(LifeSiteNews) — Dr. Janet E. Smith gave a talk at LifeSite’s Rome Life Forum in Kansas City last month, discussing the modernist philosophy behind the key arguments used by theologians who dissented from Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical reaffirming the Church’s teaching against contraception.

Smith emphasized that after Humanae Vitae was promulgated, various theologians such as Father Joseph Fuchs and Father Charles Curran dissented, with the aim of conforming Church teaching with the modern world. Their arguments were “consequentialist,” which refers the idea that one’s individual conscience trumps Catholic teaching on contraception and other matters.

“They called themselves dissenters, very similar to the word ‘Protestant,’” Smith said. “Protesting Church teaching, dissenting, not accepting Church teaching. And they had a number of terms: one was consequentialism … you judge an act by the consequences of the act, meaning [that] if spouses thought that greater good would come to their marriage by contracepting than by not contracepting, they could contracept.”

“Where do you take that? … If I think racism brings me more good than not, I could be a racist. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what people were pushing,” she added.

To hear more about the philosophy behind the dissenters of Humanae Vitae and its effect on the Church, watch or listen to Dr. Janet Smith’s full talk.