The May 7th issue of the New York Times Magazine had a picture of a sealed condom on the front cover as a tease for its lead story. Nothing surprising there. What was surprising was that this lead story was about the growing movement in this country against contraception. The “contra-contraception” movement, as Russell Shorto, the article’s author announced, is no longer just a “Catholic thing.” Large numbers of evangelical Christians and other concerned citizens are recognizing that contraception has not led to the happiness and liberation most Americans expected.

The purpose of this column is not to debate the rightness or wrongness of the Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception. If you are one of those Catholics who believes the Church needs to “get with the times” on this issue, believe me I can relate. I almost left the Catholic Church because of what I used to consider this “blasted teaching” against contraception. Through prayerful and painful study, however, I came to recognize that there is much more at stake in the issue of contraception than first meets the eye.

Since the dawn of history men and women have recognized sexual union as the wellspring of the family and, in turn, of civilization itself. Committed sexual relationships (aka: marriage) form the glue that binds families and civilization together. Sever sex from procreation and the goal of sex eventually changes. It no longer means “let’s start a family.” It morphs into “let’s exchange orgasms.” When pleasure becomes the main goal of the sexual relationship, people (mostly women) become the means and babies become the obstacle. So we take our pleasure and we kill our offspring. This is not a horror film or some dire prophesy of tomorrow. This is the world we live in now.

There are sound and well-thought-out reasons for opposing contraception. Of course, Russell Shorto does what he can to present those who are part of this movement as a bunch of quacks. Even so, because he offers some measure of descent reporting, the arguments of those he quotes offer much food for thought (for anyone actually interested in giving this issue some thought). Here are just two examples.

Dr. Joseph B. Stanford, who serves on the F.D.A.’s Reproductive Health Drug Advisory Committee states: “Sexual union in marriage ought to be a complete giving of each spouse to the other, and when fertility (or potential fertility) is deliberately excluded from that giving I am convinced that something valuable is lost. A husband will sometimes begin to see his wife as an object of sexual pleasure who should always be available for gratification.”

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of the most respected evangelical leaders in the country says that he “cannot imagine any development in human history, after the Fall, that has had a greater impact on human beings than the pill. It became almost an assured form or contraception, something humans had never encountered before in history. ...Once [the chance of pregnancy] is removed, the entire horizon of the sexual act changes.” Mohler continues, “I think there could be no question that the pill gave incredible license to everything from adultery and affairs to premarital sex and within marriage to a separation of the sex act and procreation.”

My favorite part of the article, however, came when Shorto asked the question: “Why is this happening? What’s the nature of the opposition to something that has become so basic a part of modern life?” The first thing he blames is the spread of Pope John Paul II’s “theology of the body.”

I’m sure by now I sound like a broken record. But, heck, it’s my mission in life to promote this teaching. If you want to know what is ailing the modern world and how to reclaim the culture, take up a study of John Paul II’s theology of the body. You will never see yourself or the world the same way again.