``By the time Humanae Vitae came along in 1968, I’d been married for 6 years and had had 3 children and 2 miscarriages. My best friend was married in 1962 the same year as I was and by 1968 she had 6 children, one a year since her marriage. She chose to be sterilized after two ensuing miscarriages and told me she was simply too mentally and physically exhausted to go on having babies because rhythm wasn’t working.``

``I am an average middle-class, middle aged English catholic. I have 3 grown up children. All of them lived for several years with the partners they were eventually to marry, as do most young people in this country. In each case the decision to marry came after making sure, through living together, that the relationship was strong and likely to last. When they were sure, they decided to marry and have children. To limit the size of their families they use contraception, seeing this as the responsible way to live. Among my many Catholic friends I find this is the usual pattern. The result of church teachings is that my children feel themselves separated from a church which views their best and most intimate relationships in cold and unrealistic way. Their view is that celibate priests simply do not know what they are talking about.``

``I have a brother with four children who tried to depend upon Natural Family Planning as he wanted to remain a good Catholic. The result was more children than he wanted with all the pressure that this brought to their relationship and finances. The method just does not work. Also it takes no account of what the ordinary person thinks sexual intercourse is about. For them it is love making not primarily children making``

``It’s been proven over and over again that women who can control the number and timing of their children’s births, and thus gain more overall self determination, are able to take better care of the children they have. I do not think twice about using reliable and safe methods of birth control, nor has any doctor I’ve ever gone to in my entire life.``

``The institutional church has a very ambiguous attitude to sex. The idea that you have to renounce it to be a “man of God” really undermines claims that sex is beautiful and God-given. Most people get the overriding impression that the 'Church' disapproves of sex in general and considers all sexual sins as equally terrible. I remember as a very young girl, reading the story of Saint Maria Goretti. The way it was written led me to believe that a person who was raped would be guilty of the sin of having sexual intercourse outside marriage. If you didn’t resist unto death, the message was, you hadn’t really tried hard enough to protect your “purity”. You may think that I was very silly and I was! However, I honestly think that there is still an element of that attitude around.``

``I married someone who is not a Catholic. She is Anglican. After the wedding I discovered I was in for real trouble. The Church of England has no objections to the use of contraceptives, and what my wife told me about it made sense to me. On the other hand the Benedictines who had taught me drummed into us that no contraceptives were ever allowed. I tried to abstain. It didn’t work. Eventually I started using condoms but when I went to confession I was told I had committed a mortal sin. It left me confused. I used condoms again and in desperation went to see our Catholic parish priest another time. He was adamant. He refused to give me absolution unless I promised to give up artificial birth control. I was in shock. In fact I left the confessional there and then. When I had simmered down and discussed matters with my wife, who was very understanding, I decided to go to the Anglican service on Sundays. And we still do. We go together. My three children were all baptised in the Anglican Church. Why am I writing this? Perhaps I am still a Catholic somewhere.

``I married a heathen who respected my religious beliefs although he thought that most of them were rubbish. After ten years of marriage and eight pregnancies we both agreed that the ban on contraception was ruining my health and our marriage. Although still a practising Catholic I have come to my senses but none of our children (although baptised) consider themselves Catholic.``

``We used NFP for several years, resulting in 3 more-or-less planned pregnancies, the third of which was a severely disabled boy, who sadly died aged 17 months. After that, we consulted various people and tried to continue with the NFP, having another well-planned child the following year, but as by that time I had had 3 Caesarian sections, we were advised to have no more children. We continued to use a combination of NFP and condoms, but I nearly died from a miscarriage a couple of years later, and then became pregnant for a 6th time, upon which I was offered an abortion. Refusing this, I went to see my parish priest, to talk about sterilisation. He told me this was gravely sinful, and a mutilation of my body, and said our only option was to live as brother and sister. I thanked him for his advice, and after the baby was born, thankfully without too much difficulty for me, I had the sterilisation. We have continued to receive the sacraments, though I don’t go to my parish priest for confession. A review of the discipline on family planning (by which we mean contraception) is long overdue. I know of at least one young woman who refuses to become a Catholic, though drawn to it by her husband and children, because of the Church’s attitude. Catholic couples know that it is the health of the whole family, couple and children (if any) together, and so they ignore the rules made by ‘celibate’ old (and young) men, and rightly so.``

``The Church still forbids contraceptives, a prohibition which the vast majority – and I mean VAST majority – of Catholics rightly ignores. I am taking my grandchildren to church at times. That is: when mass is said by a sensible priest. I would hate them to have to go through the same trauma I and my husband went through so many years ago . . .Coming from a family of eight children myself, I had seen all the misery that it brought to my mother and the hardships we all had to undergo by lack of resources. Two of my brothers could not finish college because my parents could not afford to pay for their education. They sighed with relief when one of my sisters got married early on. Now if WE had to struggle like that, and we were not the poorest of the poor, what about so many other Catholic families who are even worse off?``

``When I was a nurse in the Middlesex Hospital in the 1950s I met a devout Catholic patient who had had five stillbirths at six months’ gestation. She was there waiting for the current foetus to die so we could induce a stillbirth. The obstetricians seeing the enormous emotional and physical strain this was placing upon her, advised sterilization. Her parish priest told her to live as brother and sister with her husband. She said to me: “But I am his wife not his sister!” My question was not whether sterilization or contraception was wrong for her, but if, as her comment implied, sexual intercourse is intrinsic to the relationship of marriage, what right any cleric had to forbid it.

``I am now in my 60s but still hold the views I had at the time of Humanae Vitae. I have given birth to 4 much wanted and loved children. I used contraception during my fertile years and never felt “guilty.” I relied on primacy of conscience. There are contraceptive methods that are not abortifacient and that was a key consideration for me. I do not judge women who have had abortions but I am relieved I was never in the position to feel forced to seek one. (eg I was never raped.)I think the psychological legacy of having an abortion are underestimated. I really struggle that contraception and abortion are often put together as though they are similar. I ask the Pope to consider reversing the teaching on contraception.``

``Our daughter was born in 1969. She was a few weeks old when we received a first ever visit from the Priest whose Parish we were in geographically. He was looking for money for the Church. He looked at our baby daughter kicking away on the rug and commented ” I hope you are not using birth control. You may not receive the Sacraments if you are!” In fact we had been made welcome in another Parish. The PP knew we had exercised what we deemed the right to follow our conscience. He had no objection to that and we were never denied the Sacraments. Looking back, I feel sorry for the Priest who came to visit us. He must have been very insecure and unhappy surely? We have now been married for 45 years and are still practising Catholics. Our daughter is not. She views the Church as being extremely hypocritical and unwelcoming. She is one of the most generous, wise and caring people I know and a good Christian. The Church, namely we, the people of God, need to reach out to one another and demonstrate that we really care. It matters very much. Everyone needs to know that they are loved and loveable.``