Letter: Prophylactic Pope

Pope Benedict's remarks on contraception (your report, 24 November) are in line with much of Catholic lay opinion since oral birth control arrived in the early 1960s.

A medical commission established by Pope John XXIII in 1963 to study contraception was broadly in favour of the change requested by the Catholic laity.

After his death the commission, extended to include theologians, bishops and the laity, also advised the new Pope Paul VI that the Church should move with the times. A horrified curia encouraged Paul to issue "Humanae vitae" but this provoked huge lay dissent demanding freedom of conscience in such personal and private issues.

Sadly the encyclical, which Paul realised almost immediately was a mistake, has also frustrated efforts to contain both the population explosion and the spread of Aids.

John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews, Fife