Forty years ago, Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae, banning the birth control pill and all other types of artificial contraception.

At present, more than 50 dissident Catholic organizations worldwide have written a letter requesting Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church's prohibition on artificial birth control. The initiative belonged to Catholics for Choice, a Washington independent, non-profit Catholic organization, but the letter was signed by groups across the Americas and Europe.

The Tablet, a Catholic publication, carried out a survey by questioning 1,500 people who practice Catholics in England and Wales on their viewpoints regarding sex and contraception.

The majority of Mass-goers do not take into account the church’s values and beliefs concerning contraception and most of them consider they should be changed, the study displayed. Another data revealed by the survey shows that more than half of the people aged 18 to 45 had cohabitated before getting married.

The groups asking for repealing “Human Vitae,” the document that cemented the ban on birth control, said Friday that the forbid has had "catastrophic effects on the poor and weak of the whole world, putting in danger the lives of women and exposing millions of people to the risk of contracting HIV."

According to Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, the claim is regarded as "clearly unfounded." He asserted that the Catholic Church was active in fighting the AIDS pandemic, which last year had killed about 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children.

Published in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the letter also claimed that, particularly in undeveloped countries, the Church took advantage of its influence to impede planning programs, as well as condom delivery.