While the Vatican insists it was nothing revolutionary nor did it represent a major U-turn in Church policy, extracts from a book-length interview with Pope Benedict XVI published on Saturday appear to have signalled a softening of the Church’s strict stance against the use of prophylactics.
The English translation of what the Pope said is, “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralisation, a first assumption of responsibility.”
A Vatican spokesperson later clarified the comment, given as a personal comment from Pope Benedict XVI and not necessarily representative of official Vatican policy, could also be applied to men, women and transsexuals. The spokesperson said, “The point is it is a first step of taking responsibility, of avoiding passing a grave risk onto another.”
It was, however, quite an about face for a pope who last year controversially declared, while en route to Africa of all places, that condoms not only did not help stop the spread of AIDS but exacerbated the problem, to now say that the use of condoms would be justified in certain cases.
The thinking is that the Pope is seeking to initiate a debate on the issue and hopes are rising that the Church could be backing away from its complete ban by allowing condoms to play a role in the battle against AIDS among Catholics.
In making the statement, Pope Benedict XVI ventured into territory uncharted by any papacy since Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which banned Catholics from using condoms and other forms of artificial contraception.
Pressure to lift the ban has grown with the spread of the HIV virus, which has infected some 60 million people worldwide and has led to 25 million AIDS-related deaths over three decades.
Most will remember the days of an overwhelming prejudice against the use of condoms in Malta, where they could only be procured from certain, and very few, pharmacies. Now they are widely available from vending machines in bars and restaurants to practically all pharmacies and supermarkets.
Much has indeed changed in this respect but the taboo still prevails to a certain extent. As such, the Pope’s comment might serve to dispel more of the taboo in a country where debates have raged over the installation of a condom machine at the University, of all places, and when a certain company was taken to task for having distributed condoms on campus as part of an advertising campaign.
A few figures to put the problem of sexually transmitted diseases into perspective: Up to 75 per cent of the Maltese population has never used a condom, 70 per cent of 14,000 people who visited the genito-urinary clinic between 2000 and 2008 had never used a condom, and the World Health Organisation estimates that Malta could have a potential 13,000 people every year who suffer from STDs.
If we are serious about combating the transmission of sexually transmitted disease, some real steps need to be taken to address the issue of protection. One such step is expected on Friday with the long-awaited unveiling of the government’s sexual health policy, a policy the country has been awaiting over the last 10-odd years.
The formulation of the document, which is intended to eventually translate into an actual strategy, has been beleaguered over the years and, according to reports, at one point every mention of the word “condom” had been removed from a draft.
We hope that the document published on Friday is modern enough to include condoms, the use of which even the Pope himself is now condoning in the fight against AIDS.