The Catholic Church didn't really change its stance on condoms.
Except that it did.
For the past month, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Catholic Church had changed its position on condom use.
In a recently released book, Pope Benedict XVI appears to condone
the use of condoms in some specific cases, prompting angry debate among
Catholic commentators over the real meaning of the pontiff's words.
There has been so much confusion that the Vatican has intervened twice to clarify the pope’s message: the first time, even before the book's official publication date; the second, just last week, when the world’s billion Catholics were preparing for Christmas.
So did the pope OK condoms and change Catholic doctrine?
And if he
didn't — as the Vatican's doctrinal office stated on Dec. 21 — what was
all the fuss about?
And finally, why can't the most powerful religious
institution in the world get its message straight?
Prior to the current kerfuffle, Catholic doctrine was devastatingly
clear: birth control (through condoms or other means) was not allowed.
Pope Paul VI weighed in on the matter
in 1968, reaffirming the church’s ban on any action “specifically
intended to prevent procreation,” despite the opposition of hundreds of
Catholic scholars and families he had consulted.
To prevent AIDS, the
church condones only faithfulness (for married couples) and abstinence
(for everyone else).
Benedict has had a public relations problem since the early 1980s, when
he served as the church’s top doctrinal officer and was dubbed “God’s
Rottweiler.”
Then, last summer, the 83-year-old pope decided to give a
book-length interview to a long-time friend of his, German journalist
Peter Seewald.
Though Seewald is a fawning admirer of the pope, it was a
real interview, with unscripted questions touching on difficult topics
from the sex abuse scandal to the Williamson affair.
Ratzinger even
discussed the possibility of his resignation.
In the resulting book, “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and
the Signs of the Times,” the pope answers a question about AIDS
prevention by saying that in some cases, like that of a “male
prostitute,” using a condom “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,” he adds, “it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV
infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”
The Church, “does not regard” condoms “as a real or moral solution” for
the HIV epidemic, but, “in this 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.”
It is clear in reading the passage (in full here, or here
for a discussion of different possible translations), that this is no
Copernican revolution of church doctrine.
There is no justification of
contraception or prostitution.
The pope refers to a single, very limited
case, though he seems to hint that there might be other similar
instances.
Why the media storm, then?
After all, Vatican spokesman Federico
Lombardi, quickly stressed that “the reasoning of the pope certainly
cannot be defined as a revolutionary change.”
“Many moral theologians and authoritative ecclesiastical figures have
supported and support” positions similar to the one expressed in the
book, Lombardi said.
What he didn’t say is that these positions have been fiercely
criticized by many Catholics, especially those who belong to the
influential pro-life movement in the United States and the United
Kingdom.
The complex theological debate can be crudely summarized: Are condoms,
as contraceptives, intrinsically evil?
Or are they just devices with the
user’s intent determining whether their use is acceptable?
The question
has festered for years in pontifical universities and specialist
magazines, but the pope took it to the front page.
In doing so, he seemed to support the latter camp.
As Lombardi put it,
such a position had not before been heard “with such clarity from the
mouth of the pope.”
Thus the confusion from conservative Catholic commentators such as
George Weigel, the biographer of Pope John Paul II, and the pope's own
U.S. publisher, Joseph Fessio of Ignatius Press.
American cardinal Leo
Burke stated flatly that he didn't see any change in the pope's words.
Last week, the Vatican doctrinal office seemed to respond to the
concerns of those pro-life activists by reiterating that the words of
the pope “do not signify a change in Catholic moral teaching or in the
pastoral practice of the Church.”
However, it reaffirmed the pope's nuanced, albeit very narrow,
concession.
The note also re-kindled the polemics, which will probably
take months to die out.
One should not expect from the Vatican more major announcements on the subject, at least in the near future.
But what might change is the approach of tens of thousands of Catholic
aid workers around the world, especially in Africa: Caritas
Internationalis, the global umbrella organization for Catholic
charities, announced that it will consider, “in close consultation with
the Holy See, whether there are implications for our work” in Pope
Benedict's words.
Lombardi, in his statement, specifically opened the door for HIV
prevention programs that allow for condom use as a last resort by citing
the "ABC," or "Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condoms," approach that has had
success in some African countries.
SIC: GP/USA