Conservative Catholic bloggers seem to be of one voice today: “The
Pope did NOT say condoms are OK!”
Which is true – up to a point.
The
Pontiff’s comments to Peter Seewald emphasise that condoms are not the
answer to HIV; he did not recommend their use in any circumstances and the teaching of Humanae Vitae
that sex between human beings should be confined to the marriage bed,
without interference from contraceptive devices, remains intact.
But I simply don’t understand how Catholic commenters can maintain
that the Pope did not say that condoms may be justified, or permissible,
in circumstances where not using them would spread HIV.
On the
contrary, he says it once:
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 moralisation, 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 …
And then repeats the point, in response to a question:
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.
Now you can add all the context you like; you can quote much more
fully from Seewald’s text; all of this is helpful in establishing that
the Church’s basic policy on condoms has not changed.
But what I can’t accept is Akin’s implication that the media in general
misrepresented what the Pope said.
He picks three examples of
headlines:
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
The first two of those strike me as a perfectly fair representation
of the Pope’s comments.
Like it or not, the Holy Father made it clear
that the use of condoms is sometimes permissible to stop the spread of
the virus, even if – speaking in German – he didn’t use the words
“permissable” or “justified”.
What he didn’t say was “let’s go ahead and
use condoms to fight against Aids,” which is what the third headline
implies.
There’s clearly a debate to be had about (a) the circumstances in
which the Pope feels it’s permissable to use a condom and (b) the moral
status of the act of using that condom.
I don’t think the Holy Father’s
comments settle these questions.
But the plain, common sense reading of
them is that he regards the use of a condom as a lesser evil than the
transmission of the virus.
Also, it doesn’t seem reasonable to
extrapolate from the (apparent) reference to a male prostitute that this
lesser-of-two-evils judgment doesn’t apply to sex between infected men
and women.
Eric Giunta makes an interesting point, however.
He says that media references to an end to the “ban” on condoms are
wide of the mark because the question of the use of condoms to prevent
the spread of Aids had not been settled:
And this leads to another myth that needs shattering: that the Church teaches that AIDS-afflicted married couples have no moral choice but to abstain from conjugal relations indefinitely, or risk passing the fatal disease in the course of unprotected marital lovemaking. Many Catholics are shocked to hear this, but perfectly orthodox moral theologians are heavily divided on this question, and the Church has never pronounced on this contentious issue. There is a perfectly valid argument to be made that an AIDS victim who makes love to his wife while wearing a prophylactic is morally justified in doing so by virtue of the principle of double effect: the morally laudable object of employing the prophylactic is to block the transmission of the AIDS virus between spouses; contraception is an unintended side effect, the gravity of which is met or outweighed by the equally serious good of maintaining an important means of maintaining marital intimacy and relieving the sexual impulse.
In other words, the Pope has helped to clarify matters. So perhaps I was wrong to report yesterday that the Pope had “modified the Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms” (though I was quick to add that he was essentially clearing up an area of confusion).
Eric’s post certainly makes a good deal more sense than those of his
fellow conservatives who claim that the Pope didn’t say what he
obviously did say… and then emphasise that he was only speaking in an
interview AND how dare L’Osservatore Romano release these
quotes out of context.
Hmm.
There is a strong whiff of cognitive
dissonance in the air.
I hate to pick a fight with bloggers I admire,
and I won’t mention any names, but I get the strong impression that
certain conservatives are tying themselves in knots trying not to say
what they really think.
Which is that they disagree with the Pope.
SIC: TC/UK