CATHOLICS should not take the Pope's surprise statement about condoms as permiss

ion to use contraceptives.

Pope Benedict XVI, who has been criticised in the past for refusing to approve o
f condoms in the fight against HIV and Aids, said it is acceptable to use them i
n some cases, giving the example of male prostitutes.
But David Quinn of the Iona Institute said Catholics should not take the remarks
out of context and interpret them as a reversal of Church doctrine.
'What the Pope has said should is certainly not an approval of the use of condom
s as a form of contraception,' he said. 'This must not be seen as a form of appr
oval for using condoms as a method of birth control.'

The context was the situation in Africa which many secular/liberal people claim
is in need of condoms to save lives. They have criticized the Catholic position
as lacking compassion and putting dogma before people s lives. The Pope was explai
ning why those people are wrong. Condoms are not a solution to this problem; mor
ality as taught by the Catholic Church is the solution. Sexual activity needs to
be within marriage only. The just give out condoms solution is both immoral and i
neffective in that it encourages high risk behaviours. It is not a solution at a
ll. The only good thing there could possibly be about condoms might occur if the
re were a case in which using condoms meant that a person was taking the first s
tep in developing proper sexual morality. Of course, a case like this is still o
bjectively sinful and would be sinful regardless of the sex or sexual orientatio
n of the people involved. That is what the Pope was saying.
In fact, Pope Benedict made absolutely no public statement on this subject yeste
rday. These newspaper stories referred to a new clarification offered by the papal
spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. Having previously confirmed, quite accurat
ely, that the Pope intended no change in Church teaching, Father Lombardi had qu
estioned the Pontiff on a specific point. In Light of the World, the Pope makes
a highly speculative point about the morality of condom use, using the example o
f a male prostitute. Some readers concluded that the Pope was referring specific
ially to homosexual acts. But when questioned on that point, Father Lombardi tol
d reporters, the Pope said that the same moral reasoning would apply, whether it s
a man or woman or a transsexual.
Right. The Pope s reasoning applies to a male or female or transsexual prostitute.