John Allen's work is usually well-balanced, and I think his article on AIDS covers the matter quite well. Yes, there are people in the Catholic church who have some extreme ideas about condoms. Yes, the Catholic Church opposed the use of condoms as birth control devices. But if people wouldn't make an issue out of it and wouldn't try to push the Church into total acceptance and promotion of condoms, it wouldn't be an issue. The "Abstain, Be faithful, Use a Condom" (ABC) approach seems to be a pretty reasonable compromise.

I think sometimes people on both sides get too focused on winning that they forget what it is they are trying to accomplish. The goal here is to prevent AIDS and overpopulation, not to probe the Catholic Church is wrong and evil. There's a need to seek middle ground here, not to destroy the opposition.

Same with the abortion issue. The goal of the pro-choice movement is to reduce the number of unwanted babies, not to increase the number of abortions. The goal of the pro-life movement is to reduce the number of abortions, not to increase the number of unwanted babies. Each side has gotten bound up in seeking to defeat and destroy the other side, so no progress is made toward either of these laudable goals.

Another thought came to me last night. As Wilfried said above, Ratzinger is a conservative, not a fundamentalist. This may have some surprising results for Catholic fundamentalists. In what I consider a mistaken quest for unity, John Paul II tolerated and even appeared to encourage the flawed theology, judgmentalism, bigotry, and anti-intellectualism of the Catholic fundamentalists. The Catholic fundamentalists have spent a huge amount of money on media and propaganda, establishing universities and broadcasting networks to spread their distorted message. The fundamentalists have a stranglehold on Catholic broadcasting in the United States, and they have done much the same wherever there are Catholics. Ratzinger is an intellectual and a rigorous proponent of theology that is conventional but sound. He is not likely to tolerate the extremes of the Catholic fundamentalists, and this may have the surprising effect of giving the Catholics Church a much more moderate image than it currently has.

So, we'll wait and see.

-Joe Offer-