text: Wishful thinking. Those who use examples such as slavery, usury and democracy have not understood what the Church's teaching in the past has been.
  The main complaint was that neither the Church nor Christ Himself ever condemned slavery. The Law of Moses permitted charging non-Jews interest on loans which means that usury was never considered to be absolutely sinful. As for democracy, the Church does not canonise any particular form of government. Pope St John Paul defined democracy as a means to an end. As far as I can see democracy as practised in countries who claim to be democratic no where meets the late Pope's definition. 
  The fact that most people ignore Humanæ Vitæ does not mean that artificial birth control is no longer mortally sinful.