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My father, an Irish Catholic of the old school (endowed as the Irish are with a healthy anti-clericalism), pointed out during Pope John Paul's first visit to the United States that the Sacrament of Penance would fall victim to John Paul's preaching about birth control. By that time, birth control was only an academic question for my parents; but obviously it had not always been. My father's point, and history has confirmed it, was that John Paul's hard line approach left no wiggle room for confessors and no reason for married persons to confess. If they thought birth control was a sin, but lacked a "firm purpose of amendment", the priest could not absolve them. If they didn't think it was a sin, there was nothing to confess. Either way, there was no reason to go to confession. The priest -- the church -- had nothing to offer them. And so the sacrament was largely lost for at least two generations of Catholics. Some of these continued to go to Mass and communion; many didn't.