https://theconversation.com/how-the-catholic-church-came-to-oppose-birth-control-95694This article was written in 2018 by Lisa McLain, a history professor at Boise State University. I'm going to copy the information about the 20th century (I think it gives good insights about how far apart the Roman church and most of its U.S. membership is on sexual issues), but first aparagraph that, I think, echoes some recent LDS church history.
"Most penitence manuals from the Middle Ages, which directed priests what types of sins to ask parishioners about, did not even mention contraception.
It was only in 1588 that Pope Sixtus V took the strongest conservative stance against contraception in Catholic history. With his papal bull “Effraenatam,” he ordered all church and civil penalties for homicide to be brought against those who practiced contraception.
However, both church and civil authorities refused to enforce his orders, and laypeople virtually ignored them. In fact, three years after Sixtus’s death, the next pope repealed
most of the sanctions and told Christians to treat “Effraenatam” “as if it had never been issued.”"
While not necessarily on sexual issues, I can think of some Mormon prophets who acted the same way towards their immediate predecessors after their deaths. It seems that it's better to tell your prophet (or pope) boss to go to hell after he is in the grave.
Now on to the 20th century.
"France and Brazil, were among the most prodigious users of artificial contraception, leading to dramatic decline in family size.
As a consequence of this increasing availability and use of contraceptives by Catholics, church teaching on birth control – which had always been there – began to become a visible priority. The papacy decided to bring the dialogue about contraception out of scholarly theological discussions between clergy into ordinary exchanges between Catholic couples and their priests.
Regarding his frank 1930 pronouncement on birth control, “Casti Connubii,” Pope Pius XI declared that contraception was inherently evil and any spouse practicing any act of contraception “violates the law of God and nature” and was “stained by a great and mortal flaw.”
Condoms, diaphragms, the rhythm method and even the withdrawal method were forbidden. Only abstinence was permissible to prevent conception. Priests were to teach this so clearly and so often that no Catholic could claim ignorance of the Church’s prohibition of contraception. Many theologians presumed this
to be an “infallible statement” and taught it thus to Catholic laypersons for decades. Other theologians saw it
as binding but “subject to future reconsideration.”
In 1951, the church modified its stance again. Without overturning “Casti Connubii’s” prohibition of artificial birth control, Pius XI’s successor, Pius XII, deviated from its intent. He approved the rhythm method for couples who had “morally valid reasons for avoiding procreation,” defining such situations quite broadly.
The pill and the church
By the early 1950s, however, options for artificial contraception were growing, including the pill. Devout Catholics wanted explicit permission to use them.
Church leaders confronted the issue head-on, expressing a variety of viewpoints.
In light of these new contraceptive technologies and developing scientific knowledge about when and how conception occurs, some leaders believed the church could not know God’s will on this issue and should stop pretending that it did, as Dutch Bishop William Bekkers said outright on national television in 1963.
Even Paul VI admitted his confusion. In an interview with an Italian journalist in 1965, he stated,
block quote
“The world asks what we think and we find ourselves trying to give an answer. But what answer? We can’t keep silent. And yet to speak is a real problem. But what? The Church has never in her history confronted such a problem.”
block quote end
There were others, however, such as Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the body that promotes and defends Catholic doctrine – who disagreed. Among those adamantly convinced of the truth of the prohibitions was the Jesuit John Ford, perhaps the most influential U.S. Catholic moralist of the last century. Although no Scripture mentioned contraception, Ford believed the church’s teachings were grounded in divine revelation and therefore not to be questioned.
The question was left for consideration by the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control, held between 1963 to 1966. This commission by an overwhelming majority
– a reported 80 percent – recommended the church
expand its teaching to accept artificial contraception.
That was not at all unusual. The Catholic Church had changed its stance on many controversial issues over the centuries, such as slavery, usury and Galileo’s theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. Minority opinion,
however, feared that to suggest the church had been wrong these last decades would be to admit the church had been lacking in direction by the Holy Spirit.
‘Humanae Vitae’ ignored
Paul VI eventually sided with this minority view and issued “Humanae Vitae,” prohibiting all forms of artificial birth control. His decision, many argue, was not about contraception per se but the preservation of church authority. An outcry ensued from both priests and laypeople. One lay member of the commission commented,
block quote
“It was as if they had found some old unpublished encyclical from the 1920s in a drawer somewhere in the Vatican, dusted it off, and handed it out.”
block quote end
Much has changed in the Catholic Church since 1968. Today, priests make it a pastoral priority to encourage sexual pleasure between spouses. While prohibitions on birth control continue, many pastors discuss the reasons a couple might want to use artificial contraception, from protecting one partner against a sexually transmitted disease to limiting family size for the good of the family or the planet.
Despite the changes in the church’s attitudes about sex, the prohibitions of “Humanae Vitae” remain. Millions of Catholics
around the world, however, have simply chosen to ignore them."