This will be “What Media Bias? Part 182.
In a new book about Pope Benedict XVI, he is asked about the Church’s stance on the use of condoms as a means of slowing the spread of AIDS. Here is how the MSM – in this case, the New York Times – covers it:
Pope Says Condoms to Stop AIDS May Be Acceptable
Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS, the first Vatican exception to a long-held policy condemning condom use…
Now, what did the Pope actually say? Fortunately, the good people over at The Catholic World Report got the excerpt in question:
…As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.
There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.
Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?
She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality…(emphasis added)
In other words, condoms don’t really stop the spread of AIDS; harping upon condom distribution likely just makes things worse – but in some cases, for some people, the use of a condom may be the first step towards a moral attitude about sex – and, of course, the development of sexual morality is the only 100% sure way to stop AIDS. So, no actual change in Church position – in fact, not even the slightest modification of it – but because the Pope didn’t explicitly condemn condom use, the MSM is having a field day with a “Pope says condoms ok” meme. Look for them to wonder in editorials if this means that ordination of women and gay marriage are right around the corner.
The problem for a Catholic dealing with liberals – or, indeed, any Christian in dealing with anyone on the left – is that you’re dealing on the left with un-thinking people who are astoundingly ignorant of Christianity. If any one on the left would just spend some time reading Christian writing rather relying on third-hand anti-Catholic propaganda, we’d get a lot further.
In this whole debate – since the 1980’s – the left has held to a stupid idea that if we just pass out condoms, we’ve got the whole AIDS issue licked. As if the technique of immorality can be changed to make it harmless. Sorry, liberals, but doing things wrong is doing things wrong. While it is, obviously, better if an AIDS infected person uses a condom, it is 10,000% better if such a person just doesn’t engage in sex, at all. AIDS and every single sexually transmitted disease in the world can be eliminated in a generation if everyone, for the next 20 years, just follows Christian sexual morality.
Because people won’t do it doesn’t mean we stop urging it – because if we can just get one person to adhere, then we might save a thousand lives over the years, as a whole string of people never get ill, and never have their hearts ripped to shreds by sexual immorality spreading from one person to another. Ours is the counsel of life and hope – theirs is the counsel of death and despair; and its a pity that some people with bone headed stubbornness just refuse to see it.
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