Controversy Confusion and Catastrophe - Catholicism in the Wake of Vatican II

Authority encroaching on the human desire for liberty, happiness and fulfilment in life is often perceived as interfering with individual human rights. Such criticism has always attached to the Catholic Church, an authoritarian institution with, some say, little or no understanding of modern human life. Rather than producing the invigorated Church relevant to the new millennium envisaged and intended, the fifty years following the Second Vatican Council have been marred by factional divisions serving self interests and on-going demands for reform and renewal, often in blatant disregard for Papal authority and Church moral teaching. The controversies and confusions which drive the demands for renewal and reform arise in the main from disagreement with Catholic teaching on matters of human life morality embracing issues such as contraception, abortion, euthanasia, life creating technologies such as cloning and in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), human sexuality, marriage and family, ordination to priesthood and some aspects of feminism. From a Catholic moral perspective, this book seeks to engender understanding and to dispel confusion in the discussion of these controversial issues by outlining what the Church teaches on human life, why it does so and what the Second Vatican Council documents proclaim on these matters.