Blind faith or divine providence? Global Catholicism and the population bomb

Wannes Dupont focuses on the Catholic Church and how it addressed global population growth and attempts to curb it. The Vatican led not only the most determined, but also the most effective opposition to international birth control policies during the 1950s. This chapter will outline the initial successes of Catholic obstructionism at the level of the World Health Organization. It will also show how, before long, the issue came to divide the Church internally. In the face of overpopulation in the Third World, progressive factions criticized the Vatican's near-total ban on contraception for lacking compassion, fearing to alienate even the most conscientious Catholics from the Church. Hard-line conservatives, in turn, saw themselves and the Catholic Church as the world's last stand against an all-out attack on life itself. Ultimately, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II and his writings would pave the way for the latter and reaffirm the reactionary position and teachings of the past.