This Week in Christian History: A Reformer Is Born, Vatican Encyclical on Birth Control, and Thomas Jefferson

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, December 31, 2017

Vatican Issues Anti-Contraception Encyclical – Dec. 31, 1930

A view shows faithful gathering in St. Peter's Square as Pope Francis leads the Palm Sunday mass at the Vatican March 29, 2015. | (Photo: Reuters/Max Rossi)

This week marks the anniversary of when Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to all forms of unnatural birth control.

Known as the Casti Connubii, it was given in response to the then growing popularity of contraception and eugenic sterilization of the mentally ill.

"Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves," the encyclical stated in part.

"Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven."