An extensive and well-reported review, on the Newshour, of the Vatican AIDS Conference, with interviews with some key figures.
PBS on the Vatican AIDS Conference
The latest from america
A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, by Father Terrance Klein
Legally, the students at St. John Bosco are considered homeschooled. But their in-person school days, during which the students wear uniforms, are much like those at any other small school.
In a speech at his weekly general audience, Pope Francis said that the cardinal virtue of temperance “lets one enjoy the goods of life better.”
Organizers of the archdiocese‘s restructuring process have pointed out that there are far more seats available in the pews in the city than people attending Mass, and there are more funerals than baptisms.
The Church asserts that permanent conjugal abstinence or celibacy is the only licit answer for serodiscordent couples with one spouse infected with HIV. The use of condoms is illicit because it violates Humanae Vitae and spouses fail to respect the aptness of generation (the penis must be inserted into the vagina and semen deposited in its proper place for procreation). The following arguments call into question the reasonability and sensibility of this teaching.
Did not the ethical context change in this situation? By using a condom would not the HIV positive husband perform an act of Health and Safety, a form of the virtues of charity and justice for his wife. What happened physically, perventing procreative consequences, was foreseen but outside of intentions.
Would not celibacy for a young couple be an act of injustice, an unreasonable cross to bear, that is not proportionate to the survivability of the marriage?
By using a condom, would not the husband perform an act of charity and prudence if he rejects celibacy in order to express conjugal love for his wife? Or is the aptness of generation the supreme moral obligation for this couple regardless of circumstances, intentions or consequences?
I'm intrigued by the Vatican's consistent demand for behavioral change (on this and other social issues) rather than acquiescence to the inevitability of the bad behavior and re-assessing its moral position on other bad behaviors to avoid the negative consequences of the first behavior. Taking the latter position is like teaching children to wear asbestos gloves before sticking their hands in the fire. Or like permitting would-be pedophile priests to have sexual liaisons with over-18 young men with latent adolescence. God forbid anyone deny themselves and take up their crosses.
I hope to see this topic re-posted in textual form of one sort of another.