The continued opposition of the Church to artificial birth control falls on many deaf ears.

BBC: St Peter's Square

And even most Catholics support access to artificial birth control, even though their church adamantly opposes it.

FORBES: Contraceptive Coverage: One More Unconstitutional Mandate

Her uncompromising opposition to abortion -- she called it murder -- and artificial birth control attracted the most criticism.

CNN: PASSAGE

The bishops held the official position that artificial birth control was morally wrong.

CNN: There's more to the Catholic Church than the pope

In 1968, Pope Paul VI, in an encyclical entitled "Humanae Vitae" (Of Human Life), declared that any artificial forms of birth control were prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church.

CNN: Wednesday,

The Vatican has over recent decades issued blanket condemnations of artificial methods of birth control, in-vitro fertilization, therapeutic and reproductive cloning, and human embryonic stem cell research.

FORBES: Venter and the Vatican