Pope's condom remarks cause stir
Nov-26-2010

Pope Benedict's endorsement of condom use to prevent the transmission of HIV-AIDS hasn't sparked much of an outcry in Canada, even from the ultra-conservative Opus Dei.


The Pope said in interviews for the book "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times" that condom use by such people as male prostitutes was a lesser evil because they were practising a more moral and responsible sexuality to protect their partner from a deadly infection.


The Vatican later expanded the comment to include women.


Some analysts downplayed the remarks as no big deal, while others called them a seismic shift in papal teaching.


"It doesn't change the teaching of the church about contraception," said Isabelle Saint-Maurice, a Montreal-based spokeswoman for Opus Dei, an organization within the Catholic Church.


Saint-Maurice said the Pope was talking about specific circumstances where it would be morally responsible to use a condom to prevent the transmission of HIV-AIDS.


She said it's a solution to protect life in the face of an epidemic but ''doesn't change the position of the church for the rest.''


''It's not that the church is opening the door to many things."


But Daniel Cere, a professor of religious studies at McGill University, said the Pope's remarks signal a "significant development," with its most dramatic impact likely being among health-care workers trying to prevent AIDS in developing countries.


He said the use of condoms in relationships involving HIV-infected partners had been examined at the highest levels of the Vatican for several years.


"Cardinals and bishops had raised concerns about how church teaching needs to be defined in the light of the new realities of sexual diseases and particularly AIDS," Cere said in an interview.


Cere described the pontiff's stand on condoms as "not an approval but it's not an exclusion."


"The statement is not really meant to condone the general use of condoms. It's meant to really acknowledge that condoms can be used as a preventative tool in situations of AIDS."


The Pope's remark was praised by Nicci Stein, a spokeswoman for the Ottawa-based Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development.


''It does seem to be quite a radical shift away from the church's past condemnation of using condoms," she said.


"From a public health and HIV prevention perspective, condoms are our most accessible and most cost-effective and most effective tool that we have to use for prevention.


"It's very welcome but I also think it stops short of what is really necessary and that is to encourage the use of condoms wherever they're needed."

Jasmin Lemieux-Lefebvre, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec, said there are no immediate plans to comment on the book during Sunday sermons, pointing out that condom use was only one of many topics discussed in the volume.

"As always, priests and the pastoral team will be there to listen to the questions of the faithful."

Lemieux-Lefebvre said while the book is available in English, the French translation is not out yet in Canada's most Catholic province.

"When this book will be available in French, we're going to encourage the dissemination because it's a fantastic book," he said.

''The Pope is really opening up.''

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