So, before I can check out the other Italian reports 'excerpting' from THE BOOK, I have to take note of this first rather misleading brouhaha over the excerpts that have appeared so far! P.S. It turns out the uther Italian reports were all re-teporting the passages published by OR, so I have not lost anything.
Here is what AFP reported - limiting itself to the condom issue:
Pope softens stand on condoms
BERLIN, Nov, 20 (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI says that condom use is acceptable “in certain cases”, notably “to reduce the risk of infection” with HIV, in a book due out Tuesday, apparently softening his once hardline stance.
In a series of interviews published in his native German, the 83-year-old Benedict is asked whether “the Catholic Church is not fundamentally against the use of condoms.”
“It of course does not see it as a real and moral solution,” the Pope replies.
“In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality,” said the head of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics.
The new volume, entitled “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times”, is based on 20 hours of interviews conducted by German journalist Peter Seewald.
Until now, the Vatican had prohibited the use of any form of contraception — other than abstinence — even as a guard against sexually transmitted disease.
Benedict sparked international outcry in March 2009 on a visit to AIDS-ravaged Africa when he told reporters the disease was a tragedy “that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”
To illustrate his apparent shift in position, Benedict offered the example of a male prostitute using a condom.
“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,” Benedict was quoted as saying.
“But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection.”
Benedict reiterated that condom use alone would not solve the problem of HIV/AIDS. “More must happen,” he said.
“Becoming simply fixated on the issue of condoms makes sexuality more banal and exactly this is the reason why so many people no longer find sexuality to be an expression of their love, but a type of self-administered drug.”
To which Damian Thompson posts an immediate reaction:
Pope Benedict's extraordinary comments
about condoms and HIV reflect
his charity and common sense
November 20th, 2010
The news is confirmed: Pope Benedict XVI is modifying the Catholic Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms. In doing so, however, he is not radically departing from Church teaching but, rather, helping to clear up years of disastrous confusion relating to the specific area of condoms and AIDS.
The Pope’s comments, in an interview to be published on Tuesday, are wise, humane, carefully balanced – and another reminder of the 83-year-old pontiff’s ability to surprise the world by refusing to conform to the stereotype of “hardline conservative”.
Benedict XVI is not contradicting the teaching of Paul VI’s encyclical
Humanae Vitae that the use of artificial birth control is wrong. But, on the basis of the reports published this afternoon, he is softening its application in circumstances that could not possibly have been anticipated in 1968.
Contrary to media reports, it has never been entirely clear whether the Church forbids the use of condoms to stop the spread of HIV. Is it a sin to use a condom where not using one would condemn one partner to the horrors of HIV infection?
Statements by leading clergymen, including African archbishops, have indicated that the Church’s answer was “yes” – but several cardinals strongly disagree.
In a controversial interview en route to Africa in March 2009, the Pope appeared to sign with hardliners when he suggested that the use of condoms helped to spread AIDS in the continent.
The science behind that claim is contested, to put it mildly [But you are wrong, Mr. Thompson - he did not say that condoms helped spread AIDS - he said condoms were not an aswer to preventing AIDS bur rather added to the problem (he did not say so, but the rationale in al the epidemiological studies which have shown this is so - the science is not contested - is that condoms give its users a false sense of security, when it is not failproof, and the economics of condom giveaways in the Third World has often resulted in entire batches of condoms that have become defective due to poor storage conditions and other factors], and the Vatican seemed shocked by the almost universally hostile response it produced.
Actually, it was not certain even then that Benedict XVI had come to a fixed view on the subject, and the interview to be published on Tuesday indicates that he has been giving the matter deep thought.
His comments to Peter Seewald reaffirm his belief that the use of condoms is not “the answer” to AIDS – but he goes on to say that “in certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality”.
He also says: “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 redevelop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes. But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection.”
Arguably, the subtlety of this moral judgment simultaneously pulls the rug from under the feet of certain Catholic conservatives (who oppose any softening of the line on condoms) and liberals (who want Church teaching drastically changed to permit condoms within marriage).
We shall have to wait to see how the Pope expounds his views – but the common sense reading of these remarks is that he regards the use of a condom as a lesser evil than the transmission of an infection that he rightly describes as a “horror”.
If that is Benedict’s considered opinion, then I suspect that only a small minority of the faithful will disagree with him. The argument that it is better to infect someone with a deadly virus than to use a condom is a cruel misjudgment, particularly when it is backed up by pseudoscience claiming that the virus can jump through holes in the rubber.
The core of Catholic teaching on contraception – that artificial birth control interferes with God’s purpose – remains intact, as the Pope certainly intends it to. He upholds the teaching of Paul VI and John Paul II that sex should take place only between a married man and woman and must be free of artificial contraceptive devices.
But today’s news does raise one intriguing question. Would the Polish Pope, who consistently sounded a stern note on matters of sexuality, have adjusted the application of Church teaching in this fashion? It is, shall we say, hard to imagine him doing so.
UGHhhh! So much speculation already... I've always personally believed that individual Catholics have to settle questions like contraception and life support with the help of their confessor. One size cannot fit all in these matters - in fact, each case is very specific and personal - and unless one intends to make a habit of contraception or euthanasia, there may be cases of force majeure that will demand a heroic exercise of judgment that should, however, remain private between the individual and his/her confessor.
However, when one of two spouses is infected with HIV, I don't consider it force majeure that can justify using a condom, because the obvious alternative is abstinence, which is what the Church preaches in such cases. So IMHO, I would dispute anyone who would interpret what the Pope said to mean that he thinks it is all right for condoms to be used in such a case.
John Allen, who has been 'absent' since the trip to Spain and even about this weekend consistory and pre-consistory, has quickly jumped into the condom tempest, and offers some background on Church 'study' about the use of condoms when one of the spouses has HIV:
Pope signals nuance on condoms
by John L Allen Jr
Nov. 20, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI has signaled that
in some limited cases, where the intent is to prevent the transmission of disease rather than to prevent pregnancy, the use of condoms might be morally justified.
[That's quite a leap from what the Pope was quoted as saying about its use by a prostitute as a first act of self-awareness! I stand by my translation of the Italian statements as reported by both RV and OR, which does not imply any of that at all. Perhaps the original German does? Since AFP was reporting from Berlin, one assumes they were translating from the German... And it is strange that Allen uses AFP's quotes when he cites the OR as the source for the quotsation.]
While that position is hardly new, in the sense that a large number of Catholic theologians and even a special Vatican commission requested by Benedict XVI, have endorsed it, this is the first time the Pope himself has publicly espoused such a view.
The comments do not yet rise to the level of official Church teaching, but they do suggest that Benedict might be open to such a development.
The comments from Benedict come in a book-length interview with German journalist Peter Seewald titled
Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times, published in English by Ignatius Press.
Excerpts from the Seewald interview were published today by
L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.
The question of condoms arises in chapter eleven, in the context of Benedict’s March 2009 journey to Africa. That trip was largely overshadowed by controversy over comments the Pontiff made to reporters aboard the papal plane, to the effect that condoms actually make the HIV/AIDS crisis worse.
Benedict is clearly still annoyed by that reaction, saying he felt he was being “provoked” by the question about condoms. The suggestion was that the Church is indifferent to HIV/AIDS, when in reality “the Church does more than anyone else,” Benedict says.
Benedict goes on to say that his point was simply that one cannot solve the problem of HIV/AIDS merely by distributing condoms, something that even secular AIDS experts would concede.
While broadly defending traditional Catholic teaching against artificial birth control, Benedict also suggests that in some limited instances the use of a condom might be morally defensible.
“In this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality,” the Pope says.
Benedict offers the example of a male prostitute. In that situation, he says, the use of a condom “can be a first step in the direction of 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.”
Beyond the question of prostitution, many mainstream Catholic moral theologians have also argued for the moral acceptability of condoms in the case of a married heterosexual couple where one partner is HIV-positive and the other is not. In that set of circumstances, theologians have argued, condoms would be acceptable since the aim is not to prevent new life, but to prevent infection.
Back in 2006, Benedict asked the Pontifical Council for the Health Care Pastoral under Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, who has since retired, to examine precisely that question.
Having polled the doctors and other health care professionals, as well as theologians, who consult with the council, Barragán presented the Pope with a tentatively positive response – that in the case of couples where one partner is infected with HIV and the other is not, condoms could be justified.
To date that position has not been officially codified, and some Vatican officials have said on background that they worry doing so would be seen publicly as a blanket endorsement of condoms.
Yet Benedict’s comments to Seewald suggest that the Pope himself is at least positively inclined to such a development.
[I don't know. Seeing as abstinence is officially the primary teaching of the Church in its AIDS prevention strategies, why would it not advocate it for an HIV-infected spouse????]
P.S.
I decided to break up the post and put the full excerpt of what the Pope said and what followed from that in a separate post - below the book review and interview with Seewald...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/11/2010 04:19]