Via Damian Thompsom who will be on our Christmas show.
“I personally asked the pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine,” Lombardi said. “He told me no. The problem is this … It’s the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship.”
“This is if you’re a woman, a man, or a transsexual. We’re at the same point,” Lombardi said.
Sensible, compassionate, logical – and a badly needed clarification of Catholic teaching rather a U-turn. But some commentators, who attached such weight to the Pope’s reference to a male prostitute, are going to have a really hard time talking themselves out of this one
I’m thinking screwtape:
the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
The pope is making the same argument in reverse, if the person uses the condom to prevent the spread of a deadly disease, he or she by showing that concerning is taking a small step toward the light. It doesn’t make the sins of Adultery or Fornication any less a sin, but you can’t walk away from the darkness without that first step toward the light.
And again the function here is intent. Using a condom to prevent pregnancy while trying to argue that you are just trying to prevent disease might allow you to convince yourself, but it doesn’t mean a thing, you can fool yourself, but at the gate your won’t fool St. Peter.
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