Over 40 years ago, Pope Paul VI made three prophecies regarding the degeneration of human life if society in general, and married couples in particular, accepted widespread birth control as a lifestyle.

Firstly, he said that there would be a general lowering of morality. In that same year – 1964 – Hollywood removed its self-imposed censorship code, paving the way for the degradation of the film industry. Ironically, the self-imposed censorship guidelines known as the ‘Hayes Production Code’ were written by a Catholic priest. This meant that there was a Catholic ethic and not a religious doctrine that guided the movie content of early days cinema. In 1965, before the lifting of the censorship code, the film that won the best picture of the year award was The Sound of Music; three year later it was Midnight Rider, which was an X-rated film. Secondly, Pope Paul VI said men would lose their ability to appreciate the uniqueness of women and the gift that they are to society. In 1978, the United States essentially paved the way for abortion on demand across most of the country. A woman’s uniqueness and beauty in her role of mother came under direct and savage attack,

Finally, he warned us that if society accepted birth control widely as a life style, more powerful governments would use this as a weapon against other less powerful states. Today, across the world, there are countless incidents of forced or coercive sterilisation and abortion programmes. The EU parliament only recently rejected an amendment that would have prevented EU-budgeted funds from being used for coercive programmes in third-world countries.

Whatever one’s personal beliefs, Catholic or not, one has to accept that this Pope certainly had a prophetic clarity of the impending implications of a contraceptive society.

Paul Vincenti

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