DR Joyce Poole (April 27) is unduly simplistic when she writes that the Pope's condemnation of contraception is based on the assertion that sexual union must always be open to the transmission of life. Throughout the 18 centuries Mat the church hat condemned contraception, no Pope has ever made such an assertion.
The church does not deny the right of post menopausal women to engage in the marital union (Humanae vitae) . What Pope Paul VI taught was that "in any use whatever of marriage there must be no impairment whatever of marriage" (Humanae vitae). In this he reiterated the words of Pope Pius Xl, when responding to the relegation of Anglican teaching on the subject at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, "any use of matrimony whatsoever in the exercise of which the act is deprived, by human interference of its natie-al capacity to procreate life, is an offence against the laws of God and of nature."
I would refer both Dr Poole and Mr Jim King to Humanae vitae, in which Pope Paul discusses the moral issues involved, and the difference between contraception and natural family Hewitt (Mn) planning, explaining why the one is condemned and the other not. An Faversham