The ordinary magisterium of the Catholic Church teaches that contraception goes against Natural Law. While responsible parenthood is good, not all the means used to attain it are morally lawful. Contraceptives are intrinsically evil.

“Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilisation or contraception)” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2399).

Par.14 of Humane Vitae states: “It is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it.”

The final report of the last Extraordinary Synod of Bishops makes a brief reference (par.58) to contraception. It says: “We should return to the message of the encyclical Humanae Vitae of Blessed Pope Paul VI.” This indicates that the Synod Fathers do not intend to remove the banon contraceptives.

Regarding Holy Communion to remarried divorcees, Cardinal Vincent Nichols is reported to have said “that under certain conditions, long-stable remarried divorcees might receive the Sacrament”. Please, note the verb ‘might’!

Par.29 of the apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatisby Pope Benedict XVI reads: “The 2005 Synod of Bishops confirmed the Church’s practice, based on Sacred Scripture(cf. Mk 10:2-12), of not admitting the divorced and remarried to the sacraments, since their state and their condition of life objectively contradict the loving union of Christ and the Church signified and made present in the Eucharist.”

A pope’s apostolic exhortation carries more weight than just the personal view of a cardinal, being Nichols or Kasper. Those who are referring to the Orthodox practice of giving Communion to suchpeople are doing so because they lack sound Catholic theological grounds to prove their stance.