Of Popes and Condoms

Of Popes and Condoms

The so-called worldwide consternation over Pope Benedict XVI’s recent comments about the use of condoms is a veritable tempest in a teapot manufactured as if Benedict, countless popes before him, and the Catholic Church have long waged a vendetta against Trojan Inc. and every other manufacturer of condoms on the planet.

That makes as much sense as believing the Crusades were really all about re-claiming vacation spots in Jerusalem.

The remarks that ignited a “firestorm” by allegedly condoning condoms: “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.”

Benedict’s circuitous comments, made in an extensive, book-length interview with German writer Peter Seewald, do not at all change Church teachings on sex and birth control but rather assert that condoms make health sense for male prostitutes as well as, presumably, male homosexuals whose only chances of becoming parents don’t begin in bedrooms but in courts.

His remarks on condom use by such individuals as “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility” and that prophylactics are “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality,” http://tiny.cc/zo2pv, seem to reflect wishful thinking more than they do serious hopes or expectations for a viable path toward moral redemption.

Practically speaking, gigolos and homosexuals aren’t very likely to become paragons of virtue and morality on the basis of a Catholic pope granting his okay. Indeed, if they needed that permission to protect themselves from disease, they’re too far gone already.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi clarified any misconceptions, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2780)