{"id":827,"date":"2008-07-25T15:02:55","date_gmt":"2008-07-25T15:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir.php"},"modified":"2008-07-25T15:02:55","modified_gmt":"2008-07-25T15:02:55","slug":"catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir","title":{"rendered":"Catholics to Pope: Lift the Birth Control Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press<\/strong><br \/>\nVatican City &#8211; More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have written an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church&#8217;s ban on birth control.<br \/>\nTaking a half-page ad in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the groups said Friday that the Church&#8217;s ban on artificial birth control has had &#8220;catastrophic effects,&#8221; particularly in the fight against AIDS.<br \/>\nThe Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the accusation was &#8220;clearly unfounded&#8221; and insisted the Church is active in combating AIDS.<br \/>\nThe groups published their appeal on the 40th anniversary of the 1968 encyclical &#8220;Humanae Vitae&#8221; (&#8220;On Human Life&#8221;) &#8211; the document issued by Pope Paul VI that prohibits Catholics from using artificial contraception.<br \/>\nThe initiative was spearheaded by Catholics for Choice, a Washington based pro-choice advocacy group, but the letter was signed by organizations from countries across the Americas and Europe.<br \/>\nThe ban on contraception &#8220;has had catastrophic effects on the poor and weak of the whole world, putting in danger the lives of women and exposing millions of people to the risk of contracting HIV,&#8221; the letter published in Corriere said.<br \/>\nIt urged Benedict to begin a &#8220;reform process,&#8221; saying that, especially in poor countries, the Church was using its influence to block family planning programs and condom distributions.<br \/>\nLombardi denounced the ad &#8220;as paid propaganda for the use of contraceptives.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Policies against AIDS based mainly on the distribution of condoms have largely failed,&#8221; Lombardi said in a statement. &#8220;The answer to AIDS requires deeper and more complex interventions, in which the Church is active on many fronts.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Vatican City &#8211; More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have written an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church&#8217;s ban on birth control. Taking a half-page ad in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the groups said Friday that the Church&#8217;s ban on artificial birth control&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Catholics to Pope: Lift the Birth Control Ban<\/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\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Catholics to Pope: Lift the Birth Control Ban\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Vatican City &#8211; More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have written an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church&#8217;s ban on birth control. Taking a half-page ad in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the groups said Friday that the Church&#8217;s ban on artificial birth control&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-25T15:02:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Catholics to Pope: Lift the Birth Control Ban","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\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Catholics to Pope: Lift the Birth Control Ban","og_description":"Associated Press Vatican City &#8211; More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have written an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church&#8217;s ban on birth control. Taking a half-page ad in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the groups said Friday that the Church&#8217;s ban on artificial birth control&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-07-25T15:02:55+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir","name":"Catholics to Pope: Lift the Birth Control Ban","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-07-25T15:02:55+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-25T15:02:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/catholics-to-pope-lift-the-bir#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Catholics to Pope: Lift the Birth Control Ban"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?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\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}