Pope Benedict and the Condom Question

by Fr. Joel O. Jason

(In response to many questions I received regarding the days headline connected with Pope Benedict and the condom question, I offer the following as clarifying points to ponder on. Please post it on your profile and share with as many friends you can. For our collective guidance. Thanks!)

It was Sunday night (November 21, 2010) and I was readying myself to sleep. I turned on the TV to while away the time. Half asleep and half awake, I remember vaguely seeing in the running headlines at CNN, something connected with Pope Benedict and the issue of condoms. Too sleepy to even listen in, I switched off the television and went to sleep. Monday morning I woke up with text messages from friends inquiring about the supposed "turn around" in the Church’s teaching regarding condom use.

True enough, international as well as local journal headlines read:

“Pope says condoms are justified in fight against HIV”

“Pope says condoms are acceptable in some cases”

“Pope softens on teaching on Condoms, Aids and Contraception”

“Pope: Condom use OK for fight against AIDs”

So for the sake of intellectual integrity, I decided to do some research and found out that what started it all was a supposed “leaked” German interview the Pope granted to journalist Peter Seewald in an upcoming book yet to be released entitled “Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and the Signs of the Times”. To let you in on what the Pope really said, allow me to show you an excerpt of the transcript of the interview connected with the condom question:


From Chapter 11, “The Journeys of a Shepherd,” pages 117-119:

Peter Seewald:
On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican’s policy on AIDs once again became the target of media criticism. Twenty-five percent of all AIDs victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

Pope Benedict:
The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on AIDs. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim. Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many AIDs victims, especially children with AIDs.

I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering. In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done (emphasis mine).We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.

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 (emphasis mine). 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 (emphasis mine). 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, (The preceding is the only sentence the secular media focused on to reach their conclusions) 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 (emphasis mine).

(The next question and answer was totally ignored by the secular media in their reporting)

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

Pope Benedict:
She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution (emphasis mine), 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 (emphasis mine).

So with the full text in question now presented, what conclusions can we derive?

First things first. There is a principle in Biblical interpretation that goes:

“A text, out of context, is pretext.”

It means that every text of the Bible should be understood in its integral context: in the unity of the whole message of a chapter, of a series of books, of the theology of the writer, and even the unity of the whole Biblical message. Taken in isolation, a text in the Bible can be reduced to a pretext, i.e., a half-truth or at worst, a misleading misinterpretation.

The headlines we read above, regarding the supposed change Benedict proposes on the consistent sexual ethics of the Church connected with condoms and HIV, are clear examples of a text taken out of context. As you can see, Pope Benedict gave a long answer to a rather short question. I highlighted the parts that spell out clearly Benedicts’ convictions as well as that of the Church’s. What some interpreters took out in isolation was that part where it says, “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…”. They did not even finish the whole sentence.

With these laid out, so what now did Pope Benedict NOT say?
First of all, this is a personal interview. Pope Benedict is not speaking here in his capacity as the Supreme Teacher of the Catholic faith. What you find in the book are not proposed as official teachings nor pronouncements being sent out to the Catholic faithful. Some of the things we can read here can even fall in the category of personal opinions and therefore do not and cannot present themselves as official Magisterial teachings. If the Pope wants to hold out a new teaching based on his reasoned discernment as the Successor of Peter, a personal interview is not the place to do it. Everyone who knows basic Catechism understands this, much more the Pope. And so headlines claiming, “Pope changes teaching on Condoms, Contraception and HIV”, or “Pope: Condoms OK in fight Against AIDS” are totally way out of line.2.Nowhere in the text of Pope Benedict’s response can we find a summary justification of the morality of condom use. This is clear in the texts I highlighted. Let me highlight them once again:“…that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done,” ; “…But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself” ; “ 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” ; “…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.” I don’t see how the quotes above translate to “Pope OKs condom use”. On the contrary,the above quotations reflect the consistent conviction of the Church regarding condom use vis a vis HIV/AIDs: that condoms are not the solution. If at all, they contribute to the perpetuation of the problem.

In scientific circles, it is openly admitted that condoms are in fact not 100% safe. On an average, it is said that there is a 10-15% inefficacy, since the AIDS viruses are much more ‘filtrating’ (i.e., able to pass through) than the sperm. Google “condom voids”and you will discover that the male sperm is small enough to easily pass through the pores/natural voids of the rubber latex, thus the 10-15% failure rate as a contraceptive. Condoms have natural microscopic holes which measure 5 micron (.0002 inches) while the HIV virus measures 0.1 micron (4 millionth of an inch). It’s a no-brainer. Prescribing condoms as a protection for HIV and AIDS is a virtual Russian roulette. Sooner or later, you will have it. It’s only a matter of time. Therefore, even at a “technical” level of efficacy, one should question the scientific seriousness and the consequent professional seriousness of the condom campaign.

Condoms can only reduce the risk of infection. And with the fatally serious threat of HIV/AIDs, risk reduction is not acceptable. Prevention is the only acceptable option. And prevention is only served by abstinence (for the unmarried) and monogamy and fidelity (for the married).

In the first place, Pope Benedict’s response was not even a direct commentary on the possible moral justification of condom use, clearly not for contraception. He was making a moral speculation on what may be going on in the heart of one (a male prostitute ) who uses the condom in a homosexual sex act.

What did Pope Benedict intend to say?

Pope Benedict was specific in his response. He spoke of a “male prostitute” who uses a condom. What the Pope stressed was not that condom use is OK in the case of a male prostitute engaged in heterosexual or homosexual acts. He merely said that “this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility…” Perhaps an analogy can help us appreciate what the Pope is saying (for this point I will modify a principle I picked up from lay moral theologian Janet Smith).

There are two robbers. One uses a real knife with a real intent to kill and harm. The other, uses a plastic knife, because he does not intend to kill. He only intends to frighten and intimidate. Both men will be committing an evil act. But obviously, between the two, it is the one who employs a plastic knife that shows at least a hint, a semblance, a little amount of moral responsibility which hopefully, can still mature to a real and correct kind of moral responsibility that will let him realize that robbing people is an evil option to take. Does this mean the Church will teach that it is “OK” and moral to rob people using a toy knife? No. The Church simply says that between the two, the one with the toy knife is the one that manifests a semblance of an “assumption of moral responsibility”, immature it may be.

The same logic can be applied to Pope Benedict’s example. Obviously, the mere fact that the person used a condom indicates a “semblance of responsibility.” One who engages in prostituted sex without a condom, shows a total absence of moral responsibility, for himself or for the other. Compared to this one, one who uses a condom at least shows a hint of “assuming a responsibility” which Benedict hopes can be a “first step in the direction of a moralization” i.e., hopefully it can develop to a more correct kind of responsibility, not in the direction of regular condom use, as secular interpreters assumed, but, as Benedict finished his sentence, (which the secular media left out), “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.”

As we see here, Pope Benedict is too deep a theologian and a thinker to be presented from a shallow and surface level interpretation. The Pope and the Church’s consistent ethical teachings deserve more than that. We pray that the media may also assume responsibility in reporting matters especially those related to faith and morals. We pray that intellectual integrity and professionalism may not be sacrificed for the sake of ideology, sensationalism and paper sales.

The Condom Conundrum

By Fr. Joel O. Jason

{K} Kerygma Magazine

No. 241 Vol. 20 June 2010

In its February 2010 issue, Time magazine ran an article on Dr. David Ho, a scientist very active in researching over an antibody that he believes would prevent HIV infection. Interestingly, the article narrated a 2007 incident when, in an AIDS conference where Dr. Ho was in attendance, a presenter flashed a cartoon of a blindfolded baseball player swinging mightily at an incoming ball and, of course, missing. I’m not sure what the purpose of the presenter was. But according to Time, the imagery was clear. The blindfolded baseball player was Dr. Ho and his team, and the incoming fast ball was AIDS. It was another futile swing and a miss — one of the many in humanity’s long battle with HIV and AIDS.

I admire Dr. Ho and his team for their dedication and humane passion to eradicate the challenge of AIDS. But I thought that cartoon incident offers volumes of commentaries over the issue.

It reminded me of a story I read before.

A bull that has been working in the bull ring for several years finally retired. Talking to a fellow retiree, he shared his conundrum (i.e., a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem or dilemma). In utter frustration he shared, “For years I have been chasing after that red cape and I never really did catch it. How do I solve the problem of that red cape?” The fellow retiree whispered, “Just between us, the problem is not the cape. It’s the matador. Eliminate the matador and you eliminate that pestering cape as well.”

This Aesop’s fable explains why the bull was always painted as a dumb animal. It charges mindlessly, without thought, without purpose. Driven by inordinate passion and sheer instinct, it chases its target clueless and not knowing that the real target should be something or someone else. The result: frustration, energy spent in futility and, for some, even death at the hands of the matador.

Isn’t this our collective experience so far in our long standing battle with AIDS? It has been more than 25 years since the pandemic and we all look like a blindfolded baseball player swinging mightily at an incoming AIDS fastball — frustrated, spent and, for some, dead. The rate of HIV transmission and AIDS continues to swell. Just last March, the DOH noted an alarming increase in HIV cases among the young and specially the MSM (men having sex with men) sector in the country.

In February 14, 2010 the Department of Health placed itself at the center of discussion with its distribution of free condoms to celebrate “love” day. When called to task for such actions, the DOH explained that it’s the Department’s way of battling the HIV and STD transmission. It was to remind people to have safe sex. I was asking myself, “What is safe sex?” More properly, since when has sex become unsafe anyway?

In the Beginning, It Was Not So

Once, I was at a conference with young professionals and I was sharing with them John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.¹ During the open forum a guy came up and asked, “Father, is having a good sex life important?” I was a bit surprised. Gathering my senses, I answered, “It depends what you mean by good.” “If by good sex you mean sex whenever, wherever and with whomever I want,” I continued, “then my answer is no.” Then I concluded, “ But if by good sex you mean, sex as God intended it to be, then by all means, go and have good sex.”

When we read in the Bible, “(t)hen God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it’” (Genesis 1:28), God was telling the first man and woman to have sex. God created sex. Genesis 1:31 concludes by saying, “And God looked at what He has created and it was good.”

Sex is among the things God has created. Therefore sex is good, sex is safe. Notice that sex and the ability of the woman to bear a child is the first thing that God blessed in the world (see Genesis 1:28). John Paul II calls it the world’s “primordial blessing.” But why do we now speak of the need to be protected from “unsafe sex” and the need to have “safe sex”?

It is not because sex is naturally unsafe. It is our behavior and the inordinate desires of our hearts that has made sex unsafe. No scientific literature will contest that sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and others are not natural by-products of sex. God did not make sex with HIV and STD on the side. They are the by-products of irresponsible sexual behavior. Christ calls it in the Gospel of Matthew as the “hardness of our hearts.” It is our “sex whenever, wherever and with whomever” mentality that has ruined the world’s primordial blessing and morphed it into the modern world’s primordial threat. Case in point, no one who is practicing abstinence or monogamy and fidelity has ever contracted HIV or any other STDs (unless he is a drug user and may have used an infected needle).

So how do we make sex safe and redeem it back as the world’s primordial blessing? Unless we change our behavior and look into the “hardness of our hearts,” we remain a hapless bull and a blindfolded baseball player, helplessly missing the point. No one in his right mind will contest that abstinence (if you are single) and monogamy/fidelity (if you are married) are the only 100 percent ways of eliminating the HIV and AIDS menace. But why aren’t we considering it? It is not because it doesn’t work. It is because we are not willing to give it a try. It’s the hardness of our hearts.

The Heart of the Matter

I once read of a man suffering from obesity due to his uncontrollable desire for food. To remedy the situation, he underwent an operation to shorten his small intestines to simulate the feeling of being full even with a little amount of food. It didn’t work. The man developed new complications. His intestines were close to bursting with continuous food intake. What’s the problem? The problem is not with food. The problem is not with his small intestines. The real problem is with his heart — his inordinate desire for food. Even if all of his intestines are taken away, the problem will remain unless he corrects his attitude.

Similarly, the problem of STDs and HIV is not about sex. It is not an issue of disease control but self-control. It is not a technical problem. It is ultimately a problem of the human heart and it will not be solved apart from correcting the desires of our hearts.

The Condom Files

Last March 19, 2009, the National Review Online reported in its publication the results of the work of Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. In his recent study he announced, “We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.”

We should not be surprised at this. In scientific circles, it is openly admitted that condoms are in fact not 100 percent safe. On an average, it is said that there is a 10 to 15 percent inefficacy, since the AIDS viruses are much more ‘filtrating’ (i.e., able to pass through) than the sperm. Google “condom voids” and you will discover that the male sperm is small enough to easily pass through the pores or natural voids of the rubber latex, thus the 10 to 15 percent failure rate as a contraceptive. Condoms have natural microscopic holes, which measure 5 microns (.0002 inch) while the HIV virus measures 0.1 micron (4 millionth of an inch). It’s a no-brainer. Prescribing condoms as a protection for HIV and AIDS is a virtual Russian roulette. Sooner or later, you will have it. It’s only a matter of time. Therefore, even at a “technical” level of efficacy, one should question the scientific seriousness and the consequent professional seriousness of the condom campaign.

Speaking to the National Review Online, Mr. Green added, “The pope is correct, or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments. (T)here is… a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates.”

Green added, “I also noticed that the pope said ‘monogamy’ was the best single answer to African AIDS, rather than ‘abstinence.’ The best and latest empirical evidence indeed shows that reduction in multiple and concurrent sexual partners is the most important single behavior change associated with reduction in HIV-infection rates.”

Missing the Mark

In ancient Greece, archery is a sport of excellence, a measure of greatness. Failing to hit the bullseye is considered a great failure. They have a term for it — hamartia, i.e., missing the mark. It’s no coincidence the Greek word for sin is likewise hamartia. Sin, or moral failure, is not only about breaking a moral law. It is missing the mark of human excellence, of true manhood (humanity).

More than the threat of HIV and AIDS, the Church looks at the issue as a question of growing in authentic love and in our humanity as sexual persons. With or without the threat of HIV/AIDS and STDs, the Church has always called and will call for an education in chastity, premarital abstinence and marital fidelity, which are authentic expressions of human sexuality. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave out the invitation to experience the joy and thrill of being chaste. Secular mentality proposes an attitude of always being on a chase.

Look at a recent TV ad showing in local television. A sexy woman passes by, looks seductively at a man of her fancy, and the man begins to run after her. Whether the man or the woman is committed to one another or to another one is not important. The point of the TV ad is best described by the sheepish smile and boast of the male lead, “Ang tunay na lalaki, proteksyon bago umaksyon.” It’s a “bullish” portrayal of manhood. If I feel like charging, I will, for as long as I have protection. No wonder our relationships leave us frustrated, spent, dead.

Jason Evert, a husband, father, chastity speaker and Theology of the Body enthusiast couldn’t have said it more eloquently, “A real man is not someone who will conquer a woman for the sake of his desires. A real man is someone who will conquer his desires for the sake of a woman.”

What kind of manhood does condom distribution promote? Your answer is as good as mine.

The Thrill of the Chaste

I end with another fable. An eagle egg was accidentally mixed with chicken eggs. After a period of time, the eagle egg hatched and soon the eaglet found itself growing in the company of chickens. All the while, he thought he was a chicken, a ground creature. Until one day, he saw an eagle soaring up in the heavens. Something in him was stirred. He found himself constantly looking up in the heavens, waiting for the eagle to soar by. The image of the soaring eagle seemed to awaken a deep unconscious desire in his heart. Until one day, while admiring the flying eagle, he just found himself flapping his wings, lifting himself up in the air, and soaring with the eagle he daily admired. It was then that he realized he was not a chicken. He was an eagle destined to soar up in the heavens.

It took the image of a soaring eagle to reveal to him his genuine identity.

Our culture wants us to believe that we are nothing but chickens — ground creatures. I hear it often. Someone will say, “Father, palay na ang lumalapit sa manok.² Ano pa ang gagawin ko? (Father, if it’s the grain that approaches the chicken, what will I do?)” I always answer back, “Kung manok ang tingin mo sarili mo, eh di tukain mo (If you think of yourself as a chicken, then go peck the grain).”

The first line of the morality section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1691) richly says it, “Christians, recognize your dignity.” The Church position on the condom question is more than a question of technical efficacy (although even by technical efficacy, the Church position is unarguably the best solution). It is a question of educating and inviting us to discover the joy of genuine love, the beauty of genuine human sexuality and our nobility as human persons.

Is AIDS really an untouchable fastball? Is the red cape really invincible? Maybe we’re just blindfolded and simply “bullish” in our approach. In any case, we are missing the mark. How do we solve the condom conundrum? I propose we take our blindfold, get wise, stop our “bullish” behavior and start aiming at the real mark. Otherwise, like a mindless bull we will forever be on a chase, missing out on the real thrill of the chaste.

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¹ Fr. Joel O. Jason is also the author of the book “Free Love, True Love: Rediscovering Love and Intimacy in John Paul II’s Theology of the Body” published by Shepherd’s Voice Publications and available at major bookstores

nationwide. The Theology of the Body is the late John Paul II’s teaching on the beautiful and truly liberating teaching of the Bible on the meaning of human love and sexuality. The book is now on its third printing.

² A Filipino idiomatic expression for a woman who makes the first move to attract a man