The ‘Billings Revolution’ 70 years later: an intuition that changed history

In 1953, in Melbourne, Australia, a seed was planted in the field of medical science, the flowering modalities of which no one could ever have imagined. The priest Maurice Catarinich asked Dr. John Billings for help, in order to be able to direct some couples, who desired to naturally regulate their fertility, in a simpler and more effective way compared to the scientific knowledge of the time. It was the first of many “intuitions” that punctuated the path of the “Billings Revolution”: someone in fact wrote that, by choosing Dr. Billings, Father Catarinich was certain that he would face the problem with “a scientific mind, moulded by an intuitive understanding of conjugal love and responsible parenthood”.