No change to Church teaching on condom use
Most Rev Anthony Fisher OP.
Statement by Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, Bishop of Parramatta, 22 November 2010
In his forthcoming book-length interview Pope Benedict XVI re-emphasises
Catholic teaching that fidelity within marriage and abstinence from
sexual activity outside of marriage is the only morally permissible
approach to chaste living. It is also the only practicable solution to
the HIV-AIDs epidemic.
The Holy Father calls on the faithful to “fight against the banalisation
of sexuality” which treats sex as a mere recreational drug, and to seek
instead “the humanisation of sexuality” as the expression of marital
love.
Despite some misinterpretation in the international media, the Pope has
not deviated from or altered in any way Catholic teaching on the
intrinsic wrongness of contraception or on reserving sexual intercourse
(‘the marital act’) to marriage, that is of a man and a woman.
Pastors have long recognised that in cases such as homosexual
intercourse, conception and marital acts are not at issue. Using a
condom in this situation is clearly not contraception. It is clear that
even here the goal must be to move the individual to living a truly
‘humane’, that is a chaste and loving, sexual life.
The Pope suggests that sometimes “as perhaps when a male prostitute uses
a condom” to protect his client from disease, this might be a sign of
an awakening moral responsibility. But using condoms, the Pope insists,
is still not “a real or moral solution”.
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