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LONDON, UK, December 4, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recent, informal poll of 14 priests conducted by the UK’s Sunday Times found that eight of the priests were willing to advocate artificial contraception use as a means to avoid pregnancy. The Sunday Times reporters posed as parents of large families seeking advice on how to support their growing broods.  Justification by the priests ranged from “Your marriage comes before birth control or no birth control,” as told by one priest to an “undercover” Sunday Times reporter, to another priest who said “I can’t find anything in the 10 commandments or the beatitudes . . . where God has said, ‘If you dare to use a contraceptive you will be damned’.”  The dissenting priests interviewed hold these opinions despite Pope John Paul II’s reiteration of the millennial Catholic tradition of opposition to artificial contraception. Pope John Paul II has said “No personal or social circumstances could ever, can now or will ever render such an act (using contraception) lawful in itself.” Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae and Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae have both criticized the idea that artificial contraception is good for families.  They point out that, in fact, artificial contraception has an opposite effect, namely it’s use increases the incidence of divorce.  Read the Sunday Times article at:  https://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-915708,00.html