To say this is all outside of my realm of expertise is a grotesque understatement. But, I found it interesting:

Jonah, First, if any priests reading NRO live in Phoenix, AZ please see if you can tell me which parish they are in. I just moved here and would love to meet a conservative priest. I thought they all passed away and miss them. Second, the narrow question of married people, who intend to have a family, using artificial birth control is quite possibly the doctrine priests find the hardest to explain to the flock given that they teach ‘natural family planning’ classes. I’ve seen several attempts and they are lame and unconvincing to the point where they undermine the credibility of the priest on other matters. I have read speculation that B16 may even re-open the issue and hope he does. I agree that ‘cafeteria Catholicism’ makes no logical sense and share with your correspondent admiration for any priest who stands against it publicly. However, if there was any part of Church dogma one were to skip, this one is probably the most benign compared to, say, abortion, belief in transubstantiation, etc. Third, there are teachings (usually leftish in nature) that priests often present as official church dogma that clearly are not. This can confuse things for the flock. For instance, Catholics are not pacifists like Quakers and ‘just war’ is a real world possibility not just a theological abstraction (several of my priests growing up were WW2 vets and made this point quite clearly). Also, while I am no Michael Novak and could be wrong, I believe capital punishment is still not unequivocally against church teaching though it’s getting close. I did 12 years in Catholic schools and recall that the reasoning was that the church respected live but acknowledged that society has to defend itself sometimes. Recent ‘teachings’ from bishops on immigration (that I happen to generally support) are another example – policing the borders is OK if done humanely, which it is in the US. Any opposition to immigration policy on the Mexican border is political, not moral. Arguably, Cuba is another story since we are dealing with people fleeing persecution but that’s a different matter. Fourth, these things can and do change. While I am no expert, I believe that in the next 20-50 years we’ll see a lot of changes, including some degree of tolerance for birth control, an even bigger role in the liturgy for lay people (male and female deacons – more of whom will be ‘full time’), possible amelioration of theological differences with both Orthodox (unless your Crunchy Con buddy Dreher somehow berates his way up to Metropolitan) , Lutheran and traditional Anglican faiths, a firmer commitment to the defense of Catholic communities under threat from expansionist Islam (almost certainly this means a few ‘just wars’ in places like Nigeria and Mindinao – don’t laugh but I can even foresee a few Western Catholics with military experience helping these efforts with the blessing of the Church a la the Crusaders or Sandalistas), and a lot of other stuff the Catholic geeks at NRO occasionally write about. Lastly, and I think you will agree, the Church is going to be around for a long time to come even if that means it’s leadership comes increasingly from the 3rd world where the religion is on the rise instead of the increasingly secular “West.” Built on the Roman system of administration, it is arguably the longest lasting organization in the history of the planet. I confess that, as a conservative Catholic, I am very proud of this fact alone even as the Church did all sorts of awful things along the way. Adaptability was necessary to achieve the Church’s longevity and most changes were for the better. As always, I enjoy your work.

Update: Again, this is so not my fight. But a rebuttal, from a reader:

Jonah – The only discussion about possibly “relaxing” Church teaching on artificial birth control has been in the context of married couples where one of the spouses has AIDS. So, I’m not sure what that “conservative” Catholic from Phoenix was talking about. While he is correct that much of the teaching about Natural Family Planning (NFP) is shallow, vague, and confusing, there are too many first principles behind the Church’s stance on the use of artificial birth control for it be relaxed very much. For example, many contraceptives are actually abortifacients – like the morning after pill – so for that writer to make some distinction between abortion and birth control is misleading. Also, the prohibition is inextricably intertwined with the Church’s theology of the family and of married life and the Church seems to be getting more strict, not less, in these areas. Everytime people have predicted that the Church will change its teaching, those people have been proven wrong. Most notably, after Vatican II the progressives were predicting a change in the Church’s teaching on sexual morality. They received Humanae Vitae instead, which affirmed traditional teachings in face of the sexual revolution of the 60′s and 70′s. For what it’s worth.