Does Catholicism have a stance on horoscopes?
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The current Catechism has a "more modern take on the matter" which actually uses the word horoscope.
2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.⁴⁸ Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honour, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.
⁴⁸ Cf Deut 18:10, Jer 29:8
This paragraph appears in the section on the Commandments headed "You shall have no other gods before me". Constructing and consulting horoscopes indicates a belief that it's possible to divine the mind of God and predict his plans, which puts Man on a par with God.
I don't believe that astrology works and any belief that we can divine the mind of God is forlorn. However, disobeying God in "making ourselves gods" is what caused the Fall. God is God and it's not for Man to be.
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The difference between scientific prediction (like weather forecasting*) and divination is that divination is superstitious and involves associating with demons.
*(which Jesus does not forbid but actually commends, instead of not using one's God-given intellect and seeking signs; cf. Mt. 16:2-3 or Lk. 12:54-56)
As St. Thomas writes (Summa Theologica II-II q. 95 a. 2 "
Whether divination is a species of superstition?" c.):
superstition includes not only idolatrous sacrifices offered to demons, but also recourse to the help of the demons for the purpose of doing or knowing something.
St. Thomas Aquinas treats the question of forecasting vs. divination at length in his short work on "casting lots," De sortibus, the last chapter (ch. 5) of which addresses the question of whether it is permitted for Christians to use lots; it begins with him saying that "it is obvious that no Christian is permitted to have any pact of association with the demons."
St. Thomas Aquinas even explains why "astrologers not unfrequently forecast the truth by observing the stars" in Summa Theologica II-II q. 95 a. 5 ("Whether divination by the stars is unlawful?") ad 2:
astrologers not unfrequently forecast the truth by observing the stars…because a great number of men follow their bodily passions, so that their actions are for the most part (in pluribus) disposed in accordance with the inclination of the heavenly bodies: while there are few, namely, the wise (sapientes) alone, who moderate these inclinations by their reason. The result is that astrologers in many cases foretell the truth, especially in public occurrences which depend on the multitude (ex multitudine).
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