by those people charged with interpreting and guarding Catholic tradition. The bishops and the rest of the Catholic hierarchy.
Up to a point. In theory, the opinion of the faithful is supposed to have a role in the formulation of the church's position in council, but the issue of contraception was specifically banned from consideration at Vatican II. Someone who's following Newman's take on the question of infallibility/ dogma/ the teaching of the church would argue, I think reasonably, that this means that the church can't be said to have properly made up its mind on the subject, because it hasn't been given the chance to make up it's mind as a whole. (There are, of course, Catholics who would disagree strongly with this analysis of the situation, but it's not cut and dried and liberal Catholics have a stronger position than one might think).
no subject
Up to a point. In theory, the opinion of the faithful is supposed to have a role in the formulation of the church's position in council, but the issue of contraception was specifically banned from consideration at Vatican II. Someone who's following Newman's take on the question of infallibility/ dogma/ the teaching of the church would argue, I think reasonably, that this means that the church can't be said to have properly made up its mind on the subject, because it hasn't been given the chance to make up it's mind as a whole. (There are, of course, Catholics who would disagree strongly with this analysis of the situation, but it's not cut and dried and liberal Catholics have a stronger position than one might think).