U.S. Bishops lost their authority?

[RevDon]

Ignore the finding? You do not know what data was considered. I noticed you have no documentation for this post of yours. No, anticatholicism was around before birth contol and will still be around after I am gone. The Holy Father is the Vicar of Christ, not the president of a university. God’s law matters more than man’s changing opinions.

With the appearance of the first oral contraceptives in 1960, dissenters in the Church argued for a reconsideration of the Church positions. In 1963 Pope John XXIII established a commission of six European non-theologians to study questions of birth control and population. (Shannon, William Henry (1970). “VII. The Papal Commission on Birth Control”. The lively debate: response to Humanae vitae. New York: Sheed & Ward. pp. 76–104 and McClory, Robert (1995). Turning point: the inside story of the Papal Birth Control Commission, and how Humanae vitae changed the life of Patty Crowley and the future of the church. New York: Crossroad.
Neither John XXIII nor Paul VI wanted the almost three thousand bishops and other clerics then in Rome for Vatican II to address the birth control issue even though many of these bishops expressed their desire to bring this pressing pastoral issue before the Council.
After John’s death in 1963, Pope Paul VI added theologians to the commission and over three years expanded it to 72 members from five continents (including 16 theologians, 13 physicians and five women without medical credentials, with an executive committee of 16 bishops, including seven cardinals.)

The commission produced a report in 1966, proposing that artificial birth control was not intrinsically evil and that Catholic couples should be allowed to decide for themselves about the methods to be employed According to the majority report, use of contraceptives should be regarded as an extension of the already accepted cycle method. (“Reveal papal birth control texts”. National Catholic Reporter 3 (25): 1, 3, 8–12. 1967-04-19. and Hoyt, Robert G. (ed.), ed. (1968). “I. Documents from the Papal Commission”. The birth control debate. Kansas City: National Catholic Reporter. pp. 15–111.)