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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. Protect us from infection Catholics and condoms By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 796 words Publication date: November 26, 2006 After years of prohibition, the Vatican is reportedly considering the use of condoms. Only by married couples where one partner has HIV. And only to prevent infection. This change of policy has yet to be approved by Pope Benedict, but the fact that the discussion has become public suggests that there is a serious chance of it becoming doctrine. It is not yet certain whether a new prayer will need to be uttered at the Donning of the Condom. Something along the lines of “Oh, Lord, protect us from infection, but allow one or two sperm to creep out so that there is at least an outside chance of bringing yet another bawling infant into this crowded world. Amen” (The fact that a Cairo conference of Islamic clerics from around the world agree that female “circumcision” – mutilation of the genitals – is un-Muslim is another faint ray of light in the current religious gloom.) One might take the Catholic position on contraception more seriously if it were supported by reason. But, as with all religions, what appear to be eternal truths handed down from On High are merely the latest interpretations by whichever male personality is predominant at the time. Changes in Catholic doctrine over the last two hundred years include Christ’s divinity, which was only recognized in the fourth century CE, priestly celibacy, which came at the beginning of the second millennium, Mary’s immaculate conception (ie declared to be the Daughter of God) in 1854 and the Pope’s Infallibility (but only when he says he is) in 1870. Catholic attitudes to contraception and sexuality have similarly changed over time. Early Christians disputed whether the Bible proscribed all sex or mandated it only within marriage and for procreation. Sex became mired in shame with St Augustine’s claim that even the marriage chamber was a brothel. By the middle ages, however, some writers took a more benign view. Martin le Maistre of Paris declared that sexual pleasure was good in itself. John Major of Scotland compared copulation for pleasure with eating a fine apple for the same reason. Contraception was frowned upon, but only in 1968, in Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, did the Church’s stance harden to its current position. All forms of contraception, other than the rhythm method (of which more anon), were declared anathema. Despite the illusion, Rome was not united. The committee advising Paul on the issue actually recommended contraception as a means of countering overpopulation, but were overruled. And rumor has it that Paul’s successor, Jean Paul I was murdered after only 33 days in office because his progressive views – including a possible repudiation of Humanae Vitae – threatened the Catholic establishment. The fact that the Church condones the rhythm method – preventing conception by only having sex during periods when there is no egg to be fertilized – is simple proof of its hypocrisy. The argument is that this method is natural – ie created by God – and therefore acceptable. By that same argument, however, human beings can never use bicycles, cars or any other form of transport, because God only gave us legs. Computers, violins and the iPod are similarly blasphemous. In a rational world, most people would laugh at the absurdity and hypocrisy of the Catholic position. What holds us back is recognition that in the last two millennia hundreds of millions of lives have been blighted and destroyed by the Church’s hold over the weak and ignorant. Parents forced to have ten or twelve children as penance for their pleasure have struggled for generations in poverty. Women denied contraception have died in childbirth. HIV and other diseases pass easily from partner to partner because of the Church’s oppposition to condoms. That opposition is grounded not on reason, but on the sexual neuroses of generations of individual men from fourth century Augustine to twenty-first century Benedict. Some fear sex because its impulse in them is so strong that it threatens to overwhelm their carefully ordered lives. Others fail to understand sex because its impulse for them is so weak. Like evangelical leader Ted Haggard, those who demonize sex condemn others for enjoying the same pleasure they deny themselves. Those whose sexual drive is low mistakenly believe that all men and women can be satisfied by minimal activity. Sex is our greatest physical need after food and sleep. Some restrictions are necessary to protect the vulnerable; dishonesty in relationships can seldom, if ever, be justified; disease and unwanted pregnancy must be avoided. But with these qualifications sex should be joyous and free. The greatest sin is not contraception or homosexuality or adultery; it is allowing men who theoretically never have sex or who only have it in the most restricted circumstances, to dictate to the rest of us the scope of our private lives.
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist.
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