From Tom:
Human nature is what it is. Fallen. Fallen creatures will seek the path of "least resistance" if they are given an "escape hatch" to avoid the primary end of marriage without the conditions listed by Pope Pius XII, which were discussed at some length by Monsignor Kelly, who gave examples of what these conditions might be in concrete situations, being present. The widespread, indiscriminate teaching of what is called today "natural family planning" only feeds into this mentality. There is no need for such teaching as couples with truly exceptional cases can approach their confessor or spiritual director to discuss the matter, something that, unlike Monsignor Kelly's belief, premised upon the rightly formed consciences of young Catholics, couples could decide such things for themselves, quite necessary today precisely because "natural family planning" is considered to the "norm" and not the exception.
To emphasize the point made earlier, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani would not have been aghast at suggestions made during the proceedings of the "Second" Vatican Council to "plan" family size as a matter of routine if this had been mind of Pope Pius XII. It was not. It was not the mind of Holy Mother Church at any time in her history prior to the conciliar church's "Second" Vatican Council and Paul VI's Humanae Vitae.
However, there was an atmosphere favorable to the mentality of birth control in many Catholic circles in the materialistic 1950s that were not such a "golden age" of Catholicism as they are made out to be by so many traditional Catholics today. It was thus the goal of some of the older ethicists and moral theologians to provide Catholic married couples with an "out," if you will, to avoid the evil of contraception by natural means with expansive interpretations of the conditions outlined in the Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, something that stands Pope Pius XII's 1951 caveat against the indiscriminate use of the rhythm method on its head.
A strict adherence to the mind of Pope Pius XII as expressed in his October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of their Profession would have not seen it as advisable to provide every engaged couple with an instruction manual, such as that published under the auspices of the American bishops, replete with ways for them to avoid the primary end of marriage without a truly exceptional case. Many lax consciences were formed as a result of such manuals. There was no mandate from our last true Holy Father to do so. That the American bishops authorized such an approach is yet another reminder that the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath did not such "occur" on the spur of the moment.
Please, do not say that this writer is inventing a "straw man." The desire on the part of at least a handful of these ethicists and moralists, some of whom were teaching in Catholic universities and colleges and at Catholic medical colleges, to find some "moral means" to limit the size of families is why there was such interest in the Pontifical Commission for the Study of Population, Family and Births that had been established by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII shortly before his death on June 3, 1963, and reestablished by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI following his "election" on June 21, 1963.
Let's face facts: the opposition to Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's reiteration of the Catholic teaching on birth control in Humanae Vitae (July 25, 1968) did not come out of thin air. The contraceptive mentality had been, pun intended, alive and well in Catholic intellectual circles some decades before, dating back to the Anglican sect's famous "Resolution Fifteen" issued, as noted earlier, by the Lambeth Conference of 1930.