John L. Allen, Jr., has penned an interesting op-ed piece, "The Pope vs. the Pill," for The New York Times. He writes:
Forty years ago last week, Pope Paul VI provoked the greatest uproar
against a papal edict in the long history of the Roman Catholic Church
when he reiterated the church’s ban on artificial birth control by
issuing the encyclical “Humanae Vitae.” At the time, commentators
predicted that not only would the teaching collapse under its own
weight, but it might well bring the “monarchical papacy” down with it.
Those forecasts badly underestimated the capacity of the Catholic Church to resist change and to stand its ground.
Indeed. But as Allen points out a few paragraphs later, it's not that the Church merely resists change; rather, it's that the Church continues to develop a deeper understanding of her beliefs, as evidenced (as he mentions) by John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Allen concludes by stating:
The encyclical’s surprising resilience is a reminder that
forecasting the Catholic future in moments of crisis is always a
dangerous enterprise — a point with relevance to a more recent Catholic
predicament. Many critics believe that the church has not yet responded
adequately to the recent sex-abuse scandals, leading to predictions
that the church will “have to” become more accountable, more
participatory and more democratic.
While those steps may appear
inevitable today, it seemed unthinkable to many observers 40 years ago
that “Humanae Vitae” would still be in vigor well into the 21st
century.
Catholicism can and does change, but trying to guess how and when is almost always a fool’s errand.
Benedict XVI, in less than four years, has already shown some of the ways that vital issues can be addressed. At the heart of his approach is fidelity to the Gospel and the Church's teachings, a willingness to dialogue in a way that is charitable and elicits serious reflection and response, and an emphasis on worship and liturgy as a vital component in revitalizing a culture of life, love, and hope.
Allen's column and comments reminded me of a chapter, "The Five Deaths of the Faith," found in G.K. Chesterton's great book, 
The Everlasting Man:
In short, the whole world being divided about whether the stream was going slower or faster, became conscious of something vague but vast that was going against the stream. Both in fact and figure there is something deeply disturbing about this, and that for an essential reason. A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. A dead dog can be lifted on the leaping water with all the swiftness of a leaping hound; but only a live dog can swim backwards. A paper boat can ride the rising deluge with all the airy arrogance of a fairy ship; but if the fairy ship sails upstream it is really rowed by the fairies. And among the things that merely went with the tide of apparent progress and enlargement, there was many a demagogue or sophist whose wild gestures were in truth as lifeless as the movement of a dead dog's limbs wavering in the eddying water; and many a philosophy uncommonly like a paper boat, of the sort that it is not difficult to knock into a cocked hat. But even the truly living and even life-giving things that went with that stream did not thereby prove that they were living or life-giving. It was this other force that was unquestionably and unaccountably alive; the mysterious and unmeasured energy that was thrusting back the river. That was felt to be like the movement of some great monster; and it was none the less clearly a living monster because most people thought it a prehistoric monster. It was none the less an unnatural, an incongruous, and to some a comic upheaval; as if the Great Sea Serpent had suddenly risen out of the Round Pond-unless we consider the Sea Serpent as more likely to live in the Serpentine. This flippant element in the fantasy must not be missed, for it was one of the clearest testimonies to the unexpected nature of the reversal. That age did really feel that a preposterous quality in prehistoric animals belonged also to historic rituals; that mitres and tiaras were like the horns or crests of antediluvian creatures; and that appealing to a Primitive Church was like dressing up as a Primitive Man.
The world is still puzzled by that movement; but most of all because it still moves. I have said something elsewhere of the rather random sort of reproaches that are still directed against it and its much greater consequences; it is enough to say here that the more such critics reproach it the less they explain it. In a sense it is my concern here, if not to explain it, at least to suggest the direction of the explanation; but above all, it is my concern to point out one particular thing about it. And that is that it had all happened before; and even many times before.
To sum up, in so far as it is true that recent centuries have seen an attenuation of Christian doctrine, recent centuries have only seen what the most remote centuries have seen. And even the modern example has only ended as the medieval and pre-medieval examples ended. It is already clear, and grows clearer every day, that it is not going to end in the disappearance of the diminished creed; but rather in the return of those parts of it that had really disappeared. It is going to end as the Arian compromise ended, as the attempts at a compromise with Nominalism and even with Albigensianism ended. But the point to seize in the modern case, as in all the other cases, is that what returns is not in that sense a simplified theology; not according to that view a purified theology; it is simply theology. It is that enthusiasm for theological studies that marked the most doctrinal ages; it is the divine science.
The Church's teaching about sexuality, marriage, reproduction, and life goes against the stream; it is a living thing swimming against the deadly current of the culture of death. When that teaching is lived faithfully, taught well, defended with clarity and charity, and articulated with precision and love, it changes lives and transforms hearts. Pope Paul VI has been proven prophetic in his denunciation of contraceptives and the contraceptive mentality; unfortunately, as Allen notes, far too many Catholics have gone with the flow, contracepting themselves to the point of death—spiritual, emotional, and theological (see, for example, this op-ed by a former priest). As Chesterton (himself prophetic) noted and as John Paul II demonsrated, true theology—which is not dry discourse, but life-giving contemplation of and communion with the mystery of the Triune God—is an essential part of the answer.
Jesus of Nazareth Study Guide
God Is No Delusion: 
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