The bulletin investigates the major positions held by the Catholic Church toward population problems. Separate sections discuss the demographic debate, traditional church teaching, the birth control movement, the Vatican Council II and the Papal Birth Control Commission, Pope Paul's 1968 Encyclical against contraception, the 1980 Synod of Bishops, and the outlook for the future. The author states that the Church's position, which prohibits the use of artificial methods of contraception, hinders it and its 750 million adherents from taking an effective lead in the growing threat of global overpopulation. In 1958 Pope Pius XII forbade contraceptive use of the pill. Despite the liberal spirit engendered by Vatican Council II and against the recommendation of a Papal Birth Control Commission, Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the ban in his 1968 Encyclical. This stance has been upheld by Pope John Paul II and the 1980 Synod of Bishops. Surveys, however, reveal that Catholic married couples turn to artifical methods to regulate the size of their families. The conclusion is that the Pope and the Vatican, while insisting on human rights and the need for a reordering of unjust economic, social, and political structures, seem to be neglecting the threat of a breakdown of civilization that looms with the prospect of too many people and too little space with too few resources. (Author/KC)