Using condoms may sometimes be justified to stop the spread of AIDS, Pope Benedict says in a new book, in surprise comments that relax one of the Vatican's most controversial positions.
In excerpts published in the Vatican newspaper on Saturday, the pope cites the example of the use of condoms by prostitutes as "a first step towards moralisation", even though condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection".
While some Roman Catholic leaders have spoken about the limited use of condoms to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS as the lesser of two evils, this is the first time the pope has mentioned the possibility in public.
The Vatican newspaper unexpectedly published significant excerpts from the book on Saturday night, days before extracts were initially due to be made public. The book, called Light of the World, is to be published on Tuesday.
Benedict made clear the comments were not intended to weaken the Church's fundamental opposition to artificial birth control, a source of grievance to many practising Catholics.
NO FORMAL STANCE
The majority of Church leaders have been saying for decades that condoms are not even part of the solution to fighting AIDS, even though no formal position on this existed in a Vatican document.
The late cardinal John O'Connor of New York famously branded the use of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS as "The Big Lie".
Last year, the pope caused an international uproar when he told journalists accompanying him to Africa that condoms should not be used because they could worsen the spread of AIDS.
The Vatican's opposition to artificial birth control has been highly contested, even by many Catholics, since it was formalised in the late Pope Paul's encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) in 1968.
Benedict says that "the basic lines of Humanae Vitae are still correct", indicating that his comments about condoms are not intended to apply to birth control, only to AIDS prevention.
He says that the "sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalisation of sexuality" where sexuality is no longer an expression of love "but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves".
The 219-page book is made up of Benedict'
s responses to questions by German Catholic journalist Peter Seewald over a month of meetings at the papal summer residence.
After the pope first mentions that the use of condoms could be justified in certain limited cases, such as by prostitutes, Seewald asks: "Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?"
The pope answers: "She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."
ABC PRINCIPLE
In the section of the book on condoms and HIV/AIDS, the pope goes as far as mentioning the "ABC principle" (Abstinence-Be faithful-Condom) on preventing the spread of AIDS.
While he says ABC was developed in "the secular realm", he uses the example himself to introduce his own comments on condoms being sometimes justified as a last resort.
Strangely, in the English, French and German versions of the book, the pope uses the example of the possible justification when "a male prostitute" uses condoms. This would distinguish it from use as a means of birth control, which the church bans.
But the Italian excerpts in the Vatican newspaper quote him as saying "una prostituta", meaning a female prostitute. It was not possible to clarify the discrepancy in the translations.
Critics have said it took many years for the Church to realise that AIDS was not just a disease of the homosexual community and that many heterosexual women, particularly in Africa, were being killed.
In other sections of the book, Benedict says the wartime Pope Pius XII, whom critics accuse of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust, was "one of the great righteous men (who) saved more Jews than anyone else". Jews are bound to contest this.
He also said scandals of sexual abuse of minors by priests were "an unprecedented shock", even though he had followed the issue for years, and says he can understand why people might quit the Church in protest.
He indicates he would be ready to resign instead of reigning for life if he were "no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office", something no pope has done in 700 years.
