Ban on contraceptives stands, say Vatican officials

VATICAN CITY—Vatican officials insist it’s nothing “revolutionary,” but to many other people Pope Benedict XVI’s comments regarding condom use mark an important moment in the battle against AIDS and an effort by the Pontiff to burnish his image and legacy.

In the Philippines, the Pope’s remarks immediately sparked a lively debate, with a Malacañang official saying Benedict’s comments could boost the argument for the passage of the reproductive health bill.

Just a year after he said condoms could be making the AIDS crisis worse, Benedict said that for some people, such as male prostitutes, using them could represent a first step in assuming moral responsibility “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.”

The Vatican’s ban on contraception remains, but Alberto Melloni, an Italian church historian, said Benedict “opened without a doubt a crack that cannot help but have consequences.”

Benedict stepped where no Pope has gone since Paul VI’s famous 1968 encyclical “Humanae Vitae” barred Catholics from using condoms and other artificial contraception.

Pressure to lift that ban has grown with the spread of the HIV virus, which has infected some 60 million people worldwide and led to 25 million AIDS-related deaths over three decades.

The Pope says in his own writings that he takes personal responsibility for the remarks, meaning they are not official Church teaching.

Teaching reaffirmed

The conservative Benedict previously had given little sign of budging on the issue of condoms.

A number of top churchmen have been calling for a humanitarian gesture on the issue of condoms. Others have said condom use is worth considering when one partner in a marriage is HIV positive.

Benedict did not address such cases in his interview, and he reaffirmed Church teaching against artificial contraception.

No change

But he said, “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.”

Asked if that meant that the Church wasn’t opposed in principle to condoms, the Pope replied:

The Church “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,” according to an English translation obtained by The Associated Press.

The Holy See’s chief spokesperson, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement stressing that the Pope’s comment neither “reforms or changes” Church teaching.

“The reasoning of the Pope cannot certainly be defined as a revolutionary turn,” he said.

Benedict has a reputation as a shy intellectual, and the interview was clearly an attempt to show a more human, more modern thinker.