Conservatives at odds with Vatican over condoms

Associated Press

By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll, Ap Religion Writer – 1 hr 12 mins ago, November 24, 2010

Link to original

NEW YORK – Faced with a changing outlook from Pope Benedict XVI on condoms and their role in preventing the spread of HIV, many prominent conservative Roman Catholics in the U.S. are rejecting the Vatican's own explanation of what the pope said.

Several orthodox Catholics said they would only accept a more formal papal pronouncement. Others insisted that journalists were purposely misrepresenting Benedict's comments. Some questioned whether the papal spokesman, the Rev. Frederico Lombardi, accurately quoted the pope.

Bishops and the experts who advise them were scrambling to make sense of the news.

"It's a mess," said John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, which advises church leaders, hospitals and Vatican offices. "I'm not ready to say that the pope said what Lombardi said."

The uproar is over comments Benedict made in the new book, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times." In an exchange with the author about AIDS in Africa, Benedict said that for some people, such as male prostitutes, using condoms could be a step in assuming moral responsibility because the intent is to "reduce the risk of infection."

At a news conference Tuesday in Rome, Lombardi said Benedict knew his comments would provoke intense debate, and that the pope meant for his remarks to apply not just to male prostitutes, but also "if you're a man, a woman, or a transsɛҳuąƖ."

The pope did not suggest using condoms as birth control, which is banned by the Roman Catholic Church, and said condoms were not a "real or moral solution" to the AIDS crisis.

Still, his remarks were a watershed in the long debate among theologians and church officials over the morality of using condoms for disease prevention.

Jenn Giroux, executive director of Human Life International America, which promotes Catholic teaching on contraception, abortion and other moral issues, said more clarification from the Vatican was needed.

"I am watching very carefully, as everyone is right now, before making a final pronouncement," said Giroux, a registered nurse and mother of nine. "We just got something from a spokesperson. As always, we look to church doctrine on statements like this."

Germain Grisez, a prominent moral theologian who advises bishops, said that promoting condoms as protection against disease would be "pernicious" because it assumes a person does not have the capacity to make good, moral choices. He lamented that the pope's comments "can be — and are being — misused to sow doubt about Catholic teaching."

"Many of Jesus' own sayings were misused, and he no doubt foresaw that they would be misused. But he nevertheless said what he thought would lead to salvation those who were open to his teaching," Grisez wrote in an e-mail. "I assume that Pope Benedict's intention in speaking out as he does is similar to Jesus' intention. But Benedict's judgment about what to say may not be as sound as Jesus' judgment was."

Haas, also a moral theologian, said he fielded calls all day Tuesday from bishops confused by what Lombardi had said. Benedict's comments come at a time when bishops in the United States are intensely focused on upholding Catholic orthodoxy on marriage and sɛҳuąƖity.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did not respond to requests Tuesday for comment.

Philip Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, demanded the resignation of the editor of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, after the daily printed the pope's quotes on condoms and other topics in a Saturday edition, despite an embargo on the much-anticipated book.

Lawler and many other orthodox Catholics argued that the newspaper undermined the pope by quoting him without the proper context. Lawler stood by his criticism and call for the editor's resignation after Lombardi's news conference Tuesday.

"I think the clarification was confusing and frustrating," Lawler said.

Catholic teaching has never totally barred condom use for protection against HIV and the Vatican has no official, authoritative policy on the issue.

In 1987, the U.S. bishops' conference issued the statement, "The Many Face of AIDS," that stressed limiting sex to marriage as the best protection against the virus, but said public education "could include accurate information about prophylactic devices" to prevent transmission. The docuмent was criticized at the time by conservatives and some Vatican officials.

Years ago, Vatican officials reportedly began studying the topic, with the goal of writing a docuмent on the morality of condom use as protection against AIDS, but no statement was issued.

The pope's comments in a book interview do not amount to an official teaching, a point conservative Catholics made repeatedly and vociferously Tuesday. They argued that the pope was only noting that by using a condom, a person with HIV is displaying some moral sense about the consequences of his behavior.

"I maintain that nothing new has happened, that the church's teaching hasn't changed," said the Rev. Joseph Fessio of Ignatius Press, the English publisher of the book, in a phone interview from Rome.

Yet, the pope's remarks are still seen as significant and must be analyzed and explained by church leaders. U.S. bishops oversee AIDS care programs through local and national Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Services. In a brief statement, Catholic Relief Services said, "Our current policy holds: we do not purchase, distribute or promote the use of condoms."

Very few U.S. bishops or church officials have commented since the pope's remarks were published last Saturday.

"We're in for a long period of confusion," said Russell Shaw, a writer for the Catholic publication Our Sunday Visitor and former spokesman for the U.S. bishops' conference. "The bishops — and clergy especially — will have to go home now to their own dioceses and whether they like it or not start speaking very clearly about what just happened."

What are you talking about? This book is GREAT!!

Just read...

Praise Pouring in for "Light of the World"

Book Seen as Honest Reflection on Many Issues

By Edward Pentin

ROME, NOV. 25, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Aside from the media cacophony surrounding just one short, though important, passage in the book, plaudits have been coming in thick and fast for "Light in the World," Peter Seewald's landmark series of interviews with Benedict XVI.

In comments to ZENIT, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver said the book illustrates the Pope's "courage and serenity in a very direct way" -- especially in confronting the modern, secular world -- and that the ideas presented are both "lucid and compelling."

"The Pope has an uncommon ability to combine brilliant thought with simple clarity and disarming candor, which makes his thinking accessible to any interested reader," he said. "But the great appeal of this book flows from the personality of the man himself. Reading these pages is like meeting and listening to him personally. He has a deeply attractive presence as a leader."

Over the course of six one-hour interviews in July, Seewald asked the Pope a wide range of challenging and well-researched questions on a whole gamut of contemporary issues of concern to the Church and the world -- from the economic crisis and concerns over the environment, to the crisis of faith and the urgent need for a new evangelization in the West.

As well as the Church's teaching on condoms and AIDS prevention, subjects also include the true causes of the sex-abuse scandal and prospects for reform, the possible scenarios in which the Pope might consider resigning, the nature of papal infallibility and Petrine authority, ecuмenism, Islam, Judaism, and the message of Fatima. The Holy Father also reflects on what was going through his mind when he was elected as well as his daily routine in the apostolic palace.

Frank

On almost every major issue of this pontificate to date, the Pope gives open and frank responses, thereby cutting through five years of speculation and second-guessing to reveal just why he has acted on a whole range of issues. "This is a singularly frank interview from a pope, demonstrating an extraordinary level of candor without calculation," said George Neumayr, editor of Catholic World Report magazine. "That alone will make the book a remarkable historical docuмent of this papacy."

The Pope explains his reasons for lifting the excommunications on the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X, adding that he'd have made an exception for Richard Williamson had he known of Williamson's history of h0Ɩ0cαųst denial. He also discusses an often contentious area of this pontificate: the "fragile" relationship with the Jєωs and Israel.

He explains his approach to the controversy over the Good Friday prayer of the Traditional Latin Mass that called for the conversion of the Jєωs, and he stands by his decision last year to declare Pius XII showed heroic virtue, revealing that he ordered an inspection of the unpublished archival records "to be absolutely sure." He says of Pius "he was one of the great righteous men and that he saved more Jєωs than anyone else."

He also reflects on his 2006 Regensburg lecture that caused uproar in the Islamic world. Ever since, commentators have wondered if he foresaw the reaction that was to follow. Now we know: he didn't, but "conceived and delivered the lecture as a strictly academic address, without realizing that people don't read papal lectures as academic presentations, but as political statements." Despite this, he notes the good that has inadvertently come from it, namely that the Church and Islam have now "entered into an extensive and vigorous" dialogue.

Other fascinating revelations come to light in the book, in large part thanks to Seewald's interviewing style: he doesn't grill the Pope but engages him in polite conversation, giving the Holy Father facts and quotations in order to elicit the best and fullest answers. And the questions are ones many would have liked to ask.

Some of the most fascinating passages are when the Holy Father describes his deep confidence in God's providence, his own self sacrifice in being Pope, and his deep awareness of God's presence. "I always sense consolation "from above"," he says at one point, "and experience the nearness of the Lord while praying, and the beauty of the faith shines forth as I read the Church Fathers – there is a whole concert of consolations."

A personal glimpse

"It really is a tremendously personal and spiritual book," said Father Robert Gahl, professor of moral philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, who was particularly struck by the passages on papal infallibility. "It's beautiful how he distinguishes between the exercise of papal infallibility while being a normal man and being affected by human error despite his best efforts – it's the first time we've had a first person account of how that works at a psychological, spiritual and moral level."

But of course this isn't just a portrait of a pope and the events of a pontificate; it's also a teaching docuмent through which the Holy Father offers his guidance to the Church and the world – explained in the vintage, crystal clear language of Professor Joseph Ratzinger. He discusses, for example, what he calls a "threatening catastrophe" in the world, noting "how enormously man's power has grown, but what did not grow along with it was his ethical potential." In response, he calls for a "comprehensive re-examination of basic principles."

In other chapters, the Pope gives a short catechesis on the meaning of truth, the problems of secularism and relativism, and the Last Things. He tackles the growth of "practical atheism", warning that if it "becomes a general existential position, then freedom no longer has any standards, then everything is possible and permissible." The answer – and Benedict nearly always tries to provide one – is to try to "bring God back into the center [a] God who knows us, speaks to us, and approaches us and who is then our judge also."

etc.

Sarcastic.

Here's a little ditty to take a little of the heat off the steward of gondor and his "bishops".....

It is odd that on the one hand Neo-Caths are defending the Pope's comments, but on the other hand they are confused and frustrated.

I think the general approach is to blame the media for the confusion.

Though I can not say with indisputable certainty that B16 is notthe pope, I can nevertheless declare with certitude that the man is a scarcely veiled enemy of most things I hold dear as a Catholic.

The Pope explains his reasons for lifting the excommunications on the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X, adding that he'd have made an exception for Richard Williamson had he known of Williamson's history of h0Ɩ0cαųst denial.

Do not tell me that he knew nothing about +W's "h0Ɩ0cαųst denial."  He and his minions of the cloth most certainly did!  He's lying!
 

He also discusses an often contentious area of this pontificate: the "fragile" relationship with the Jєωs and Israel.

Has the pope ever considered that the key to solving this "fragile" relationship is to have no relationship at all?

Though I can not say with indisputable certainty that B16 is notthe pope, I can nevertheless declare with certitude that the man is a scarcely veiled enemy of most things I hold dear as a Catholic.

Quote

The Pope explains his reasons for lifting the excommunications on the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X, adding that he'd have made an exception for Richard Williamson had he known of Williamson's history of h0Ɩ0cαųst denial.

Do not tell me that he knew nothing about +W's "h0Ɩ0cαųst denial."  He and his minions of the cloth most certainly did!  He's lying!
 

Quote

He also discusses an often contentious area of this pontificate: the "fragile" relationship with the Jєωs and Israel.

Has the pope ever considered that the key to solving this "fragile" relationship is to have no relationship at all?

By that statement, B16 has declared disagreeing with the "6 million dogma/the "h0Ɩ0cαųst" as the Jєωs dictate" into an "excommunicable" offense.

Talk about the Church turned upside down.  

Deny the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:  B16 sends you out to "evangelize".

Disagree with the Jєωs 6 million dogma/"h0Ɩ0cαųst":  grounds for "excommunication".