By Anthony Barich
THE public debate on the Church’s teaching on condoms, triggered by Pope Benedict XVI’s comments in a new book, is an ideal opportunity for parish priests to clarify it for the faithful from the pulpit, the Caritas Internationalis president said.
Salesian Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, told The Record Catholic newspaper of the Archdiocese of Perth that many Catholics do not know what the Church teaches in this regard.
The controversy started when Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published on 20 November excerpts of a book-length interview with German journalist Peter Seewald called Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.
In it, when the Pope was asked whether it was “madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms”, he replied: “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, on the way toward discovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants.”
“But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanisation of sexuality.”
Cardinal Maradiaga laughed off claims made in secular media that the Pope has changed the Church’s teaching on the use of condoms, saying “of course not” when asked if it was true.
“It has been the doctrine of the Church all the time that when there are emergency cases the principle of double effect (applies),” he told The Record by phone during a four-day trip to Australia. “The Pope was only quoting the extreme cases, so I believe it is coherent (with existing Catholic teaching).” The Church teaches that the principle of double effect may be employed when one is considering an action that is morally good, yet the action involves one or more unintended bad consequences. As these consequences are side effects, and not directly willed, the choice that brings them about is morally acceptable.
“This could be a good opportunity for us in the parishes to clarify and to teach, as very many Catholics do not know what the Church teaches (in this regard),” said the Cardinal, who has completed three separate doctorates in philosophy, theology and moral theology and holds a diploma in clinical psychology and psychotherapy.
“It is the chance for the priest to speak about it, who in our modern Church is also teacher. We, as disciples of Christ, have a lot to learn; we cannot pretend that in special matters all the baptised know everything, as we are always learning and trying to implement what the Mother Church is teaching us.”
Melbourne Archdiocesan Office for Evangelisation director, Marist Brother Mark O’Connor, brought the Cardinal to Australia with Franciscan Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, Archbishop of Durban, South Africa for the 25th anniversary of the Dom Helder Camara lecture series which focuses on the Social Doctrine of the Church.
Cardinal Maradiaga said that the Social Doctrine of the Church is “the most well kept secret, as many people have never heard about it, yet it’s so important”.
“It’s important as it changes the mentality of many people who think that working for the social doctrine in the Church is mixing in politics; (but) it’s just doing our duty to evangelise the culture of politics and economy,” he said.
“Many people think that Christian life is only in the temple, but you cannot divide the human person – we live in society, so social life has to be illuminated by the Gospel, and this is the role of the Social doctrine of the Church, founded in the dignity of the human person.
“This is the first principle of the Social Doctrine of the Church.”