[siunevada]

I think they will not be able to get past the problem of the failure rate for condoms. It then becomes a matter of delaying infection, or perhaps not if you are unlucky and your first condom fails. Prevention isn't really in the cards.

Lots of wishful thinking. I wouldn't expect any pronouncement of major changes out of the Vatican.

[last american]

A Vatican study on whether it could permit condoms to battle AIDS has a very narrow scope: married Roman Catholic couples in which one partner has the virus.

And how pray tell short of the 0.0000001% that get aids from transfusions do all of these "catholics" get aids?

This is CLEARLY pandering to certain continents/countries where it is considered normal for a married man to visit a hooker while wifey is swinging the mortar to make corn meal... Absolutely pathetic.

[markomalley]

ping.

I haven't heard about a cold wave in hell recently, have you?

[Nihil Obstat]

They spelled "Re-Affirms" wrong in the title.

[Salvation]

 

 

2399 The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).

---

 

2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

[retMD]

Even if they're not perfect, correctly and consistently using condoms will decrease the risk of getting AIDs. From a public health perspective, this would be a good thing to reduce transmission rates in Africa.

[Tax-chick]

Nope.

[RobbyS]

A condom is a birth control devise, not a sufficent barrier against AIDS. The crux of the matter is sexual practices. If the guy can commit to having sex with one woman it probably would have more effect than using condoms.

[Flavius Josephus]

MArried couple or not, a woman would have to be INSANE to place only a few microns of cheap rubber between herself and the HIV virus. This is a Trojan horse argument.

[verity]

"I think they will not be able to get past the problem of the failure rate for condoms"

Are you not implying that the failure rate is not 100%?

[steadfastconservative]

I agree with you. I don't think that the Vatican is going to grant permission for even a very limited use of condoms. The press is getting all excited over something that isn't going to happen. Before Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae the press and the experts assumed that he was going to change the Church's ban on birth control. But he didn't. I can't see Benedict XVI making this change.