MADRID, Spain, July 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The efforts of the U.S.-based pro-abortion group ‘Catholics for Choice’ to subvert Catholic sexual teaching at next month’s World Youth Day in Madrid experienced a major setback this week when their ads were rejected by a local advertising company.
At previous World Youth Days in Toronto and Cologne, Catholics for Choice has spread its message of dissent and distributed condoms to the young pilgrims.
The group had planned to run their Condoms4Life advertising campaign again on Madrid’s transport system, with a deceptive message thanking Pope Benedict XVI for “acknowledging that condoms save lives.”
But they say Publimedia, a Madrid advertising company, rejected the ads, which has the group now crying “censorship.”
“It appears that pressure has been applied to ensure these advertisements don’t run,” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, in a press release. “Whether that pressure came from the church hierarchy, conservative politicians or other forces, it is an outrageous infringement on free speech.”
“As Catholics, we were supporting Pope Benedict’s claim that condoms can save lives. This was a major breakthrough in the hierarchy’s position on the use of condoms,” he added. “How can it be offensive for Catholics to support the position of the pope?”
The claim capitalizes on the confusion among the faithful in November after Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on condoms appeared in Peter Seewald’s book-length interview, “The Light of the World.”
Contrary to Catholic for Choice’s assertion, however, the pope insisted that condoms are not a “real or moral solution” to the AIDS crisis, defending his 2009 statement in Africa that condoms are, in fact, detrimental to the fight against AIDS.
At the same time, the pope mused that the use of a condom by a male prostitute to avoid infecting his client could be “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility.”
The world’s media took the latter phrase as a sign that the pope was relaxing the Church’s traditional teaching against contraception, running headlines such as “Pope endorses limited use of condoms.” International bodies like the World Health Organization and UNAIDS praised the pope for making “a positive step forward.”
But in December, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reiterated that the pope did not approve the use of condoms for any reason, whether to prevent the spread of AIDS or for contraception in any circumstances.