Catholics and Contraception: An American History

by Leslie Woodcock Tentler

As Americans rethought sex in the twentieth century, the Catholic Church's teachings on the divisive issue of contraception in marriage were in many ways central. In a fascinating history, Leslie Woodcock Tentler traces changing from the late nineteenth century, when religious leaders of every variety were largely united in their opposition to contraception; to the 1920s, when distillations of Freud and the works of family planning reformers like Margaret Sanger began to reach a popular audience; to the Depression years, during which even conservative Protestant denominations quietly dropped prohibitions against marital birth control. Catholics and Contraception carefully examines the intimate dilemmas of pastoral counseling in matters of sexual conduct. Tentler makes it clear that uneasy negotiations were always necessary between clerical and lay authority. As the Catholic Church found itself isolated in its strictures against contraception―and the object of damaging rhetoric in the public debate over legal birth control―support of the Church's teachings on contraception became a mark of Catholic identity, for better and for worse. Tentler draws on evidence from pastoral literature, sermons, lay writings, private correspondence, and interviews with fifty-six priests ordained between 1938 and 1968, concluding, "the recent history of American Catholicism... can only be understood by taking birth control into account."

Genres: Religion, History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2004

About the author

Leslie Woodcock Tentler was a professor of history at the University of Michigan–Dearborn. She is now a professor of history at Catholic University of America. Her books include Seasons of Grace: A History of the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit and Wage-Earning Women: Industrial Employment and Family Life in the United States, 1900-1930.

Reviews

[Nick Kinsella · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly researched account of this topic. It can get quite dry at points but you will have a great understanding of the Catholic attitude toward contraception by the end of this book.

[Hortensia]

This is a nice monograph that does everything (basically) it says it is going to in the introduction. Though I found Tobin's _American Religious Debates over Birth Control_ more fast-paced and readable for a general (student) audience, this has a slightly different objective: to explore how we got from one set of reasons for the Catholic church to be against birth control to another, wholly different set of reasons. Marriage went from being something that was supposed to be about family (supporting and raising children in a Christian home) to something that was supposed to honor God through sex. Even more surprising, the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae that stressed the openness of each sexual experience to life was met with a lot of intentional ignoring --both by priests and laity. What happened?

Woodcock Tentler doesn't give us all the answers to these interesting and deep questions, partly because she cannot possibly do so in the context of a single book. But, she has put together a very important institutional history of Catholicism that will likely serve as a springboard for future, more "populist" (and people-centered) studies of this very important set of transitions.

[Alexandra Michaelides]

A very thoughtful and well-researched book about Catholicism and birth control in the 20th century. My main complaint about the book is that I personally would prefer a closer exploration of how lay Catholics view birth control, rather than so much time spent discussing priests and the institutional church. Don't get me wrong--this is important information--but I am more interested in what Catholic women and couple had to say about the matter, rather than priests. An odd research choice for a book about birth control (I think) that expresses Tentler's focus, is that she interviewed 56 priests rather than 56 Catholics individuals who had to make a choice about birth control. Also, if you are going to focus mainly on the institutional church or confessors, why barely any mention of nuns?