Natural Law has never changed apparently, so then the Chuch has never changed...apparently.

In paragraph 16, titled "Recourse to Infertile Periods", the last paragraph contains," Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious." This statement along with the rest of the paragraph is explaining that for married couples who still want to get down but don't want to have children there is one option. This option is to only have sex while the women is on her period, and he goes on to explain that god build in this function which "does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained." This means that it is only ok to have sex without intention of procreation, when it is impossible to get pregnant from the function of a women's body, while married of course. The pope later makes this point explaining these two cases that don't seem very different, but in the eyes of god one is absolutely horrible. The pope says that married couples who use birth control during the fertile period or "obstruct the natural development of the generative process" are wrong while if pregnancy is impossible for a natural reason then it is all right. This is a very good example of how religion can be constructed and, now more than ever, has been trying to entangle itself with the modern world. The pope uses a natural fact about human physiology and construct it into a religious belief, using a women's period as a plan from god for people who don't want to have kids. To me this seems right in line with how religion is constructed to, in its own mind, take control of nature and claim it as its own. This reminds me to when the church used to use skin color as a sign of a curse from god to justify slavery.