Head of Vatican commission says contraception is 'intrinsically wrong'

The leader of a Vatican study commission on Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae has said that contraception is “intrinsically wrong”.

Humanae Vitae’s 50^th anniversary falls next week, on July 25. Although the Vatican has not yet announced plans to mark the anniversary, it has allowed a study group to access the Vatican archives.

Mgr Gilfredo Marengo, the co-ordinator of the commission, discussed some of his findings in May in a talk at the Maryvale Institute in Birmingham.

During a question-and-answer session, Mgr Marengo was asked about the Church’s teaching, famously reaffirmed in Humanae Vitae, that the use of artificial contraception is intrinsically wrong.