In a book to be published this week, Benedict XVI said there could be “justified individual cases” in which condoms could be used, softening Rome’s blanket ban on contraception, one of the most controversial issues facing the Church.
“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,” the head of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics said, giving as an example a male prostitute having sex with a client.
But he gave no guidance on the long-standing moral and religious question of whether it would be permissible for a married couple, in which one partner is HIV positive, to use condoms in order to prevent the other partner from becoming infected.
Oddly enough I can see where the Pope is er… coming from here. It’s sort of the reason that soldiers have been issued with johnnies in various wars. It’s got nothing to do with preventing the pitter-patter of tiny feet but preventing the army literally getting “clapped-out” (which is where that phrase comes from). Different countries have had different policies as to the children of soldiers fathered in foreign lands. The British (perhaps due to a long era of colonialism) have tended to be more humane but the USA hasn’t. A great many children fathered by GIs in ‘nam had to suffer terribly after the USA withdrew in the ’70s* because they were denied entry** to the USA despite their persecution by the Viet Coms.
So, it’s a right dilly of a pickle. Artificial contraception is wrong by Catholic mores but if it’s two geezers doing it then contraception clearly isn’t an issue so… Yet it just feels wrong doesn’t it? A rent boy can insist on the use of condoms but a practising Catholic heterosexual couple can’t even if the reason one of them is HIV+ is infected “innocently”*** (dodgy blood transfusion or whatever).
Intellectually and theologically, if you accept orthodox Catholic doctrine, this bizarre ruling almost makes sense though morally and emotionally it does not.
Essentially this demonstrates the eternal conflict between the letter and the spirit of the law. Whilst this ruling is unimpeachable in terms of deductive logic from the basic axioms of Catholicism it’s result is ludicrous. It is a reductio ad absurdam that demonstrates that the axioms themselves are wrong.
It was ever thus that the tree of knowledge is not that of life. All the great religious traditions have (at times) fostered philosophical inquiry partially because of their legalistic nature and the subsequent debates have sharpened the wits of those involved but essentially this is a debate about angels dancing on the head of a pin with the ghastly cowled figure of AIDS lurking and sharpening his scythe****.
Ultimately it is a stark demonstration that whilst the Catholic church has enriched civilization in so many ways it’s sexual mores are built on sand. It goes like this. If you take an axiom set and deduce results from that set and those results don’t have any relationship to reality then either your working is wrong or the axioms are. In this case I thing it is clear the axioms are at fault.
And no, I’m not arguing we can’t help ourselves from “the sins of the flesh” either. That is a different issue from attempting to discern what they are by the over-use of reasoning above sense.
*In some cases nowhere near quickly enough.
**Nick, behave!
***Please make no mistake here. I am not moralising - that’s the Pope’s job - nice bloke, gets a bit preachy at times, mind. I’m trying to present it from the official Catholic viewpoint. I’m not saying there is “good” AIDS or “bad” AIDS or anything like that because I regard such thinking as morally vile.
****If only it was sharp. It isn’t, it’s a horrible way to go. I choose “misadventure”.
Intellectually and theologically, if you accept orthodox Catholic doctrine, this bizarre ruling almost makes sense though morally and emotionally it does not.
Makes perfect sense to me in all ways. fyi, fwiw.
A papist
berenike,
Could you explain that to a non-papist agnostic like me?
because you see my problem is the more religious reasoning leads to a divergence from common-sense the more I doubt the basics have any soundness whatsoever. Here we have a pontiff saying that condoms are OK for gay (a sin) sex for money (a sin) but not married heterosexual couples. It is an absolute reductio ad absurdam.
PS. “fyi, fwiw” - is that Welsh?
AIUI, there was a widespread expectation that His Popishness would legalise rubber johnnies at Vatican II, and widespread disappointment that they fumbled the ball(s) there. So this is probably overdue, and a convenient way to slip it in the back way under a pretext. Or surplice.
For your information, for what it’s worth.
I am au fait with the uncouth slang of the internet.
Vatican II. Wasn’t that when T-Rex roamed the land?
Pulling latex socks over any part of your anatomy is in itself neither good nor bad. Getting your jollies outside the marital act is Not Good. This includes using contraception in otherwise plain vanilla sexual relations with your spouse.
This might help you see what it’s about: What I’ve Been Taught About Condoms.
Off to bed to sleep and ponder how to get people as interested in grace and the love of God as they are in condoms :eyeroll:
Perhaps it was problem of being spoken in German, then translated into Italian, then into English - then quoted in an edited section.
What the Pope actually said is not hard to find out - nor is it in any way contrary to common sense.
What he said was (better translated into English) was that it could be a first step for a HIV male prostitute to use a condom - the prostitute was still NOT being moral (to be moral he would have to give up being a prostitute), but at least he was showing some knowledge that he was doing harm and trying to reduce the harm he was doing.
A hetrosexual?
Same principle - someone with HIV should not have sex.
“But I can not stop myself having sex” - well then something is very wrong with such a person (spiritually - not just physically), so we have to consider what would be the first step for such a person to at least reduce the harm they are doing.
It should be remembered that Catholic teaching on sex (right or wrong) is that it is not just a harmless bit of fun (even if no illness is involved), but a profound act that should only occur between a married couple.
One can mock the teaching (and the teaching may be quite wrong) - but it is clear enough.
Paul,
“It should be remembered that Catholic teaching on sex (right or wrong) is that it is not just a harmless bit of fun (even if no illness is involved), but a profound act that should only occur between a married couple.”
My point was that this papal book did not make it clear whether or not this applied to married couples as well as male prostitutes. Obviously it is better for an HIV+ male prostitute to use a condom than not. Note I use the comparative for it is hardly “best practice” by any definition because condoms are hardly 100%*. My whole point was that it would appear the Pope was sanctioning the use of condoms purely in circumstances where by brute facts of physiology conception is not well… conceivable. Perhaps a case can be made that a heterosexual married (indeed Catholic) couple should refrain from sex if one is HIV+ and the other isn’t on the basis of the “harm” principle but it is a mockery to ignore them here yet give a bye to rentboys is it not? It really is. A committed long-term relationship is built on trust and mutuality in a way that a five buck trip through the glory hole isn’t. Most couples want and need sex with each other. As you said it is profound and not “just a bit of fun”. This applies to gay couples as well. Prostitution is different because of the turn-over and the essentially different form of trust involved. This is why in pretty much every territory where prostitution is legal (parts of the USA, Australia and Europe spring to mind) regular medical tests are mandated for licensed brothels. There is a difference between the trust of lovers and having a certificate. It is essentially the difference between personal and professional trust.
Essentially the Pope is trying to square a circle here in which perversely he seems to be granting more rights to gay (bad), prostitutes (bad) people than to his own flock purely because the Catholic Church is obsessed with “artificial” contraception being evil. Well let’s look at the use of the word “artificial” here. Something like Implanon or Mircogynon would certainly be regarded as “artificial” but to the end user it’s a heck of a lot simpler than the epic frigmarole that is the “rhythm method” - and a heck of a lot more effective.
As you said, and I reiterated, sex does matter and is not a jollity like playing “Super Mario Cart” but it is not necessarily bound up with the possibility of conception.
At the very heart of this latest papal bull is the idea that sex is only really sex if a man ejaculates into a woman’s vagina without latex or hormones. It is entirely predicated on the idea that the sex the rest of us - gay, straight, whatever - do is meaningless and without love, trust or emotion and that is utterly wrong both morally and factually.
*You really want to incite fury in an AIDS researcher then mention the HIV+ groups that exist who have wild un-condomed sex because “they ain’t got nothing to lose”. Very bad idea. This crosses strains of HIV. Essentially it isn’t just the members of these groups who are having sex. So is the virus.
berenike,
It might come (oh err missus!) as a surprise but I hate condoms. I hate them because they destroy intimacy. I hate them because they fail a lot an RU-486 and PC-4 are such a hilarity but trust and chemistry is the solution. Unless you wanna have kids and then Ma Nature or Robert Winston (shudder!) does it.
I’m sorry, I’m going to attack someone or something if I think about this subject any more and it’s not b/c of Wur Host Nick, who is always perfectly reasonable in discussion, nor anyone else here for that matter.
:/
berenike,
Thank you! As a Geordie I’d prefer “Wor host” but that is quibbling. Poor old Cardinal Basil Hume. I too suffered with him during FA Cup finals.
oooh, a Geordie! So’s me co-blogger aelianus. Yous’re practically honorary Scots
berenike,
I like banter as much as the next man but there are things up with which I shall not put. I have been accused (sometimes correctly) of many things but being “almost Scottish” is fighting talk. The unusual lantern tower of St Nicholas’ Cathedral in Newcastle perhaps illustrates this. At one point the Scots were massed upon edge of the city and they pointed their canon (that’s a plural BTW) at the cathedral tower and said they’d deck it if the Novacastrians didn’t surrender the city to an orgy of rape, haggis and ginger fright wigs or some such. Our lot said, “Yeah fine, but we’ve marched all our POWs up to the top so fire away you Jockulent bastards!”. I think you can guess who won that one.
I don’t hold anything (when I can help it anyway) against the Scottish but don’t call a Geordie “almost Scottish” unless you want a fight
We all, thankfully, gave up on that nonsense many moons ago and yes we are Geordies because we remained loyal to King George rather than going with that semi-frogulent upstart called Chuckles. Although not even he desired (unlike the current pretender) to be “Defender of Faith”. The utterly reprehensible cunt he truly is. And he is allegedly Welsh. Allegedly.
You rose beautifully
I was amused to read that the foundation stone of Durham cathedral was laid by Malcolm III while on a raiding tour of the area …
Yeah, well, Durham is Mackem land not Geordie land. And Mackems be buggered!