Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
James Martin, S.J.April 01, 2009

Here is an article from ThinkingFaith, the online journal of the British Jesuits, about Pope Benedict’s comments on condoms and AIDS, written by someone who knows what he’s talking about--Michael Czerny, SJ, director of the African Jesuit AIDS Network.  Here’s Father Czerny:

"The Church understands sexual intercourse as part of a moral vision, permitting intercourse only within a married couple and excluding artificial means of contraception. Doing something wrong might be safer with a condom but safety doesn’t make the act right. The Church cannot encourage ‘safer’ without suggesting that it is somehow right. To say, ‘Do not commit adultery but, if you do, use a condom’ is tantamount to saying: ‘The Church has no confidence in you to live the good life.’"

Czerny provides more light than heat in what has become a heated topic.

James Martin, SJ

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
15 years ago
The insight provided by Czerny only applies when the topic is the use of condoms in general. However, the Church also argues against the effectiveness of condoms in a monogomous marriage when one of the partners has AIDS. Because of this, the issue is not that the Church would be granting implicit permission to commit adultery by approving the use of condoms. The issue is that by claiming condoms are ineffective and not giving explicit permission to married couples with one AIDs infected partner for the use of this method of contraception for other than contraceptive purposes, it is being dishonest and indifferent to the suffering of primarily women and children.

The latest from america

Right there at the cross, in Jesus, our humanity doesn’t fall beyond its edges. Even there, even then, he continues to love. And even in that dense darkness—or loneliness—that he experiences as a human being, he doesn’t let himself forget that he is loved too.
Andriy ZelinskyyMarch 29, 2024
The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024