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The Schism of ’68

Catholicism, Contraception and Humanae Vitae in Europe, 1945-1975

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  • © 2018

Overview

Editors:
  1. Alana Harris

    1. King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

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  • Situates the Vatican’s controversial intervention in sexual ethics within the context of debates about ‘birth control’ and sex within marriage
  • Brings together historians of gender, sexuality and modern Catholicism to discuss the reactions to, and reception of, the Encyclical across Europe
  • Contextualises and illuminates the lived history of the Second Vatican Council

Part of the book series: Genders and Sexualities in History (GSX)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxi
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  2. Introduction: The Summer of ’68—Beyond the Secularization Thesis

    • Alana Harris
    Pages 1-20

  4. Episcopal Controversies

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 97-97
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    2. Religion and Contraception in Comparative Perspective—Switzerland, 1950–1970

      • Caroline Rusterholz
      Pages 99-119

    3. Attempted Disobedience: Humanae Vitae in West Germany and Austria

      • Katharina Ebner, Maria Mesner
      Pages 121-158

  5. Christian Science and Catholic Conservatism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 159-159
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    2. The Politics of Catholic Medicine: ‘The Pill’ and Humanae Vitae in Portugal

      • Tiago Pires Marques
      Pages 161-186

    3. Humanae Vitae, Birth Control and the Forgotten History of the Catholic Church in Poland

      • Agnieszka Kościańska
      Pages 187-208

  7. Church, State and Contraception

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 273-273
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    2. The Best News Ireland Ever Got? Humanae Vitae’s Reception on the Pope’s Green Island

      • Peter Murray
      Pages 275-301

    3. Catholicism Behind the Iron Curtain: Czechoslovak and Hungarian Responses to Humanae Vitae

      • Mary Heimann, Gábor Szegedi
      Pages 303-348

    4. Afterword—Looking for Love

      • Dagmar Herzog
      Pages 349-363
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Keywords

About this book

This volume explores the critical reactions and dissenting activism generated in the summer of 1968 when Pope Paul VI promulgated his much-anticipated and hugely divisive encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which banned the use of  ‘artificial contraception’ by Catholics. Through comparative case studies of fourteen different European countries, it offers a wealth of new data about the lived religious beliefs and practices of ordinary people – as well as theologians interrogating ‘traditional teachings’ – in areas relating to love, marriage, family life, gender roles and marital intimacy. Key themes include the role of medical experts, the media, the strategies of progressive Catholic clergy and laity, and the critical part played by hugely differing Church-State relations. In demonstrating the Catholic Church’s important (and overlooked) contribution to the refashioning of the sexual landscape of post-war Europe, it makes a critical intervention into a growing historiography exploring the 1960s and offers a close interrogation of one strand of religious change in this tumultuous decade.


Reviews

“The book offers some important lessons and frameworks for a project which could work on a global scale. … this book broadens our understanding of how ‘liberal’ ideas intersected with religious beliefs at a moment of profound agitation.” (David Geiringer, British Catholic History, Vol. 34 (3), May, 2019)

“A genuinely groundbreaking collection, where international and interdisciplinary new scholarship explores the relationship between Roman Catholicism and global developments in sexuality and women's reproductive rights in the `radical 1960s'. … The Schism of'68: Catholics, Contraception and `Humanae Vitae' in Europe, 1945-1975 presents a multifaceted and meticulously researched scholarly collection, and isa sophisticated contribution to our understanding of the past.” (Scriptable, rtreview.org, Issue 21, June, 2018)

Editors and Affiliations

  • King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Alana Harris

About the editor

Alana Harris is Lecturer in Modern British History at King’s College London, UK. She has previously published Faith in the Family: A Lived Religious History of English Catholicism, 1945-1982 (2013) and Love and Romance in Britain, 1918-1970 (with Timothy W. Jones, Palgrave, 2014).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Schism of ’68

  • Book Subtitle: Catholicism, Contraception and Humanae Vitae in Europe, 1945-1975

  • Editors: Alana Harris

  • Series Title: Genders and Sexualities in History

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70811-9

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-70810-2Published: 15 March 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-09995-4Published: 15 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-70811-9Published: 02 March 2018

  • Series ISSN: 2730-9479

  • Series E-ISSN: 2730-9487

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXI, 377

  • Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: History of Modern Europe, Cultural History, Gender and Sexuality, History of Religion, Social History

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