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Posted on 04/23/2006 12:16:02 PM PDT by wagglebee
ROME (Reuters) - The Vatican will soon publish a statement on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, an issue highlighted by a call from a leading cardinal to ease its ban on them, a Catholic Church official said.
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, declined to reveal the contents of the document in an interview published in Sunday's la Repubblica newspaper, but said Pope Benedict had asked his department to study the issue.
The former archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who was standard bearer for a moderate minority in the conclave that elected the Pope last year, called for a reform in an interview published in Italy on Friday.
The Vatican opposes condoms as a form of contraception, but several cardinals have said in recent years that using them is a lesser evil if the alternative is infection with AIDS.
"This is a very difficult and delicate subject that requires prudence," said Mexican-born Barragan.
"My department is studying this closely with scientists and theologians expressly assigned to draft a document that will be issued soon," he said.
The Catholic Church, which runs many hospitals and institutions to help AIDS victims, opposes the use of condoms and teaches that fidelity within heterosexual marriage, chastity and abstinence are the best way to stop the spread of AIDS.
It says promoting condoms to fight the spread of AIDS fosters immoral and hedonistic lifestyles and behavior that will only contribute to its spread.
In his interview with the weekly L'Espresso, Martini backed up his call for a change in condom policy by referring to cases where one partner in a marriage is infected with AIDS.
"This person has an obligation to protect the other partner and the other partner also has to protect themselves," he said. The Church disapproves of sexual intercourse outside marriage.
Barragan commented favorably on Martini's suggestion that the Church allow women who cannot get pregnant to use surplus frozen embryos from fertility clinics that usually dispose of them after a couple has undergone fertility treatment.
And based on what we've seen the past quarter of a century, this is true.
Ping.
Amen brother Amen
One other thing that will prevent the spread of AIDS, less anal sex ( would help if some Catholic priests would cut down as well).
I wonder if the Vatican can offer a dispensation on the use of condoms in the cases where it involves a pedophile priest and young boys.
That's not something to joke about at all.
I wonder if the Vatican can offer a dispensation on the use of condoms in the cases where it involves a pedophile priest and young boys.
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You mean a GAY peodphile priest right? Why no one ever points out that these evildoers are gay is beyond me, particularly when the Boy Scouts get shunned for trying to prevent the same thing.
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That was uncalled for.
You are ignorant and spreading a LIBERAL falsehood. There has not been a pedophilia problem within the Catholic priesthood. There has been a homosexual problem. The liberal press has labeled it a pedophilia problem because of their pro-homosexual politics. Those who continue to label it a pedophilia problem play right into the media's agenda. The sickness is homosexuality not pedophilia.
I amend my statement. I extend it to homosexual pedophiles.
There, is that any better?
Actually no. That statement further shows your ignorance because pedophilia is a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. The priestly homosexual problem had nothing to do with prepubescents.
The way you gleefully attack the Catholic Church without having your facts straight makes you a useful idiot for the MSM (and probably exposes a deep bigotry on your part).
Don't be surprised if he does.
Cardinal Barragan himself suggested that the door might be left open for a reconsideration:
While affirming that he opposes the distribution of condoms, because he believes it institutionalizes promiscuity, he said he finds condoms acceptable in social contexts where abstinence is not an option.
"If an infected husband wants to have sex with his wife who isn't infected, then she must defend herself by whatever means necessary," Barragan said. This position, he said, is consistent with the tenets of traditional Catholic moral theology, which teaches that acts of self-defense can extend to killing in order to not be killed.
"If a wife can defend herself from having sex by whatever means necessary, why not with a condom?" he said.
Barragan says this belief informs his decisions as head of the Council for Pastoral Health, but adds that his views are personal and do not speak for Pope John Paul II. "The Holy Father has never spoken explicitly on the subject," Barragan said.
The second indication of intra-Catholic ferment came from CAFOD, the leading Roman Catholic development agency. In a new position paper published in the Tablet, the agency, which comes under the aegis of the bishops of England and Wales, said anti-AIDS campaigns in the third world should be realistic and employ a range of methods.
"For many in Africa and Asia, sex is often the only commodity people have to exchange for food, school fees, exam results, employment or survival itself in situations of violence," said the paper by Ann Smith, HIV corporate strategist at CAFOD.
"There are immense social and cultural pressures on poor men and women to conform to accepted stereotypes: there are economic pressures that result from the break-up of families as migrant workers spend months on end far from their spouse and family support, plunged into unbearably harsh working and living conditions by exploitative local or multi-national employers."
In such conditions, the paper suggested, condoms may be the least bad option, especially for social groups such as prostitutes with the highest risk of infection.
"Any strategy that enables a person to move from a higher-risk activity towards the lower end of the continuum, CAFOD believes, is a valid risk reduction strategy," the paper said.
Excellent links, thank you.
I have several Protestant friends who were married to ministers and are now divorced because their spouses abused children sexually.
Oh, ok. In the area I am in there were HUNDREDS of YOUNG children (8-12) years of age who were victims of pedodphile priests. I am sure you intellectually capable to accept that 8-12 years old qualifies the activities as pedophilia.
I didn't make this up. The MSM didn't make it up. This was the workings of a corrupt pig cardinal piece of garbage and a bunch of scum ball pedophile priests. This is not in dispute by anyone but dope heads.
Document that for me. Show me the evidence.
umm...just type in pedophile priest in google, and see how many results you get back.
atleast the catholic church is finally entering the 20th century by allowing people to use condoms now. just a century behind everyone else...
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