"Heinous is the sin committed against the creative act of
God, who through the marriage contract invites man and woman to co-operate with
him in the propagation of the human family.To take life after its inception is
a horrible crime; but to prevent human life that the Creator is about to bring
into being is satanic. In the first instance, the body is killed, while the
soul lives on; in the latter, not only a body, but an immortal soul is denied
existence in time and in eternity." Archbishop
Hayes of New York Christmas Pastoral,
1921. (Hayes was later made a cardinal.)
This is a departure from the usual "It's unnatural!" condemnation of birth control, and implies that on any occasion in which the contracting marriage partners elect not to have sex when they would have conceived, they have forever denied existence to a soul and have committed a satanic sin, worse than abortion. Inasmuch as those born out of wedlock also have souls, any random pair that could conceive but declines to have sex would be chargeable by the soul precluded from existence with the same satanic wrong.
