Religion: Birth Control & the Catholic

The Roman Catholic Church is pulling back a bit from its traditional policy on family size: the bigger the better.

In St. Louis, the Rev. William J. Gibbons. S.J.. professor of sociology at Fordham University, told the convention of the American Catholic Sociological Society that U.S. Roman Catholics have been oversold on procreation and undereducated on the responsibilities that go with it.

Too many Catholic couples, he said, think that they are being good just because they refrain from using contraceptives. They must also consider the welfare of their potential children, "and that involves foresight." The size of a family, said Gibbons, should...

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