Pope Says Condoms Can Be Used In Some Cases

by The Associated Press

from http://www.npr.org/

Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Images

Pope Benedict XVI leads a consistory in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Saturday. In a new book, Benedict says condom use is acceptable "in certain cases," notably by male prostitutes to reduce the risk of infection with HIV.

Pope Benedict XVI says in a new book that condoms can be justified for male prostitutes seeking to stop HIV, a stunning turnaround for a church that has long opposed condoms and a pontiff who has blamed them for making the AIDS crisis worse.

The pontiff made the comments in a book-length interview with a German journalist, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times, which is being released Tuesday. The Vatican newspaper ran excerpts on Saturday.

Church teaching has opposed condoms because they're a form of artificial contraception although it has never released an explicit policy about condoms and HIV. The Vatican has been harshly criticized in light of the AIDS crisis.

Benedict said that for male prostitutes — for whom contraception isn't the central issue — condoms are not a moral solution. But he said they could be justified "in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.''

He called it "a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way of living sexuality.''

Benedict drew the wrath of the United Nations, European governments and AIDS activisits when he told reporters en route to Africa in 2009 that the AIDS problem on the continent couldn't be resolved by distributing condoms.

"On the contrary, it increases the problem,'' he said then.

Journalist Peter Seewald, who interviewed Benedict over the course of six days this summer, revisited those comments and asked Benedict if it wasn't "madness'' for the Vatican to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

"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,'' Benedict said.

But he stressed that it wasn't the way to deal with the evil of HIV, noting the church's position that abstinence and marital fidelity is the only sure way.

Christian Weisner, of the pro-reform group We Are Church in the pope's native Germany, said it was "surprising, and if that's the case one can be happy about the pope's ability to learn.

In other comments, Benedict said:

"If a pope is no longer physically, psychologically or spiritually capable of doing his job, then he has the "right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.''

On Islam, in Europe, he declined to endorse such moves as France's banning the burqa or Switzerland's citizen referendum to forbid topping mosques with minarets.

"Christians are tolerant, and in that respect they also allow others to have their self-image,'' Benedict replied when asked if Christians should be "glad'' about such initiatives. "As for the burqa, I can see no reason for a general ban.''

He was surprised by the scale of clerical sex abuse in his native Germany and acknowledged that the Vatican could have better communicated its response. "One can always wonder whether the pope should not speak more often.''

A man of deep personal faith, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has alienated some Roman Catholics with his zeal in enforcing church orthodoxy.

He grew up in the conservative Alpine foothills of Bavaria and at 78, he is the 265th pope of the Catholic Church and the first Germanic pope since the 11th century.

Many in Germany blamed Ratzinger for decrees from Rome barring Catholic priests from counseling pregnant teens on their options and blocking German Catholics from sharing communion with their Lutheran brethren at a joint gathering in 2003.

He also clashed with prominent liberal and moderate theologians.

In his autobiography, Ratzinger said he sensed he was out of step with his fellow Germans as early as the 1960s, when he was a young assistant at the Second Vatican Council in Rome.

Ratzinger wrote that he was enrolled in the Nazi youth movement against his will when he was 14 in 1941. He deserted the German army in April 1945, re-entered the seminary and was ordained, along with his brother, in 1951. He then spent several years teaching theology. In 1977, he was appointed bishop of Munich and elevated to cardinal three months later by Pope Paul VI.

John Paul II named him leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981, where he was responsible for enforcing Catholic orthodoxy and was one of the key men in the drive to shore up the faith of the world's Roman Catholics.

Ratzinger who speaks Italian, English as well as his native language German, has been called a subtle thinker with a deep understanding of Catholic tradition and a personal touch he's not often given credit for.

No Joke: Vatican Releases List of Top 10 Albums of All Time

chicagotribune.com — On February 15, the Vatican's newspaper, L' Osservatore Romano, published its semi-serious list of the top ten rock and pop albums of all time.

Click here to see the list and article: Vatican Releases List of Top 10 Albums of All Time

Vatican defends pope as anti-Nazi, backtracks on Hitler Youth claim

By Haaretz Staff and Reuters

The Vatican defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday as a man of strong anti-Nazi credentials, and backtracked over an earlier claim that he had never been a member of the Hitler Youth in his native Germany, which had contradicted statements by the pontiff himself. A Vatican spokesman at first flatly denied that Benedict, 82, was ever in the Nazi youth movement. But when reporters noted the pope himself spoke of his membership in a 1996 book, he revised the statement to say: "He was enrolled involuntarily into the Hitler Youth but he had no active participation." Meanwhile, the pope also came under renewed fire for his speech a day earlier at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. Knesset Speaker Rueven Rivlin accused the pope of showing detachment from Jewish suffering under the Nazis. He referred to Benedict as "a German who joined the Hitler Youth and ... Hitler's army". Lombardi told reporters in Jerusalem earlier Tuesday: "The pope was never in the Hitler Youth, never, never, never." In "Salt of the Earth", a 1996 book of autobiographical and religious reflections based on interviews with German journalist Peter Seewald, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said, however, that he was automatically enrolled into the Hitler Youth. Asked if he had been a member, he said: "At first we weren't, but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later, as a seminarian, I was registered in the HY. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back." He also said he served on anti-aircraft batteries and was conscripted into the German infantry late in the war. 'Pope bears burden of Holocaust' Citing Benedict's teenage membership in the Hitler Youth and German military service, Rivlin on Tuesday berated the pope over his address at Yad Vashem. "With all due respect to the Holy See, we cannot ignore the burden he bears, as a young German who joined the Hitler Youth and as a person who joined Hitler's army, which was an instrument in the extermination," Rivlin told Israel Radio. "He came and told us as if he were a historian, someone looking in from the sidelines, about things that should not have happened. And what can you do? He was a part of them," Rivlin said. The Vatican spokesman made a distinction between convinced Hitler Youth activists and members of the anti-aircraft units, omitting the category of involuntary Hitler Youth members to which Benedict has been quoted as saying he belonged. "The Hitler Youth was a corps of volunteers, fanatically, ideologically for the Nazis," Lombardi said. The anti-aircraft auxiliary corps the pope was enrolled in towards the end of the war "had absolutely nothing to do with the Hitler Youth and the Nazis and Nazi ideology", he added. "It is important to say what is true and not to say false things about a very sensitive thing like this," Lombardi said. Histories of the air-aircraft auxiliary corps, known as the "Flakhelfer", and of the Hitler Youth, describe the auxiliaries as being organised as a unit of the Hitler Youth. The visit by the head of the Catholic Church also sparked controversy MOnday, when Benedict walked out of an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem after a Palestinian Muslim cleric accused Israel of "slaughter." At the Yad Vashem ceremony, the pope spoke of the "horrific tragedy of the Shoah," the Hebrew term for the Holocaust, but disappointed some Jewish religious leaders who said he should have apologized as a German and a Christian for the genocide

On Africa trip, pope says condoms won't solve AIDS

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer

Play Video AP – Pope says condoms won't solve AIDS

YAOUNDE, Cameroon – Pope Benedict XVI said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV.

Benedict's first statement on an issue that has divided even Catholic clergy working with AIDS patients came hours before he arrived in Cameroon's capital — greeted by thousands of flag-waving faithful who stood shoulder-to-shoulder in red dirt fields and jammed downtown streets for a glimpse of the pontiff's motorcade.

In his four years as pope, Benedict had never directly addressed condom use, although his position is not new. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often said that sexual abstinence — not condoms — was the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.

Benedict also said the Roman Catholic Church was at the forefront of the battle against AIDS.

"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane heading to Yaounde. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease, as he answered questions submitted in advance by reporters traveling on the plane. His response was presumably also prepared in advance.

The Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against artificial contraception. Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS.

AP – Pope Benedict XVI waves to a cheering crowd as he leaves the airport in Yaounde, Cameroon Tuesday, March …

The late Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo made headlines in 2003 for saying that condoms may help spread AIDS through a false sense of security, claiming they weren't effective in blocking transmission of the virus. The cardinal, who died last year, headed the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family.

Three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 22 million people are infected with HIV — accounting for two-thirds of the world's infections, according to UNAIDS.

Rebecca Hodes with the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said if the pope is serious about preventing HIV infections, he should focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how to use them.

"Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans," said Hodes, head of policy, communication and research for the group.

Hodes said the pope was right that condoms are not the sole solution to Africa's AIDS epidemic, but added they are one of the very few proven measures to prevent HIV infections.

Even some priests and nuns working with those infected with the AIDS virus question the church's opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging Africa. Ordinary Africans do as well.

"Talking about the nonuse of condoms is out of place. We need condoms to protect ourselves against diseases and AIDS," teacher Narcisse Takou said in Yaounde.

Stanley Obale Okpu, a civil servant working in the ministry of urban development in Cameroon, said: "What the pope says is an ideal for the Catholic church. But he needs to look at the realities on the ground. One should be aware of these realities. In the case of Cameroon — and Africa as a whole — condoms are very necessary ... You need condoms to prevent AIDS and birth control."

A crowd of photographers and cameras flashed as the 81-year-old pontiff stepped off the plane into the steaming 88-degree heat, with humidity levels measuring a wilting 90 percent.

It was the first stop on a weeklong pilgrimage that will also take Benedict to Angola as he seeks to draw international attention to Africa's problems of famine, poverty and armed conflict.

The pope was greeted by Cameroon's President Paul Biya, who has ruled since 1982 and whose government has been accused by Amnesty International of abuses in crushing political opponents.

The pope made no specific reference to the situation in Cameroon, but he did say in general remarks on Africa that "a Christian can never remain silent" in the face of violence, poverty, hunger, corruption or abuse of power.

"The saving message of the Gospel needs to be proclaimed loud and clear so that the light of Christ can shine into the darkness of people's lives," Benedict said as the president and other political leaders looked on.

Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Catholic church, though it competes with Islam and evangelical churches.

The pope said Tuesday he intends to make an appeal for "international solidarity" for Africa in the face of the global economic downturn. He said while the church does not propose specific economic solutions, it can give "spiritual and moral" suggestions.

He described the current crisis as the result of "a deficit of ethics in economic structures."

"It is here that the church can make a contribution," he said.

On the plane, Benedict also dismissed the notion that he was facing increasing opposition and isolation within the church, particularly after an outreach to ultraconservatives that led to his lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop.

"The myth of my solitude makes me laugh," the pope said, adding that he has a network of friends and aides whom he sees every day.

___

Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Johannesburg and Emmanuel Tumanjong in Yaounde contributed to this report.