Elizabeth Arnold travels to the Vatican to explore the Holy See's foreign policy machinery.  Joining Jon O'Brien, President of Catholics for Choice, were guests Mary Ann Glendon, US Ambassador to the Holy See; Francis Campbell, British Ambassador to the Holy See; Father Thomas Reese, Senior Research Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University; and Massimo Franco, political columnist for the Italian daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera.

May 2008

This is the fourth and final podcast in a series of four podcasts from a telephone conference call launching a new Catholics for Choice publication.  Truth and Consequence—A Look behind the Vatican's Ban on Contraception reflects on 40 years of Humanae Vitae, the Vatican document that cemented the ban on contraception.

This week's speaker is Mary Hunt, feminist theologian and co-director of Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual.

This is the third in a series of four podcasts of a telephone conference call launching a new Catholics for Choice publication.Truth and Consequence—A Look behind the Vatican's Ban on Contraception reflects on 40 years of Humanae Vitae, the Vatican document that cemented the ban on contraception. This week Daniel Maguire, Professor of Moral Theological Ethics at Marquette University, speaks on the difference between Catholic theology and Vatican theology.

This is the second installment of four podcasts from a telephone conference call launching a new Catholics for Choice publication. Truth and Consequence—A Look behind the Vatican's Ban on Contraception reflects on 40 years of Humanae Vitae, the Vatican document that cemented the ban on contraception.

Today, we feature noted feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, a professor at the Graduate Theological Union at the Pacific School of Religion.

On the eve of the pope's visit to the United States, Catholics for Choice organized a telephone conference call with four noted Catholic theologians to launch a new publication examining the impact of 40 years of Humanae Vitae, the Vatican document that cemented the ban on contraception. Truth and Consequence—A look behind the Vatican's ban on contraception reflects on a defining moment in modern church history.

Over the next few weeks, we will be posting podcasts of the four theologians’ contributions. We start with Anthony Padovano, a distinguished professor and author of twenty-eight books.

For World AIDS Day 2007, Catholics for Choice commissioned the Washington, DC, polling firm, Belden Russonello & Stewart, to carry out polls in five countries on four continents about Catholic attitudes towards the use of condoms. The polls were done in the United States, Ireland, Ghana, Mexico and the Philippines.

Condoms4Life is an unprecedented worldwide public education effort to raise public awareness about the devastating effect of the bishops’ ban on condoms. The campaign was launched on World AIDS Day 2001 with the display of billboards and ads in subways and newspapers saying, “Banning Condoms Kills.� The campaign is sponsored by Catholics for Choice, our partners in Europe and Latin America and colleagues in Africa and Asia.

Nancy Belden, a pollster from Belden Russonello & Stewart, talks here about the survey results with the Condoms4Life campaign coordinator, Marissa Valeri.

For more information, please visit www.CatholicsforChoice.org.