FatherZ: It’s not an urban legend, it’s a LIE: Paul VI did NOT give permission to nuns to use contraceptives.

Let's just start here for the week, in case anyone has missed it over the weekend.

The other day Pope Francis, in the infamous post-Mexico airplane presser, said:

Paolo VI – il grande! – in una situazione difficile, in Africa, ha permesso alle suore di usare gli anticoncezionali per i casi di violenza. … Paul VI – the great one! – in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted sisters to use contraceptives for cases of violenze.

I’ve heard this before. I never believed it.

Years ago on the COL Forum (which I ran) we had a discussion about this. One of the staffers tried to dig up the old files. In the meantime he – The Great Roman™ – sent this information. It was not originally written in English, so I touched it up here and there… but not very much.

This reads like a soap opera, the one hand. It reads like a vicious campaign of lies and disinformation designed to confuse the faithful and undermine the Church, on the other.

The urban legend (lie) is now so common that even high-ranking churchmen cite it as if it happened. They aren’t lying, per se. They are passing on something that isn’t true but that they think is true… even if it really doesn’t pass the smell test.

continue at Father Z