"Big Latex Tent" Proposal for the Vatican

In November of last year, Mark Shea commented on blogger David Kuo ("Very Encouraging Editorial") saying that he "seems like the real deal" as a Christian who is "starting to look at putting discipleship to Jesus, rather than power, first." Mark ends by saying he's "going to keep an eye on this Kuo guy".

Well, I know Mark is busy, blogging, working on books, films, etc. So I'm taking up some of the slack in terms of keeping an eye on the "Kuo guy". A month or so ago he wrote the following on his blog:

Yesterday ubermodel Giselle Bundchen spoke out against the Catholic church's condom ban during Rio's Fashion Week. That isn't terribly surprising. I'm with her and we both may be with an increasing number of people inside the Vatican who are questioning the policy - possibly even the Pope. I find it horrifying that condoms that can save lives throughout the world are spiritually banned. [italics mine]

(I removed Kuo's link to the 26-year-old model's home page. A Google image search of her last name will yield a page of near occasions of sin for most red-blooded males and that's with the safe-search option on.)

I'll opt to not pick on the tender age of Ms. Bundchen. St. Catherine of Siena, a model of sanctity, wasn't much older when she famously advised Gregory XI on moving back to the old 'hood.

But in regards to the advisory content of this other model, we should recall what we learned from Sesame Street years ago, i.e., "one of these things is not like the other." This wasn't prudential advice regarding the proper Papal residence, this is a matter of moral doctrine and the church's teaching on human sexuality. Someone who sells her body for big bucks to big business wouldn't be the first person I'd ask to comment on the topic, even though like many models, her mouth seems to be disproportionately big. No doubt she is a big commentator on moral theology among the runway crowd.

But we must go back to Mr. Kuo, who has often been characterized as a Christian conservative involved in politics who is both more Christian and more conservative than many others like, say, the Bush administration for whom he used to work. Last fall he was all over talk radio and 60 minutes expressing sadness that the White House seemed to have jettisoned the whole Faith-based Initiative thingy, which was his specialty, shortly after 9/11. (Does everyone here remember 9/11? I thought you might. Yeah, that 9/11.)

This obviously doesn't stop him from asking the Pope to jettison Catholic teaching in favor of what one might term the Gospel of the Almighty Condom. (Hey, that can be entry number one in the Pauli lexicon!) I'm not sure he doesn't realize how much he is wasting his time or whether the whole thing is his method of climbing aboard the "It's-all-the-Catholic-Churches-fault" bandwagon, and he doesn't expect the Church to change. Assuming he is sincere, sure, the Vatican has said "We'll take a look at the issue," but it's the same Vatican that issued this document highlighting the "condom failure" among other matters both moral and practical. So bloggers and super-models shouldn't hold their breath for a big change on the teaching.

But let's look at this practically. Africa has this horrible AIDS problem, spread by irresponsible multiple-partner sex which is condemned by the Catholic Church, and we're supposed to believe that if the Vatican changes it's teaching that guys will start wrapping it up? I. Don't. Think. So.

"I find it horrifying that condoms that can save lives throughout the world are spiritually banned." I've been out of the blogging loop as of late, so I don't know if Mr. Kuo has been taken to task on this by his Catholic or once-Catholic friends in the blogosphere already. I would place the J-Walker in the camp of conservatives that criticize other conservatives more often than they do liberals. That's OK, but I think because of this, they should undergo the same level of scrutiny when they stray from what is Christian or conservative, or in this case, even what is sensible.

UPDATE: I started writing this post almost a month ago. More recently, Mr. Kuo has demonstrated that he has his own brand of the last acceptable prejudice:

At a time when the Christian church faces extraordinary opportunity and extraordinary peril, it appears the pope has decided to fiddle in matters of minutia.

Why is it necessary to slap protestant denominations across the face? Why is it necessary to belittle their churches and their history and their love for Christ?

This feels like the equivalent of President Bush commuting v. pardoning Scooter Libby....

I wonder; is the "fiddle" comment supposed to evoke images of the Emperor Nero? Unclear. But this is a good clarification of his view of the Catholic Church, if nothing else. The Pope is obviously supposed to supply "bread and circuses" (and condoms) and not mess around with, you know, all this "theology junk" that no one really cares about.