May 2008

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

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

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

Condoms4Life is an unprecedented worldwide public education effort to raise public awareness about the devastating effect of the bishopsâ ban on condoms. The campaign was launched on World AIDS Day 2001 with the display of billboards and ads in subways and newspapers saying, âBanning Condoms Kills.â? 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.

Listen as Bill Albert, the deputy director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and the author of â51%: Latinas and Teen Pregnancyâ? in the latest issue of Conscience, describes recent trends in the Latina teen pregnancy rate and the barriers to reducing that rate in the future.

To read the article available online, please visit the Conscience homepage.
To subscribe to the magazine, click here.

Listen as Catholics for a Free Choice analyzes the World Congress of Families (May 11-13, 2007), an international gathering of extreme--and extremely out-of-touch--anti-choice groups in Warsaw, Poland.  A Catholics for a Free Choice associate attended the conference and provided first hand reports and analysis of what turned out to be an underwhelming event. 

For full coverage of the event and to read daily reports, visit Catholics for a Free Choice Opposition Watch: World Congress on Families.

Listen as Jon O'Brien, President of Catholics for a Free Choice, discusses the importance of preventing unwanted pregnancies as the best means of reducing the need for abortion--something that the majority of Americans and American Catholics, regardless of where they identify themselves on the issue of abortion, support. 

His remarks are from an OpEd published in the May 4, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Reporter.   

Many people have applauded recent pronouncements that signal a possible modest change in the Vaticanâs policy. Some officials have said the Vatican is considering the possibility of allowing married heterosexual couples where partners are at risk of using condoms. Other equal powerful Vatican officials have said this change is not possible. Ultimately it will be up to the Pope â and if history is any predictor, he will veto change.

Listen to CFFC president Frances Kissling make the case for changing the Vaticanâs opposition to the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS, even for married couples when one partner is infected. (This podcast was originally released on RHRealityCheck.org.)

Thoughtful, honest and at times provocative, Frances and Kavita explore issues ranging from peace to economic security to the challenges of fundamentalism.  Questioning the role and relevance of the women's movement today, they discuss what it means to be a feminist today, some of the differences (and similarities) for women in the Global North and South and even the role for men.