Stuff Matters. The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World

Not long before the PillБЂ™s approval, Rock traveled to Washington to testify before the FDA about the drugБЂ™s safety. The agency examiner, Pasquale DeFelice, was a Catholic obstetrician from Georgetown University, and at one point, the story goes, DeFelice suggested the unthinkable БЂ“ that the Catholic Church would never approve of the birth-control pill. БЂњI can still see Rock standing there, his face composed, his eyes riveted on DeFelice,БЂ«a colleague recalled years later, БЂњand then, in a voice that would congeal your soul, he said, БЂYoung man, donБЂ™t you sell my church short.БЂ™ БЂ«In the end, of course, John RockБЂ™s church disappointed him. In 1968, in the encyclical БЂњHumanae Vitae,БЂ«Pope Paul VI outlawed oral contraceptives and all other БЂњartificialБЂ«methods of birth control. The passion and urgency that animated the birth-control debates of the sixties are now a memory. John Rock still matters, though, for the simple reason that in the course of reconciling his church and his work he made an error ...»