Francis Says Contraception Can Be Used to Slow Zika

Pope Francis shook up an already intense debate over birth control and abortion in Latin American countries where the Zika virus is causing a public health emergency by declaring on Thursday that contraceptives could be used to prevent the spread of Zika, which researchers have linked to a spike in cases of babies born with severe brain damage.

The pope’s remarks came in a wide-ranging, midair news conference on his way back to Rome from Mexico in which he made a distinction between abortion and birth control. He ruled out condoning abortion, which he called “a crime, an absolute evil.” But he seemed somewhat open to making an exception for contraception, citing Pope Paul VI’s decision in the 1960s to make an emergency exception to permit nuns in the Belgian Congo to use contraceptives because they were in danger of rape.

“Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil,” Francis said. “In certain cases, as in this one, as in the one that I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear. I would also urge doctors to do their utmost to find vaccines against these mosquitoes that carry this disease.”

“Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil,” Francis said. “In certain cases, as in this one, as in the one that I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear. I would also urge doctors to do their utmost to find vaccines against these mosquitoes that carry this disease.”

“The pope seems to be supporting what so many Catholic women have been telling the church for many years: that it can’t deny reality,” said Sandra Mazo, the director of the Catholics for the Right to Decide, an organization in Colombia that supports easing restrictions on access to contraceptives and decriminalizing abortion laws.

Ms. Mazo said she hoped the pope’s position would last beyond the crisis around Zika’s spread, which has spurred officials in countries like El Salvador and Jamaica to advise women to delay becoming pregnant. Echoing the sentiment, Ana Ayala, the director of the Global Health Law Program at Georgetown University, said Francis’ comments “have the potential to be a major shift,” especially in countries that restrict access to birth control. “The pope’s positioning on this subject can significantly shift how governments see access to contraception.”

“In terms of Catholic moral teaching, this isn’t a big shift,” said the Rev. James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College, explaining that he believed the pope was adopting a position of disease prevention, rather than supporting contraception. “But it is a shift in tone and detail, where Pope Francis is highlighting moral principles that had been in place.”

“Contraceptives are not a solution,” Bishop Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, the secretary general of the National Council of Bishops of Brazil, and an auxiliary bishop in Brasília, said in an interview last week. “There is not a single change in the church’s position.”

Fortunato Mallimaci, a sociologist at the University of Buenos Aires who specializes in the relationship between culture and religion, said Francis’ comments fit within his broader leadership of the church, in which, he said, the pope has sought to alter conservative attitudes on social issues while refraining from sweeping reforms to doctrine.

“He’s not trying to change church code, but use past experiences to stretch it as far as possible in application to particular cases,” he said, citing Francis’ reference to nuns and Africa.

Mr. Mallimaci said the nature of Francis’s remarks reflected his desire to cast Catholicism’s net wider in places like South America, the continent with the highest proportion of followers who disagree with the church on abortion and birth control, while not alienating conservatives.

“This will help the pope to extend frontiers,” Mr. Mallimaci said, “He is not a reformist. He wants to bring conservatives and progressives who feel they are on the margins together. It’s thinking about consensus within a historic context of conflict.”

“Francis is not a revolutionary,” he added, “but he is reaching the very limits of Church doctrine without overstepping them.”

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