A new debate on condoms?

SIR: In a book-interview with German journalist Peter Seewald titled “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times” Benedict XVI was asked if it is “madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.”
He replied (emphasis is mine) that: “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 moralisation, a first assumption of responsibility… But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanisation of sexuality.”
Seewald then asked: “Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?” to which Benedict XVI replied, “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 towards a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.”
Taken in context, the Pope’s comments do not sanction condom use. The Church has consistently held that the use of condoms in procreative acts is immoral, and opposes condom use even where the sexual act is not procreative.  The Pope’s statements above neither approve nor exclude condom use as a method of AIDS prevention by prostitutes; rather, his comments reaffirm the Church’s opposition to homosexual acts and artificial contraception, while considering aspects of a particular situation – concretely, a prostitute’s using a condom as a possible realisation that it is not right to engage in sexual activity with no thought for the consequences.
A parallel example. Without approving of murder, one can state that it is “better” for an assassin to put a clean shot through his victim’s head than to hack him to pieces with a machete. Tolerating a lesser evil in others does not mean that it is right for me to commit the lesser evil myself.
Therefore, the media interpretation of the Pope’s comments is unfortunate. AIDS activists now commending the Pope will be disillusioned the next time he speaks of condoms fuelling the AIDS epidemic in Africa, because he also said in the same interview, “focusing only on condoms is equivalent to banalising sexuality, which loses its meaning as an expression of love between persons and becomes a ‘drug.’”
Though condom manufacturers may not agree, the fact that millions still die from malaria and cholera shows that our health problems are beyond what condoms can solve. Condoms do not prevent AIDS, not really, and definitely not in the long run. And that is because AIDS is not just another sexually transmitted disease – it is equally the child of poverty, of immune system weakening, of sexual perversion, of ignorance, of steroid abuse, of medical error… To hinge AIDS prevention on condom promotion is simply an avenue for enriching condom producers and distributors to the detriment of the general population. My question is, how can condoms protect a patient who has contracted AIDS from an injection or a transfusion?
Be that as it may, “Light of the World” is above all, an opportunity to know Benedict XVI, as a person and as a Pope – his election; his sufferings; his approach to the sex-abuse scandal, ecumenism, Islam, Judaism; and his hopes for his pontificate.
SOURCE:/www.ngrguardiannews.com