Pope OKs condoms?

Don't believe ignorant TV headlines when it comes to the Catholic Church

By MICHAEL COREN, QMI AGENCY

Last Updated: November 27, 2010 2:00am

• Story
• Comments

• Email Story
• Print
• Size A A A
• Report Typo
• Share:
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • Google
  • Stumble Upon
  • Newsvine
  • Reddit
  • Technorati
  • Feed Me
  • Yahoo
  • Simpy
  • Squidoo
  • Spurl
  • Blogmarks
  • Netvouz
  • Scuttle
  • Sitejot
  +

There I was, sitting at home with my bucket of holy water, crucifix in my hand, about to say a thousand rosaries, when suddenly on television came banner headlines announcing, "Pope Says Aliens Exist and Live in Vancouver," "Pope Claims President Obama Made of Cheese," and "Pope Changes Church Belief in Jesus as Messiah."

Well, you can only imagine the shock.

OK, it wasn't quite like that, but not far off.

What the television news programs did explain, with an embarrassing, creepy enthusiasm, was "The Pope Says Yes to Condoms," and "Pope Reverses Church Teaching on Contraception," which is pretty close to B.C. aliens, presidential cheese composition and jettisoning Jesus from Christianity.

Then I realized that this was, yes, television and this was media coverage of the Roman Catholic Church. In other words, with a few exceptions, a poisonous stew of ignorance, prejudice and malice.

So what did Pope Benedict really say about condoms? Not much actually.

In a fascinating book of interviews, he discusses the church during the Holocaust, the nature of faith and grace, his own devotion to Christ, and the realization that his body may simply tire to the point where he can no longer function.

In passing he re-affirms, of course, the church's commitment to natural law and the belief that sex is beautiful, precious and should be linked to love and family, and not just be a momentary spasm involving bodily fluids. To aggressively and unnaturally deny the link between sexuality and life, he says, is wrong, selfish and ultimately leads to the type of unhappiness and brokenness we see today.

But, he continued, when death, rather than life, was a likely outcome of the sex act, there is an argument to be made that condoms may be allowed. He gives an extreme example of a prostitute and argues that even that first step — where the person understands that their actions are wrong and have dreadful consequences — could lead to a greater transformation of character.

Frankly, I'm not sure if the Holy Father is right. And he makes it quite clear that this is merely his personal opinion.

No, papal infallibility does not mean that everything the Pope says is correct. Only stupid people think this the definition.

Infallibility means that on those incredibly rare occasions when the Pontiff speaks from the throne of Peter on matters of faith and morals, he speaks as the direct descendant of the first Pope, given us by Christ Himself.

This didn't prevent the usual Catholic-bashers from declaring that perhaps the church would now stop killing Africans with AIDS. Oh dear. Actually, almost 60% of Africans with AIDS are cared for by the church, and Catholics were doing so long before AIDS was even heard of in North America.

After 40 years' experience, all Catholic leaders are saying is that condoms have not helped in the Third World the way abstinence has. Compare the failure of South Africa with the success of Uganda.

So I switched off the television, had a quick prayer and remembered that the day the media treats the church honestly and intelligently is the day Barack goes cheddar and Jesus joins the atheists.

— Read Michael Coren's blog at canoe.ca/corenscomment