I am absolutely with Bonnie on this point of benign neglect. Millions of Catholics the world over are taught in school various tenets of the faith, as interpreted (perhaps not always very well) by teachers and priests. How, after that, are they supposed to keep up with the kind of slow drift from one way of thinking to another? I am 61 now and I'm sure that much of what I was taught about the faith over my 13 years in Catholic schools is not taught any more, but the point is I'm going to stick with it unless someone tells me explicitly that things have changed (or unless I become an atheist, of course ;-) ) No priest from the pulpit is ever going to tell his flock that that can now ease up on stuff they've always thought are mortal sins. For the record, here's some stuff I was told:

I must not receive communion if I have a mortal sin on my soul (we were given a fair old sin list at one time, venial with one star, mortal with two stars).

Masturbation is a mortal sin, as is thinking about girls in an impure way (always deliciously imprecise, that one). We were even told that we should look away and pray to Our Lady whilst washing our genitals.

The only acceptable form of contraception is the rhythm method. Even coitus interruptus is not acceptable. Sexual intercourse is solely intended for procreation.

An unbaptised baby can never enter heaven, no matter how tragic the circumstances.

Catholics are the only people who go to heaven.

Homosexuality and abortion are such abominations that we don't even talk about them. There is no need.

OK, now I know that you'll tell me how outmoded all that lot is. But who, once I've left school, is ever going to tell me it's outmoded? Well, no-one - and I regard myself as one of the more savvy members of the human race! So I wonder about all those women in Africa and central America where the Church has an iron grip, and I wonder whether the benign neglectors really know what the local clergy are teaching. So we are expected to glean these gradual relaxations in thinking all by ourselves. I contend that that is actually immoral. You are setting up a situation in which some get it but millions won't. And the millions who won't are exactly the people who most need to get it. Well done, Church, for promoting poverty, disease, terrible rates of abortion and ignorance in developing nations.