Rumors have been circulating among Vatican watchers for weeks that the church might be preparing to issue an exception to its longstanding policy against condom use in cases where one member of a married couple is HIV positive. With HIV infection rates at epidemic levels in much of sub-Saharan Africa, transmission between married couples has become a significant issue in the growing Catholic population there. Relaxing the Church's prohibition on condom use for married Catholics in such instances might be regarded as "the lesser of two evils," according to former Archbishop of Milan Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. The former archbishop offered this comment in response to a recent interview with Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan's in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica where he indicated that the Vatican planned to release a statement on this in the near future.
The evil to which Cardinal Martini is referring is not necessarily the evil of latex. After all, lambskin condoms have long been available and slaughtering lambs is certainly very biblical. No, in this case it is the evil of birth control that is at issue. But even that isn't strictly the case, because the Church has long allowed married couples to practice the rhythm method. * So strictly speaking, the evil represented by condom use is that of effective birth control.
If the rumors are true and this policy finds its way into church doctrine, only married Catholics with deadly sexually-transmitted diseases will be allowed to practice safe and effective birth control. All other married couples would still have to stick with the aforementioned rhythm method or, as it's commonly known in reproductive healthcare circles, "waitin' and prayin'."
It's thinking like this that has made the Catholic Church one of the fastest-growing faiths in the developing world today. To reinforce the underlying teachings, on Tuesday the pontiff delivered the following message from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica in Rome to an assembled crowd numbering in the thousands:
"Make more Catholics!"
The sermon, which was delivered in thirty-three languages including Portuguese, Swahili and Mandarin Chinese, was received with thunderous applause.
In other news, sex is naughty and dirty and wrong. In tonight's Action News lifestyle exposé, we find out why local marital aid retailers are reporting that for the tenth straight year running, plaid skirts and kneesocks remain the most popular accessories for couples looking to put the sizzle back in their relationships, outselling all other ensembles by a factor of two to one! Tune in for film at eleven. Long, lingering, soft-focus, low-angle film, as we take you inside specialty retail store "Amour du la Mall" to check out some of their top-selling outfits and ask "What does it mean?"
Posted by flamingbanjo at May 4, 2006 10:56 PMI knew girls in Catholic school who would go down like the Titanic but refused to give up their hymens because what they understood to be wrong was procreative sex without procreation. Which I think they were a little off-point but it would still be true with condoms - you're not supposed to have sex except for if you're at least willing to make babies, and a condom would remove the willingness. It's my understanding that the rhythm method is approved for people who want to space out the number of new Catholics they are making, not for people who don't want to have babies at all.
"Waitin' and prayin'?" We called it "Vatican roulette"...
Also, you seem to have put Billy Joel in my head. "The sinners are much more fun."
Posted by: anne at May 10, 2006 03:46 AMWell it's true; every sperm IS sacred...
Posted by: COMTE at May 12, 2006 10:12 AMNeedless to say the HPV / Hep ABC & other angles are also giving them fits.
Posted by: some guy at July 3, 2006 07:04 PMtotally archaic ~ totally whacked.
Posted by: susan at July 20, 2006 03:12 PM