Pope supports use of condoms to save humanity and preserve life
Pope BenedictXVI
Pope Benedict XVI has said the use of condoms is acceptable in exceptional circumstances, according to a new book.
He said condoms could reduce the risk of HIV infection, such as for a male prostitute, in a series of interviews given to a German journalist.
But he said a more humane attitude to sexuality, and not condom use, was the proper way to combat HIV infection.
The comments were made in a new book, which the Vatican newspaper ran excerpts of in its Saturday edition.
The Church’s hardline stance over contraception has led to the Vatican being heavily criticised for its position in the context of the Aids crisis.
Aids crisis
The book – Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times – is based on a series of interview the Pope gave the German Catholic journalist, Peter Seewald, earlier this year.
When asked whether the Catholic Church was not opposed in principle to the use of condoms, the Pope replied: “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.”
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“If the intention [of condom use] is to prevent transmission of HIV, rather than prevent contraception, moral theologians would say that was of a different moral order”
Austen Ivereigh Catholic commentator
The Pope gives the example of the use of condoms by male prostitutes as “a first step towards moralisation”, even though condoms are “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection”.
He says that the “sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalisation of sexuality” where sexuality is no longer an expression of love, “but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves”.
Catholic commentator Austen Ivereigh said that although this was the first time the Pope had voiced such an opinion, it was in line with what Catholic moral theologians have been saying for many years.
“The Church’s teaching on contraception predates the discovery of Aids,” Mr Ivereigh told the BBC news website.
“The prevalence of HIV raised the question of whether condoms could be used to prevent the transmission of the virus.
“If the intention is to prevent transmission of the virus, rather than prevent contraception, moral theologians would say that was of a different moral order.”
UNAIDS, the United Nations programme on HIV/Aids, welcomed the Pope’s comments.
“This is a significant and positive step forward taken by the Vatican,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe.
“This move recognizes that responsible sexual behaviour and the use of condoms have important roles in HIV prevention.”
On a visit to Cameroon last year, the Pope said the use of condoms could endanger public health and increase the problem of HIV/Aids, rather than help to contain the virus. This drew criticism from several EU states.
Campaigners say condoms are one of the few methods proven to stop the spread of HIV.
Light of the World is to be published in English by the Catholic Truth Society on Tuesday.
Pope Benedict has suggested that the use of condoms could be justified in some exceptional circumstances.
His comments came in a series of interviews given to a German Catholic journalist, Peter Seewald, which are published in a question and answer format in a book to be launched on Tuesday.
Here is an extract of the book – entitled Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the
Times – in which the Pope refers to the use of condoms in preventing the spread of Aids:
Peter Seewald: On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican’s policy on Aids once again became the target of media criticism. Twenty-five percent of all Aids victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.
Pope Benedict: The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on Aids. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim.
Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many Aids victims, especially children with Aids.
I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering.
In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.
As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work.
This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.
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 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 it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.
That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.
Peter Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?
Pope Benedict: 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.
Light of the World is to be published in English on Tuesday and available for general release from Wednesday. To order a copy of the book, or for more information, please contact the Catholic Truth Society.
Source: BBC.
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