from Tales from the Trail:
Contraception question booed at Republican debate
A question about contraception caused a flareup in the culture wars during the last Republican presidential debate before next week's Arizona and Michigan primaries and "Super Tuesday."
The question drew boos from the audience and impassioned statements from the four candidates on the stage in Mesa, Arizona, last night.
"Since birth control is the latest hot topic, which candidate believes in birth control, and if not, why?" was the question posed via cnnpolitics.com.
It sparked a lengthy discourse by the candidates on religious freedom, contraception, and family structure. None of the White House hopefuls directly responded to the question.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has taken on the media in previous debates, said it was legitimate to question "the power of the government to impose on religion activities which any religion opposes," before questioning CNN moderator John King and zeroing in on Democrat Barack Obama.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney provided backup, saying Obama had launched "the worst attack on religious conscience in the history of the United States."
from Tales from the Trail:
Rick Santorum: birth control ruling has nothing to do with women’s rights
Forcing religious organizations to provide contraceptives has nothing to do with women's rights, Republican presidential contender and vocal Catholic Rick Santorum said on Thursday.
The comment aligned Santorum with a lineup of conservative critics bashing Democratic President Barack Obama's rule requiring religious institutions -- but not churches -- to provide health insurance plans that cover birth control.
The rule, announced in January, covers religious-affiliated groups like charities, hospitals and universities. The Catholic Church opposes most methods of birth control and conservatives have painted the rule as an attack on religious freedom from a secular president.
Speaking to CNN's John King, the former Pennsylvania senator said: "That's the Church's money, and forcing them to do something that they think is a grievous moral wrong. How can that be a right of a woman? That has nothing to do with the right of a woman."
Santorum bills himself as the only true conservative in the field of Republicans vying to win their party's nomination to challenge Obama in November. He's backed by evangelical leaders and social conservatives who admire his consistent and at times polemical stances on abortion and gay marriage. He swept nominating contests Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado on Tuesday buoyed by votes from social conservatives.
Better than expected economic news and the administration's move, which was initially viewed as a score for women's health advocates, have shifted the conversation of an election that most believed would be centered on the economy.
Conservative heavyweights including House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Texas Governor Rick Perry and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich have all warned of an attack on religious freedom coming from the White House. Obama also risks losing the votes of Catholics of whom he won 54 percent in 2008. On Thursday, the administration back-pedalled from its position, promising room for compromise but the groundwork for the attacks seems to have been laid.
How’s this for an attack on the church? I want to remove their tax-exempt status. If they want to involve themselves in politics rather than focusing on their stated mission to save souls, thar’s just fine with me. Let’s tax them. On any given Sunday, and this holds true for the mega-fundamentalist churches more than any, most of the “sermon” is instruction on the joys of the Republican Party and the tragedy of allowing the Democrates to grant more freedoms to more people who don’t happen to hold with the Conservative Rights oppressive social agenda. Fine but that’s not the reasons given to justify tax-exemption. I am so sick of the churches duplicity and wonder what Christ thinks about their message of exclusion and ill-disguised Hate.
Condoms still banned for birth control: Vatican
Pope Benedict’s acknowledgement that using condoms may be justified to stop the spread of AIDS did not signify a change in the Catholic Church’s ban on their use as contraception, the Vatican said Tuesday.
In a statement, the Vatican’s doctrinal department said there had been “erroneous interpretations” of the pope’s words which had caused confusion concerning the Church’s views on sexual morality. In a book published last month entitled “Light of the World”, the pope used the example of a prostitute to say there were cases where using a condom to avoid transmitting HIV could be justified as a “first step” toward moralization, even though condoms were “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.”
Liberal Catholics welcomed the comments in the book but the conservative wing of the Church expressed concern and Tuesday’s statement appeared partly aimed at reassuring them.
The two-page statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (click here for full text in six languages) said the pope’s words on condoms had been “repeatedly manipulated for ends and interests which are entirely foreign to the meaning of his words.”
“The idea that anyone could deduce from the words of Benedict XVI that it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, to use condoms to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is completely arbitrary and is in no way justified either by his words or in his thought.”
Read the full report here. For more on a debate among theologians about Benedict’s comments, see Sandro Magister’s “Sexual Ethics. Six Professors Discuss the Ratzinger Case.”
Lively debate among Catholics interpreting pope’s condom remarks
Pope Benedict’s surprising view that condoms can sometimes be used to fight AIDS has kindled a lively debate among Roman Catholic theologians and commentators about whether this amounts to a change in Church thinking.
His comments and a Vatican clarification that expanded on them seem to leave no doubt that Benedict has spoken with unprecedented frankness for a pontiff and shifted the focus a bit from the Church’s rejection of condoms to avoid disease.
But the format of his remarks — in a book of interviews with a German journalist rather than an official Vatican document — and some confusion over translations have opened a gap allowing divergent interpretations.
Conservative Catholic bloggers have reacted with dismay — one put the book title “Light of the World” over a cartoon of Pandora opening her box and letting the world’s evils escape.
“I love the Holy Father very much, he is a deeply holy man and has done a great deal for the Church. On this particular issue, I disagree with him,” wrote Rev. Tim Finigan on his blog The Hermeutic of Continuity. The pope’s U.S. publisher, Rev. Joseph Fessio, declared: “The pope did not ‘justify’ condom use in any circumstances. And Church teaching remains the same as it has always been — both before and after the pope’s statement.”
Those who have long argued for allowing condoms as a last resort welcomed the new approach. “The Vatican has been so critical of condoms that it has led some Catholics to think that condoms are somehow intrinsically evil, that there is no conceivable situation where they could be used morally,” said Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center in Washington. “The pope’s new statement blasts that idea out of the water.”
Christian Terras, normally a sharp critic of Benedict in his dissident French Catholic magazine Golias, called the tone of the pope’s approach “more human and pastoral, closer to the people, less professorial and cerebral.”
Pope book breaks ice on Catholic view on condoms
The big surprise with Pope Benedict’s new book is not that he believes the Catholic Church can permit condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS in some circumstances, but that he took so long to say so.
Quotes from a new book of interviews with him made headlines around the world and some commentators went overboard by saying the Roman Catholic Church had made a sudden about-face on birth control and finally caught up with modern society.
A close reading of those quotes shows the pontiff not breaking from past teachings but thinking his way through the issue with logic dating back to the 13th century Saint Thomas Aquinas. He concludes that condom use, while still wrong, can be a lesser evil in certain circumstances.
Many Catholic theologians came to the same conclusion years ago and some priests in Africa privately advise this if the alternative is infection, for example to a woman whose HIV-positive husband demands sex.
But this is the first time a pope has publicly said it. The issue has been a minefield for popes and successive attempts to explain Church policy have backfired, as Benedict himself found out on a visit to Africa last year.
New on-line forum seeks “common ground” on abortion
A new on-line forum launched on Tuesday seeks to spark discussion among faith and secular leaders and activists about ways to find some elusive common ground on the divisive issue of abortion.
It’s being rolled out by RH Reality Check, which focuses on reproductive health and rights issues, and can be seen here.
The initial posts include contributions from David Gushee of Mercer University, a leading intellectual figure in the emerging “evangelical center movement,” Katie Paris of Faith in Public Life, and Steven Waldman of Beliefnet.
Paris says in her blog that common ground on abortion can surely be found. After all, people from different faith traditions and sides of the political spectrum have come together on issues like climate change and torture.
Waldman says that his “common ground fantasy” would involve “a pro-life leader standing up and declaring, ‘We will be open to looking at family planning efforts, including contraception, to reduce the number of abortions.’ This would be followed by a pro-choicer saying, ’we accept that society would be better if there were fewer abortions.’”
There are already land mines there. The Catholic Church for one is unlikely to drop its opposition to birth control. And some abortion rights supporters don’t want to give any ground that they feel could show they have moral qualms with abortion.
Thanks so much for the post about our new section on RH Reality Check. Cristina Page, an accomplished author and commentator, is moderating this section of our site. The national dialogue, under President Obama, is now focused on common ground and our publication is devoted to providing a forum for this discussion. We believe it is important to ensure that these conversations take place. We may have no idea of the outcome but hosting a dialogue now, in the wake of Dr. Tiller’s murder, is critical. Thanks for the post and I agree – at least people talking!
Amie Newman
Managing Editor, RH Reality Check
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has taken on the media in previous debates, said it was legitimate to question “the power of the government to impose on religion activities which any religion opposes,””
So then I guess Gingrich shouldn’t have any problems granting Muslims an exemption from the personal mandate section of PPACA, right?