So many choices
Here’s the Guardian’s headline: Pope Benedict edges away from total ban on use of condoms – that world “total” is the crucial one here, and “edges” is definitely the right verb – the movement is minuscule.
What happened is that, in an interview, for somebody’s terribly serious (i.e. will not be widely read) book, he made some remarks that were highly hedged in scholarly qualifiers, about the hypothetical possibility that using condoms for disease prevention might, given the possibility of “real risk” to others and in no way approving of “disordered sexuality”, be the lesser evil in cases (his example was that of a male prostitute) where HIV infection was present and risked being passed to the other partner.
Nothing there about the church’s stance on contraception, and although some HIV health workers are hailing it as a first step to a long overdue acceptance of the need for practising safe sex for all couples, conservative Catholic commentors are downplaying it as “colloquial” commentary, not a “magisterial” pronouncement, and therefore not binding nor superseding previous pronouncements against condom usage as a teaching of the Church.
Of course, the publicity surrounding this will serve to allow those Catholics who already engage in safe sex practises to feel less guilt about doing so, and that can only be a good thing. The logic of the Pope’s hypothetical is very much along the lines of the Church’s teaching which allows the removal of a fallopian tube containing an ectopic pregnancy despite the strictures against abortion – since the death of the foetus is not regarded as the primary purpose of the surgery (the primary purpose of the surgery is to prevent fallopian rupture and subsequent septicaemia and possible death of the pregnant woman), therefore salpingectomy is allowable even though the death of the foetus is an inevitable consequence – it is viewed as “unintended although foreseen”. (This teaching means that even though it is surgically possible to remove an ectopic pregnancy from a fallopian tube while conserving the tube for future fertility, this option is not acceptable to the Church because the death of the fetus then becomes the “direct intent” of the surgery.) Therefore, if the intent of the contraceptive barrier device is to prevent disease, and preventing disease is deemed acceptable, then the simultaneous effect of preventing pregnancy becomes “unintended although foreseen” also.
Expect there to be a lot of havering about what the Pope did and did not mean in his “colloquial” remarks, and for there to be far more heat than light, and for virtually nothing to change with regards to what priests and nuns are already telling people about condoms – the pragmatists have already been indicating that they’re no big deal, the literalists have always been condemnatory, and the faithful have always taken their own counsel on this matter above all others. In 1968, the year of the Humanae Vitae encyclical wherein the Pope announced that the Church’s teaching on contraception remained unchanged and unchangeable despite the broad desire for reform, 44% of Catholic women were using artificial contraception. By the 80s, more than 80% of Catholics said they disagreed with Humanae Vitae (including prominent theologians and bishops), over 75% of Catholic women in the USA had used artificial contraception, while a large majority of priests did not believe that it was immoral. In the last few decades, the acceptability of flouting the Church teachings regarding contraception has only grown, and with it has come more questioning of the Vatican’s general credibility.
Many observers have noted the irony: the Vatican’s deep concern that changing the teachings on contraception would undermine its moral authority has been in actuality the attitude that has brought about the result they feared – their refusal to change this teaching has been a major driver undermining the faithful’s trust in the Church’s teachings on other matters. The Pope may well be attempting to have his cake and eat it too with this very carefully worded hypothetical related in this book interview – attempting to shore up his personal credibility with those who reject Humanae Vitae while not actually supersede a predecessor’s encyclical by exercising his own magisterial authority.
It’s a crack in the monolith, that’s all. It’s going to take more cracks and fissures than that to topple it.
Thank you for using “havering”, TigTog, much appreciated.
The rest… is too dismal when placed in context, so I’d rather think of it as a forward step and continue ignoring the chruch.
Its actually a pretty nasty crack or maybe I’m just paranoid about the Catholic Church when it comes to what it means by its teachings on morals. The implication of ‘homosexual prostitute’ could be taken to read the shocking implication that one of the prime causes of HIV AIDS is homosexual practice where there is an exchange of bodily fluids. That’s nonsense, of course. HIV AIDS does not discriminate, butr I still think that subtext is there. It is a breakthrough for HIV AIDS educators everywhere, but Fred Nile would be even more pleased.
“unintended although foreseen”
Interesting ideational condition. I jump off a cliff to catch a butterfly, knowing it to be a cliff high enough to enable a fatal fall. Am I committing suicide?
Is it not possible to construct an infinite number of ostensible motives that cause to bring into being an infinite number of unintended though foreseeable outcomes?
Compare the Guardian’s headline “Pope Benedict edges away from total ban on use of condoms” to this morning’s Age: “Pope lifts ban on condoms”. Can The Age still be considered a serious broadsheet?
I, too was intrigued by the homosexual prostitute reference, Paul burns @2. Does it mean that it doesn’t matter how many people are infected by heterosexual contact, or that he thinks that HIV-AIDS is only spread by homosexual contact or what?
Or does it means women don’t matter? Who cares if you infect wife/girlfriend/female prostitute etc?
The circuitous reasoning the Catholic Church uses to justify tiny, incremental change is like a triple pike with three forward somersaults and two back, ending with one and a half spins, resulting in a huge belly flop.
Why can’t they just get some sanity, humanity and common decency into their ideas? I guess one must be grateful for the tiniest of mercies.
Genie, meet bottle.
Looks like the pope is attempting, with extreme sinuosity, to equivocate the Catholic Church into a modus vivendi with lived reality.
Every doctrinal revision produces two loopholes.
jane @ 5,
I’ll be buggered if I know what it means. I do know Papal pronouncements are full of subtleties, inferences, implied meanings etc and, except where they are actually saying ‘Thou shalt Not …’ are left wide open to interpretation usually with little gfuidance to the lay person as to what that interpretation actually is, and with the proviso that everything that has ever gone before that has not specifically ruled out eg the sun goes round the earth, still applies and must be included in the new statement. But I suppose what it boils down to is giving HIV-AIDS to someone because you don’t wear a condom and thus killing them is worse than wearing a condom, just. And how can one phrase this without upsetting all those newish Catholics in Africa? And how can one similarly support George Pell and his anti-gay policy? Mustn’t let those gay Catholics get the impression they are no longer sinners, etc, etc. The more I think about this new papal statement, the less impressed I am.
The male homosexual angle is significant.
Exchange of body fluids in these cases cannot produce a child. Therefore, prevention of exchange of body fluids does not decrease in any way the likelihood of conception.
However, in the case of a female prostitute, or a male prostitute servicing women, all bets are still off.
Now, that IS sinuous.
Slithery. They must have thought for ages about the form of words. Very clever. Does this mean gays (or other people who can’t procreate for whatever reason) don’t really matter? Chilling.
He was just trying to give himself absolution. Can’t have the pope coming down with HIV/AIDS.
The average catholic as usual will just go on using the pill or condoms as they have for years.
It’s years since I last won a religious prize for knowing my Catechism and I can’t even find a holy picture in the boxes in the shed, but just as being on the pill for the primary reason other than prevention of conception is ok, I though that condoms themselves were ok as long as they weren’t primarily being used to prevent conception.
I thought Catholics weren’t supposed to have any kind of sex at all until they were married – to a person of the opposite sex.
Not entirely true, FXH.
I was reliably informed by a urologist friend of mine of the existence of “Catholic condoms”.
According to my informant, the articles in question have a small hole at the delivery end. They are used by conscientious Catholics for the production of a sample of semen. They are utilised in the usual (non-catholic) method whereby connubial methods of climax are achieved, the device is removed and the specimen is placed in a thoughtfully pre-positioned jar. A measure of body fluid is exchanged. The requirements of creed and diagnosis are both satisfied.
This, of course, raises an interesting dogmatic question about the doctrinally correct diameter and physical location of the hole.
How many angels may dance on that pinprick?
Katz @ 15,
Are you having us on? Oh, you got to be. This thread is getting a little, well, weird. And, if you’re not having us on, OMG! The world really is going mad.
Hand on my heart, true.
I held a box of them in my hand in a Southern US state in the 1970s. (For inspection purposes only, I assure you.)
Oh, in America! Well, that’s different.
Personally, I thought the reference to a “homosexual prostitute” was to do with associating condoms with grubby, perverted, furtive, shameful behaviour, and to those who may indulge in it. It’s hard to imagine the Pope, of all people, viewing “homosexual prostitution” in any other light, so if anything, it’s just a way of saying, “Yes, they do have a place, but not among decent society.” That was my take, anyway.
Effectively, little has changed.
Not necessarily so, according to Reuters:
Link at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/nov/21/condoms-pope-benedict-ban-overturned
What I think is significant is that in 2009 Ratzo said that condoms “increase the problem” of aids. Now it’s the opposite where there can be “exceptional circumstances’:
http://www.theage.com.au/world/pope-lifts-ban-on-condoms-20101121-182jr.html
Exceptional circumstances indeed, like millions of Africans, many Catholic, who can claim that exception to reduce the risk of infection.
I disagree with Tigtog that this is a miniscule move. The Vatican’s former stand on the evils of condom use is now defunct and there’s no going back. This thin edge of the wedge is about to become a rather thick edge methinks.
Well, according to George Pell et al who were probably exchanging e-mailssomewhat frantically with the Vatican after the shit hit the fan …
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/bishops-say-pope-still-anti-condoms-for-hiv/story-e6frg6nf-1225958832267
Many developing countries have an official ABC policy, Abstinence, Be Faithful and Use Condoms. This plays well to religious leaders in countries with high levels of religious observance.
In a talk to Social Work students in Ghana earlier this year, I spoke on Condom education targetted at high risk groups and communities.
A student asked me what I had to say about the A B strategy. I replied that those strategies don’t work when two people want sex and have a mind to do it. Sexual attraction sets off several powerful natural chemicals in the brain. Having a condom in a wallet or purse is all about taking some control on a wild roller coaster ride.
It could be useful to look at the issue in terms of “marginal contribution to sinfulness”.
As a Catholic and the founder of Australia’s smallest AIDS-care organisation which has cared for people living with HIV/AIDS for almost 25 years and has had the cold shoulder from the church for supporting the use of condoms, I very much welcome the news that Pope Benedict has now accepted and publicly recognised that condoms do indeed reduce the risk of HIV infection.
Essentially, he has put a finger into the wounded side of the Body of Christ. It is what millions have waited to hear.
We would now urge the Pope, and his fellow bishops, to very quickly look to the plight of married people whose spouse is HIV infected. This would have been a much better example, with a much greater urgency.
Condoms are not the only weapon in the armoury against the AIDS pandemic, but their life-saving role is undeniable.
On this occasion, we recall how over 20 years ago, we were strongly urged into membership of Catholic Social Services Victoria, and years later quietly dumped and archdiocesan funding support axed.We remain grateful for those bishops, priests and religious who continued..and still do support us.
That break opened up a new era for us..it plunged us into the dreadful realities of the wider world..into the heart of the AIDS pandeminc in Africa itself..where we came to build schools in Malawi that are educating thousands of AIDS orphans.All can be read on our http://www.aids.net.au website.
Brian Haill President of the Australian AIDS Fund Inc Frankston (Vic)
PO Box 1347,
Frankston,
Victoria,3199
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/female-sex-workers-can-use-condoms-too-says-pope-2142133.html
So, in adding to Brian’s question @ 24, when one partner in a (Catholic) marriage has AIDS can we now assume condom use in that situation is also OK to reduce the risk of infection?
I expect more ridicule of Ratzo if he says no to that question.
A Trojan horse has been parked, by Ratzo himself, outside the Vatican gates, so to speak.
The hymn “Oh come all ye faithful” now has a whole new safety dimension to it.
Mel Brooks signs outside Roman brothels (movie “History of the World Part 1″) will now be Vatican approved and read:
as someone said in the age today or yesterday, all a woman has to do is pay a guy afterwards…
although I suppose you could always consider it to be a two-way bartered transaction so no money changes hands.