Pope says it’s now okay to use condoms to save lives

Pope Benedict XVI

It seems that the Catholic-in-Chief is now willing to open his mind ever so slightly, much like a creaky mousetrap, to the idea that maybe – just maybe – it would be wise to use prophylactic healthcare means that have been proven to work for decades if it would mean having that much less blood on his organization’s hands:

After decades of fierce opposition to the use of all contraception, the Pontiff has ended the Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms.

He said it was acceptable to use a prophylactic when the sole intention was to “reduce the risk of infection” from Aids.

While he restated the Catholic Church’s staunch objections to contraception because it believes that it interferes with the creation of life, he argued that using a condom to preserve life and avoid death could be a responsible act – even outside marriage.

Asked whether “the Catholic Church is not fundamentally against the use of condoms,” he replied: “It of course does not see it as a real and moral solution. In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality.”

He stressed that abstinence was the best policy in fighting the disease but in some circumstances it was better for a condom to be used if it protected human life.

How strange that it takes a “historic shift” to concede that using a medical device that has directly saved millions of lives across the globe over the last hundred years may sometimes be “morally justified”. It wouldn’t take many profound rewrites to turn that into a trenchant parody of the mind-bogglingly depraved state of the Pontiff’s moral standing on these issues. And let’s not even get into the naive folly that abstinence, the single most useless and disproven birth control method imaginable, should somehow be preferred over actual and demonstrably effective contraception.

(Note: It’s only after writing this post that I noticed the source article was dated back to 2010. But still, I believe the points discussed still stand.)

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: Pope Benedict XVI • AIDS • condoms • prophylactics • contraception • birth control • Joseph Ratzinger • Vatican • Catholic Church