Pope ok’s condoms.
by Pia on November 20, 2010
Now that I’ve got your attention, please buy a copy of the new book Light of the World, an interview of B16 by Peter Seewald, and find out for yourself. In addition to the question of condoms, you’ll also find that Benedict is an incredibly interesting and deep leader.
So, here’s the scoop. L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper (where I once worked), broke the embargo on the book and published some excerpts. Of course, if there’s something to do with sex and anything Catholic, you can be sure that it will get attention.
In a detailed section on the question of the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, the Pope gave the following response:
“There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”
So, to clarify, he’s not endorsing condoms. He’s saying that it could be the first step of a particular individual to realize that their action is wrong. His example of a male prostitute is very particular. The Church doesn’t believe that male prostitution is a good thing; so it’s not going to endorse anything that would facilitate the behavior even if it’s ostensibly with the good intention of protecting one’s self or another. That good intention doesn’t change the nature of the behavior itself.
Here are the two questions that relate to the matter of condoms, pp 117-119. There’s a lot to unpack here. Stay tuned:
On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican’s policy on Aids once again became the target of media criticism. Twenty-five percent of all Aids victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.
The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on Aids. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim. Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many Aids victims, especially children with Aids.
I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering. In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.
As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.
There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.
Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?
She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
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Tarcisio Santos de Salles November 20, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Very good article Pia. Congratulations!
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Red November 20, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Hi,
What the Pope said about condom use among prostitutes should not surprise anyone. It has always been part of the official teaching of the Catholic Church. It is not a departure nor an exemption.
Please read these:
http://catholicposition.blog…spot.com/2010/10/why-p-noy-should-go-on-with-his.html
http://catholicposition.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-is-contraception-necessary-outside.html
http://catholicposition.blogspot.com/2010/10/morality-of-giving-emergency.html
Please read the comments page of each of these posts so that you can see where the exchanges of info is going.
I am very thankful that the Pope has already spoken!
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Red November 20, 2010 at 8:35 pm
I’m sorry, the first link is wrong.
Here is the correct one:
http://catholicposition.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-p-noy-should-go-on-with-his.html
Thanks!
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Lurker #59 November 20, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Dr. Pia,
The English text that you are using here in reguards to the quotation differs from the English text that the AP is using. Could you tell me where exactly you are taking the English from? Is it directly from the English of the book as it will be published?
AP text
“There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be … a first bit of responsibility, to re-develop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes,”
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Pia November 20, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Pia November 20, 2010 at 10:54 pm
I’m taking it from the advance copy that I have from Ignatius which is publishing the English translation. The AP text is probably a journalist’s translation of the Italian used in the text published by L’Osservatore Romano today (Saturday). Or it’s something that they picked up from other outlets.
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Lurker #59 November 20, 2010 at 11:45 pm
@Dr. Pia
Thanks! That is what I was figuring.
Do you happen to have, or know how to get the origional German for the passage in question? The OR source is using guistaficati which the AP is using to translated at justified and thus creating the whole mess and the headlines of “Pope justifies condom usage”. The earlier AP articles today that I read did not quote the Pontiff directly as using the term justifed, but the later modified articles today use the direct quote that I gave above, which is coming I assume from a journalist’s translation of the Italian in the OR source. Your official English is “a basis”. The question now is “What is the German term?”
The mess is being largely drummed up on the usage of the term “justified”. If we can show that the OR and, thus, the AP are incorrect translations of the German, then this mess can be resolved much easier.
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