{"id":116,"date":"2010-11-22T09:47:56","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T09:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/11\/benedict-on-condoms-no-biggie.html"},"modified":"2010-11-22T09:47:56","modified_gmt":"2010-11-22T09:47:56","slug":"benedict-on-condoms-no-biggie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/11\/benedict-on-condoms-no-biggie.html","title":{"rendered":"Benedict on condoms: No biggie?"},"content":{"rendered":"

That is the question. In the usual manner, there’s that tendency for
\nthose who like the way a papal statement sounds to make too much of it,
\nand those who don’t, to make too little. And in the case of Benedict’s remarks<\/a>
\non the use of condoms to prevent AIDS (“a first step in the movement
\ntoward a different way, a more human way, of living sexually”),
\nGetReligion’s Mollie (Hemingway) has some fun with the former<\/a> and NCR’s Michael Sean Winters, with the latter<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Ah, but what’s the truth of the matter? No doubt, as Winters says, the
\npapal remark shows a readiness–not always evident in
\nRatzinger\/Benedict–to paint a moral issue in shades of gray. And yet,
\nin articulating a position in line with the viewpoint of mainstream
\nCatholic theologians, the pope does seem to be opening the door to a
\nmore liberal approach to contraceptive practice.<\/p>\n

Here’s the key paragraph in Austin Ivereigh’s backgrounder<\/a> on the subject over at In All Things:<\/p>\n

The point argued by moral theologians was always this. The Church is
\nopposed to artificial contraception, not condoms per se. Just as, in
\nHumanae vitae, the Pill may be used for medical purposes (to prevent
\nheavy bleeding, say), if the intention of using a condom is to prevent
\ninfection, not pregnancy, then it was not contraceptive in intention.
\nThe point is obvious that–not to put too fine a point on it–a
\ncondom used between two men can hardly be considered contraceptive in
\nits purpose; and the same would be true if a husband who returns from
\nthe mines infected with HIV uses one to stop his wife getting infected.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Benedict, be it noted, referred only to male prostitutes. But as
\nIvereigh says, the principle can apply to married couples where one of
\nthe partners is HIV-positive. In the context of AIDS in Africa, I’d say
\nthat this conversational comment of the pope’s does qualify as a biggie.
\nEspecially if followed up with a magisterial pronunciamento.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That is the question. In the usual manner, there’s that tendency for those who like the way a papal statement sounds to make too much of it, and those who don’t, to make too little. And in the case of Benedict’s remarks on the use of condoms to prevent AIDS (“a first step in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nBenedict on condoms: No biggie? - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/11\/benedict-on-condoms-no-biggie.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Benedict on condoms: No biggie? - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That is the question. 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After teaching at Harvard in the Department of History and Literature for three years, he became editor of the Boston Review. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he worked variously as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and in 1998 founding editor of Religion in the News, a magazine published by the Center that examines how the news media handle religious subject matter. In 2005, he was named director of the Trinity College Program on Public Values, comprising both the Greenberg Center and a new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture directed by Barry Kosmin. In 2007, he became Professor of Religion in Public Life at the College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of The American Establishment, Making Capitalism Work, and One Nation Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. In 2007 he inaugurated Spiritual Politics, a blog on religion and American political culture.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/author\/msilk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}