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KathleenElsie
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news.aol.com/article/critics-urge-pope-to-lift-birth-control/100609ROME (July 25) - More than 50 dissident Catholic groups published an unusually frank open letter to Pope Benedict on Friday saying the Church’s ban on contraception has been “catastrophic” and urging him to lift it.
The letter was published as a paid half-page advertisement in Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest newspaper, on the 40th anniversary of the late Pope Paul VI’s controversial encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which enshrined the ban.
While criticism of the Vatican and its views is fairly common in articles and editorials in Italian newspapers, it is unusual for a group to take out paid advertising against the pope, particularly in a large-circulation mainstream newspaper.