I am surprised that nobody on this thread has mentioned that distinguished RC novelist David Lodge's perceptive novel "How Far Can You Go?" (1980 - but not entirely outdated even now). Wiki it; & read it - it still seems to me [not a Catholic] to say many things, to judge from this thread, still extremely pertinent. Its theme is a group of Catholics and their relationship with their faith and its development from the 1950s - 80s; with many digressions from Lodge, an intelligent & perceptive Catholic layman. Lodge appeared to be a 'benign neglect' supporter. Of Humanae Vitae, and the reactions to it, he wrote, "With hindsight, it is clear that his best course would have been to procrastinate and equivocate indefinitely so that the ban on contraception was never explicitly disowned, but quietly allowed to lapse, like earlier papal anthemas against co-education, gaslighting and railways"; the idea which became "Benign neglect" SFAICS. But, as Bonnie and others point out, it doesn't seem to have taken universally enough ~ in Cal, fine; but rural Ireland?...

~M~