Posted on 01/13/2004 6:30:40 AM PST by dead
A Belgian cardinal who is among the leading candidates to succeed Pope John Paul has broken the Catholic church's taboo on the use of condoms, declaring that, in certain circumstances, they should be used to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Godfried Danneels was careful to say he preferred abstinence as a means of prevention, but added that if someone who was HIV-positive did have sex, failing to use a condom would break the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill.
His comments are a further sign that the ailing Pope may be losing some grip on the more liberal wing of his immense church. Shortly after being named a "prince of the church" last September, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, of Scotland, said the ban on contraception should be debated, along with such issues as priestly celibacy and homosexual clergy.
In an interview with the Dutch Catholic broadcaster RKK, Cardinal Danneels said: "When someone is HIV-positive and his partner says, 'I want to have sexual relations with you', he doesn't have to do that . . . But when he does, he has to use a condom."
He added: "This comes down to protecting yourself in a preventive manner against a disease or death. [It] cannot be entirely morally judged in the same manner as a pure method of birth control."
The cardinal's argument emphasises the importance of human life, the very factor that Pope John Paul has long evinced as justification for a ban on all forms of contraception.
The Catholic church teaches that abstinence, including between married couples, is the only morally acceptable way to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Cardinal Danneels's views clash with those aired last year by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the Vatican's top adviser on family questions. The Colombian cardinal claimed that condoms could not halt HIV because it was small enough to pass through them. He said relying on them to prevent infection was like "betting on your own death".
Those remarks were condemned by, among others, the World Health Organisation, which said condoms reduced the risk of infection by 90 per cent.
In 2000, Cardinal Danneels caused consternation in the Vatican by suggesting that popes should not remain in office until they died but have limited terms.
Cardinal Danneels, 70, and Archbishop of Brussels and Mechelen,
has also called for flexibility and leniency for Catholics who divorce and then remarry without obtaining a church-sanctioned annulment, and has said he advocates women playing a larger role in the church.
Then explain to us what this exchange means;
_____________________________
"think about it. Married people get aids from either preexisting sexual activity or from blood. Now in the context of marital sex with a spouse with aids, would you be opposed to condom usuage." 9 posted on 01/13/2004 10:42:06 AM EST by cajungirl
To: cajungirl "Yes. The act of contraception is intrinsically evil One may never commit an intrinsically evil act even if some limited good may come from it." 10 posted on 01/13/2004 11:10:17 AM EST by johnb2004 __________________________
The fact is you can't. He clearly says that it would be better for the woman to catch AIDS than to commit the evil of contraception.
I have studied this issue extensively, especially when I wrote that article, which was published in a nationally circulated Catholic newspaper. I'm told it was even read in the Vatican at the time.
I know of no priest in my diocese who knows this issue or has studied it as much as I have. Why must I consult a priest to understand Catholic teaching on this issue or comment on an internet forum, when I have already been nationally published on this issue in a Catholic periodical?
The RCC cuts and pastes scripture at will, perhaps by tomarrow, "thou salt not kill" will be number 9 in the RC "10 commandments".
No, he is saying that sex with a condom is not an option, since one may never commit an intrinsically evil act even if some limited good may come from it, therefore the only option is abstaining.
Until johnb2004 personally validates my interpretation or yours, you would be prudent to stop twisting his words and putting words in his mouth.
He never said this. You are putting words in his mouth and twisting what he said.
Wrong. I posted his exact words. I didn't add or take anything away from his post. Anybody can go back and read it.
I prefer a woman never use a condom to prevent AIDS because it would be sinful. That DOES NOT mean I prefer her to die from AIDS. It simply means I prefer her to abstain. Stop putting words in others' mouths, son.
Huh? Now you are responding to what johnb2004 posted with "I said" responses?
Are you johnb2004?
You posts are getting stranger by the minute.
Sexual relations with one's own spouse is "evil" in God's eyes if you ever dare use a condom to prevent the spread of AIDS?
What a strange concept of God and His standards of sexual morality.
No wonder people are leaving the Catholic Church in droves.
BS. You ADDED to his exact words that "he'd rather a woman die from AIDS."
Anybody can go back and read it.
You are correct. And everyone who does knows that John never said "he'd rather a woman die from AIDS." You ADDED that to his words.
Since condoms DO NOT PREVENT THE SPREAD OF AIDS it would be immoral to counsel the woman to engage in suicidal acts.
Your "god" and my God are definitely two different entities.
Oh, one more thing. The population of the Catholic Church has increased here and abroad every year. Do a little research before you make such assinine statements.
Either you believe that the use of a condom is not really a mortal sin, or you must, by your reasoning, accept that public denial of the faith to save one's life is morally acceptable.
I'd imagine some "catholics" formed by the National Catholic Reporter think, in heaven there will be an infinite supply of condoms.
What do you think, Sinky?
Thanks for this post. It's nice to have clear language as a touchstone to think about these things.
Sinkspur said:
There might be some applicability of the principle of double effect here: the woman uses the condom to save her life. That is the primary use. The fact that it also serves as a contraceptive is a secondary effect.
What is being proposed as a valid argument for invoking the principle of double effect is false. An attempt was made to correlate a valid & good operation to save a mother's life (a good act) resulting in an indirect/consequential abortion (a bad end)with the use of a condom (an illicit/immoral act) to save her life (a good end). As I have attempted to demonstrate, one cannot do evil in order to bring about a good, that is, one may not adopt the use of condoms to prevent a disease from engaging in the marital act.
While there are a few good well known moral theologians who have proposed condom usage as a means to prevent unwanted pregnancies/disease from rapists, the Church has not accepted those proposals as part of her teaching.
For a more complete answer, I will defer to Fr. Stephan Torraco. Here is a more complete response to this question:
There are two points -- a moral point and a technical point -- to be made about the use of condoms, either for contraceptive purposes or for protection against disease. First, there are some who argue that the use of a condom, either by married or unmarried people, for protection against disease (AIDS, for example) is the "lesser evil" than the contraction of AIDS.In the case of married people, even if the use of a condom were without contraceptive intent, or even if one partner were sterile and thus there would be no contraceptive effect, it is important to note that the intrinsic disorder (moral malice) of condomistic intercourse in marriage derives not only from a contraceptive intention but likewise from the fact that condomistic intercourse is simply not marital intercourse.
The act itself is gravely disordered and merely a sinful simulation of a marital act. As such, even without any contraceptive intention, it is seriously and intrinsically wrong, and thus can not be justified for any purpose, however good or in any circumstances, however mitigating they might seem to be. The same would apply, of course, to any other prophylactic use of a condom; for example, to prevent the contagion of a venereal infection even within marriage.
On two counts, the argument for the moral justification of the use of a condom (as the "lesser evil") by unmarried people as protection against AIDS does not hold. First, note that the so-called "lesser evil" is a moral evil, namely "fornicated fornication," that is, marital intercourse between unmarried partners that is further distorted by condomistic intercourse as described above, which is a further violation of marital intercourse. The so-called "greater evil" is the contraction of AIDS, which is a physical evil. It is worse for one's soul to commit a moral evil than to suffer a physical evil. Secondly, the moral justification of choosing a "lesser evil" is possible only if the criteria of the principle of double effect are met. The very first criterion is that there be no alternative action to the one in question, or that there be a genuine dilemma. In the case at hand, there is no genuine dilemma.
The second point to be made about the use of condoms as protection is of a technical nature. Contrary to the popular myth according to which condoms enable people to have "safe sex," condoms are NOT safe. At best, when taking into consideration the cycles of fertility and infertility, condoms are 60% safe. That means that 40% of the time, they are not safe. If you learned that 40% of the time airplanes crash, would you fly? If you learned that 40% of the time, when eating at a restaurant, you die of poison, would you eat at a restaurant? In the end, it is turning out to be the case that the indispensable key to the solution of these sexually related problems is chastity, even celibacy.
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