American Catholicism and the International Family Planning Movement

This paper examines the role of the American Catholic Church in the international family planning movement and discusses elements of the Catholic opposition to birth control. The paper argues that the reaction of American Catholics to government support for contraceptive services was based not only on the Church's condemnation of particular contraceptive methods, but also on a variety of other factors including class and ethnic hostility between Catholics and the promoters of family planning, jurisdictional disputes over what institutions would guide family life, the perceived threat that government support of family planning was to the authority of the Church and the Church's understanding of sex and women. The role of an American theology of political compromise and accommodation in mitigating the American Catholic Church's opposition to organized family planning is assessed.