like these passages:
The power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. . . .
Less than half a century later, these preoccupations with overwhelming birth rates appear as pseudo-scientific as phrenology. Actually, that may be unfair to phrenology. . . .
[Lionel] Tiger has further argued–as Humanae Vitae did not explicitly, though other works of Catholic theology have–for a causal link between contraception and abortion, stating outright that “with effective contraception controlled by women, there are still more abortions than ever. . . . Contraception causes abortion." . . .
If a church cannot tell its flock “what to do with my body,” as the saying goes, with regard to contraception, then other uses of that body will quickly prove to be similarly off-limits to ecclesiastical authority. . . .
Forty years after its publication, Pius VI is proving a prophet, and this article sets forth the evidence. Us Catholic fools who practice NFP might be the smart ones (I could've told you that awhile back, but I try to be modest--snicker).
From the introduction:
“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh,” the Psalmist promises, specifically in a passage about enjoying vindication over one's adversaries. If that is so, then the racket on this fortieth anniversary must be prodigious. Four decades later, not only have the document's signature predictions been ratified in empirical force, but they have been ratified as few predictions ever are: in ways its authors could not possibly have foreseen, including by information that did not exist when the document was written, by scholars and others with no interest whatever in its teaching, and indeed even inadvertently, and in more ways than one, by many proud public adversaries of the Church.
Forty years later, there are more than enough ironies, both secular and religious, to make one swear there's a humorist in heaven.
From the conclusion:
“If Paul VI was right about so many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is because he was right about contraception itself.” This is exactly the connection few people in 2008 want to make, because contraceptive sex–as commentators from all over, religious or not, agree–is the fundamental social fact of our time. And the fierce and widespread desire to keep it so is responsible for a great many perverse outcomes. Despite an empirical record that is unmistakably on Paul VI's side by now, there is extraordinary resistance to crediting Catholic moral teaching with having been right about anything, no matter how detailed the record.
The best article on NFP in recent memory. A must-read for the lay person who wants to have an informed opinion on the subject.
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This was on last night:
Best midget 30-seconds in cinematic history.
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Hey, Newt must've been reading my blog last Spring:
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Does New Zealand have a disproportionate number of nimrods? Judge Rob Murfitt made the 9-year-old girl a ward of the court so that her name, Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii, could be changed. In his ruling, Murfitt cited a list of the unfortunate names. Registration officials blocked some names, including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit, he said. But others were allowed, including Number 16 Bus Shelter "and tragically, Violence," he said.
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That's not a constitutional right? A 56-year-old man has been arrested after shooting his lawnmower because it wouldn't start. How old was the lawn mower? Did he have a name? Any family?
