Contrast that with contraception: the Church is condemning the technology itself, in all forms. But it is possible that facts could arise that would make the Church reconsider that teaching. indeed, some might argue that 7B+ (and rising) humans on Earth is a pretty strong counterpoint.
Misconception.
The Church is condemning the approach on the grounds that sex is ordered to procreation (never mind that this supposed Natural Law argument completely ignores the clitoris).
They also had this argument out with the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control. And the winning argument was the minority report which claimed that the Roman Catholic Church couldn't be wrong because it had the assistance of the Holy Spirit and that to claim otherwise would be to claim it wasn't the One True Church.
I quote the final section of the minority report, the one that lead to the writing of Humanae Vitae below. Please pay particular attention ot the final paragraph.
If the Church should now admit that the teaching passed on is no longer of value, teaching which has been preached and stated with ever more insistent solemnity until recent years, it must be feared greatly that its authority in almost all moral and dogmatic matters will be seriously harmed. For there are few moral truths so constantly, solemnly and, as it has appeared, definitely stated as this one for which it is now so quickly proposed that it be changed to the contrary.
What is more, however, this change would inflict a grave blow on the teaching about the assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to the Church to lead the faithful on the right way toward their salvation. For, as a matter of fact, the teaching of Cast Connubii was solemnly proposed in opposition to the doctrine of the Lambeth Conference of 1930, by the Church “to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals…in token of her divine ambassadorship…and through Our mouth.” Is it nevertheless now to be admitted that the Church erred in this her work, and that the Holy Spirit rather assists the Anglican Church!
Some who fight for a change say that the teaching of the Church was not false for those times. Now, however, it must be changed because of changed historical conditions. But this seems to be something that one cannot propose, for the Anglican Church was teaching precisely that and for the very reasons which the Catholic Church solemnly denied, but which it would now admit. Certainly such a manner of speaking would be unintelligible to the people and would seem to be a specious pretext.
Other claims that the Church would be better off to admit her error, just as recently she has done in other circumstances. But this is no question of peripheral matters (as for example, the case of Galileo), or of an excess in the way a thing is done (the excommunication of Photius). This is a most significant question which profoundly enters into the practical lives of Christians in such a way that innumerable faithful would have been thrown by the magisterium into formal sin without material sin. But let there be consulted the serious words of Pius XI in his “Directive to priests who are confessors and who have the care of souls” (1930). Also let there be consulted the words of Pius XII in his “address to the cardinals and bishops on the occasion of the definition of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary” (1950):
"This way (namely, of liberation from the law of God) can never be taken because it is hurtful and harmful even when it is a question of someone who wishes to bring help to men in difficult situations of conjugal life. Therefore it would be pernicious to the Church and to civil society, if those who had care of souls, in teaching and in their way of life, would knowingly remain silent when the laws of God are violated in marriage. These laws always flourish, whatsoever the case may be."
For the Church to have erred so gravely in its grave responsibility of leading souls would be tantamount to seriously suggesting that the assistance of the Holy Spirit was lacking to her.
The Roman Catholic Church nailed its colours to the mast with Humanae Vitae when the world population was over 3.5 billion and rising (and at that point, unlike now, showing little sign of levelling off) and little has changed since.
