Scientists Associated With Vatican Call for Population Curb By ALAN COWELL from the The New York Times reveals: One of the Vatican's lay panels has urged limits on family size to avert "insoluble problems" of runaway growth.

The report, by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences also suggests that the birth rate should be limited to about two children per couple.

"There is a need to contain births in order to avoid creating the insoluble problems that could arise if we were to renounce our responsibilities to future generations."

The Vatican immediately distanced itself from the report.

 

Scientists Associated With Vatican Call for Population Curb

By ALAN COWELL

Special to The New York Times

 

ROME, June 15 - As the Vatican campaigns vigorously against some of the family-planning proposals drafted for a United Nations conference, one of its lay panels has urged limits on family size to avert "insoluble  problems" of runaway growth.

The report, by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, also suggests that the birth rate should be limited to about two children per couple. This assertion seems to conflict with the views of the Vatican, which disputes the notion of a consensus on the urgency of population problems and opposes abortion and artificial means of birth control.

Dissemination of the report also seems to undercut the Roman Catholic Church's authority in advance of the population conference, which is to be held in Cairo in September.

The Vatican immediately distanced itself from the report.

"The academy's task is to contribute to scientific progress," the Vatican radio said in a commentary. `One cannot ask the academy to be an expression of church teachings or the pastoral strategies of the Holy See, nor has the academy ever pretended to take on this role."

The study, issued over the weekend by the Italian bishops' conference, said, "There is a need to contain births in order to avoid creating the insoluble problems that could arise if we were to renounce our responsibilities to future generations."

Increases in life-span and advances in medical care "have made it unthinkable to sustain indefinitely a birth rate that notably exceeds the level of two children per couple - in other words the requirement to guarantee the future of humanity."

The report does not discuss specific means of birth control but says there is an "unavoidable need to contain births globally." The only method of birth control tolerated by the Vatican is sexual abstinence during ovulation. The study, which took two years, was prepared by eight lay experts of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a group of more than 80 scientists of different religions and nationalities.

Pope John Paul II was reportedly infuriated by the report, which emerged just as the Vatican is intensifying its campaign against several proposals to be discussed in Cairo.

 

Proposal by O'Connor

            On Tuesday, 114 of the church's 139 cardinals, who had gathered here for a long-term planning session, unanimously endorsed an appeal by John Cardinal O'Connor of New York to condemn any population measures that would legitimize "abortion on demand, sexual promiscuity and distorted notions of the family."

Cardinal O'Connor also described measures allowing abortion as "cultural imperialism."

The church's argument is that population growth should be addressed through economic development, health care and education, and is not a cause for alarm. Vatican officials argue that some proposals for the Cairo conference minimize economic development and the relationship between food supplies and population growth.

They also say the proposals devote disproportionate attention to birthcontrol measures that are being promoted by population experts, American feminists and the Clinton Administration as ways of enhancing the choices and status of women in developing societies.

A senior Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, emphasized that a range of "social and economic reasons" underlie population growth. "The Holy See would have stressed much more that population policy depends on the level of basic primary health care and primary education that you give women, not focusing on family planning and safe abortions," the official said.

Asked to comment today on the scientists' report, Edward Cardinal Clancy of Sydney, Australia, said that in cases of perceived conflict between the church and scientists, "the question mark must rather be raised over what's being said in the name of science."