Ross Douthat criticizes Dan Brown’s writing as theologically dangerous:

In the Brownian worldview, all religions — even Roman Catholicism — have the potential to be wonderful, so long as we can get over the idea that any one of them might be particularly true. It’s a message perfectly tailored for 21st-century America, where the most important religious trend is neither swelling unbelief nor rising fundamentalism, but the emergence of a generalized “religiousness” detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.

But Dan Brown peddles in modernity, not in theology.  Religions, to Brown, are not wonderful because they’re spiritual.  I doubt he’d like Echart Tolle and Deepak Chopra any more than John Paul II.  Instead, Brown think religions are wonderful because they can unite people for other purposes.  The idea is not to unite the world behind a spirituality that can enhance their lives, but rather to unite the world behind any banner that can create political change towards a international governance.  Dan Brown is, ultimately, hoping to mix church and state to this end.

Ross Douthat attacks the prevailing notion that the Church’s anti-condom policy hurts Africans.  I’d tend to agree with him, on the basis of the following two arguments.

First, the argument from adherence:

Premise 1: Only some (fairly religious) Catholics will follow the Pope’s suggestions on condoms.  Non-Catholics obviously will not.

Premise 2: As a tenet of Catholicism, premarital abstinence falls much higher on the heirarchy than condom use.  The types of Catholics who will know the Pope’s teachings on the matter will be far more likely than average to live a lifestyle of premarital abstinence.

Conclusion: People will not have unprotected sex with multiple partners because of anything the Pope said.

To blame the Pope for the spread of AIDS is like a teenager blaming his parents for buying him a car when you get drunk and hop behind the wheel  – it’s pretty obvious that selectively following the rules leads to ruin.

Second, the argument from culture:

Premise 1: The availability of condoms (and other contraception) contributed to the widening of the so-called sexual revolution and normalized the maintenance of multiple sexual partners.

Conclusion 1: Cultural barriers to engaging in high-risk sexual behaviors – such as societal disapproval and community ostracism – have been lowered as an effect of the availability of condoms and contraception.

Conclusion 2: The normalization of high-risk sexual behaviors has encouraged the spread of HIV/AIDS.