ALL OF WHAT THE HOLY FATHER
REALLY SAID ABOUT CONDOMS
Here, from CWR, which is a publication of Ignatius Press, publisher of the English version of THE BOOK, is the full excerpt of what the Pope said.... Obviously, Ignatius anticipated that this particular answer would provoke fresh controversy:
An excerpt from Light of the World
From Chapter 11:
"The Journeys of a Shepherd," pages 117-119:
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
Dr. Janet Smith, one of the selected few who was given the book to review earlier, follows up with this discussion, for which she is eminently qualified:
Nov 21, 2010
We must note that the example that Pope Benedict gives for the use of a condom is a male prostitute; thus, it is reasonable to assume that he is referring to a male prostitute engaged in homosexual acts.
The Holy Father is simply observing that for some homosexual prostitutes the use of a condom may indicate an awakening of a moral sense; an awakening that sexual pleasure is not the highest value, but that we must take care that we harm no one with our choices.
He is not speaking to the morality of the use of a condom, but to something that may be true about the psychological state of those who use them. If such individuals are using condoms to avoid harming another, they may eventually realize that sexual acts between members of the same sex are inherently harmful since they are not in accord with human nature.
The Holy Father does not in any way think the use of condoms is a part of the solution to reducing the risk of AIDs. As he explicitly states, the true solution involves “humanizing sexuality.”
Anyone having sex that threatens to transmit HIV needs to grow in moral discernment. This is why Benedict focused on a “first step” in moral growth.
The Church is always going to be focused on moving people away from immoral acts towards love of Jesus, virtue, and holiness. We can say that the Holy Father clearly did not want to make a point about condoms, but wants to talk about growth in a moral sense, which should be a growth towards Jesus.
So is the Holy Father saying it is morally good for male prostitutes to use condoms? The Holy Father is not articulating a teaching of the Church about whether or not the use of a condom reduces the amount of evil in a homosexual sexual act that threatens to transmit HIV.
The Church has no formal teaching about how to reduce the evil of intrinsically immoral action. [That was my point about the underlying sin of prostitution in the example given.]
We must note that what is intrinsically wrong in a homosexual sexual act in which a condom is used is not the moral wrong of contraception but the homosexual act itself. In the case of homosexual sexual activity, a condom does not act as a contraceptive; it is not possible for homosexuals to contracept since their sexual activity has no procreative power that can be thwarted.
But the Holy Father is not making a point about whether the use of a condom is contraceptive or even whether it reduces the evil of a homosexual sexual act; again, he is speaking about the psychological state of some who might use condoms. The intention behind the use of the condom (the desire not to harm another) may indicate some growth in a sense of moral responsibility.
In
Familiaris Consortio (On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World), John Paul II spoke of the need for conversion, which often proceeds by gradual steps:
To the injustice originating from sin … we must all set ourselves in opposition through a conversion of mind and heart, following Christ Crucified by denying our own selfishness: such a conversion cannot fail to have a beneficial and renewing influence even on the structures of society.
What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while requiring an interior detachment from every evil and an adherence to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever forward. Thus a dynamic process develops, one which advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God and the demands of His definitive and absolute love in the entire personal and social life of man. (9)
Christ himself, of course, called for a turning away from sin. That is what the Holy Father is advocating here; not a turn towards condoms. Conversion, not condoms!
Would it be proper to conclude that the Holy Father would support the distribution of condoms to male prostitutes? Nothing he says here indicates that he would. Public programs of distribution of condoms run the risk of conveying approval for homosexual sexual acts.
The task of the Church is to call individuals to conversion and to moral behavior; it is to help them understand the meaning and purpose of sexuality and to help them come to know Christ, who will provide the healing and graces that enable us to live in accord with the meaning and purpose of sexuality.
Is Pope Benedict indicating that heterosexuals who have HIV could reduce the wrongness of their acts by using condoms? No. In his second answer he says that the Church does not find condoms to be a “real or moral solution.”
That means the Church does not find condoms either to be moral or an effective way of fighting the transmission of HIV. As the Holy Father indicates in his fuller answer, the most effective portion of programs designed to reduce the transmission of HIV are calls to abstinence and fidelity. [Well, I am glad I was not wrong about this!]
The Holy Father, again, is saying that the intention to reduce the transmission of any infection is a “first step” in a movement towards a more human way of living sexuality.
That more human way would be to do nothing that threatens to harm one’s sexual partner, who should be one’s beloved spouse. For an individual with HIV to have sexual intercourse with or without a condom is to risk transmitting a lethal disease.
An analogy: If someone was going to rob a bank and was determined to use a gun, it would better for that person to use a gun that had no bullets in it. It would reduce the likelihood of fatal injuries.
But it is not the task of the Church to instruct potential bank robbers how to rob banks more safely and certainly not the task of the Church to support programs of providing potential bank robbers with guns that could not use bullets.
Nonetheless, the intent of a bank robber to rob a bank in a way that is safer for the employees and customers of the bank may indicate an element of moral responsibility that could be a step towards eventual understanding of the immorality of bank robbing.
Dr. Janet E. Smith holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. She speaks nationally and internationally on Catholic teachings on sexuality and on bioethics, and has published numerous articles and several books on sexuality and bioethics. She is serving a third term as a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family. She is author of The Right to Privacy, a study of Roe v. Wade and related court cases.
In retrospect and having now seen the full excerpt about condoms, the OR should have run the entire excerpt - which is not rather brief, after all - instead of simply the short paragraph that it did. It might have anticipated the ruckus that the 'teaser' would raise and should have given the whole two-question set!
Finally, CNS's John Thavis, quoted in an omnibus article in Catholic Herald which makes use of Dr. Sith's article as well as that by John Allen, has a more sensible take on the issue, I think, than Allen:
John Thavis, another distinguished Vatican commentator, said: “These are nuanced comments, and
one should read the passage in full to gauge the Pope’s position. The Pope’s answer seems to invite follow-up questions.
“Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the Vatican has never proclaimed a ‘ban’ on condom use in AIDS prevention; on the contrary, some Vatican theologians and officials have argued that for married couples in which one partner is HIV-infected, use of condoms would be a moral responsibility.”
He added that
“despite journalistic hyperventilation” the Pope’s comments do not signal a major shift in Vatican thinking on condoms.
“What the Pope has done is to raise the issue publicly,” he said, “making clear that the Church’s teaching against condoms as a form of birth control is different from its position on condom use in disease prevention.”
Someone in the blogosphere - the super-sensible and ever-reliable Jimmy Akin - shares my misgivings about OR's excerpt of an excerpt, but he says it much better...
The Pope said WHAT???
about condoms????
Among the disservices L’Osservatore Romano performed by breaking the book’s embargo in the way it did was the fact that it only published a small part of the section in which Pope Benedict discussed condoms.
As a result, the reader could not see the context of his remarks, giving the reader no way to see the context and guaranteeing that the secular press would take the Pope’s remarks out of context (which they would have anyway, but perhaps not this much).
Especially egregious is the fact that L’Osservatore Romano omits material in which Benedict clarified his statement on condoms in a follow-up question.
So L’Osservatore Romano has performed a great disservice to both the Catholic and non-Catholic communities.
Here is what he wrote before that:
Pope Benedict’s new book,
Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times, isn’t even officially out yet but is already at the center of an online media controversy.
The controversy erupted Saturday morning when L’Osservatore Romano unilaterally violated the embargo on the book by publishing Italian-language extracts of various papal statements, much to the chagrin of publishers around the world, who had been working on a carefully orchestrated launch for the book on Tuesday.
Among the extracts was one dealing with the use of condoms in trying to prevent the spread of AIDS, and the press immediately seized on this (e.g., Reuters, Associated Press , BBC online).
And so we were treated to headlines like:
*
Pope says condoms sometimes permissible to stop AIDS
*
Pope: condoms can be justified in some cases
*
Pope says condoms can be used in the fight against AIDS
Particularly egregious is this statement by William Crawley of the BBC:
Pope Benedict appears to have changed the Vatican’s official stance on the use of condoms to a moral position that many Catholic theologians have been recommending for quite some time.
GAH!
Okay, first of all, this is an interview book. The pope is being interviewed. He is not engaging his official teaching capacity. This book is not an encyclical, an apostolic constitution, a papal bull, or anything of the kind. It is not published by the Church. It is an interview conducted by a German-language journalist.
Consequently, the book does not represent an act of the Church’s Magisterium and does not have the capacity to “change[] the Vatican’s official stance” on anything. It does not carry dogmatic or canonical force.
The book (which is fascinating and unprecedented, though that’s a subject for another post) constitutes the Pope’s personal opinions on the questions he is asked by interviewer Peter Seewald.
And, as Pope Benedict himself notes in the book:
"It goes without saying that the Pope can have private opinions that are wrong".
I don’t point this out to suggest that what Pope Benedict says regarding condoms is wrong (we’ll get to that in a moment) but to point out the status of private papal opinions. They are just that: private opinions. Not official Church teaching. So let’s get that straight.
[
He then proceeds to make the comments on OR that I started with, and then goes on to cite the full excerpt as well as Dr. Smith's analysis.]
While we're at it, here's the New York Times report, with the headline and the lede both proclaiming the wrong-headed MSM line. But the story itself also suggests someone has read the book itself, as it contains some quotations not found in the OR set - probably Laurie Goodstein who is acknowledged at the bottom as having 'contributed' to the article...
Pope says condoms to stop AIDS
may be acceptable
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME, Nov 20 —
Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS, the first Vatican exception to a long-held policy condemning condom use.
The Pope made the statement in a series of interviews with a German journalist, part of an extraordinary effort to address some of the harshest criticisms of his turbulent papacy.
The Pope made clear that he considered the use of condoms a last resort and not a way to prevent conception. The example he gave of when they could be used was in the case of male prostitutes.
Amid his vigorous defense of the Church in contemporary society, Benedict also acknowledged some of the Church’s failings, like in the sexual abuse crisis, which he calls “a volcano of filth” sent by the devil.
He pointed to a “readiness for aggression” among those who criticized him for revoking the excommunication of a bishop who denied the scope of the Holocaust.
Benedict also discussed his contentious speech in Regensburg, Germany, in 2006, which provoked the ire of the Muslim world; denounced drug abuse, explained what he described as the impossibility of ordaining women as priests, and, with surprising candor, said that if he did not feel up to the task of being Pope, he would resign.
The revelations — which show the Pope to be at once personal, provocative and
largely unapologetic [What should he apologize about that he has not already done before????] — come in the first book-length interview ever to be granted by a sitting Pontiff, conducted in July by Peter Seewald, the author of two previous books of interviews with Benedict when he was still a cardinal.
In allowing the Pope to speak for himself, the book is a clear acknowledgment of the challenges facing Benedict, 83, whose five-year-old papacy has suffered a series of profound crises, including over the sexual abuse of minors by priests. Even his greatest defenders concede his papacy has had grave communications problems.
The book “proves once again that Benedict XVI is his own best advocate,” said George Weigel, a papal biographer who wrote the introduction for the English-language edition of the book,
Light of the World, which will be published on Tuesday. (The Vatican’s newspaper,
L’Osservatore Romano, published excerpts online on Saturday afternoon.)
In the book, Benedict upholds the view that the Roman Catholic Church does not see condoms as “a real or moral solution,” and says that they are “not really the way to deal with the evil of H.I.V. infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”
But for the first time, he opened the door for at least some more open debate on the issue.
“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,” the Pope said.
Condoms have been a contentious issue ever since Pope Paul VI denounced birth control
[artificial birth control, it must be stressed! MSM has the bad habit of omitting important qualifiers, as when in recent years, it has taken to refport that the Vatican opposes 'stem cell research', without specifiying it objects to using embryos for such research, not to all SC research!] in his famous 1968 encyclical,
Humanae Vitae.
In recent years,
bishops in Africa and elsewhere have been quietly calling on the Vatican to relax its stance to allow for condom use as part of a broader approach to fight the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS.
[Not the bishops in the countries where the Church's ABC strategy has been successful!]
The Rev. Joseph Fessio, a former student of Benedict and the editor in chief of Ignatius Press, which is publishing the English-language edition of the book, said the Pope’s remarks on condoms were among the most surprising in the volume.
“It’s very carefully qualified,” he said. “It would be wrong to say, ‘Pope Approves Condoms.’ He’s saying it’s immoral but in an individual case the use of a condom could be an awakening to someone that he’s got to be more conscious of his actions.”
The book also devotes an entire chapter to the sexual abuse crisis which roared back this spring, likening it to a natural disaster that marred a year he had intended to celebrate priests.
He says he was not surprised by the scandal, having spent 25 years as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that handles doctrinal and disciplinary questions, and which
victims and critics have accused of not acting swiftly and decisively enough in tackling abuse or punishing abusive priests. [Of course, the Times must dig that in!]
In the book, Benedict says of the abuse crisis that erupted in the United States in 2001: “We responded to the matter in America immediately with revised, stricter norms. In addition, collaboration between the secular and ecclesiastical authorities was improved.
Would it have been Rome’s duty, then, to say to all the countries expressly: Find out whether you are in the same situation? Maybe we should have done that.”
And he acknowledged that the scandal had undermined the moral authority of the Catholic Church.
“It is not only the abuse that is upsetting, it is also the way of dealing with it. The deeds themselves were hushed up and kept secret for decades. That is a declaration of bankruptcy for an institution that has love written on its banner.”
Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York.
11/21/10
Regarding the decision of OR to 'excerpt the excerpt on condoms' from LOTW in its Sunday issue posted online Saturday afternoon, Andrea Tornielli notes in his Sunday blog that one obvious effect of the ill-considered OR move (ill-considered not because it provided some advance passages from the text ahead of the embargo imposed on everybody else, but because it chose to include the excerpt about condoms) was that it sucked out all the oxygen in the media world, all but eclipsing any mention of the consistory!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/11/2010 06:15]