text: Charlie Pierce...........contraception 
  
  There is no “Catholic position” on this issue. There are the opinions of the clerical bureaucrats, accessories after the fact, and the members of the Clan of The Red Beanie, and then there is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of Catholic laypeople, who stopped listening to anything the Vatican said on the matter of birth control back in 1965. (And recall that the Second Vatican Council emphasized that the Church consisted of the entire people of God, which means the opinion of the overwhelming majority of Catholic people, acting out of their own conscience on this issue, matters as much or more than the opinion held by the temporary holders of clerical offices...........)