"In 1960, now a bishop, he wrote an astonishingly frank book about love and marriage. It suggested that for a married man and woman: "climax must be reached in harmony" though he did add: "as far as possible." But although this was the age of the pill, Wojtyla also condemned contraception, pills, IUDs and condoms: "All immoral he said. All harmful for the health." Incredibly as it now seems, the Vatican almost endorsed the pill in the 60s, after all, there was no explicit ban on contraction in the Bible. But the then Pope, Paul VIth, received a gift from Krakow's Karol Wojtyla, a report attacking contraception and promoting natural family planning. The dismay of liberal Catholics, Pope Paul VIth using arguments Wojtyla had advocated, reaffirmed the ban on contraception. Karol Wojtyla, who'd been made Cardinal by a grateful Paul VIth, had stood against the tide of Catholic opinion and won. And once elected Pope, 25 years ago this week, he would use his extraordinary popularity to stand against the tide of world opinion, condemning contraction and the trend to legalise abortion."
Pope John Paul II

January 1, 1970

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