The Tablet - Bishops Clash Over Contraception
English bishops appear to be at odds over their reading of church teaching forbidding artificial contraception after one argued this week that it was up to Catholics to follow their consciences over the issue.
The Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Kieran Conry, who is responsible for evangelisation in England and Wales, said that enforcing strict teaching on the use of contraception risked turning people away from the Church and said that most practising Catholics had accommodated the teaching while following their own consciences.
His remarks seemed to contradict the Bishop of Portsmouth, Philip Egan, who said at the end of last year that society’s rejection of Humanae Vitae, the 1968 papal encyclical by Pope Paul VI that forbade the use of artificial contraception, had led to human trafficking and the legalisation of gay marriage.