VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Using condoms may sometimes be justified to stop the spread of AIDS, Pope Benedict says in a new book, in surprise comments that relax one of the Vatican’s most controversial positions.
In excerpts published in the Vatican newspaper yesterday, the pope cites the example of the use of condoms by prostitutes as “a first step towards moralization,“ even though condoms are “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.“
While some Roman Catholic leaders have spoken about the limited use of condoms to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS as the lesser of two evils, this is the first time the pope has mentioned the possibility in public.
The Vatican newspaper unexpectedly published significant excerpts from the book last night, days before extracts were initially due to be made public. The book, called Light of the World, is to be published on Tuesday.
Benedict made clear the comments were not intended to weaken the Church’s fundamental opposition to artificial birth control, a source of grievance to many practising Catholics.
The majority of Church leaders have been saying for decades that condoms are not even part of the solution to fighting AIDS, even though no formal position on this existed in a Vatican document.
The late cardinal John O’Connor of New York famously branded the use of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS as “The Big Lie.“
Last year, the pope caused an international uproar when he told journalists accompanying him to Africa that condoms should not be used because they could worsen the spread of AIDS.
The Vatican’s opposition to artificial birth control has been highly contested, even by many Catholics, since it was formalised in the late Pope Paul’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) in 1968.
Benedict says that “the basic lines of Humanae Vitae are still correct”, indicating that his comments about condoms are not intended to apply to birth control, only to AIDS prevention.
He says that the “sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalisation of sexuality” where sexuality is no longer an expression of love “but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves”.