Abstract
The Catholic Church of Peru supported the use of oral contraceptives between 1967 and 1976, believing that doctrine was compatible with controlling one's fertility. Yet the church did not treat fertility control only as a means to limit births or as an individual prerogative. Rather, it framed distribution of the pill within an education plan to promote the duties of responsible parenting. Joseph Kerrins, a U.S. Catholic physician, began the program in a poor area of Lima. By the late 1970s, the program operated in nineteen parishes. The program thrived even after the 1968 encyclical De Humanae Vitae, thanks to the support of priests, Peruvian and U.S. government agencies, physicians, and users of the program's services. Catholic family planning has been a more pragmatic and creative enterprise than hitherto believed. This article explores these developments within the context of the cold war and the transformations of the Catholic Church in 1960s Latin America.
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