On a flight from Mexico to Rome Thursday after a six-day trip that included a visit to Cuba, Pope Francis told reporters that using contraception to avoid infecting fetuses with the Zika virus is better than abortions to terminate pregnancies in which the fetus is infected. The virus has been linked to some cases of microcephaly in newborns. The pope called abortion an "absolute evil" and a "crime” and reiterated the church’s stance that it is always wrong:
"It is to kill someone in order to save another. This is what the Mafia does," Francis said. "On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil."
The Pope then pointed to a narrow exception to the church's ban on most forms of birth control: His predecessor, Pope Paul VI, allowed African nuns who were raped to use contraception, Francis said. He did not explain why and what forms of birth control were used.
"In certain cases ... such as the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear," the Pope said. It was Paul VI who wrote "Humanae Vitae," the papal document that solidified the church's stance against almost every form of birth control in 1968. The church does allow natural family planning, which involves a woman monitoring her basal body temperature and vaginal secretions to avoid having sex at fertile times of the month.
That is likely to encourage health officials in Latin America but irk Catholic conservatives who view the church’s teaching that anything which works to "'render procreation impossible' is intrinsically evil.”
While “pro-life” Catholic activists take a hard stance on the matter, regardless of the circumstances, other highly placed Catholics do not:
"The polemical approach, that contraception is devious or demonic in origin or the smoke of Satan, may ultimately not be the best pastoral approach," said the Rev. James Bretzke, a professor of theology at Boston College.
And among the Catholic rank and file, CNN religious editor Daniel Burke notes, the attitude in Latin America is very much at odds with the Vatican’s overall stance on contraception. A poll by the Spanish-language network Univision found that 88 percent of Mexicans, 91 percent of Colombians and 93 percent of Brazilians support the use of contraceptives.
In another break from his predecessors, the pope also told reporters on the overnight flight that Catholic lawmakers are free to vote for same-sex marriage and civil unions. In 2003, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, approved a document from the Vatican’s doctrinal office—which he then ran—categorically forbidding Catholic legislators from voting for same-sex marriage or unions. Pope Francis’s change not quite Vatican approval of marriage equality, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.