The Telegraph is reporting that Pope Benedict XVI is moving the church’s position on condom use — slightly — to allow for the moral use of condoms in some narrow circumstances. But it’s coming in an interview for a book rather than an official pronouncement:
While he restated the Catholic Church’s staunch objections to contraception because it believes that it interferes with the creation of life, he argued that using a condom to preserve life and avoid death could be a responsible act – even outside marriage.
Asked whether “the Catholic Church is not fundamentally against the use of condoms,” he replied: “It of course does not see it as a real and moral solution. In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality.”
He stressed that abstinence was the best policy in fighting the disease but in some circumstances it was better for a condom to be used if it protected human life.
“There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be … a first bit of responsibility, to redevelop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes.
“But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection.”
The announcement is in a book to be published by the Vatican this week based on the first face-to-face interview given by a pope.
I’ll take this with a rather large block of salt. The Catholic Church has often spoken out of both sides of its proverbial mouth. And even if this turns out to be an official church position, it’s a millimeter-sized step in the right direction when what it needs is a thousand-mile drive.
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raven
August 14, 2012 at 12:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh for Cthulhu’s sake, who cares.
The RCC is the original don’t ask, don’t tell organization.
The priests pretend they have something worthwhile to say, and the members pretend to believe it.
a miasma of incandescent plasma
August 14, 2012 at 12:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
uh… yeah… that’s a main reason why responsible people use it. Glad you could learn a fact when approaching an argument. Next step is using your reasoning skills that consider facts in coming to a well-formed conclusion.
I’ll hold my breath.
/turns blue
Raging Bee
August 14, 2012 at 12:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…he restated the Catholic Church’s staunch objections to contraception because it believes that it interferes with the creation of life…
Abstinence also “interferes with the creation of life” — so why does he support abstinence?
“There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be … a first bit of responsibility, to redevelop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes. But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection.”
So…using a condom helps to “redevelop” an understanding of what’s right or wrong, but it’s not a “proper” response to the threat of HIV? WTF?!
I can’t understand why anyone takes this doddering old man seriously as any kind of intellectual. Every time he opens his mouth, I can’t tell whether he’s being hypocritical, or just plain incoherent.
Randomfactor
August 14, 2012 at 12:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Two years ago. Look how great a difference it’s made.
slc1
August 14, 2012 at 12:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I seem to recall that Joe the rat said something along those lines a year or 2 ago.
Draken
August 14, 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
to allow for the moral use of condoms in some narrow circumstances
I see what you did there.
gshelley
August 14, 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, this seems to be the position from a couple of years ago, that in circumstances where there is no possibility of pregnancy (ie a male prostitute having sex with another man), condom usage is no more of a sin that no condom useage. I suspect the same would apply to oral sex, though I don’t think that came up at the time
dean
August 14, 2012 at 12:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This will also be blamed on the butler.
abb3w
August 14, 2012 at 12:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@7, gshelly:
As happens, exactly so: 2010-11-20, from the article’s date.
A bit more than a year down the road, and we can see the degree of the impact of this pronouncement: effectively zilch.
jamessweet
August 14, 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, if the Vatican really did come out with a strong statement in support of using condoms to halt the spread of HIV, it could save literally thousands upon thousands of lives in Africa. So yeah, it kinda matters.
Shouldn’t matter. Seriously, fuck these guys. But it does matter, unfortunately.
jamessweet
August 14, 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Although as others have pointed out, Ed has once again failed to check the date on the article (I shake my fist at you!) so this is exactly the talking-out-of-both-sides-of-the-mouth that was feared.
Yeah. Seriously, fucking fuck those guys.
eric
August 14, 2012 at 12:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
gshelley – wouldn’t that mean that condom use with any women on birth control would also be okay?
Come to think of it, maybe he’s just telling his priests its okay for them to use condoms with their victims.
Forbidden Snowflake
August 14, 2012 at 12:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Reminded me of this.
Ray Ingles
August 14, 2012 at 12:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, this is a rehash of something from a while back. I keep an eye on the theist websites[*] and they got busy at the time on the “necessary contextualization” of those words.
[*] Once in a while, they can actually be right about something, though not always for the right reasons – and it’s a mistake to get all your info from those you agree with.
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
August 14, 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well yeah, you’ve got to think of the diseases priests can catch having unprotected
sex withrape of children.frog
August 14, 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yikes. My first thought was that the real translation of his statement is: “When our priests rape someone, or even have consensual sex with an adult, we might want to avoid leaving DNA evidence behind.”
I never did understand how a thin piece of latex–or chemicals, hormones, or other barriers for that matter–would stop an omnipotent being from getting a woman pregnant. According to official doctrine, a sperm isn’t even necessary!
Nentuaby
August 14, 2012 at 2:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Telegraph “is” reporting no such thing, Ed. That article is from 2010. The pronouncement hasn’t changed a dang thing in the two years since.
Ed Brayton
August 14, 2012 at 2:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oops. I missed the date.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
August 14, 2012 at 3:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, I’d gotten used to Ed’s posts being a bit after things happen, but this is ridiculous.
M Groesbeck
August 14, 2012 at 3:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Forbidden Snowflake @ 13 –
Contrary to what The Onion implies for the setup of their joke, though, isn’t the strict womb-control “life begins at conception” schtick much more recent than 2k years ago? IIRC, wasn’t there a whole “the fertilized egg is shaped exactly like a miniature human, and thus a human life” phase c. 200 years ago which led to the current state? I mean, even the book these people claim to draw their crap from states pretty clearly that a human doesn’t really count as a human life until it at least draws its first breath. Biblically, an abortion (like an assault on a woman) is at worst a violation of the property of the [future father/current husband-or-father] who is the owner of the [fetus/woman] in question.
Chiroptera
August 14, 2012 at 4:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
M Groesbeck, #20:
I remember reading a very reliable source (The internet! How much more reliable can you get?) that the medievel belief was that a baby acquired its soul when the mother feels it “kick” for the first time — this event was called “quickening.”
dave
August 14, 2012 at 5:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So the homos can use condoms, because (a) they are already going to hell and (b) cant make da baybeez anyway.
slc1
August 14, 2012 at 5:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Chiroptera @ #21
This was proposed by Thomas Aquinas.
ttch
August 14, 2012 at 5:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The title should be: “Pope softens on condoms.”
F
August 14, 2012 at 9:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Church believes that contraception interferes with the creation of life.
Did they reason this out all on their own, or did they look up the definition of contraception?
gshelley
August 15, 2012 at 8:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s is hard for me to fathom the convoluted workings of the Pope’s mind, but I would guess that any borth control has a failure rate, so as long as there is a non zero chance of pregnancy, condoms wouldn’t be allowed.
IIRC, at the time, they went on to be specific that it was male prostitutes – female prostitutes with HIV were not covered, though as I write that, it seems so absurd and obscene that I am doubting my own memory.
democommie
August 15, 2012 at 8:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Excuse my reduncancy if it’s already been dealth with, but this:
““There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be…”
is fucking nonsense.
Back when I was still a Cath-O-Lick and was getting lectured on a way too frequent basis about what a sinful, irredeemable piece of crap I and my fellow man was, the subject of fucking anyone–of either sex–in any situation outside of procreative sex involving EXACTLY two people of different sexes who were, at the time, wed in holy natrimony was covered extensively. The concept of sex for pleasure was WROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!
Am I the only one who sees a bit of unintended humor in that line?