Media Distorts Pope’s Position On Condoms in Africa

[buffalo]

Media Distorts Pope’s Position On Condoms in Africa

Today Pope Benedict XVI began a five-day pastoral trip to Africa where the Catholic Church is growing in leaps and bounds, even while its members and charitable institutions face enormous social challenges.
Statistics of church attendance, baptisms and other sacraments, and priestly and religious vocations show faster growth for the Catholic Church in Africa than in any other part of the world. This growth is paralleled, however, with a local reality of tribal warfare, government corruption, poverty, and disease in large swaths of the continent.
Dorothy Kwenze, an HIV activist in neighboring Kenya was recently quoted saying, “Abstinence education remains the best strategy, especially for the risk group aged 15-25 years. The concept has worked well for Uganda and can work for other African countries”.
All of this, and what’s making the news? “Pope Says ‘No’ to Condoms.” Thanks to the Associated Press’ reporting, you will see this headline or a similar one on every major American news site, as a first report of what this trip is all about. As a report, I consider it shallow, at best.

more…

 

[jpm1977]

I read the Pope’s comments, and I agree they’re being distorted by the media. BUT! Why doesn’t he speak in a less convoluted manner? He is a scholar, yes, but he is obviously smart enough to know his comments are going to be scrutinized and distorted if possible. So, why not “dumb it down” a little to avoid the chance his comments will be misconstrued. You can do this without changing the message.

Here’s what he said, from the Catholic News Service:

Lest it be taken out of context, here is the exchange that took place on the pope’s plane. The question’s premise was “The Catholic Church’s position on the way to fight against AIDS is often considered unrealistic and ineffective,” and the pope responded:

"I would say the opposite. I think that the reality that is most effective, the most present and the strongest in the fight against AIDS, is precisely that of the Catholic Church, with its programs and its diversity. I think of the Sant’Egidio Community, which does so much visibly and invisibly in the fight against AIDS … and of all the sisters at the service of the sick.

"I would say that one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS only with money – which is important, but if there is no soul, no people who know how to use it, (money) doesn’t help.

"One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.

"The solution can only be a double one: first, a humanization of sexuality, that is, a spiritual human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another; second, a true friendship even and especially with those who suffer, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices and to be with the suffering. And these are factors that help and that result in real and visible progress.

“Therefore I would say this is our double strength – to renew the human being from the inside, to give him spiritual human strength for proper behavior regarding one’s own body and toward the other person, and the capacity to suffer with the suffering. … I think this is the proper response and the church is doing this, and so it offers a great and important contribution. I thank all those who are doing this.”

Why can’t he say something like:

“Let me be clear the Church teaches that sex should be kept within marriage and this is the best way to combat AIDS. However, if someone chooses to reject the Church’s teaching and sin by having sex outside of marriage, use of a condom is better than not using one. It is not 100% safe, but it is better than using nothing at all.”

I mean, isn’t that what the Vatican is effectively going to say in the form of “clarifications” later that will get no press. I am sometimes baffled at the Pope’s and the Vatican’s use of obtuse, hard to understand language. John Paul I spoke more straightforwardly. I know the Pope is German and most of those in the Vatican are Italian, but it shouldn’t be that hard to speak in a direct way.

It upsets me because it does nothing but give ammunition to the Church’s opponents and it is entirely avoidable.

 

[Cathhsmom]

So, why not “dumb it down” a little to avoid the chance his comments will be misconstrued. You can do this without changing the message.

Why can’t he say something like:

“Let me be clear the Church teaches that sex should be kept within marriage and this is the best way to combat AIDS. However, if someone chooses to reject the Church’s teaching and sin by having sex outside of marriage, use of a condom is better than not using one. It is not 100% safe, but it is better than using nothing at all.”

Your idea would just have the media shouting, " The Pope approves of condom use!" The media will always distort what is being said.

Also, I would tweek your above statement to this:

“Let me be clear the Church teaches that sex should be kept within marriage and this is the best way to combat AIDS.”

State the obvious that can’t be argued. Condoms are not 100% perfect. If you can still get pregnant using them, then you can still get HIV with them. It is better to advocate for the best option than to give a wink and a nod to 2nd best. I will not be telling my kids, “Oh, it is best to wait to get married, BUT (wink, wink) if you are going to do it before marriage, use a condom.” That just tells them that it is okay to not wait. I want to hold the bar high. I will have to tell them what condoms are because they are going to be exposed to them. But, I will tell them where the church, and I, stand on them and how destructive they are to people physically, mentally, and spiritually.

 

[buffalo]

I
Here’s what he said, from the Catholic News Service:

Why can’t he say something like:

“Let me be clear the Church teaches that sex should be kept within marriage and this is the best way to combat AIDS. However, if someone chooses to reject the Church’s teaching and sin by having sex outside of marriage, use of a condom is better than not using one. It is not 100% safe, but it is better than using nothing at all.”

No the Pope should not bow to moral relativism. He needs to teach the total truth with clarity.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Media Distorts Pope’s Position On Condoms in Africa

Today Pope Benedict XVI began a five-day pastoral trip to Africa where the Catholic Church is growing in leaps and bounds, even while its members and charitable institutions face enormous social challenges.
Statistics of church attendance, baptisms and other sacraments, and priestly and religious vocations show faster growth for the Catholic Church in Africa than in any other part of the world. This growth is paralleled, however, with a local reality of tribal warfare, government corruption, poverty, and disease in large swaths of the continent.
Dorothy Kwenze, an HIV activist in neighboring Kenya was recently quoted saying, “Abstinence education remains the best strategy, especially for the risk group aged 15-25 years. The concept has worked well for Uganda and can work for other African countries”.
All of this, and what’s making the news? “Pope Says ‘No’ to Condoms.” Thanks to the Associated Press’ reporting, you will see this headline or a similar one on every major American news site, as a first report of what this trip is all about. As a report, I consider it shallow, at best.

more…

The media mis-quoting the Pope? How unusual.

 

[Eucharisted]

Condoms are forbidden, since they impede the procreative end of sex.

I love how the Pope talks!

 

[zab]

RC’s Using Condoms Shock!

 

[jpm1977]

I understand all this, but if you’re a man in Africa (or anywhere for that matter), and you’re HIV positive, and you’re about to have sex with a woman who’s not, it can’t be disputed that the odds of your passing HIV on to her are less by using a condom. I know they’re not 100% effective, but if used properly, there is a lesser chance of passing on a death sentence to this woman.

Now, if you’re this man you may be Catholic and know you’re sinning, or you may be animist or atheist and not think you’re doing anything wrong, but in this hypothetical the act is going to happen (and it obviously is happening millions of times a day). If she can’t afford medication, HIV would be a death sentence to her. You’re already sinning by having sex outside marriage, but lessening the potentially deadly impact of the sin to another person by reducing the chance of HIV is a positive outcome, is it not?

If so, I understand emphasizing abstinence and fidelity, but if some people take the Pope’s message to mean that using a condom makes the sin of sex outside marriage worse, then they may have sex anyway and on top of that not use a condom, thinking that in some way its not as bad that way, thereby increasing the chances of passing along HIV to an uninfected person, and effectively killing them.

How can that be right? We’re not talking about abortofacient birth control here that could also kill a concepted child, we’re talking about a barrier method. Its no different than masturbating while using a condom: Its still a sin; the condom doesn’t make it better or worse, but in the case of sex, it does reduce the chance of another person getting AIDS and dying, so shouldn’t that be acknowledged? Use of the condom doesn’t change the moral nature of what you’re doing, but it lessens a negative personal impact of that sin on another person, and isn’t that a better outcome?

I have a hard time seeing how this is debatable. I’m willing to listen, but I have a hard time understanding this.

 

[buffalo]

Harvard center: The Pope is right on condoms
Media coverage of papal comments is March madness

‘We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.”

So notes Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, in response to papal press comments en route to Africa this week.

Benedict XVI said, in response to a French reporter’s question asking him to defend the Church’s position on fighting the spread of AIDS, characterized by the reporter as “frequently considered unrealistic and ineffective”:
I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome with advertising slogans. If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem. The solution can only come through a twofold commitment: firstly, the humanization of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another; and secondly, true friendship, above all with those who are suffering, a readiness — even through personal sacrifice — to be present with those who suffer. And these are the factors that help and bring visible progress.**
**
“The pope is correct,” Green told *National Review Online *Wednesday, “or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments. He stresses that “condoms have been proven to notbe effective at the ‘level of population.’”

more…

 

[jpm1977]

I read that, and if that’s what the statistics are, in the aggregate (or the ‘level of population’ as it is termed in the article), I don’t disagree, but at the level of population, it would include people not using them, or not using them consistently, or not using them properly.

In a one on one situation, though, a condom would have an effect of reducing the likelihood of transmitting the virus–not a certainty–just a reduction of risk.

I think my biggest hang up is that His comments could be misconstrued and interpreted as “Sex outside marriage is a sin, but it is a worse sin if I use a condom, so I’ll have sex, but won’t use a condom, and it won’t be as bad.” Now this is bad theology and bad moral decision making, but you have to take at face value. I’ve heard from my dad that when he was in Catholic high school in the late-'60s the priest would tell them not to have sex, and not to use a condom unless they poked a hole in it (he was only half-joking). So shouldn’t we use language that avoids that potential misconstruction? You could do so while emphasizing moral teaching, that is emphasizing that the sex outside marriage is sinful no matter what, but in a way that it is clear that *not *using a condom doesn’t mitigate that sin in any way.

So, I guess the real question is if you’re having sex outside marriage, is it a worse sin, or two sins, to use a condom? If you compound this with the assumption that one person has a deadly virus and the other doesn’t, and the condom is used to reduce the chance of transmission of that virus, and not purely as birth control, I would think it is not.

All this not to encourage promiscuity, but to try to minimize damage from sin at a personal level.

 

[Snerticus]

Look, to those that think condoms are better than nothing and the Pope should admit it:

If the Pope said this, then he would be condoning sex. Sex outside of marriage is wrong. Period. The Pope is never going to say condoms or any other type of non-abortifacient contraceptive is okay. It would be like saying, okay, so some of you are going to have sex, better be protected then. Would Jesus say that? No, Jesus would say simply “go and sin no more”. The Pope, by saying “no” to condoms is saying “go and sin no more”.

Plain and simple. Why can’t people accept that Peter’s successor is condemning sin?

It would be like saying murder is wrong, but, if you’re going to do it, use a gun, it’s less painful and the perfect shot does it quicker and causes less suffering. Better to lessen the sin while committing it than not.

 

[buffalo]

Look, to those that think condoms are better than nothing and the Pope should admit it:

If the Pope said this, then he would be condoning sex. Sex outside of marriage is wrong. Period. The Pope is never going to say condoms or any other type of non-abortifacient contraceptive is okay. It would be like saying, okay, so some of you are going to have sex, better be protected then. Would Jesus say that? No, Jesus would say simply “go and sin no more”. The Pope, by saying “no” to condoms is saying “go and sin no more”.

Plain and simple. Why can’t people accept that Peter’s successor is condemning sin?

It is really interesting to note how when the Pope spoke out against the war everyone quoted him positively. When he speaks out against their ideology they trash him.

 

[jpm1977]

Look, to those that think condoms are better than nothing and the Pope should admit it:

If the Pope said this, then he would be condoning sex. Sex outside of marriage is wrong. Period. The Pope is never going to say condoms or any other type of non-abortifacient contraceptive is okay. It would be like saying, okay, so some of you are going to have sex, better be protected then. Would Jesus say that? No, Jesus would say simply “go and sin no more”. The Pope, by saying “no” to condoms is saying “go and sin no more”.

Plain and simple. Why can’t people accept that Peter’s successor is condemning sin?

It would be like saying murder is wrong, but, if you’re going to do it, use a gun, it’s less painful and the perfect shot does it quicker and causes less suffering. Better to lessen the sin while committing it than not.

I don’t see how it logically follows that acknowledging that condoms reduce the chance of passing along HIV equates to condoning sin. Could someone walk me through that logical progression?

As far as the murder/gun analogy, I think its a closer analogy to say: Assaulting someone is a sin, but if you’re going to assault someone, would you at least use your fists instead of a knife dripping with HIV infected blood. The fists will result in injury, but likely not death; the knife might result in just an injury, but will more likely lead to death. Murder is worse than assault, so please try to limit the damage of your sin of assault so that it doesn’t end in death.

Is that condoning assault? I think not. If my analogy is off please tell me, but I think it stands to reason.

 

[Snerticus]

I don’t see how it logically follows that acknowledging that condoms reduce the chance of passing along HIV equates to condoning sin. Could someone walk me through that logical progression?

Please try to see this. Saying “yes” to condoms is saying “yes” to sex. How can you not see this? No sex, no need for condoms. I honestly can’t believe that is so hard for someone to see.

As far as the murder/gun analogy, I think its a closer analogy to say: Assaulting someone is a sin, but if you’re going to assault someone, would you at least use your fists instead of a knife dripping with HIV infected blood. The fists will result in injury, but likely not death; the knife might result in just an injury, but will more likely lead to death. Murder is worse than assault, so please try to limit the damage of your sin of assault so that it doesn’t end in death.

Is that condoning assault? I think not. If my analogy is off please tell me, but I think it stands to reason.

No problem here. Fists are the property of you. Not some second party piece of equipment. NFP is the property of you, not some piece of equipment like a condom. Not a good analogy.

If you decide to abstain, that’s one thing, but if you decide to sin because you want to, and then use a piece of equipment to try to block the consequences of that sin from happening, that’s a totally different thing.

 

[jpm1977]

Please try to see this. Saying “yes” to condoms is saying “yes” to sex. How can you not see this? No sex, no need for condoms. I honestly can’t believe that is so hard for someone to see.

We may never come to an agreement here, but I still don’t see it. I’m not proposing the Pope say “yes” to condoms as a rule. It just seems to me you can still say sex outside of marriage is a sin, BUT that sin can have different results. It may result in no pregnancy or disease transmission, in which case it is a purely moral wrong. It may result in pregnancy, and if the parents aren’t married and the man leaves, it would then result in a child without two parents… less than ideal. It might result in the death of another person by an abortion, big problem. It may also result in the transmission of HIV from someone who has it to someone who does not. In that case, in addition to the moral wrong of the act itself, now two people are going to die instead of one. Is that not a worse outcome than only one person dying?

Mass produced condoms exist. They are out there and that genie cannot be put back in the bottle. And if using them would lessen the chance of someone dying, shouldn’t it be done? And it seems like one could acknowledge that while at the same time maintaining that the act is a sin and shouldn’t be done, and here’s why, and the rest. I don’t see how those two things are incompatible.

The truth of the sin doesn’t change, but these physical things are invented and come into the world and the reality of their existence should be acknowledged. Not approved of, just acknowledged.

Now, I can see a counterargument that is this: The wages of sin are death, and if two people are going to sin and one has HIV and the other doesn’t, then if the other person gets it, they both deserve what they get (death), and the condom shouldn’t get in the way of God’s judgment on those two fornicators. And if that’s the argument, I wish the Pope or whoever thinks it would just come out and say it, but no one seems willing to go that far either. I think that’s because it runs into the fact that the Church believes in medicine and healing the sick no matter how they got in that condition.

So why is it moral to treat someone who gets AIDS from extramarital sex with medicine after the fact, but immoral that they should use something to protect themselves from getting the disease in the first place? Doesn’t treating them for a disease they got by sinning “condone” the sin in some respect? Can’t it be maintained that a behavior is a sin, but if something exists that can lessen the deadly physical impact of the sin, that something shouldn’t be withheld?

**I wonder **- Assume one’s teenage daughter tearfully admits she’s had sex outside marriage and asks for forgiveness. So, one forgives her and recommends that she go to confession, and she does, and honestly repents. Now, assume she later says that the sex had been “unprotected” because condoms are wrong, but she’s now found out that the man with whom she’d had sex was HIV positive. Should one be happy she didn’t use a condom, but likely has HIV? Or would it not have been better–if she were going to sin anyway, which she did–to at least reduce the chances of her getting a deadly disease?

 

[Snerticus]

**I wonder **- Assume one’s teenage daughter tearfully admits she’s had sex outside marriage and asks for forgiveness. So, one forgives her and recommends that she go to confession, and she does, and honestly repents. Now, assume she later says that the sex had been “unprotected” because condoms are wrong, but she’s now found out that the man with whom she’d had sex was HIV positive. Should one be happy she didn’t use a condom, but likely has HIV? Or would it not have been better–if she were going to sin anyway, which she did–to at least reduce the chances of her getting a deadly disease?

If she has sex, which is clearly wrong, why would she care if using a condom for protection is wrong? You can’t say, I want to mug you, but I’ll use my knife so that it’s not quite so wrong as using a gun. Mugging is wrong, no matter what you use to do it.

Sex is wrong. No sex no pregnancies. No sex, no STD’s. No sex, no sin. So the whole world’s doing it you say? Did you ever hear that old expression “if the whole world jumped off a bridge…”?

The Lord himself said in the end times the world’s love would grow cold. It would be a Godless generation. Do you think that in that situation, where the world could care less about each other and only think about themselves, that sin would even be considered a sin? Revelation warns us that “the beast” (which to me is secularism brought about by the contempt of Satan - but that’s my own take on it.) will fool everyone to follow him except, if it were possible, the elect.

Okay, now I’m getting into eschatology, but there is a reason why I’m saying that just because everyone does something doesn’t mean it’s not a sin. And just because everyone sins does not give us a reason to accept that sin. The Church, through the Pope, is not accepting sin. I don’t expect in the near or distant future the Church to change it’s mind on sin. If Jesus would have a problem with rampant sex in the world, then I’m pretty sure it’s wrong, even if the rest of the world adopted the attitude that it’s okay because everyone else is doing it.

Christ warned us that because the world hates Him, they will hate us. I see this happening, slowly but surely. People want their sin of sex, but not the consequence of it, so they are slowly rejecting Church teaching and turning to that life of sin. Eventually, those that think the Pope is harsh are going to turn completely away from Christ because they won’t think what the Church teaches is true. I’ve seen this happening for a while, and if you think I’m a nut case for it, so be it.

I didn’t want my discussion to get this far into why sin is wrong and shouldn’t be accepted in even the tiniest way but … there you have it…

Now getting back to your question. If the daughter tearfully is sorry, she will understand, and hopefully you will too, that by committing a sin, she is going to have to pay the consequences. Neither of you will like it, but it’s better than paying the consequences eternally in Hell, don’t you think? Would you rather suffer on this earth with something like HIV (God forbid) and then go to Heaven or would you like to commit sin constantly with protection and not suffer the consequences until you will be forced to suffer them eventually in the afterlife?

I wish I could get you to understand what I’m trying to say. But if this attempt has not worked, then I’m afraid nothing I write further on the matter will either. Maybe I’m just having an off-day today on the forums. It happens…

 

[edwest2]

I read that, and if that’s what the statistics are, in the aggregate (or the ‘level of population’ as it is termed in the article), I don’t disagree, but at the level of population, it would include people not using them, or not using them consistently, or not using them properly.

In a one on one situation, though, a condom would have an effect of reducing the likelihood of transmitting the virus–not a certainty–just a reduction of risk.

I think my biggest hang up is that His comments could be misconstrued and interpreted as “Sex outside marriage is a sin, but it is a worse sin if I use a condom, so I’ll have sex, but won’t use a condom, and it won’t be as bad.” Now this is bad theology and bad moral decision making, but you have to take at face value. I’ve heard from my dad that when he was in Catholic high school in the late-'60s the priest would tell them not to have sex, and not to use a condom unless they poked a hole in it (he was only half-joking). So shouldn’t we use language that avoids that potential misconstruction? You could do so while emphasizing moral teaching, that is emphasizing that the sex outside marriage is sinful no matter what, but in a way that it is clear that *not *using a condom doesn’t mitigate that sin in any way.

So, I guess the real question is if you’re having sex outside marriage, is it a worse sin, or two sins, to use a condom? If you compound this with the assumption that one person has a deadly virus and the other doesn’t, and the condom is used to reduce the chance of transmission of that virus, and not purely as birth control, I would think it is not.

All this not to encourage promiscuity, but to try to minimize damage from sin at a personal level.

Condoms are not 100% effective in preventing pregnancy or getting HIV or any other Sexually Transmitted Disease. Do you want to have sex with someone you don’t know? Do you want to tell anyone to take a chance on having sex and risk dying?

It’s a sin to have sex outside of marriage. Period. The Church does not dictate to anyone as to when they have sex.

The Media is controlled by a small group of people who want to distort the facts in some cases.

Peace,
Ed

 

[RedGecko]

I think the Pope has the right idea. Advocating the use of condoms is essentially advocating having sex outside of a monogamous relationship (marriage or otherwise). Uganda had great success with it’s “zero grazing” policy of promoting fidelity. Uganda’s HIV rate went up when the international campaign of advocating condoms was implemented.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032802510_pf.html

 

[buffalo]

Condoms have holes.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

I read that, and if that’s what the statistics are, in the aggregate (or the ‘level of population’ as it is termed in the article), I don’t disagree, but at the level of population, it would include people not using them, or not using them consistently, or not using them properly.

In a one on one situation, though, a condom would have an effect of reducing the likelihood of transmitting the virus–not a certainty–just a reduction of risk.

I think my biggest hang up is that His comments could be misconstrued and interpreted as “Sex outside marriage is a sin, but it is a worse sin if I use a condom, so I’ll have sex, but won’t use a condom, and it won’t be as bad.” Now this is bad theology and bad moral decision making, but you have to take at face value. I’ve heard from my dad that when he was in Catholic high school in the late-'60s the priest would tell them not to have sex, and not to use a condom unless they poked a hole in it (he was only half-joking). So shouldn’t we use language that avoids that potential misconstruction? You could do so while emphasizing moral teaching, that is emphasizing that the sex outside marriage is sinful no matter what, but in a way that it is clear that *not *using a condom doesn’t mitigate that sin in any way.

So, I guess the real question is if you’re having sex outside marriage, is it a worse sin, or two sins, to use a condom? If you compound this with the assumption that one person has a deadly virus and the other doesn’t, and the condom is used to reduce the chance of transmission of that virus, and not purely as birth control, I would think it is not.

All this not to encourage promiscuity, but to try to minimize damage from sin at a personal level.

Utilitarian ethics again. Won’t wash, but it SOUNDS good from a certain limited perspective.

“Well, they’re going to practice cannibalism anyway, so why not brush their teeth afterwards. At least they won’t get TOOTH DECAY.”