Selling Safer Sex, Selling Celibacy

Two Catholic reform groups, Condoms4Life and World Youth Day for All, presented a series of ads at World Youth Day that drew attention around the world. My favorite of these ads are the ones that show loving couples with the words "We believe in God. We believe that sex is sacred. We believe in caring for each other. We believe in using condoms." These ads link faith with respectful dissent, bring respect for sexuality to the public square and promote the core pro-condom message, a lovely hat trick that Catholics for a Free Choice, the sponsoring organization, should be proud of. Social conservatives called these ads tasteless.

I had a similarly negative reaction to the ad at right, which is currently being used in the Indianapolis diocese to promote vocations to the priesthood (see Catholic Online: "A La Matrix, Vocations Recruitment Poster Shows Priest As Hero." It's skilled marketing, for sure: it's generated buzz and suggests that the product--priesthood--will make you look cool. Something about the whole idea of selling what should be a sacred call from God seems off to me, but sometimes in this society it's necessary to counter-sell just to treat water in public opinion, and the three-tiered cakewalk of married life and the rakish joys of singlehood are pitched pretty strongly by pop culture. Fine. Given, though, that we have to sell vocations, why produce something that looks like the poster for a movie where the priest defeats demons with his magical rosary, and then uses his cross to fend off all the pretty girls who fall in love with him . . . ? In a church sadly cognizant of clergy sex abuse, never mind a church which theoretically values the Vatican II model of servant leadership, why does the promo priest have a halo?

Please share your opinions--take a look around the Condoms4Life site, as I had more ambivalent reactions to some of their other ads. Which of these ad campaigns--condom users vs. Father Nemo--do you think is more effective, and which promotes a better image of your idea of Catholicism?