A slight shift in position on condoms

FROM the headlines, it sounded like a sensational climbdown: Pope Benedict XVI had said the use of condoms in some circumstances was permissible. In fact, the pontiff had not announced a U-turn, but shifted a nuance. In an interview with a German journalist, Peter Seewald, for a book published by the Vatican (and checked before publication), he gave an example of a situation in which condom use might be acceptable. If a male prostitute was trying, responsibly, to do his bit to halt the spread of AIDS, that would be “a first step towards moralisation”.

That is a long way from a full embrace of modern contraceptive technology (and secular thinking about sexuality). The pope used a case in which a condom could have no contraceptive role. His careful scholarly words also reiterated the Church’s teaching that condoms trivialise sex, reducing it to a “self-administered drug”, stoking promiscuity, and thus AIDS. …