Tag: condoms

In The News: #LoveWins, #TakeItDown, #WhoIsBurningBlackChurches

Posted on by

A round-up of the week’s religion news. Continue Reading →

The Dream of Full Unity: The Catholic Church Invites Anglicans to Come On Over

Posted on by

by Elissa Lerner

After so much fanfare surrounding the surprise election of Archbishop Timothy Dolan to the presidency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) this past fall, or even the Pope’s recent blessing of Facebook, perhaps the greatest shock in the Catholic world is the near silence regarding the three bishops, seven priests, and three hundred members of six congregations that have become ordained and opted into new Ordinariates – subsections of the Catholic Church for disaffected Anglicans. These conversions, all occurring in England in the past few weeks, are directly in response to the Anglican Church’s move to ordain women priests.

Sound familiar?

That’s because a little more than a year ago, the Catholic Church specifically invited disaffected Anglicans to move, causing shockwaves at least through the Internet, if not the world. At the time, few could decipher what the invitation entailed. The October 20, 2009 move was generally thought to address the concerns of conservative Anglicans who oppose the increasing acceptance of the ordination of women and open homosexuals to the priesthood and episcopate. Both issues have caused splintering within the Anglican Communion and debates within the Catholic Church. Continue Reading →

Moral Norms for Immoral Behaviors

Posted on by

From the 2004 article “The Truth About Condoms” by Opus Dei Father Martin Rhonheimer, Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the School of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome and, according to the Catholic Weekly, America, a member of Cardinal Ratzinger’s inner circle:

But if they ignore this teaching [that homosexuals should “live in continence like any other unmarried person”], and are at risk from HIV, should they use condoms to prevent infection? The moral norm condemning contraception as intrinsically evil does not apply to these cases. Nor can there be church teaching about this; it would be simply nonsensical to establish moral norms for intrinsically immoral types of behaviour. Should the Church teach that a rapist must never use a condom because otherwise he would additionally to the sin of rape fail to respect “mutual and complete personal self-giving and thus violate the Sixth Commandment”? Of course not.

Continue Reading →

Abstinence Goes Viral

Posted on by

by Jo Piazza

Pundits, politicians and yes, party animals have all weighed in on the Bristol Palin meets Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino ad promoting abstinence and condom use. But apparently no one is laughing harder than Palin, Sorrentino and the Candie’s Foundation which commissioned the viral video.

The marketing team at the foundation, the charitable arm of the teen fashion company best known for its bubblegum pink ads with Britney Spears, brought Bristol Palin on board as an ambassador to speak out on the topic of teen pregnancy following the birth of her first child last year.

Palin has since said that she plans to practice abstinence until she is married.

The foundation’s marketers have been keeping a close eye on Palin’s run on the reality dancing competition Dancing with the Stars. In a recent brainstorm session they came up with the idea to bring together the fan base of Bristol (Conservative teens) with the fan base of the MTV show the Jersey Shore (15-35 year-olds with a Peter Pan complex) since Shore castmember Mike Sorrentino was also competing on the dance show. Dari Marder, Chief Marketing Officer for Iconix, Candies’ parent company, asked Bristol to talk to Mike about doing a spot for them. Continue Reading →