Religion & Law

[From America, Nov. 17, 2008:]

Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae ("Of Human Life") has cut off the church from many of the people who most need its advice about human sexuality. The encyclical, which taught that artificial birth control was morally wrong, caused a large number of people to stop taking the church's views into serious consideration, Cardinal Martini said. "Many have distanced themselves from the church, and the church from the people. Serious damage was done," he said. Cardinal Martini, an 81-year-old Jesuit and the former archbishop of Milan, made the comments in a book-length interview tided Nighttime Conversations in Jerusalem. The cardinal did not address specifically the issue of the morality of contraception. He suggested, however, that the whole question might be better approached from a more pastoral perspective. "Today we have a broader horizon in which to confront the questions of sexuality. The needs of confessors and young people, too, need much more attention. We cannot abandon these people," he said.