This volume explores the critical reactions and dissenting activism generated in the summer of 1968 when Pope Paul VI promulgated his much-anticipated and hugely divisive encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which banned the use of ‘artificial contraception’ by Catholics. Through comparative case studies of fourteen different European countries, it offers a wealth of new data about the lived religious beliefs and practices of ordinary people – as well as theologians interrogating ‘traditional teachings’ – in areas relating to love, marriage, family life, gender roles and marital intimacy. Key themes include the role of medical experts, the media, the strategies of progressive Catholic clergy and laity, and the critical part played by hugely differing Church-State relations. In demonstrating the Catholic Church’s important (and overlooked) contribution to the refashioning of the sexual landscape of post-war Europe, it makes a critical intervention into a growing historiography exploring the 1960s and offers a close interrogation of one strand of religious change in this tumultuous decade.
"The book offers some important lessons and frameworks for a project which could work on a global scale. ... this book broadens our understanding of how 'liberal' ideas intersected with religious beliefs at a moment of profound agitation." (David Geiringer, British Catholic History, Vol. 34 (3), May, 2019)
"A genuinely groundbreaking collection, where international and interdisciplinary new scholarship explores the relationship between Roman Catholicism and global developments in sexuality and women's reproductive rights in the `radical 1960s'. ... The Schism of'68: Catholics, Contraception and `Humanae Vitae' in Europe, 1945-1975 presents a multifaceted and meticulously researched scholarly collection, and isa sophisticated contribution to our understanding of the past." (Scriptable, rtreview.org, Issue 21, June, 2018)
"A genuinely groundbreaking collection, where international and interdisciplinary new scholarship explores the relationship between Roman Catholicism and global developments in sexuality and women's reproductive rights in the `radical 1960s'. ... The Schism of'68: Catholics, Contraception and `Humanae Vitae' in Europe, 1945-1975 presents a multifaceted and meticulously researched scholarly collection, and isa sophisticated contribution to our understanding of the past." (Scriptable, rtreview.org, Issue 21, June, 2018)