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Comment by macintux | Hacker News Reader

If this pope, and this crisis in his own back yard, aren't sufficient to compel a change in Catholic teachings on birth control, I think it's safe to assume it'll not happen for generations.

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It doesn't have to cause any change. They could say "In order to preserve life and health, use birth control during this crisis. But otherwise don't."

After all, most people use birth control for economic reasons, not health reasons.

That would be a change to the principle that sex only is allowed if it can lead to procreation, on which the ban of birth control is based.

Interesting. So you would expect them to say "don't have sex" - even for a married couple, rather than birth control?

Are you sure that's really what they would prefer?

That's the official line of the catholic church, yes. Not without internal protests, and not without quite a few people, including clergy, ignoring it, but still. No active birth control, married or not.

The fact that (unlike e.g. AIDS, where this policy also has been under fire) this isn't sexually transmitted and supposedly temporary might make it easier to change the line? I think the GP is right that now seems to be a prime moment for it to happen.

Zika is mainly transmited by mosquito but it can also be transmited sexually, in fact.

I don't think that's how it works.

It's God's mind you have to "change", not the Pope's.

At least, if I understand Catholicism correctly.

95% of Catholicism is re-interpretation by the Church of their holy documents. Changing the mind of the church is definitely a thing - see heliocentrism.

Heliocentricism is not a religious belief.

Heliocentrism was a religiously-derived belief. There are certainly other examples - for some verses in the bible, there are hundreds of interpretations.

I am not sure how it "works" either. But, if the Catholic church could gradually change its position on slavery [1], surely it should be possible to do so on other matters as well.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_slavery#Th...

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