Answering Questions

Comment:

When it came to "is he endorsing this" it was in regards to "is the Pope endorsing using condoms"

The answer is clearly no.

Reply
Ok, so he's not endorsing the idea that anyone take "a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility"?
Ok, wow, I don't know how I missed that.

I thought the Pope was in the business of endorsing that people move towards "moralization and a first assumption of responsibility," but you say he doesn't endorse that AT ALL, so there you go.
Mea culpa.
I'll have to pull all these posts and apologize.
If you can just confirm for me one more time that the Pope DOES NOT endorse "moralization and a first assumption of responsibility," I'll go ahead and do all those things.

Comment:

The Pope clearly states that it is limited to preventing the spread of infection. It is that intention which is that "first step", not the condom use.

Reply:
Of course, of course.
That's why he said the USE of the condom by the male prostitute is a step towards moralization and a first assumption of responsibility.

Because, clearly, a male prostitute who uses a condom is NOT using it because he's worried about infection.
He's obviously worried about getting his partner pregnant - that's the primary thing he's worried about and intending to avoid by the use of the condom, right?

Comment:

When a drug addict says "hey, maybe I should stop doing smack because I'll lose my job", the most we can say is "well, it's a start!" You shouldn't be doing drugs anyway, but at least they are beginning to realize there are consequences to their actions.

Reply:
Yes, that's right.
He is beginning to realize that there are consequences to the actions.
Now, what would be analogous to condom use here?
Clean needle exchange?
So, would you think the Pope would say that the intent to avoid the transmission of infection by seeking out clean needles is a first step towards moralization and assumption of responsibility?
And would the Pope say that the intent is good and humanizing, but the actual seeking out of and use of clean needles instead of any damned thing the kid picks up off the street is not something that he could endorse?

Because there's only three possibilities here: (1) stop use entirely, (2) seek out and use clean needles, or (3) use any old thing.

You see, in both of these cases, the intention is bound up with the use.

Condoms are generally agreed to DECREASE the pleasure in the experience, so the only reason anyone would use a condom is to avoid infection or pregnancy, and with the pregnancy issue pretty much dead, that means the intent behind using the condom and the actual use of the condom are virtually indistinguishable. Same goes with the needles - the trouble and possible ID associated with clean needles makes them more likely for you to get caught by cops and forced off your habit, which addicts don't want. So the act of looking for and using clean needles entails the necessary intent. By endorsing the intent, you necessarily endorse the use.

That is, the use of condoms as contraceptives may be intrinsically evil (evil regardless of intent), but the use of condoms as disease prophylactics is NOT intrinsically evil - it's bound up deeply with the intent.

Someone who has spent their life thinking of condoms as intrinsically evil is not going to make that distinction, as many of the Catholic commentators have not.

You can distinguish the intent and the use with pregnancy and condoms ("I intend to make love to my wife, so I'll use a condom" is a wrong answer, because no matter what your stated intent, the very act has a meaning which cries out against conception)

But, you CANNOT make that distinction when condoms are used to prevent disease transmission by male prostitutes (assumably involved in a homosexual liason).

By endorsing the intent to avoid disease transmission, the Pope necessarily recognizes the use of condoms as acceptable for avoiding disease transmission because, in the instance of a male prostitute, that's the only meaning they are likely to have.

Let's try a different thought experiment.
Let's say the Pope had been asked about taking drugs that reduce the transmission of AIDS.
Would the Pope say, "The intent to take such drugs is good, but we cannot endorse the taking of such drugs."
Of course not - the drugs are morally neutral and they provide good to the human person.

Now, if asked, "what about people who take the drugs with the intent of engaging in fornication or sodomy, so as to reduce disease transmission."
Obviously, the Pope would say, "Well, the intent to engage in fornication and sodomy is bad. We can't endorse that. But the intention to reduce disease transmission is a good."
But would the Pope say, "We don't endorse the taking of AIDS reducing drugs by sodomites?"
Obviously not.
Yet that's exactly what all the Catholic commentators seem to want to have him say.

By the very fact that he says, "the intention to reduce disease transmission is a good" THAT IS AN ENDORSEMENT of the use of the drug per se because this drug and all drugs like it do exactly what the Church says is good, and I cannot sin by doing what the Church says is good.

Let's put it another way.
Just as an action can have multiple consequences, so I can have multiple intentions when I carry out an action.

According to the Pope, when I use the condom, I may sin through the intent to commit sodomy or fornication, but I do NOT sin by intending to reduce disease transmission.
Insofar as I use the condom only for that purpose, I do not sin.

Indeed, according to the Pope, insofar as I use the condom for that purpose, I take the first actions towards moral good, the humanizing of the sexual act.

It's counter-intuitive, but that's what he himself says in the first part of his answer.

Now, when it comes to sodomy, there is NO difference between the use of a drug that reduces the probability AIDS will be transmitted and the use of a condom.

So, it is absolutely the case that the Pope is endorsing the use of a condom to prevent disease transmission per se because when I use it FOR THAT INTENTION, I am moving towards the good, which the Church endorses.

Indeed, everyone assumes he deliberately tried to qualify his statement to exactly that case of homosexual liason and precisely that intention.

This is part of what makes his reply so bad.
The most difficult aspect of his reply is that he failed to do what everyone assumes he meant to do.
He never limits the male prostitute's actions to homosexual actions, which leaves the whole blessed answer too open-ended.
Unfortunately, due to the extraordinary badness of his reply, you can read that reply to mean that male prostitutes can use condoms in heterosexual encounters as well because the Pope doesn't discuss that aspect at all. You'd be reading it out of consonance with the Magisterium, of course, but I think it's safe to say that the reply will commonly be read that way.

Comment:

Now if he says "well maybe I should start drinking more to help", the sentiment is still right (recognizing there are consequences to his actions), but the medicine in this case is no effective cure.

Sure, the prostitute wants to avoid infection, so he uses a condom. Wanting to avoid infecting someone with a terminal illness is a good thing. Yet that's not sufficient. Using a condom is still wrong.

Reply:
But the Pope doesn't say using a condom is wrong.
Show me the passage where he does.
He says it is a step towards the good if used with this intention.

Comment
Instead, the solution is a "humanization of sexuality." That is why the Church says that condoms cannot be a real or moral solution to the issue at hand.

I'm not trying to treat the Pope as infallible here. Part of it is simply trying to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Another part is reading the context, and taking the entire matter into account. In the end, it was an imprudent statement. Yet the Pope wasn't saying "condoms are good for this"

Reply
Yes, he was.

Comment
Steve, you're the only commentator I've seen who brings out the fact that it needs to be clarified that the pope is not speaking of contraception, as he is only referring to a male prostitute. This urgently needs to be clarified by the Holy See, assuming that is in fact what the Pope meant.

Reply
That's why the Vatican "clarification" to date is an epic fail.
It doesn't address that aspect at all.
Look at this mess of a reply:

The head of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, has issued a statement clarifying passages of the book Light of the World, in which Pope Benedict discusses AIDS and condom use.

The statement says Pope Benedict states that AIDs cannot be solved only by the distribution of condoms, and, in fact, concentrating on condoms just trivializes sexuality, which loses its meaning as an expression of love and becomes like a drug.

At the same time, the Pope considered an exceptional situation in which the exercise of sexuality represents a real risk to the lives of others. In this case, the Pope does not morally justify the exercise of disordered sexuality, but believes that the use of condoms to reduce the risk of infection is a “first step on the road to a more human sexuality”, rather than not to use it and risking the lives of others.

Father Lombardi’s statement clarifies Pope Benedict XVI has not reformed or changed the Church’s teaching, but by putting it in perspective reaffirms the value and dignity of human sexuality as an expression of love and responsibility.

What the heck is THAT?

"Disordered sexuality" - Father Lombardi, I hate to have to point this out, but fornication is disordered, contracepted sex is disordered, homosexuality is disordered, so are you saying a man and wife can use a condom after all?
That fornicating heterosexual couples should use a condom?
This clarification is worse than the original statement.

The Vatican is trying to play cute with the answer and draw all these nice distinctions in order to accommodate venereal disease (which is all AIDS is), and it CANNOT WORK.

We've had VD since sex was invented, and condoms have always been thrown out of bounds, so what makes AIDS any different?

Syphilis kills you just as dead, and arguably more horribly (take a look at the description of tertiary syphilis sometime), but that never swayed the Church before.
They're trying to finesse this thing and they are creating an epic fail.

Pope Francis and Civil Unions

Rorate Caeli is throwing a tantrum about Pope Francis' recent remarks on civil unions. To their credit, they provide a direct quote of his reply to a question recently posed to him:

Many countries have regulated civil unions. Is it a path that the Church can understand? But up to what point?

Holy Father: Marriage is between one man and one woman. The secular States want to justify civil unions to regulate different situations of coexistence, spurred by the need to regulate economic aspects between persons as, for instance, to ensure healthcare. Each case must be looked at and evaluated in its diversity. [English translation: Zenit]

They follow up by providing a long string of quotes from Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI which we are supposed to interpret as being at variance with Pope Francis' remarks. Unfortunately, RC fails to notice that there is no variance between the remarks of the three Popes. All three are, indeed, discussing civil unions, but one of them is discussing an aspect of those unions the first two simply did not address.

Of Popes and Condoms

Remember when Pope Benedict pointed out that homosexuals who use condoms may actually be on the road to sanctity? Many Catholics got upset because they were under the false impression that the use of condoms is intrinsically evil. Benedict merely pointed out the obvious - condom use is not intrinsically evil when the only possible purpose of the use is disease control. Homosexuals can't impregnate each other, so the condom is not a prophylactic against pregnancy, it is a prophylactic against disease. 

If anyone wants to recall, while I applauded and agreed with Pope Benedict's remarks in that context, I was nearly alone in pointing out that the good Pope of recent memory actually screwed up part of the doctrine by failing to distinguish between the use of condoms by a male prostitute serving a male client and a male prostitute servicing a female client. Condom use is actually a step towards morality in the first instance, but is an intrinsically evil act in the second. 

I point this out to remind people that I have a track record of looking for precision in language. Pope Francis is generally quite precise in his language, and this instance is no exception. 

Precisely

If you carefully read the papal quotes RC provides, you will quickly notice that the two previous Popes always addressed their remarks to the procreative aspects of the unions between persons. They did not address the economic aspect at all.

Here, Pope Francis, knowing that the generative aspect of the discussion is already well-covered by previous Magisterial statements, is addressing the economic aspects of the contracts which are known as "civil unions". Just as the condom is intrinsically evil for opposite sex relations, but perfectly legitimate (and, as Benedict reminds us, possibly even a step towards proper human morality) in same-sex relations, so civil unions are evil in their disordered approach (or complete lack) towards generative, procreative functions, but are not necessarily evil in their approach to economic issues. 

In short, Pope Francis was distinguishing different aspects of the relationship and bringing important nuance to the discussion. 

The Goods of Marriage

And before we go all ballistic, stop and think. There are many, many different conceptions of marriage in the world. The ancient Greeks considered marriage important primarily because procreation and the raising of children was a duty that every citizen owed to the city-state. The Romans considered marriage and procreation primarily a duty owed to the family; you couldn't inherit property from your father until you gave him grandchildren. The Hindus consider marriage and procreation a necessary state in life for the joining not only of the two souls of the spouses, but also the joining of two families. It is a kind of sacrament. Jews consider it primarily a business contract between man and woman that is almost devoid of spirituality (apart from the joining of the souls of the two spouses) and not necessarily related to procreation at all. Muslims see it as a business contract between two men: the bridegroom and the custodian of the woman. Buddhists see it as an attachment to the world, and a sign that you aren't really ready to enter nirvana. They have no rules about marriage or procreation whatsoever. 

Now, all of these views have aspects that are both correct and incorrect. At most, the best of these attitudes are somewhat distorted understandings of natural marriages, with only a few having a glimmering of the supernatural possibilities. Due to lack of baptism, even those with a correct glimmering are wholly unable to actually accomplish the vision that a true sacramental marriage presents. 

But, despite all of these failures, the Church recognizes those aspects of natural marriages which can be recognized. An unbaptized person married to someone of the opposite sex and looking to enter the Church is recognized as having a valid natural marriage. If they have had multiple marriages, they may even have to go through annulment procedures or invoke the Pauline or Petrine privileges. 

Of Civil Unions

Now, civil unions are not even valid natural marriages. But, they are relationships, even if distorted and tortured relationships. Those relationships do have real consequences in the natural world: economic, biological (even if not procreative), emotional consequences. The Church has to consider how to handle the fact that society has decided to pursue this kind of sin with vigor. As society turns to worship this new idol to their unknown god, what can the Church - standing in the Areopagus of the public square - what, if anything, can we bless and affirm in order to draw them away from that idol and towards the good?

Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II have fully addressed the problems in civil unions so that the faithful have no illusions that they may follow the crowd on this topic. Those problems are quite clear. The prohibitions are quite clear. 

But, as Aquinas points out, people sin because they perceive a good in the sinful action. So Pope Francis has begun to contemplate the other part of the issue: how does the Church use whatever small slice of good which may be present to draw the idol worshippers to Christ? 

Because so many people comment on the economic benefits, and because he is a man concerned about the poor, he remarks on the possibilities of economic goods that might be acknowledged and "baptized." The Church has done this kind of thing in the past (as Pope Benedict tried to do with condom use and Paul tried to do with the idol to the Unknown God). This is nothing new under the sun. You would think a traditionalist blog would recognize that. 

Pope Benedict's Outrageous Nonsense

“Contraception is to be judged so profoundly unlawful as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God.”

~Pope St. John Paul II, L’Osservatore Romano, October 10, 1983

For those who think Pope Francis stinks and Pope Benedict could do no wrong, does anyone remember when Pope Benedict endorsed the use of condoms? 

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Anyone?

Benedict's remarks were indefensible, many liberals took advantage of them, but "orthodox" Catholics either remained silent or tried to square the circle and pretend Benedict's condom remarks were acceptable when they clearly were not.

If Pope Francis had made these remarks, imagine the outrage! But since it was Benedict, ho-hum, nothing to see here, or even remember...

Saturday, Nov. 20 2010 - In which Pope Benedict makes a very problematic statement.
http://skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2010/11/pope-and-condoms.html


Monday Nov. 22, 2010 - Why is "taking a first step in the direction of a moralization" bad?
http://skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2010/11/stop-presses.html


Monday Nov. 22, 2010 - In which objections to the analysis are answered
http://skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2010/11/answering-questions.html


Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2010 - In which the papal spokesman says heterosexual condom use is ok
http://skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2010/11/anyone-can-use-condom.html


Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010 - Jimmy Akin says the contraception teaching is for married couples only.

https://skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2010/11/jimmy-akins-response.html

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 - In which an Opus Dei priest horribly screws up.
http://skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2010/12/condom-use-is-moral.html

Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010 - In which Jimmy Akin, Janet Smith and Fr. Rhonheimer crap the bed.

https://skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2010/12/latin-expert-weighs-in.html

Making Sense of Catholic Marriage

Recently, "traditionalist" Catholics have been complaining about Pope Francis' Amoris Laetitia.  Specifically, they demonstrate a deep misunderstanding of exactly how sin and the confessional work.

The bishops of Buenos Aires have issued a teaching on how to deal with chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia. Pope Francis has lauded their summary, saying "There is no other interpretation." Let's look at what the Argentine bishops said.

“When the concrete circumstances of a couple make it feasible, especially when both are Christians with a journey of faith, one may propose that they commit to living in continence.” Amoris Laetitia “does not ignore the difficulties of this option (cf. note 329) and leaves open the possibility of receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation when one fails in this intention” (cf. note 364). 

This is nothing new. Living "as brother and sister", that is, living as a married couple but without engaging in sex certainly does not bar either member of the couple from the sacraments. It never has. Sex outside of marriage is a sin, but if two people are living in the same space, but are not having sex outside of marriage, that is, if they are "living in continence", they are fine. They can receive the Eucharist.

Even if they occasionally fail, that is no new thing. How many of us go to confession, confess a sin, fully intend to never repeat it again, then find ourselves in the confessional the next month, confessing EXACTLY the same sin again? What matters at the moment of confession and absolution is intent at the moment of confession and absolution. As long as we have proper intent, we are absolved of our sin and able to receive the Eucharist. Even if we fail a few hours later, for the few hours that our resolve held, we can receive. The situation the Argentine bishops described above is EXACTLY the same as the situation any sin puts us in.

But the bishops did not stop there. They added this in the next paragraph:

“In other more complex circumstances, and when it is not possible to obtain a declaration of nullity,” the document continues, “the aforementioned option may not, in fact, be viable. Nonetheless, it is equally possible to undertake a journey of discernment.” And “if one arrives at the recognition that, in a concrete case, there are limitations that diminish responsibility and culpability (cf. 301-302), particularly when a person judges that he would fall into a subsequent fault by damaging the children of the new union, Amoris Laetitia opens up the possibility of access to the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist (cf. notes 336 and 351). These in turn disposes the person to continue maturing and growing with the strength of grace. 

This paragraph does not say that all couples who have gotten civil marriage without benefit of annulment have the right to the Eucharist. What AL points out is something that already applies to other sins: "there are limitations that diminish responsibility and culpability." 

Case 1

Again, this is not a new concept. We don't become new people overnight - it takes time to change habits. Priests are required to recognize this reality in the confessional. Lay Catholics are required to recognize this in real life. 

For instance, getting drunk is a mortal sin, but if the sinner is addicted to alcohol, then that diminishes the sinner's culpability. What is purely sinful for me, who has no addiction to alcohol, no habit of imbibing when life gets me down, might not be as sinful for you, who has developed this habit. Your habit has enslaved you to commit this sin in a way that my life has not enslaved me. It will be easier for me to avoid this sin in the future than it will be for you. You have less culpability, less responsibility, because you have lost ingrained habits of control in this regard. Any sin can become a habit in this way, any habitual sin reduces culpability. This is true of every sin, even the sin of sex outside of marriage.

Combine this with the fact above concerning intent, and we have the possibility of a civilly remarried couple who intend to live from this point forward as brother and sister. They receive Eucharist after confession, perhaps even receiving Eucharist outside of Mass, and then fail in their intentions just hours or days later. Perhaps this is something they struggle with over the course of months or years, with the time elapsed between sinful episodes slowly expanding, sometimes contracting, as they constantly work on this area with the help of Confession and Eucharist.

Remember, civil re-marriage is not a canonical crime, it does not incur the penalty of excommunication. As the Diocese of Madison points out:

Are those who divorce and civilly remarry excommunicated?
No. Excommunication is a specific canonical penalty imposed as a consequence for certain very serious canonical crimes. Neither seeking a divorce nor attempting remarriage are currently punishable by excommunication, nor are they even classified as canonical crimes. This is not necessarily to say that divorce and civil remarriage are not immoral or sinful, or that they have no effect on one's relationship with the Church. In general, divorce introduces disorder into the family and society, bringing grave harm to the deserted spouse and to children traumatized by the separation of their parents (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2386). Therefore, depending on the circumstances, divorce can be gravely immoral. And attempting remarriage while already validly married in always seriously sinful.

In the case of the couple above, with whom the priest is assiduously working, no law of the Church is broken, no reality is ignored. Pope Francis points out that there is nothing wrong with working with a couple in this way.

Before we go further, we should recall Pope Benedict famously stated that the use of condoms in extramarital sex might constitute a first step towards morality. Now that Pope Benedict has cleared the way for such discussions, Pope Francis and the Argentine bishops use "the Benedictine condom principle" to point towards a similar application within marriage itself - the protection of the children.

Remember two things: (1) One of the three goods of marriage (procreation, union of the spouses and remedy for concupiscence) is the conception and raising of children (both are part of procreation), (2) According to Pope Benedict, the use of condoms is evil in itself, but may indicate a willingness to consider the good of another. If that is the case, Benedict considers the use of condoms a first step towards morality.

So, Francis just takes Benedict's condom principle and applies it to marriage (Pope Benedict himself said the condom principle applied even in heterosexual acts). According to the "Benedictine" principle, the sexually active couple who view their own sexual union as necessary to their life together, may see their life together as pre-eminently important for the children (a good). That is, they recognize the children from one or both first marriages need to have both a mother and a father present in the house. The couple want the children to have both mother and father. The couple has taken civil (natural) vows of fidelity to each other, but recognize that they themselves have a tendency to stray. So, they have sex in order to reduce/remove their tendency to stray (quiet concupiscence), in order to maintain their union and in order to help make sure the little ones have a home. They are showing concern for innocent little ones.

Again, according to Pope Benedict, this concern for fidelity to each other for the sake of the children would constitute the first step towards morality to the priest who tries to guide them towards the good of preparing themselves for sacramental marriage. Their willingness to work to stay together, even though it involves sex that is not licit, is undertaken for the good of others, innocent children. According to "the Benedictine condom principle", this willingness to recognize personal weaknesses and the needs of the children has to be taken into consideration by the priest as he works with them to move towards a situation that does not do violation to the sacrament of marriage.

So, anyone who defended Pope Benedict's remarks on condoms (Ignatius Press, I'm looking at you), should likewise be defending Pope Francis' and the bishops of Buenos Aires on Amoris Laetitia. Pope Francis is merely following in Pope Benedict's footsteps. 

Case 2

But we can take it even further. There is a fact about marriage tribunals which all priests and bishops (should) already know: the declaration of a marriage tribunal is a disciplinary, not a doctrinal, statement. Again, we quote from the Diocese of Madison:

Are tribunal judgments infallible?
The marriage nullity process serves precisely to allow for and encourage the discovery of truth regarding the juridic status of the marriage under review. In other words, the process is designed to arrive at the truth as to whether a valid and indissoluble matrimonial bond arose between the two parties at the moment of consent. Even though the judicial decisions of an ecclesiastical tribunal are certainly trustworthy, they are not infallible. (emphasis added) In theory, the judges could err in two ways: 1) they could incorrectly declare a valid marriage to be invalid, or 2) they could incorrectly declare an invalid marriage to be valid. Neither error is a good thing, but the former is much worse, since the judges would essentially be doing what the Lord prohibited, separating what God has joined. For this reason, the Church's law is designed to ensure that any doubts about the validity of a marriage are resolved in favor of the marriage bond, means that marriages are presumed valid until proven otherwise.

Marriage tribunals can be wrong. As I have pointed out before, those who are not sinning have a right to the sacraments. If those innocent of mortal sin are denied access to the sacraments, the priests who deny them access have sinned against them. What do we do if the marriage tribunal has erroneously closed off access to the sacraments of Marriage and the Eucharist?

Remember, marriage tribunals do not just draw their power from canon law, but also from the power of the local bishop. That is, marriage cases can, at least in theory, be decided directly by the local bishop without the use of a marriage tribunal. Now, this almost never happens, but in theory, it could. This possibility of circumventing current procedures lies within AL as well - the possibility that it is time for the Church to find a better disciplinary method than a marriage tribunal for assessing the sacramental bond of marriage.

Time to Change Discipline?
Changing the disciplinary method for a sacrament has precedent. For the first thousand years of the Church, a man learned how to be a priest by following a real priest around. That was originally the function of an altar server - he was the priest's apprentice. Unfortunately, the process was only as good as the priests in the process. Every priest trained his own replacement via an apprenticeship. Since half of any group is sub-average, this apprenticeship process guaranteed half of all new priests would receive sub-average training. That wasn't good.

Although the apprenticeship method stank to high heaven and no one really liked it, for over a thousand years, no one knew how to fix it. The priest formation process stayed broken until technological change, specifically, the invention of the printing press and the resulting hundred-fold drop in book prices, allowed the Council of Trent to develop an alternate solution: the seminary. With the new seminary training system, the old apprenticeship was abolished. After Trent, all priests had to attend a seminary, a training school, where only the best priests of the diocese were allowed to serve as instructors. Now everyone got the best instruction that the diocese had to offer. Some dioceses were better than others, but that was the best anyone could do. That solution has held for the last 500 years.

The marriage tribunal is similarly an invention of the Church, meant to handle marriage questions in a more systematic and professional way. But nobody really likes the system. By reminding bishops that they have a certain amount of latitude in dealing with marriage questions, Pope Francis may be opening the door to start a discussion about how to move forward from the current marriage tribunal system to something more efficacious and certain.

I have no idea what that would look like, and AL gives only the barest hint that something like this is open for discussion. But, we should consider the possibility that it is time the Church came up with a "seminary-like" solution for marriage questions. It may well be time to abolish marriage tribunals and implement a new process that is better than the tribunal solution we currently have, better at administering and clarifying the ancient understanding of the sacrament of marriage. If that is where Pope Francis would like to go, he has the support of most of the Church.


Addendum:
If Pope Francis' point seems convoluted and in serious need of explanation, that may be because his point builds so directly off of Pope Benedict's deeply confusing remarks. Note, the comment below is about Benedict's condom remarks:

“I have never seen a communiqué from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that explains the words of the pope after the fact,” said Paolo Rodari, a Vatican expert at Il Foglio, an Italian daily newspaper. “I think it’s unique. And it demonstrates how many complaints and serious criticism the Vatican has received.”

Stop the Presses!

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 moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

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 toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

Problem One

People are asking if the Pope approved condom use.
Lots of analysts are saying "no."
Balderdash.

The Pope says in the first part of the answer that "[the use of] a condom can be... a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility."

Can any of these fine-feathered analysts explain why taking a first step in the direction of moralization or a first assumption of responsibility is NOT an endorsement of condom use?

Since when do we consider either moving towards morality or taking on responsibility BAD?

He says the USE - not the intention, but the USE - of the condom is "a first step" towards these wonderful goods of moralization and assumption of responsibility.

Are we saying the Pope does not recommend anyone become more moral or responsible?
Doesn't he himself say condom use may make someone move towards morality and being responsible? And isn't being more moral and more responsible the sign of becoming more human, that is, isn't it humanizing to take on these characteristics?

So how is that not a recommendation?

Of course it's a recommendation. The only reason we would think differently is that he contradicts himself when he answers the next question. If we look at the contradictory sentence, in the next answer, then we can draw the conclusion that condoms are not recommended, but in order to draw that conclusion we have to look at the answer to the next question and entirely ignore this answer.

After he recommends condom use as a way of improving moral understanding, the Pope then moves on to discuss how condom use relates to the very specific problem of HIV infection. But the two sentences of his answer don't seem clearly related.

That is, you can read the response to this first question as saying "In general, the use of condoms by male prostitutes brings the user closer to being responsible, but in the case of HIV specifically, we need to bring in a more human sexuality."

Which is, when you think about it, a darned weird answer.

Precisely because the journalist doing the interview sees this disconnect in the answer, he asks his follow-up question, "Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?" That is, the journalist is asking precisely if the first part is a general principle and the second part a specific digression.

Problem Two

The Pope answers by contradicting himself.

He says, in principle, condoms aren't a real or moral solution, but the intention to use them may be a "more human way of living sexuality."

But this contradicts what he said in the first answer.

After all, what on earth is the difference between "the humanization of sexuality" which is really, really what Catholics are supposed to be working towards, and a "more human way of living sexuality" which, apparently, is to be rejected as not being a "real or moral solution"? Why is moving towards moralization and responsibility not "humanization"?

Benedict seems to be making a distinction without a difference.

Isn't "the humanization of sexuality" the same as "a more human way of living sexuality" which is the same as "taking on responsibility"?

In order to humanize something, don't we have to live it in a more human way?

If we move towards being moral and taking on responsibility, aren't we becoming more human?

First, the use of the condom brings responsibility, then no....wait... the intent to avoid infection (by using the condom) is the humanizing thing.

So, intending to use the condom is good, but actually using it is not?
At least, not when HIV is involved?

A male prostitute who uses condoms is moving towards being more human except when he uses it in regards to HIV, unless he intends to "reduce the risk of infection", but not necessarily with condoms, which the Pope (according to apologists) isn't recommending even though the use of them might bring some of us towards being more responsible in certain cases?

The answer isn't nuanced, it is barely coherent.

Obviously the Church doesn't regard condom use as a complete solution, but how can anyone say the Pope hasn't endorsed condom use in at least some limited fashion as a means of "humanizing" sexuality, a way of moving towards the good?

If the Pope's first answer is wrong, if it is not the use of the condom that brings more responsibility and moralization, then he needs to explicitly say that and the first answer has to be amended to reflect that. But then he has to explain how intending to use something can be a movement towards the good while actually using it is not such a movement. Good luck with that.

And notice, the Pope never qualifies the statement to tell us that the prostitute encounter has to be just homosexual - all the commentators are assuming that, but the Pope never says it. That's a huge lacunae, and secular analysts are going to make hay with it.

The apologists can try to spin this one all they want (I would personally LOVE to put a good spin on these answers), but anybody who looks honestly at the Pope's discussion here cannot conclude anything except the Pope screwed up.

Ignatius Press should halt the release of this book until this passage is fixed.

Releasing it now, without correcting these statements and more fully qualifying them, is an offense to the Pope and to the Church Universal. In order to prevent further embarrassment to both, Ignatius Press has a duty to put off the release, shred whatever copies have been printed, and reprint after the answers have been corrected.

Look, there's no shame in this.

If the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which had hundreds of eyes looking at it for years, needed some corrections, expansions and better explanations, is it any surprise that a book-length interview might have a bit of a bobble in an explanation?

The only reason this particular bobble is a big deal is because it involves a hot-button topic. But to stand around and deny that corrections need to be made is simply absurd. It makes Catholics look stupid, which... well... let's just say we don't really need the additional help.

Ignatius Press, I know you got the Pope's go-ahead before publication, but you need to go back to him, explain the situation and FIX THIS.

The Pope And Condoms

To illustrate his apparent shift in position, Benedict offered the example of a male prostitute using a condom.

"There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be ... a first bit of responsibility, to re-develop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes," Benedict was quoted as saying.

"But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection."

Benedict reiterated that condom use alone would not solve the problem of HIV/AIDS. "More must happen," he said.

"Becoming simply fixated on the issue of condoms makes sexuality more banal and exactly this is the reason why so many people no longer find sexuality to be an expression of their love, but a type of self-administered drug."

This is what the Pope will be quoted as having said in a forthcoming book-length interview coming out Tuesday, entitled "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times." It is based on 20 hours of interviews conducted by German journalist Peter Seewald.

What the Heck Is Going On?

The first question, of course, is how on earth could the Pope say this?

As an orthodox Catholic, you have two options:

Option One:

At the risk of being jejune, it is important to point out that the Pope may simply be wrong on this one. He is not teaching ex cathedra on a matter of faith and morals to the Church universal. He is simply expressing a private opinion to a journalist - not exactly the thing from which papal bulls are made.

Catholics are free to say that he's stark raving mad in having made this statement and move on. In that regard, the statement itself would not be a problem, as we would all disregard it. We would have bigger problems to consider.

Option Two:

But, if you prefer not to make quite that quick a judgement, we can study the statement in a little more depth.

The statement is problematic precisely because it is not heavily qualified enough. While the Pope was careful to make the distinction that condom use would be appropriate only for a male prostitute, he failed to expressly say that this male prostitute would necessarily be engaged in sodomy.

In order for the Pope's statement to make any sense, he has to have meant that.

That is, if we assume that he was referring only to the very narrow sphere of a sodomitical prostitution, then Pope Benedict XVI's statement may be defensible, although it is still, at the very least, startling to pious ears.

How does it work?

If the male prostitute were consorting with a woman, then the use of the condom would not be defensible, as it would be an attempt to close off the procreative act from procreation, which is not a permissible act or attitude.

But, the act of sodomy already is, by definition, closed off to procreation. Thus, the condom cannot contribute to the intent to close the act off from procreation, since male-male sex is never procreative and everyone involved presumably already knows this.

The only possible intent that could be associated with condom use in the sodomitical act is to reduce the possibility of disease transmission.

In this regard, although we don't normally consider condoms a medical solution to any known problem, condom use would be treated very much as the hormonal pill is when that pill is used primarily to treat an illness, and not primarily used or intended to be a contraceptive.

We already know that a medication which has the unintended side effect of infertility can be acceptable via the principle of double effect. The use of the condom here does not invoke the principle of double effect, since there is no double effect - the condom isn't preventing procreation, all it is doing is reducing the probability of disease transmission. It is acting as a preventive medicine or pill would that might likewise reduce disease transmission.

Reduction of physical danger to the human person is a good intent.

Thus, the use of a condom in this situation would be a sign that the male prostitute at least valued his own life to some minimal extent. The ability to recognize the inherent value of your own life is a good thing. Thus, "one may not do everything one wishes" especially if that wish involves suicide via sodomy.

Now, it should further be pointed out that the Pope did not say the use of a condom between any two sodomites is acceptable. He specifically qualified his remark to restrict it to the use by prostitutes, and male prostitutes at that.

This qualification is important. The prostitute is usually reduced to this state because of gravely serious circumstances in his life, a complete breakdown of support from others, the need to earn enough money to avoid starvation and a life lived in the elements. It is often accompanied by serious risk of harm from the pimp who controls the life of the prostitute. Not only is the sodomitical life so utterly destructive that it generally results in an early death, the life of prostitution is equally destructive with equally grim results. Combined, the life of a male prostitute is definitely ugly, brutish and short.

That is, male prostitution (like female prostitution) is a situation which is really a form of slow suicide. However, male prostitution is even worse than female prostitution precisely because there is no hope life may come from the evil being done. Thus, the use of a condom in this case - a situation in which the condom only has meaning as a device to avoid the transmission of disease and death - the use of a condom by the male prostitute in such a situation may actually represent an attempt to value one's own life.

But isn't the use of contraceptives intrinsically immoral?

Yes. But the decision to engage in sodomy is already the decision to engage in contraceptive sex, in the sense that it is a sexual act that has no possibility of transmitting life and thus not properly a sexual act in the full sense at all. The presence or absence of the condom doesn't add to or subtract from the life-giving aspect of the act (since it doesn't exist to begin with). Condom use is, so to speak, gilding the lily, in every meaning of the phrase. So, even though a male prostitute uses a condom, in a sodomitical act he's technically not using a contraceptive.

The problem, of course, is that this unexplained and un-nuanced papal statement seems to build a slippery slope.

If this argument can be used to support condom use between sodomites one of whom is a prostitute, then why could it not also be brought forward to defend the use of condoms by sodomites who are not prostitutes?

The difference here is that in a cooperative sodomitical act, the men are not forced into doing this for money, but instead choose to do it for pleasure. But that distinction will be lost on most.

If it can be used by male prostitutes, then why not by female prostitutes, who also value their own lives in their encounters with the men who exploit them?

The difference, of course, is that of procreative possibility, but that distinction will also be lost on the larger public.

Thus, although it may be true, the Pope's statement by itself certainly makes the life of the Catholic who would explain Catholic Faith to a non-Catholic rather harder than it was.

Even if the Vatican comes forth with further nuance, this papal statement will be pointed to as a "change in teaching" because no one will want to hear the nuance or the deeper explanation.

You could argue, and some undoubtedly will, that the use of a condom is always and everywhere wrong. That's a perfectly Catholic position to hold. And, as I said before, the Pope may easily be flat wrong in what he said.

But, for those who wish to provide an apologetic for the Pope in this instance, it is possible to construct one, even if additional qualifications (i.e., references to sodomy) have to be added to his original statement in order to make it orthodox, even if the reality that he lays out makes it harder for us to explain human sexuality to others.

If he failed to qualify his statement well enough, it wouldn't be the first time a Pope failed to be fully explanatory in a statement. Indeed, Pope Honorius I was proclaimed a heretic by the Third Council of Constantinople and the liturgy of the Church for roughly a thousand years due to his failures to fully qualify his statements. Will Pope Benedict XVI fall into this same category? That remains to be seen. But this is the line his defense will take when the time for defense comes.

In any case, if the sodomy qualification is not added, and the Pope's statement is taken to mean that a male prostitute can use a condom regardless of whether his exploiter is a male paying money for sex or a female paying money for sex, then the papal statement would have been taken to have a meaning that directly violates the ordinary infallible Magisterium of the Church.

As it stands, the papal statement is not sufficiently nuanced and it definitely needs to be explained in greater detail by the Vatican.

Pope Benedict Spouts More Private Opinion

Much as I hate to link to the National Catholic Distorter, there's no way around it this time. John Allen reports that a private theologian thinks we shouldn't be evangelizing the Jews. The problem is, this particular private theologian is the Pope. Now, keep in mind that - in the entire history of the Church - we have had only two Popes who have ever written books for the general public as private theologians. Historically, a Pope writes two kinds of communications - either he writes a Church document (encyclical, papal bull, constitution, etc.) to the universal Church, in which case he is infallible, or he writes a private letter to one or more people as a private theologian, in which case he is not infallible. In the latter case, he's as likely to make a fool of himself as anyone. Only two Popes - Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict - have turned their hands to writing books for the general public. These books are not Church documents, they're just ways for some publishers to make money and for these two Popes to make their private theological opinions known. As if anyone cares what the opinions of a private theologian might be. Private theological opinion is not part of the Magisterium, and it bears no more necessary weight than this post. In this man's private theological opinion, we shouldn't be evangelizing the Jews:

"For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles." ~Galatians 2:8

Does this mean Peter was NOT an apostle to the Jews? Or does it mean the apostle to the Jews has decided he shouldn't do that anymore? In the same book, he said violence has no place in Christianity.

"Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be," Benedict wrote. "It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity."

Hmmm... now, what are we to do with Jesus in the Temple with a whip, overturning the tables of the sellers? Were the Popes who called for Crusade all doing the work of the anti-Christ? Lots of people say they were. Indeed, lots of people would say the office of the Pope is the anti-Christ, and this fruit is one example. What do we do with the literally dozens of Catholic religious orders whose vows or training included military practice, like the Knights Hospitaller or the Knights Templar? Were the numerous Popes who approved their vows and their work all wrong? Did the orders do the work of the anti-Christ? Was the Council of Constance, which denounced John Hus as a heretic and degraded his status so that the Emperor Sigismund could burn him at the stake, was that council in error? We already know his opinion on condoms. As a Pope, when he teaches as the Pope, Pope Benedict is infallible. As a private theologian, who is teaching as any simple person might, the man Benedict does not seem to be measuring up. We have had popes with problems in the past - Pope Honorius was even declared by the Church (though after his reign) to have been a heretic during his reign. We have had two men simultaneously claim to be Pope, each elected by the same set of cardinals, each supported by a doctor of the Church. It's not unusual for the Church to experience a Pope that has certain problems. The current Pope is not nearly as bad as some we have had in the past. But he certainly could explain himself better.

Fiducia Supplicans

 "Fiducia supplicans, issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Francis, has reaffirmed that the Church does not have the power to impart a liturgical blessing on irregular or same-sex couples or to bless their union," McManus said. "It can, however, offer a type of blessing that can be conferred on anyone to invoke God’s help and mercy in their lives if the individuals seek to be guided by a greater understanding of God’s plan for love and truth. These blessings are offered for the people themselves, not their union."

Of course, the problem for the good bishop, for the Pope, and for the Church as a whole, is precisely what Fiducia Supplicans says:

25. ... Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For, those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection.

Well, who can seek these blessings? Well, the preface to the document explains: 

It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.

Notice blessings are not restricted to individuals. The document explicitly specifices that blessings may be bestowed upon "same-sex couples." Now, homosexual inclination is intrinsically disordered, while homosexual activity itself is intrinsically evil. What stops a priest from blessing polygamy? Sure, the document may specify "couples", but certainly any two-person combination of a polygamous relationship would constitute a couple. 

If we are now able to bless intrinsically evil situations, then can we ask for a blessing on our abortifacient pills? Can a woman and her abortionist ask for a blessing before they enter the abattoir to slaughter a child? In principle, there is no clear reason why such blessings couldn't be delivered, as we are not supposed to bother our sweet little heads with "an exhaustive moral analysis."

And, to be fair, this nonsense did not start with Pope Francis. Read this passage from FS...

40. ... Indeed, through these blessings that are given not through the ritual forms proper to the liturgy but as an expression of the Church’s maternal heart—similar to those that emanate from the core of popular piety—there is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel may be lived with greater faithfulness.

Then read what Pope Benedict had to say about the use of condoms by heterosexual couples: 

"There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be ... a first bit of responsibility, to re-develop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes," Benedict was quoted as saying.

And the Vatican spokesman doubled down:

"I personally asked the pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine," [Vatican spokesman] Lombardi said. "He told me no. The problem is this ... It's the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship." [There is that insistence that condom use is a move towards objective good. Again.]

"This is if you're a woman, a man, or a transsexual. We're at the same point. The point is it's a first step of taking responsibility, of avoiding passing a grave risk onto another," Lombardi said.

Do you see the similarity between the concepts here? Fiducia Supplicans merely re-iterates in 2023 what Pope Benedict privately told a reporter for an Ignatius Press book in 2010. And, to be fair, Pope Benedict's statement was merely a positive affirmation of the negative nonsense that emerged from JP II's TOB. In a series of audiences that were ostensibly about the human body and human sexuality, JP II managed to omit all discussion of children, family and suffering.

How on earth do you develop a theology of human sexuality without even mentioning children or family? What kind of theological nonsense pretends to be a theology of the body, yet does not mention suffering? The Second Person of the Trinity took on human flesh, a human body, in order to suffer and die, yet you don't mention suffering or death in your Theology of the Body? SERIOUSLY? 

John Paul II's TOB audiences were so atrocious that, once delivered, they are never again referenced by any Magisterial document. There is a straight line from JP II's silence, through Benedict's "moral" condom use to Francis' blessing of same-sex couples. The papacy has been building this line for the last fifty years.

So, don't be surprised to see a new liturgical rite within the next 18 to 24 months for the ordination of women deacons. It may differ from the male rite of ordination, but it is coming. Pope Francis made that clear when he started washing women's feet on Holy Thursday in 2013. 

As I've noted elsewhere, the Catholic Faith was a superb faith for a subsistence-level society. But Catholic ideas are completely unable to adequately respond to a surplus-goods society. One of the hallmarks of the wealth the world is now experiencing is a change in the foundational meaning of human sexuality. In a subsistence-level society, procreation is the foundational meaning, but in a surplus-goods society, human sexuality becomes primarily about communication, not procreation. If the Church has no poor to minister to, She has no way to evangelize. If the foundational meaning of sexuality changes, her message cannot be changed to match without breaking everything that came before. 

UPDATE:

Homosexual activity may be intrinsically evil, but the participants can be blessed, as long as they aren't participants in a duel. If you are, you don't even get the sacrament of confession. In fact, if a priest tries to absolve a penitent involved in a duel, the priest will be excommunicate.

[From the Response of the Holy Office to the Bishop of Poitiers, May 31, 1884]

To the question:

1862 I. Can a physician when invited by duelists assist at a duel with the intention of bringing an end to the fight more quickly, or simply to bind and cure wounds, without incurring the excommunication reserved simply to the Highest Pontiff? 

 II. Can he at least, without being present at the duel, stay at a neighboring house or in a place nearby, ready to offer his service, if the duelists have need of it.

III. What about a confessor under the same conditions?

The answers are: 

To I, he cannot, and excommunication is incurred.

To II and III, that, insofar as it takes place as described, he cannot, and likewise excommunication is incurred.

Is Ed Peters A Shill?

I think Ed Peters is a shill.

The Pope's most recent, and as it turns out, most controversial book is coming out under Ignatius Press, via Fr. Fessio and his well-known intimate friendship with the Pope.

Fr. Fessio is no fool, and he undoubtedly read the book closely, edited it to some extent, the whole nine yards.

Now, I'm no fan of LOR - I think they've been pretty puerile lately - but LOR is being set up as a scapegoat on this condom fiasco.

Ignatius and Fr. Fessio should have seen this coming, especially in the US market.

There is NO WAY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH that this passage from the papal interview would not have eventually been seen by the secular press and blown up, whether this week or a month from now doesn't really matter.

LOR happened to scoop the MSM on it, but that's about all they did "wrong," and I'm not sure it's wrong for even the Vatican newspaper to scoop the secular media.

In past articles, on Simpsons or the Beatles or whatever you want to name, we have LOR's juvenile nattering to contend with. But in this article, LOR played it straight - they just quoted what the Pope said.

It isn't LOR's article that causes the trouble, it's the Pope's words, and now, his clarifications. There wouldn't be a problem if the Pope hadn't said something risible.

If Ed was being honest, he would point a finger at Fessio and Ignatius, who should be helping the Pope cover his assets. These guys knew about that passage long before LOR did, and they didn't change it or cut it, so what does that tell you?

Fr. Fessio and Ignatius, for whatever reason, left this in the book so LOR could scoop it out. Ed Peter is shifting the blame onto people who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this mess, besides pointing out that the passage existed. Lots of Catholic bloggers are piling on, in an attempt to pretend that this is all LOR's fault.

But LOR didn't create this nut house.
Ignatius Press, Fr. Fessio and Pope Benedict laid this one out.
Sorry, but you can't point the finger anywhere else.

For all we know, it isn't even the fault of Fr. Fessio and Ignatius.
Perhaps they DID point out the passage as a problem and Benedict vetoed its exclusion.
We don't really know.
But, much as I hate to say it, I don't think LOR can be blamed for this firestorm.
They just happened to be the messenger.

FYI:

From the Guardian:
Now it would appear that the contraceptive effect disappears in the light of health imperative; it is even, apparently, true that married couples may now use condoms when one of them is infected.

This is a huge shift in understanding. It has opened a genuine split in the church, as our reports from Africa make clear. And that is precisely why the liberals, who have won this fight, are now anxious to claim that nothing much has happened. It is an iron rule of Catholic argument that teaching never changes: it only develops. And the more it in fact changes, the more necessary it is to explain that this is only development and a deeper exposition of what the church has always taught.

A liberal friend of mine just spent about five minutes explaining that the church had always been in favour of prostitutes using condoms, and had never held that they were intrinsically evil, and that all it had been looking for was a chance to clarify this point without misleading its enemies. So there was no change here, no doctrinal change at all … then he added "But now the Pope has told the right-wingers to fuck off! That changes everything."

Update
John Allen of NCR essentially agrees LOR did nothing wrong.
Given the source, I'm not sure it's a good thing to have him agree with me, but there it is.

Condom Use Is Moral?

Now an Opus Dei priest has weighed in on the condom controversy, arguing in a lengthy OSV article that condom use, while it may have a prophylactic effect, can be a lessening of the evil of an intrinsically disordered act.

But this priest goes much farther than that, and his conclusions are quite disturbing.

There are several sections which attempt to summarize this thought, but here's as close to a money quote as the article's diffuse, poorly articulated reasoning presents:

Granted that immoral sexual behavior should be avoided altogether, in my view the point rightly made by the Holy Father is that when someone who is already performing immoral acts uses a condom, he or she does not properly choose a lesser evil, but simply tries to prevent an evil — the evil of infection. From the sinner’s point of view this obviously means to choose some good: health. Yet, provided we consider the immoral activities (for example, prostitution) to be intrinsically evil, using a condom to prevent infection means to reduce the evilness and moral disorder of this activity.

Alright, let's accept the man's argument. Prior to this, I have NEVER heard anyone say that the object of the will can change the evil of an intrinsically disordered act. By it's very nature, an "intrinsically disordered act" is evil - the object of the will is not going to change that. The act itself carries meaning, and that "act-ual" meaning, as it were, is wrong, regardless of the intent.

But here, we hear that the object of the will, the reason for doing the act, CAN mitigate the evil and be a step towards the good.

Alright.

But then he says this:

A condom is designed to be a means for impeding male fluids from penetrating into the woman’s womb. Its normal use is for contraception. In the case the pope speaks of, however, the reason for their use is not the impeding of conception, but preventing infection. We should not confuse human acts, which may be intrinsically good or intrinsically evil, with “things.” It’s not the condom as such, but its use, which presents the moral problem. Therefore, what the pope says does not even refer to the question of contraception

What he means by "use" appears to be not "use" but "intent." For the use of the condom in the two acts - whether it be contraception or disease prophylaxis - is the same. In both cases, the condom is " a means for impeding male fluids from penetrating into the woman’s womb."

Thus, if it's the "use which presents the moral problem" then the moral problem is present in a heterosexual encounter regardless of intent.

The male fluids contain both semen and virii.
The means for preventing entry to the one is identically the same action that prevents the entry to the other.
The "use" is not just similar actions, it is THE SELF-SAME ACTION.
Even the intent is the same - to keep the seminal fluids out.

Now, the ultimate reason you want to keep the seminal fluids out is different, but what you are using (the condom) and your proximate desire/outcome (the penetration of male fluids into the woman) is built on the self-same action and the self-same intent.

So, in order to make his point, the good priest has to change the meaning of the word "use" from "use" to "intent." But even that is not good enough to accomplish what he wants - he has to narrow the meaning of "intent" so as to completely ignore proximate intent and focus only on ultimate intent. It's the only way he can come to his conclusion "what the pope says does not even refer to the question of contraception."

In other words, he is making EXACTLY THE SAME EQUIVOCATION THE HOLY FATHER MADE in the original statement.

If you'll recall, just hours after Pope's statement came out, I pointed out that the Holy Father initially said the "use" of the condom lessened the evil, then only later in the interview qualified the remark by saying it was the intent.

Everyone kept focusing (and indeed, still focuses) on intent, and pretended (or still pretends) the "use" statement never happened.

But it did happen, and the Opus Dei priest is doubling down on it.

Let's be clear here - "use" is different than "intent."
That's why we have two words, after all.

The man even admits this:

If we don’t know what the purpose is in using the “thing” — the condom — in a sexual act of prostitution, we cannot know what kind of moral act is performed here...

Here he clearly differentiates between "use" and "intent." But he's also clearly made a stupid statement - we already know what kind of moral act is being performed here - it's prostitution, which is evil. What he means is, we can't know if the person is trying to avoid one of the evil consequences of his evil action (transmitting disease) or if he's trying to avoid a good consequence of his evil action (the procreation of a child).


Is Condomized Sex a Marital Act?

The good priest recognizes the slippery slope he has created, and attempts to defuse it through raw assertion:

Therefore it is not a question of simply shifting intentions (the further intention) with which we are doing this or that. In this way nearly any action could be justified. One can always find a good intention for justifying the doing of evil things.

But, of course, that's exactly what he's doing. All he's doing is shifting the intention from the proximate to the remote or ultimate. When he sees that his teaching could lead to really lousy moral conclusions, he hastily adds:

These kinds of special questions are outside the scope of what the pope wanted to say and we should not try to extend his remarks to very different cases which are the subject of many expert books. And in so far as these questions refer to sexual acts within marriage, the problems are again of a different order.

That is, his reasoning is so lousy that he doesn't want it to be generalized to establish a precedent.

But notice, he refers to condom use as "sexual acts within marriage." He says this even though, earlier in the same article, he has admitted that these sexual acts are not properly acts within marriage at all (exactly what I warned Jimmy Akin about, which is why Jimmy refused to continue the conversation):

Relying on an old tradition in moral theology that is also reflected in canon law, it was argued that sexual intercourse with a condom by impeding insemination would not meet the physical requirements of a marital act. Because insemination was interrupted, according to this understanding, the act of intercourse was therefore not an act of a generative kind but instead something intrinsically perverted, more like an act of masturbation, sodomy or even bestiality than conjugal love. Although there would be no act chosen explicitly for the purpose of rendering infertile a conjugal act, the use of the condom to prevent the transmission of HIV would be intrinsically evil, annulling the properly marital meaning of sexual intercourse.

There was some scholarly exchange about this, mainly in the National Catholic Bioethical Quarterly. To this day, I am not sure whether this argument is really compelling...

Alright. So a moral argument based in canon law and the ancient traditions of the Church is not "really compelling..." Lovely.

Is Procreation Of A New Human Life, A Person, A Good?

Knowing this, should we be at all surprised to see this gem drop from our good priest's lips?

On the other hand, I consider that a man who at least cares that his occasional female sexual partner not become pregnant acts more responsibly — or less irresponsibly — than a man who does not care about possibly destroying a girl’s entire life; I am thinking of the man who prefers to maximize his pleasure and thus insists on having sex without using condoms. [emphasis added]

Now we discover that a man who uses a condom in order to prevent pregnancy is actually acting in a morally responsible way! After all, the conception of an immortal being, the procreation of a new human life, is an unalloyed good, and we wouldn't want to "destroy a girl's entire life" (not a "woman's life," because "woman" sounds too Scriptural and adult, so we'll just talk about a "girl's life") by allowing the possibility of an unalloyed immortal good, a person in the image and likeness of God, to become part of existence, now would we?

As I've pointed out before, this is theological syphilis - blind, absurd and incoherent. So it is no surprise to see his reasoning descend into that same syphilitic incoherence.

He simultaneously holds that condoms should not be used during fertile periods:

In practice it is hard for an intention to prevent infection not to fuse with other, morally disordered intentions, such as the properly contraceptive intent of preventing the conception of an infected baby. For this reason, spouses should in any case abstain from intercourse, at least in knowingly fertile periods (this doesn’t apply to sterile spouses, of course).

and that condoms can be used at any time by a married couple in which one partner has HIV:

I wrote in 2004 in a letter to The Tablet that “Personally I would never encourage a couple to use a condom, but to abstain. If they disagree, I would not think their intercourse to be an intrinsically sinful act or even a sin ‘against nature’ equal to sodomy, as some moral theologians say.”

And why would it be? Just because the couple is now engaging in extra-marital sex (for that is what a barrier contraceptive is for married couples, even if it is with each other), why would that be a sin?

But why the hesitancy in the first opinion? After all, if using a condom isn't an intrinsically sinful act, then why shouldn't a married couple use condoms regardless of the fertile period? If the ultimate intent is prevention of disease transmission, and they don't want to ruin their entire lives by procreating, then what's wrong with using a condom?

Sure, the point of marriage is procreation, indeed, the biological point of sex itself is procreation, but if we can frustrate the very biology via the use of a condom by a fornicating couple, then what difference does it make if we frustrate that biology inside or outside the marriage? All we're doing in marriage is violating sacred vows to procreate, but in condomized fornication, we're violating our very own sacred natures, so what difference does a little vow-breaking make?

What matters is no one get the sniffles.

Whereas using a condom to prevent death by syphilis was always seen as a problem, our new enlightened age with our new enlightened version of syphilis (HIV) has changed our thinking. Obviously HIV is entirely different than any other STD because.... well, just because.

If this is where the Pope intended to take us, the Pope - in his capacity as private theologian - is wrong. What the "private theologian" said in the interview will never be written into a Magisterial document because the conclusions announced by this priest, his avid supporter, are erroneous.

Personally, I see no point in reading the speculations of a private theologian, even if he is the Pope. Spend time with the Magisterium - the saints, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the official documents of the Church. Benedict's private speculations are not part of Church teaching in any formal way. Insofar as what he says matches the Magisterium, it is already present in other documents. Insofar as what he says does not match the Magisterium, it is not worth any good Catholic's time.