By 1980, the U.N. estimates, there will be from 34% to 63% more people on earth than in 1950. To some this suggests the need for birth control. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that any mechanical interference with the consequences of sexual intercourse is a mortal sin. But The Netherlands' Catholic Institute for Social-Ecclesiastical Research (moving next month to Geneva) has launched a $5,000 prize contest to find new ways of controlling population.
The institute fears that the population increase in the "underdeveloped areas" will be so rapid that "religious and moral disintegration" may result. To prevent this, argues the institute, "social, economic and cultural means" should be looked for, but may not be enough. Asks the institute: "How could the population growth itself be influenced" to bring about a "social structure satisfying the-requirements of complete human well-being?" Answers (minimum of 50,000 words) must comply with the requirements of Catholic principles and at the same time must be effective from a positive scientific point of view." Winners will be chosen before July 1957 by a 16-man jury including Washington's Monsignor John O'Grady, Baltimore Sociologist William Gibbons, Oxford Economist Colin Clark.*
"In the Western world it's a problem created largely by Catholics, who provide two-thirds of the annual population increase," said Institute Director George H. L. Zeegers in The Hague last week. "In the rest of the world Catholics are contributing to the problem by the doctrine they advocate. We as Catholics have duty to find a solution to the problem. My aim is to compel the church to see its responsibility."
The church traditionally sees its reponsibility as first to increase the number of souls who may worship God. Limitation of births, however, is not considered necessarily sinful when brought about through abstinence or the avoidance of intercourse during fertile periods (assuming that they can be determined). Said a Vatican official ast week: "If the institute's initiative eads to the discovery of another way to avoid childbirth without thwarting the end of coitus, the Vatican will certainly examine it tolerantly."
Would a conception-preventing pill (see MEDICINE) meet the bill? Said Monsignor O'Grady: "We are not looking for ready-made solutions. We think the long-range approaches are more promising—like persuading the Indians not to marry quite so young."
* Who correctly predicted the U.S. postwar boom, incorrectly predicted a U.S. depression in 1954-