Thank you for your points, I've got some thoughtful replies for you which I hope you will read in the spirit of open and genuine enquiry as opposed to polemical, vitriol and prejudice.
When I think about the RCC and sex, "enlightened" is not the term that comes to mind. More like backward and repressed. When healthy, consensual sexual intimacy between adults is overregulated and made to seem shameful outside certain narrowly defined conditions, it only encourages the expression of those normal human desires in less healthy circumstances. Shame and scandal are not "real" consequences of sexual interaction; they are artifacts of culture. Go to another continent, or fast-forward another generation, and they are muted or gone entirely.
OK, let us then consider which society is happier, that which is as you suggest "backward and repressed" and is typified by things such as courty love, platonic relationships, convivality and norms of respect and honour between sexes and one which is totally licentious, the going "to another continent" or "fast forwarding another generation", in one perhaps someone is neurotic because they have internalised social norms as their super ego, they could experience internal conflicts but in the other rape, domination and objectification is the norm. That really is enlightenment? Truthfully?
What are the narrow parameters and what are the less healthy circumstances which correspond to belief in monogamy and fidelity? Erasmus wrote at great length in praise of marriage, he was contrasting it with the hierarchy's emphasis upon celibacy, Hans Kung has written in praise of eros in contrast to agape love, which is also in contrast or conflict with the present and previous Pope's teaching but it is a diversity of position within the same school of thought. A little different from "anything goes".
The gender bias that pervades the church is an integral part of its attitude to sex, and a key contributor to much of the misery and suffering you mention, especially on the part of women. The sexually autonomous woman is used in the Bible as a metaphor for when the Israelites were not faithful to God, the ultimate sin. For generations, the church practiced a ritual called the churching of women, in which a new mother was "cleansed" after childbirth, making her fit to return to church. The idea of childbirth as spiritually dirty is just perverse, and a great example of how the church has long denigrated things of the body as shameful, perpetuating a body/spirit separation that is both harmful and illusory.
I've no problem with that, the subordination of women within the RCC is not exactly as most simplistic assessments make it appear, for instance there are religious orders for females within the RCC church, which to me makes the question of female ordination to the priesthood a null and void question. There is also no evidence that Jesus professed or practiced any of the patriarchial norms, he had a number of women principle among his followers, he also appeared to a group of women when he rose from the dead and it is their testamony, not believed at first, which was the first witness to the possibility of his resurrection from the dead. God did choose to be incarnate as a man and not a woman when he came to earth as Jesus but I would consider that a realpolitik reflection of the norms and culture of the day.
I once read a book by the much-beloved Pope John Paul II in which he stated it was wrong for a husband and wife to abstain from sex for awhile in order to avoid conception.
Really? What was that book? I just ask because this vague reference is out of keeping with what I know is the teaching of the Church and it would be a surprise to me to discover that there was any official comment in contradiction of this teaching which had not come down to practicing RCs attending Church on a weekly basis but which has been circulated to non-believers who are critical of the sexual morality and teaching of the church instead.
This type of micromanagement and related guilt regarding sexuality seems anything but enlightened.
Please clarify for me here what your objection is? That there is advice or guidance per se? The advice given by the RC church, that fidelity is a good thing, that monogamy is a good thing are often echoed by secular sources, that family planning is preferable to lust and licentiousness? If you're going to object to advice or guidance per se then I suspect that you'll have to put Cosmo or similar sources in the dock too.
Yes, condoms will not eliminate sexism, rape, and anarchy in troubled areas. Medical supplies will not stop wars and terrorism either, but we don't deny them to those who live in such conditions. While addressing the root causes is necessary, it is only humane to address the symptoms as well.
I'm not sure how you begin to eliminate those things while advocating or supporting the distribution of some of the means or paraphrenalia, it's a little like supporting the distribution of firearms to bank raiders while having a conscientious objection to bank raiding.
There is also some very explicit teaching by Pope Benedict, in published sources (Here is a link, just in contrast to you vaguaries about the last Pope's teachings:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-Pope-Benedict-Wants-Know/dp/0764816721/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329649325&sr=8-1), that the RCC aims to form consciences but not involve itself in politics. Therefore unless the authorities have themselves sought to prohibit the availability of contraceptives, as the ROI did once I remember, they will be available and it is a matter of individual conscience whether or not the believers choose to use them or not.
What is absolutely clear is that if someone is going to engage in sexual intercourse and refuses to use condoms because the RCC prohibits the use of contraceptives they can not be that worried about RCC teaching about sex in the first place and it is merely a pretext, the problem I would suspect is greater and possibly to do with sexism in a broader national sense.
