And, "[There has been] a deep rejection by the Catholic faithful of the Church's theology of sexuality based on the interlinking of sexuality and procreation, especially following Humanae Vitae in 1968, with the result that the Church has had no widely accepted theology of sexuality since that time (p. 310)."

Cahill and Wilkinson's point is that by taking the position it did in Humanae Vitae, the magisterium so undermined its credibility in the area of sexual ethics that nothing it says about it is now seriously by many. This leaves a big gap both within the Catholic community and the world at large, given how much influence the Catholic church has around the world. This lack of credible, coherent sexual ethic is a factor that played into what may have been an acceleration of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy in the second half of the twentieth century.