What did Pope Benedict XVI really say about condoms?

Much has been said about Pope Benedict XVI's comments in a book to be released tomorrow. Unfortunately I think that this has become Regensburg all over again: a narrow minded media working to portray the words of a great thinker in a negative light for the consumption of an uninformed public. Had the media reported on the Jesus' forgiving of the woman caught in adultry they would have reported the next morning "Jesus approves adultry". What the Pope is in fact saying is that for a person who uses a condom it may be a sign that they are experiencing moral awakening. They are realizing that their actions effect others and the Pope believes that this may be a step towards understanding the value of the human person and proper ordering of sexuality in life. It's the same as when a person realizes that certain types of abortion seem wrong to their mind which becomes a single step towards realizing that all abortions are wrong. To say for example that it's good that people realize that partial birth abortion is wrong in no way excuses other forms of abortion. It simply demonstrates a progression of increasing moral awareness. This type of 1+2=4 mentality is what the media is known for and I doubt that we are likely to see any kind of change soon.

The problem we are experiencing, if it can actually be called a problem, is that Pope Benedict XVI is highly intelligent and his responses are highly nuanced and are given to certain points of perspective. Pope Benedict does not simply provide quick answers for the purpose of handy media soundbites. So the medai creates them. At any given moment a single sentence either spoken or in print can be taken out of context as he explores ideas with questions and different points of view. The media is too willingly deceptive to accurately display his thoughts as they were originally expressed precisely I believe because of their strong anti-Catholic bias.

I am sure, that birth control, contraceptive means other than condoms are and remain, the silent abortion. I would certainly agree that using condoms cheapens the sexual act on every level. It reduces the human person to a thing: objectification. People should take the time to read Pope John Paul II's book, "Love and Responsibility". Also, there is no basis for a condoms or/vs abortion scenario. (Both are wrong and remain wrong according to Catholic teaching.) And herein lies the problem with birth control: that with the use of birth control, the person has proclaimed before the sexual act even takes place, that the conceived human person is an undesirable and rejected end. And if the condom or other form of birth control fails, many simply perfect this rejection of the unborn child through the use of legalized abortion. Many married couples do use condoms and they are wrong to do so, every single time. To have sex with a condom, one might just as well have sex with a person not their spouse. To divorce reproductivity from the procreative act of a fertile human persons, is to allow the body to simply become a means of reaching the end of one's own impulses and desires.

I am saying that married people should never have sex with a condom. Never! Some have said to me that this is laughable. But why is this laughable? The sexuality of the human body is made to be open to created life in the years of fertility. As sexual beings we are procreative by our very nature. Condoms are an ihibitor to life and the natural experience of the sexual act. Such sexual contact accepts the sexuality of the person, but not the person themself. It's really a precursor to abortion in many ways. Abortion violently ends the new life in the womb and rejects the fertility of the sexual act by proclaiming that life is an unwelcomed side effect, rather than a natural expression of the love between a man and a woman. Persons should be conceived in love and be received as the fruit of love and not obstinately rejected as something undesirable or unexpected. When condoms are used, they are a rejection of love and they are a rejection of the person. You can't love half a person. You either love them whole, or reject them whole. Birth control, either by condoms or other means are indicative of disordered behaviors that seek to only exploit aspects of the body, while rejecting the human person as a complete being created in the image and likeness of God.

These are the Pope's actual remarks as they appear in the book. In no way does he say that the use of condoms is okay, morally correct or permissable to an individual of informed conscience. Absolutely nothing has changed in the magisterium of the Catholic Church. The Pope is merely remarking that for a person who is engaged in immoral and dangerous behaviour, the mere fact that they begin to recognize the saefty of another person is a step towards their recognition of the value and proper ordering of sexual conduct between individuals and one towards a reform of their behaviour. The Pope have spoken bravely and simply on a matter of real concern. But the media however, even when they accurately relay the words that the Pope said, put their own spin on the very words themselves to produce a desired effect. For many people however, their knowledge of articles never moves beyond headlines passing briefly before their eyes.

Pope Benedict XVI from the new book "Light of the World":

As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen.... Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work.


This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man's being.


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.