Contraception: A Deal-breaker in Anglican-Catholic Conversion?

Wendy Norris is a freelance reporter living in Denver, Colorado and on also on at RH Reality Check.

Before Anglicans can cash-in the Vatican's new express pass to convert to Catholicism the two faiths must bridge one of the biggest schisms between them: birth control.

Days after the Pope's approval of the expedited transformation for Anglicans, religious thinkers are split on how to smooth over this gaping ecumenical divide.

The Catholic News Service shrugged off the churches' dissent on contraception as just a diversity of opinion in its Oct. 16 report on a religious ethics conference. That's an astounding admission after brow-beating generations of Catholics to forsake all contraception methods save for the unreliable "rhythm method" of abstaining from sex during predicted ovulation days.

The re-unification of the two church communities has been decades in the making by conservative forces in London and the Vatican even while the Anglican Church modernized its teachings, including the formal acceptance in 1958 that married couples could use birth control methods without fear of excommunication or eternal damnation.

At the same time of the Anglican enlightenment, the late 20th century popes and current Holy See Benedict XVI have issued encyclicals condemning "artificial" contraception causing millions of Catholics to leave the church or simply ignore church doctrine.

Cathleen Kaveny characterizes the news as the makings of "an interesting social experiment."

Her post at the religion and politics blog Commonweal spurred a spirited conversation  about the practicalities of ex-Anglican married couples without birth control pills and condoms.

As far as I am aware, however, the morality of contraception under certain circumstances  has been more or less a settled issue among Anglicans–even traditionally minded Anglicans. How will this change work out? Are Anglican priests prepared to balance the demands of a big family with the demands of a big parish? What about the wife of the priest?  ... Are wives willing not only to convert, but to convert on the matter of contraception? Are Roman Catholics willing not only to see, but to support financially and in other ways, married priests with six, seven, or eight children?

As Kaveny notes conservative Anglicans and their American Episcopal counterparts, who have historically opposed contraception, abortion and the elevation of women priests and gay bishops, have long aligned themselves and their rituals with the Catholic Church. So not much is expected to change for congregants since the Vatican apparently won't insist on mass divorces and celibate lives for married Anglican clergy.

Meanwhile, hard line Catholic anti-choice activist Fr. Tom Euteneuer of Human Life International can barely contain himself over the promise of bringing the 77 million Anglicans back into the "One True Church."

Says Euteneuer, "Anglicanism is basically committing doctrinal suicide, much the same way that England's population is about to implode due to their excessively high abortion and contraception rates and their hedonistic culture."

And what an interesting coincidence that 39 million or half of the worldwide Church of England members now reside in Africa, where the paleo-conservative Euteneuer operates programs in 26 nations.

In keeping with Catholic dogma on contraception, Euteneuer boasted on the HLI Web site of destroying 10 million condoms to thwart family planning efforts in Tanzania — an impoverished country where 1.4 million people are HIV-positive and 970,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS.

Euteneuer's fundamentalist beliefs appear to be matched by Archbishop Peter Akinola, the head of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, who is rumored to be a leading candidate for a new role in the blended Catholic-Anglican hierarchy.

The archbishop has called for the imprisonment of gays and lesbians and has been linked to a 2004 massacre of 700 Nigerian Muslims. Akinola was also at the center of a widening rift between several high profile Virginia-based churches that split from the official Anglican Church and joined the Nigerian sect after Eugene Robinson was ordained as the first openly gay Episcopal bishop in 2003.

Akinola who presides over a flock of 18 million Nigerians is said to be weighing the Pope's invitation to convert.

Despite the ultra-conservative social perspectives by some congregants, both Kaveny and the New York Times note on the papal invitation to Anglicans, mainstream Americans Catholics have been remarkably resilient in their embrace of contraceptives.

A 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 61 percent of mainstream Catholics believe contraception use is a personal issue despite church teachings and 51 percent said abortion should be legal in most cases.

Perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury should offer a two-for-one conversion special for disaffected Catholics.