{"id":308,"date":"2010-11-22T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html"},"modified":"2010-11-22T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-22T08:00:00","slug":"popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html","title":{"rendered":"Pope&#8217;s Comments on Condoms Confuse Catholics, Correspondents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Benedict attempted to clarify the Catholic Church&#8217;s anti-condom policy in a recent interview with a German journalist over the weekend, but only seems to have caused more confusion.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, the pontiff affirmed the Vatican&#8217;s stance against artificial contraception (condoms, birth control pills, etc.) but also said there <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/religion\/2010-11-20-pope-condoms_N.htm?csp=34&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+Religion-TopStories+(News+-+Religion+-+Top+Stories)\">are extremely isolated situations <\/a>&#8212; citing the example of an AIDS-infected&nbsp;male prostitute, aiming to prevent disease rather than pregnancy&nbsp;&#8212; where condoms could be considered a lesser evil. However, this is <em>not <\/em>a change in church policy, though the initial reports prompted cheers from <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/nm\/20101121\/ts_nm\/us_pope_book\">AIDS activists, health officials and&nbsp;progressive Catholics<\/a>, and<a href=\"http:\/\/www.getreligion.org\/2010\/11\/a-vatican-condom-conversion\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+getreligion\/DmXm+(GetReligion)\"> a GetReligion post criticizing media outlets for misinterpreting the original interview.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>David Gibson <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politicsdaily.com\/2010\/11\/20\/pope-oks-condoms-in-some-cases-cites-use-by-male-prostitutes-av\/\">explains at Politics Daily<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>But Catholic teaching has never totally barred the use of condoms to protect people from contracting the HIV virus that causes AIDS. And the Vatican has never issued a formal pronouncement on the matter other than to stress that abstinence is always the best means of prevention, even if it that is often impractical. Earlier this year the Vatican said it had shelved a study to determine whether, or what, Rome should say on the matter, deciding that it was preferable to leave the question open-ended, depending on the circumstances rather than making a blanket judgment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20101122\/ap_on_re_us\/pope_condoms_reaction\">the Associated Press <\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/ncronline.org\/blogs\/ncr-today\/pope-signals-nuance-condoms\">National Catholic Reporter <\/a>for more on this story:<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Benedict attempted to clarify the Catholic Church&#8217;s anti-condom policy in a recent interview with a German journalist over the weekend, but only seems to have caused more confusion. Basically, the pontiff affirmed the Vatican&#8217;s stance against artificial contraception (condoms, birth control pills, etc.) but also said there are extremely isolated situations &#8212; citing the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pope&#039;s Comments on Condoms Confuse Catholics, Correspondents - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pope&#039;s Comments on Condoms Confuse Catholics, Correspondents - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pope Benedict attempted to clarify the Catholic Church&#8217;s anti-condom policy in a recent interview with a German journalist over the weekend, but only seems to have caused more confusion. Basically, the pontiff affirmed the Vatican&#8217;s stance against artificial contraception (condoms, birth control pills, etc.) but also said there are extremely isolated situations &#8212; citing the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-22T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pope's Comments on Condoms Confuse Catholics, Correspondents - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pope's Comments on Condoms Confuse Catholics, Correspondents - Belief Beat","og_description":"Pope Benedict attempted to clarify the Catholic Church&#8217;s anti-condom policy in a recent interview with a German journalist over the weekend, but only seems to have caused more confusion. Basically, the pontiff affirmed the Vatican&#8217;s stance against artificial contraception (condoms, birth control pills, etc.) but also said there are extremely isolated situations &#8212; citing the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-11-22T08:00:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html","name":"Pope's Comments on Condoms Confuse Catholics, Correspondents - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-11-22T08:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-11-22T08:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/11\/popes-comments-on-condoms-confuse-catholics-correspondents.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pope&#8217;s Comments on Condoms Confuse Catholics, Correspondents"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}