Vatican: Everyone can use condoms to prevent HIV
 

Another Yahoo story re: HIV

link

Religion aside....

DUH

(more for clarification, and not directed to you, DrPhil, as I'm sure you already know this)

Everyone is allowed to use condoms, not everyone has the ability to use condoms.

Perhaps I already know this but with different wording. LOL. What does this mean?

Christians are supposed to have sex with the intent of making children. Wearing condoms prevents that. Now, the Vatican is saying staying clear of STDs > making babies.

Do you mean Catholics and not Christians, as a whole?

Anyway, religion aside...DUH.

Mostly Catholics, but I've heard it spill over into other denominations as well.

I guess that wouldn't matter, though, since we're talking about the Vatican :o

Lol

Fixed your post for you. ;)

(Apparently, I was a little slow about it, though.)

Yeah, it hasn't spilled over to all denominations and condoms prevent all spillage. :)

Catholics aren't the only sect that believes sex should be reserved for procreation, although they are the primary (by size).

Either way, this is both a "game-changer" in Vatican terms, and also terribly boring for everyone else. The fact that the Vatican still has to do business like this - making proclamations decades after the fact - seems rough for everyone involved, although I do laud it for doing the right thing here.

LOL. Thus is the institution of religion.

But those other Christians who believe this tend to be certain fundamentalist Protestants, for whom the position of the Vatican is totally irrelevant.

Very true. Also there was supposed to be an "unfortunately" in there somewhere re: the fundamentalist segment, since many, many things are irrelevant to them besides the Vatican. Like modernity or common sense or logic or the concept of allegory.

Yep.

Uh oh. As long as this doesn't turn into the theology thread mixed with frodobaggins' thread. LOL.

Beetlejuice!

Using Yahoo as a serious news source is foolish. What Yahoo attributes to the Pope is sensationalized, misrepresented, and misquoted. In the cause of balance and correctness, you can read the following: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/11/what-...-really-say-2/.

A random blog is more credible than the Associated Press?

No.

The "serious news source" is the Associated Press, not Yahoo . . . I'm totally sure some guy's blog is a much better source though.

No, this is basically what was said. The pope isn't saying that condoms are awesome, but that it is more acceptable to use condoms than to spread STIs. It would be even MORE acceptable not to be having sex outside of marriage for example, but it's considered a small step.

So what K_s said above was accurate and this is a shift in position from the Pope.

You on the other hand, were annoying and not particularly informative.

LOL at that suggestion that the linked blog is "balanced."

I'll take the AP over the blog. Or how about the Catholic News Service, which reported:

Even before the book's release, media attention centered on the pope's remarks on condoms in AIDS prevention. While repeating his view that condoms cannot be the only answer to the AIDS epidemic, the pope allowed that in some specific cases -- for example, that of male prostitutes -- use of a condom could be a step toward taking moral responsibility for one's actions.

And which also reported:

Technically, Catholics are not required to agree with Pope Benedict XVI's comments on political and even theological issues in a new book-length interview, but they do owe the pope respect, a Vatican official said.

"It is an interview, not a magisterial act, but it is still the pope speaking and he deserves respect," said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization.

pppppssshhhhh

How many people had to die of AIDS before the Vatican came to its senses about condoms? About 25 million, over the course of the last 30 years. It's pretty extraordinary that until now, preventing pregnancy was considered a worse sin than spreading death. This is a source of moral leadership?

I'm sorry, this is what happens when you seek sexual guidance from a geriatric virgin wearing a dress.
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Lyiza

The Catholic Church in recent years has made it awfully difficult to support the Pope. I'm a life-long Catholic, but have recently been considering the Episcopal Church in the wake of the Pope's involvement with covering up sex abuse and some of the church's views.

Popes don't like to go against precedents...

I think the logic in that being that the Pope is supposed to be infallable on matters of scripture. To change a Pontifical precedent is acknowledging that somewhere along the line, someone screwed up, which according to Catholic tradition isn't possible. It would be to them the equivilant of finding out that Mary didn't go to heaven.

Sigh.... Dogma, it fouls it all up for them.

Kevin, I've thought of doing the same. My husband is devout, me - not so much.

Right - that's completely understood, but it's also entirely the problem: it's a black-and-white attitude that applies to topics that can't be defined by black-and-white answers (or to things that change drastically as scientific and technical knowledge advances - see: Galileo).

The Vatican has, in a nearly literal sense, created an alternate Ouroboros: head into ass instead of tail into mouth, Catch-22 all the same.

My pastor was talking recently about people who make the arguement thay the Bible couldn't possibly account for all of the scientific and social develoments of the modern world. The problem with that line of thinking is that most Christian religions take the Bible as the divine Word of God, or at the very least the Inspired Word of God. That being the case, can you really argue that God didn't know what kind of shape the world would be in 2010?

I think that's a rather popular misconception, frankly. The actual teaching of the Catholic Church is that the Pope is preserved from error when he solemnly proclaims to the Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals as being divinely revealed. Though it dates back to an earlier time, the doctrine of papal infallibility was not actually defined until the First Vatican Council in 1870.

Statements of the Pope to which papal infallibilty applies are in fact quite rare. I think there have only been three instances since 1870 to which it applies -- the definitions of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and of the Bodily Assumption into Heaven of Mary and JPII's apostolic letter stating that only men can be priests. Some scholars would say that over the past two thousand years, the doctrine of papal infallibility might properly apply to fewer than a dozen papal pronouncements.

There is a strand of theology -- the name of it escapes me right now -- that would argue something like that, if I understand (and remember) it right. I think it would say that while God is able to know the future, God has chosen not to know the future.

http://wegoats.com/files/pope-benedi...atine.jpg.jpeg

Coincidence? I think not.

CAN God choose not to know the future?

That's one of those questions that will make you go cross-eyed if you think too much about it.

I think what I was remembering is Open Theism.

Depends on if you think God knows the future, and if so in how much detail.

Or if you understand God being outside of time rather than bound by time. If one is outside of time, is there such a thing as past, present or future?

Plus, there's man's limited understanding of those things, versus God's omnipotence and omnipresence . . . it's one of those "even if we could tell you, how likely is it you'd understand?" things for most versions.

Origen of Alexandria (c 185-254) described Scripture as divine baby talk, saying that God speaks to us like an adult speaks to a baby that understands only the simplest words and concepts.

the catholic church has made it hard to support the catholic church.

LOL.

i'm still a catholic, but i hit the non-denoms now. i never really got anything out of the homily and would just stare into space. or text.

Now, to play devil's advocate, if the people with AIDs were following the Catholic Church's teachings it wouldn't have been spread so fast and might never have become an epidemic. It's harder to blame the Pope for causing the problem when it's fairly obvious the relevant individuals are not listening to him anyway. Realistic? No. But at least it's internally consistent.

Beyond the other things mentioned you could take the stance that the human writers of the Bible, divinely inspired though they may be, could not have comprehended the modern world and thus couldn't have written much about it if at all. Question then would be why aren't there more scriptures being written now and recognized as God's word. Answer to that would be that the basics are covered in the current book so deal.

Gets damned confusing after a while.

ETA: Anyone know of any sort of sites where theological debates happen as a matter of course? I'm looking for some place where someone could attempt to counteract my thought processes and provide me with some different points of view. Almost a "Try to convert me, please" thing but with someone far more educated than our local hobbit. Unless anyone here would like to volunteer...

I'm not blaming the pope for causing the problem, just for fanning its flames -- or at least preventing people from slowing it down. When it comes to AIDS, the relevant individuals include more than just the people on the street spreading infection who don't listen to the pope. The government of Brazil and missionary hospitals in Africa, just to name two highly relevant groups, DO listen to the pope. When he and his predecessor told them not to hand out condoms, they didn't hand out condoms.

If the new policy was right in 2010, my guess is that it was also right in 1982. I have to quote a '60s folk song here: How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died? For the pope, I guess the answer is roughly 25 million (with a lot more to come).
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PRILOSEC SETTLEMENTS

We all know the Pope didn't cause the problem, it was the CIA.

*adjusts tin foil hat*