It's been two weeks... Is this issue still alive???.. It's high time the other topics in the book are discussed instead....
Papal comments on condoms reflected
pastoral concern, theologian says
By John Thavis
VATICAN CITY, Dec. 6 (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments about condoms represented a "normal and traditional" pastoral application of moral theology, according to a theologian who advises the Vatican on doctrinal matters.
The Pope's comments reflect the principle that there can be "intermediary steps toward moral awareness" that allow for some flexibility in how church teachings are applied, Franciscan Father Maurizio Faggioni said Dec. 3.
Father Faggioni, a moral theologian and a consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke to Catholic News Service about the reaction to the Pope's statement on condoms in the book,
Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.
In the book, the Pope repeated his view that condom campaigns are not the way to stop the AIDS epidemic, but he allowed that in some specific cases -- for example, a prostitute who tries to diminish the risk of spreading infection -- use of a condom could be a first step toward taking moral responsibility for one's actions.
Father Faggioni said the Pope's comments should be seen in the light of traditional principles of moral theology, including gradualism, which understands moral decision-making as a path that involves a series of progressions.
"The Holy Father recognizes that there is a path of growth in responsibility," Father Faggioni said. By saying condom use may mark a step along that path, he said,
the Pope is allowing for a "wise and prudent" application of Church teaching to individual cases. [Even for run-of-the-mill Catholics like me who've never read, much less, had any instruction in moral theology, one knows intuitively that this is what the right pastoral attitude ought to be.]
"This is nothing more than a normal and traditional application of some principles of pastoral teaching and of moral casuistry," Father Faggioni said. Moral casuistry refers to a method that tries to determine appropriate moral responses to particular cases and circumstances.
Father Faggioni said the Pope's comments do not place in question the Church's teaching against birth control, but recognize that there can be different ways of applying the general law to specific situations.
"One could ask to which other cases this would extend. This is something that will be seen. One should not force the words of the Holy Father, either," he said.
Father Faggioni noted that the Vatican's doctrinal congregation began studying the morality of condom use in disease prevention at a time when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict -- was the congregation's prefect.
He said the Pope had chosen an informal medium, that of a book-length interview, to discuss the issue. In the strict sense, then, his words do not have the weight of official Church teaching, he said.
But at the same time, Father Faggioni said, the Pope knows what he's talking about, having followed the theological discussion on this issue for many years. He said commentators should remember this when suggesting, as some have, that the Pope may have strayed outside his field of expertise.
"This is the Pope speaking, after all," Father Faggioni said. "He is the supreme teacher."
Prof. Steven Long, a professor at Ave Maria University in Florida, one of the Pontifical Academy for Life members singled out by Sandr Omagister for supposedly having aimed 'friendly fire' at the Pope for what he said about condoms, makes this valuable contribution to the general discussion of what the Church teaches about condom use.
What the Church teaches and how it teaches:
A 1988 letter from Cardinal Ratzinger
By Steven A. Long
NAPLES, Florida, DEC. 5, 2010 (Zenit.org).- In the current media-engendered vortex of illusion regarding the Church's teaching about disordered sexual acts and condoms, the principal constituent is of course a certain incomprehension regarding how the Church teaches, as distinct from journalistic interviews.
Also to blame, of course, is the current culture of the 24-hour news cycle that holds that nothing could be more defining or important than the story of the moment. Thus, the media swirl may too quickly become self-hypnotizing.
But in the Roman Catholic faith, the magisterium serenely propounds the doctrine of faith and morals, and when direction from the universal teaching authority is required, no one is left in doubt as to the provenance of the supplied doctrine.
Such an occasion occurred -- for those with memory to recall -- in 1988, when then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger addressed a memorable letter as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to Archbishop Pio Laghi, who was at the time nuncio to the United Sates, regarding the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' administrative board's document "The Many Faces of AIDS."
In that document, Cardinal Ratzinger, representing the CDF with the full knowledge and support of Pope John Paul II, formally expressed the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
One might have expected the media to make some reference to this formal teaching instrument, understanding the difference in Roman Catholic life between journalistic conversations and magisterial acts. Doing so would have placed discussions about Catholic teaching in their proper historical and doctrinal context.
Nonetheless, for those who wish to place the recent journalistic remarks of the Holy Father in their magisterial context, his own pellucid words from 1988, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, are perhaps the best source.
These may be found below. They represent the formal teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, and anyone claiming the contrary should of course be able to point to some official magisterial pronouncement supporting such a claim.
The idea that Pope Benedict the XVI is unaware of the nature of the Church's teaching instruments, or that he intended to alter Church teaching with a few brief comments in a journalistic interview, is preposterous on its face. This is something the current media culture seems to fail to grasp.
Letter to Archbishop Pio Laghi
on "The Many Faces of AIDS'
May 29, 1988
The lively discussion, widened and sometimes distorted by the press worldwide, which followed the publication of the NCCB Administrative Board's well-known document, "The Many Faces of AIDS," and in which were involved distinguished representatives of the episcopate, has generated in many of the faithful, and not only in the United States, a good deal of confusion regarding the authentic Catholic position on the moral problems involved.
The Holy See wishes, therefore, to express its deep concern that the unity so necessary among the bishops in the teaching of Christian moral doctrine be clearly and publicly demonstrated.
In the first place, and on a more general level, one must keep in mind the problem posed by the worldwide reaction which accompanies certain documents issued by various episcopal conferences. This requires a particular sense of responsibility and prudence in the choice of themes to be treated and in the manner in which these statements are published, not to mention a careful composition of the texts themselves.
At least in some cases, when the subjects under discussion are of interest to the universal Church, it would seem advisable to consult in advance with the Holy See.
Secondly, regarding the precise moral issue in question here, I want to draw attention to the clarification which appeared in the March 10 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, in an unsigned article entitled "Prevention of AIDS: Christian Ethical Aspect," and I quote:
"To seek a solution to the problem of infection by promoting the use of prophylactics would be to embark on a way not only insufficiently reliable from the technical point of view, but also and above all, unacceptable from the moral aspect. Such a proposal for 'safe' or at least 'safer' sex -- as they say -- ignores the real cause of the problem, namely, the permissiveness which, in the area of sex as in that related to other abuses, corrodes the moral fiber of the people."
In the case here under discussion, it hardly seems pertinent to appeal to the classical principle of tolerance of the lesser evil on the part of those who exercise responsibility for the temporal good of society.
In fact, even when the issue has to do with educational programs promoted by the civil government, one would not be dealing simply with a form of passive toleration but rather with a kind of behavior which would result in at least the facilitation of evil.
The problem of educational programs in specifically Catholic schools and institutions requires particular attention. These facilities are called to provide their own contribution for the prevention of AIDS, in full fidelity to the moral doctrine of the Church, without at the same time engaging in compromises which may even give the impression of trying to condone practices which are immoral, for example, technical instructions in the use of prophylactic devices.
In a society which seems increasingly to downgrade the value of chastity, conjugal fidelity and temperance, and to be preoccupied sometimes almost exclusively with physical health and temporal well-being, the Church's responsibility is to give that kind of witness which is proper to her, namely an unequivocal witness of effective and unreserved solidarity with those who are suffering and, at the same time, a witness of defense of the dignity of human sexuality which can only be realized within the context of moral law.
It is likewise crucial to note, as the board statement does, that the only medically safe means of preventing AIDS are those very types of behavior which conform to God's law and to the truth about man which the Church has always taught and today is still called courageously to teach.
I am confident that these considerations, which are known to His Holiness and have his fullest support, will be welcomed by the cardinal and bishop members of the conference and I wish to express my sincerest hope for a successful conclusion of this important meeting of the entire episcopate of the United States.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Prefect
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Other than the two articles DICI published earlier, with two views on the Pope's condom remarks, the FSSPX has not belabored the issue. But today, the Lefebvrian information site takes a broadside at the OR :
The 'Inosservatore Romano'
by Fr. Alain lorans
12-6-2010
The Vatican’s daily newspaper bears the title of
Osservatore Romano, which means that its readers have the right to demand that it prove to be not only observant but even vigilant when it prints in its pages a text by the Pope which cannot help but sow confusion in their minds.
Indeed, when one is semi-officially the official newspaper of the Holy See, one must foresee the inevitable effects of publishing statements that need commentary at least, if not an exegesis.
The excerpt from the book-length interview by Peter Seewald with Benedict XVI does not give a clear answer to the question: “Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?” but instead considers the subjective viewpoint of someone who uses them while on the way to a hypothetical conversion.
The major media and the movements that militantly promote condoms in the name of AIDS prevention immediately rushed into this breach. It was foreseeable by everybody, except by
L’Osservatore Romano!
Unfortunately, for some time now this newspaper has not lived up to its title, which today gives the appearance of deceptive advertising. It would be more accurate to speak about
L’Inosservatore Romano [“The Roman Non-observer”] and (to dot all the i’s) to denounce its incompetence, its insouciance and its intolerable levity.
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What makes it even worse about OR is that it never followed up on its ill-advised 'excerpt of an excerpt' or made up for it in any way, and more than two weeks since its blunder, it has not addressed the issue of Church teaching about the condom at all, nor apologized for the worldwide commotion it unleashed. Nor, for that matter, has it mentioned LOTW again. To make believe that nothing untoward happened is a denial of reality that one would condemn if an MSM outlet behaved as OR has in this entire mess.
Why did the secular press
get the Pope so wrong about condoms?
They were not helped by the claims of some Catholics that
Catholic teaching on sexuality was collapsing
By William Oddie
Monday, 6 December 2010
Francis Philips got it dead right in her last blog; the Pope’s gripping, highly readable and indispensable book
The Light of the World (and if you haven’t read it yet you really should) is about a great deal more than just sex.
The extraordinary distortion by the secular Press of his passing remarks about condoms is now generally seen for what it was: a sign of the fact that papers have to have splash headlines; that’s the way they’re designed: hence the
Sunday Telegraph’s declaration of a “historic U-turn by [the] Catholic church”.
So the secular response is understandable: journalists need stories;
it’s not so much that they don’t care about the truth, but that they really aren’t necessarily equipped, in a story about the Church, to recognise it when it’s staring them in the face.
But parallel to this kind of understandable secular distortion, there was a jumping on this particular bandwagon by some Catholics who really didn’t have that kind of excuse.
Perhaps the most informative example of the “historic U-turn by Catholic Church” syndrome among Catholic journalists was the Today programme’s “Thought for the Day” on the morning after the
Sunday Telegraph splash headline, uttered from on high by Clifford Longley, the BBC’s token “authoritative” Catholic and the elder statesman of the Tabletistas.
What a difference a week or two makes. Longley may already be hoping that his remarks will have been forgotten: but they haven’t, not by me, nor should they be.
“The interview [the Pope] gave to a German journalist”, he glibly pronounced, “has transformed the terms of the internal Roman Catholic debate about the use of condoms in the fight against Aids HIV”. (Already, very evidently, just wrong).
“But”, he went on, astonishingly, “I think he has actually changed much more than that. From today the entire polar icecap of Catholic sexual morality has started to melt”.
We have now reached a level of implausibility which is more than simply jaw-dropping. We need some kind of provisional explanation before going any further, of why Longley should say such a thing, even in the slightly hysterical atmosphere then prevailing.
I can only suppose that
this total dissolution of Catholic sexual morality is so much what he wants to happen that it clouded his judgement; it wouldn’t be the first time that wishful thinking has caused a radical distortion of Catholic teaching: “the Spirit of Vatican II” is riddled with it.
[Thanks, Mr. Oddie. I used that very phrase 'wishful thinking' earlier in this Forum to characterize the lemming reaction of the liberal press raising hosannas about what they want to believe the Pope said!]
“Henceforth”, he went on, “the emphasis changes from natural law, which is where the ban on contraception comes from, to what the pope calls ‘the humanising of sexuality’.”
But how is that a change of emphasis away from the natural law? The natural law is a body of unchanging moral principles known not from revelation (though parallel to it) but by reason, principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct:
For the Pope to speak in this way of “the humanisation of sexuality” is simply the understanding of the natural law in particular human circumstances. There is no movement away from natural law — say, to revelation or ecclesial authority; we are still within its ambit. Longley’s “analysis”, in short, is utterly meaningless.
Longley’s explanation of his melting polar icecap is an excellent example of the kind of — to a layman —
impressively intellectual sounding but actually totally bogus pronouncement that does nothing to elucidate an argument but which if you’re not attentive allows it to be accepted by default in the mental fog which has descended by the time it has been uttered.
There is a real refusal here to acknowledge the difference between juridical and pastoral discourse. The Pope is a teacher of doctrine and the moral law; he is also a pastor: a pastor above all, and perhaps overwhelmingly most importantly, when he speaks directly to his people, as he is clearly doing in this interview — that’s why it’s with a journalist, not a theologian.
What was Longley’s real agenda here? That is the question we need to ask. Why did he try to transmute pastoral remarks about particular human circumstances into quasi-juridical pronouncements universally applicable?
Could it be that, thus transformed, such remarks could then be lobbed into the complex web of objective moral teachings which the Church over the centuries has defended, in the hope of causing maximum damage? Who knows? But it looks suspiciously like it to me
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/04/2011 03:29]