Catholic teaching on contraception — to wit, that every contraceptive act is gravely sinful — dates back to the earliest days of the church. Does this mean that the teaching can accurately be described as constant? That is not an easy question to answer. As John T. Noonan has masterfully demonstrated, the logic behind the teaching has varied significantly across the ages, due to changing social and cultural circumstances. The “key terms” in the history of Catholic thought on contraception “are tension, reaction, option and development,” John T. Noonan wrote in 1965 (Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, 5). Change in this regard has been particularly swift in recent decades. One seldom hears nowadays the kind of natural law argument that was standard in the Catholic 1950s, much less the proposition — a staple of Catholic mission preaching in the inter-war years — that “too much” marital sex was spiritually coarsening. As Western culture has come to celebrate sexuality as central to identity and human flourishing, Catholic discourse on contraception has embraced a lyrically positive view of marital sex. The sexual teaching of the late John Paul II provides an excellent case in point.

Aline Kalbian's Sex, Violence & Justice examines the latest chapter in this interesting history, which encompasses the years since Humanae Vitae, the 1968 papal encyclical that affirmed church teaching on birth control. “The nature of the Catholic contraception conversation has changed” in recent decades, she correctly notes (54), particularly in its emerging emphasis on social justice. Kalbian offers three case studies, two of them centered on problems unknown in the 1960s, to illustrate change in what she calls the tradition's “justificatory and rhetorical moves” (2). Although she does not take sides in what is still a deeply divisive debate among Catholics, she does assert — and here she is in the excellent company of John T. Noonan — “that the Catholic Church's seemingly unchanging norms and claims rely on justifications that are more fluid, and more revisable, than many would presume” (2).

Kalbian's first “case study” concerns the use of condoms by those who are HIV-positive or afflicted with AIDS, particularly when such persons are married to an as-yet uninfected spouse. Successive popes have branded the use of condoms in even these dire circumstances as gravely sinful. “How does the Magisterium justify such a conclusion?” Kalbian asks (62). She notes that the justifications employed go beyond concerns about sexual immorality to include pragmatic concerns about the most effective way to stem a deadly epidemic, thus situating the question in the context of the common good. Theologians and even the occasional bishop have used this broadened context to challenge the position of the Magisterium on what they see as authentically Catholic grounds. “Hence, trying to make sense of the Catholic teaching about condoms and HIV/AIDS reminds us that we cannot understand discourses about sexuality without acknowledging the ways that they are embedded in discourses about violence, harm to others, social justice and the common good” (62). This is the one chapter, it should be noted, where dissenting theological voices play a prominent role and Kalbian herself is briefly unable to refrain from taking sides.

Kalbian turns next to the question — again, new since the 1960s — of whether a woman who has been raped may licitly take a drug to prevent conception. It will doubtless surprise most readers to learn that United States Catholic hospitals are permitted to dispense emergency contraceptives to rape victims, although in many such hospitals the drugs will not be given to a woman in the ovulatory phase of her menstrual cycle. Since the United States bishops have consistently argued that “morning after” drugs are immoral, how do they justify the hospital policy just described? They do so by defining rape as an act of violence. The rapist's sperm thus constitutes an “unjust aggressor” against which a victim has the right to respond. Should a rape result in conception, however, abortion is strictly prohibited, since the fetus possesses a right to life independent of its violent origins. One should also note the impact on public policy on the United States bishops' thinking. Some 16 states and the District of Columbia now require hospitals to provide emergency contraception or information about it to all rape victims. In this instance, it seems, the bishops found it prudent to accommodate what was doubtless for them a problematic policy shift.

Kalbian's final case study concerns population policy in the so-called Third World and its relationship to economic development. The issue is not new — near-hysteria about global over-population flourished in the 1950s and 1960s — but the context of the debate has changed markedly. Population control is no longer regarded as an essential first step on the path to development, while aggressive measures to lower birth rates have sometimes proved not just ineffective but harmful. These altered circumstances are conducive to the Vatican's speaking a pragmatic language when opposing population control, emphasizing the role of redistributive public policies and free immigration in combatting poverty and enhancing the common good. By invoking the specters of eugenics and cultural imperialism, the late John Paul II was even able to inveigh against population control in the name of reproductive freedom. Precisely because the situation is so complex, official Catholic discourse with regard to contraception has been most innovative when it comes to population policy. What it seems unable to do is address the justice dimensions of the issue as these are experienced by growing numbers of women.

Although focused primarily on the papacy, from whose dictates on the issue of contraception the great majority of Western Catholics have disassociated themselves, Kalbian's book provides an intriguing look at a conservative religious tradition negotiating cultural change. As such, it constitutes a rich resource for the study of politics and religion.