The paper focuses on critical writings by the Catholic theologian Hans Küng, following the intertwining of the discourse strands “birth control” and “authority of the magisterium”. In doing so the present paper employs a combination of interpretation methods inspired by Critical Discourse Analysis, aiming to show how discursive strategies are used to construct an opposition between the supposedly
backward teachings of the Church and the own critical and progressive stance. Based on the microanalysis of the sample texts, the paper argues that Küng`s approach is not free of populist rhetorical devices and topoi such as the opposition between the few and the many, the ad hominem argument, the use of collective symbols or the idea of crisis and rebirth.