The Energizer Story: The "Condom Debate" keeps going and going and going...

The rumors swirling around the "condom debate" are continuing unabated. A recent New York Times article entitled "The Vatican wrestles with a fraught topic" is a good benchmark for the treatment this issue has been receiving in the mainstream media. Its opening paragraph:

"Even at the Vatican, few things apart from the reality of God are absolute. Thou shalt not kill, but there is still just war. Now, behind the quiet Vatican walls, a clash is shaping up between two poles of near certainty: the church's long-held ban on condom use and its more recently focused advocacy for human life from the womb to old age."

Now, I can't even begin to address all the lurking and blatant fallacies within these few lines, but let's just review a couple essentials. First, the only matter being analyzed is the possibility of married couples licitly using a condom (I would argue it isn't). Second, a document will not necessarily be issued regarding this question at all, it is Pope Benedict's choice. Third, the Vatican document would not change Church teaching on the licitness of any other type of action already settled (extra-marital intercourse, forced sex, adultery, etc.)

I know it is too much to ask that any reporter on the condom debate would realize or print any of these points, but if by any chance someone does read this - please take my comments under advisement.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to gather the various articles I've found on this debate and create a unique page for them - that way at least some people will know where to find them if they want to use them.

I think I'm about done trying to take individual articles and parse them for errors, there are more important things in life. What I can try to do now is point to what we do know for sure and let everyone else continue to draw circles in the sky. Regarding the real question at hand - whether it is licit for a spouse infected with the HIV virus to have condomized sex - well, that's what the articles I've posted attempt to answer.

You can find those articles right here.

[Technorati Tags: Pope, Benedict, Cardinal, Catholic, Condom, HIV, AIDS, Vatican]