Whether it’s rude or not, the bigger point is that your claim that the discussion reflects a lack of critical thinking does not hold. Rather, the Pope’s thinking would have been better understood in a critically logical and more explicit sequence, in which he reaffirmed that compounding one evil with another merely compounds the immorality. That’s not what came out of his mouth, unfortunately.
Well that isn’t really the problem either. The problem is, in part, thinking that the man has to be crystal clear in every single thing that comes out of his mouth, rather then taking into consideration what he says in light of everything else he’s said and done in the past.
You are right though, when this story first broke the comments were completely ripped from their context. In fact, when I read the story, before it popped up on this forum, they published one sentence in this sequence of questions/answers surrounded by about a page and a half of commentary about how the pope had joined the 21st century. They did making it sound like he was condoning the use of condoms.
But frankly, the pope has made himself crystal clear in the past, and sure enough, a few hours later we got the whole story.
Any public figure, including a Pope, has to be careful that his remarks not be misconstrued. He’s only human; it’s inevitable that from time to time, that even well-developed argument within clear definitions will be misconstrued (accidentally or deliberately), but in this case many of the steps were merely omitted, which is unfortunate.
You’re right to a point. But he’s the head of the Catholic Church. Not some political public figure. He shouldn’t have to use PC (politically correct) words which only serve to confuse, distort and generalize. I read his comments as very clear and very precise. The problem is not what he said, but that the media is so incredibly ignorant of anything and everything Catholic that they, as usual, were barking up the wrong tree. If they had exercised good judgment and sound journalism they would have gone to a respected Catholic theologian or apologist and ask the question, “Hey, what does the pope mean when he says this?”
Does that mean he shouldn’t have said anything at all? I don’t think so. Whatever happened to teachable moments? … If you read the stories that have been posted today, you’ll see they’ve already started back off that initial, “Oh my gosh the pope said condom use is ok in some situations!”.
I don’t think it’ a matter of whether particular people on CAF get it. Many of us do. It’s a question of the public audience, and even the broad Catholic audience.
Actually I was addressing only the people on CAF and said nothing of the public audience or the broader Catholic audience on purpose. CAF people tend to be on the ball, but there are some people in this particular thread who have ignored and dismissed very sound and logical explanations without any indication that they’re trying to work out what has been said to them. No follow up questions. No attempt to get clarification. Nothing. Just saying how wrong the pope is over and over again.
So what are the people who do understand to do? Just tell them to take a deep breath and go over it slower, line by line… which is what most have been trying to do.
HIV/AIDS dramatically dropped in the gay population because of condoms being used.