Further on Condoments

From CWNews:

Today, what the world thinks Pope Benedict said is almost exactly the opposite of what he clearly intended.

In Chapter 11 of his new book, Light of the World, Pope Benedict mounts a strong defense of his argument that condom use is not the appropriate means of fighting the AIDS epidemic.

This week, millions of people received the impression that the Pope made precisely the opposite argument-- that he recommended condoms as a defense against AIDS—due to the most spectacular public-relations bungling of this pontificate.

“Pope confirms his approval of condom use against disease,” reads the headline in the Boston Globe. The identical story, running in the New York Times, carries an only slightly less inaccurate headline: “After Condom Remarks, Vatican Confirms Shift.” The London Daily Mail took the prize, however, with this appalling interpretation of the Pope’s remarks: “Just days after the historic change of attitude to sex, he declared the contraception can be used by anyone if it prevents HIV.”

In fact, Pope Benedict made absolutely no public statement on this subject yesterday. These newspaper stories referred to a new “clarification” offered by the papal spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. Having previously confirmed, quite accurately, that the Pope intended no change in Church teaching, Father Lombardi had questioned the Pontiff on a specific point. In Light of the World, the Pope makes a highly speculative point about the morality of condom use, using the example of a male prostitute. Some readers concluded that the Pope was referring specificially to homosexual acts. But when questioned on that point, Father Lombardi told reporters, the Pope said that the same moral reasoning would apply, “whether it’s a man or woman or a transsexual.”

Right. The Pope’s reasoning applies to a male or female or transsexual prostitute.

Is it really necessary to point out that someone who is engaged in prostitution has moral problems that extend beyond the use of contraceptives?

Pope Benedict said that for such a person, the decision to use a condom might show a flickering of moral sensibility. Thousands of pundits leapt to the conclusion that the Pontiff was endorsing condom use. It would be equally logical to say that he was endorsing prostitution!...