Thought Theater

Cardinal Supports Limited Condom Use genre: Little Red Ribbon-Hood

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, one of the potential frontrunners during the election of the current Pope, Benedict XVI, said today that the Catholic Church should consider allowing condom use in light of the AIDS epidemic. Read the entire article here. AIDS activists have long criticized the Church for it's apparent refusal to acknowledge the need for condom use in the fight against the virus, especially in third world countries where women are particularly vulnerable.

I personally feel that historians will view the Church's position on contraception, in light of the AIDS crisis, as misguided as their inexcusable silence during the Holocaust. The Church only recently apologized for their inaction at the time. I expect to see a future Pope making a similar apology regarding the AIDS epidemic. Highlights from the article follow:

"We must do everything to fight AIDS," said Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the retired archbishop of Milan, in Italy's L'Espresso newsweekly. "Certainly, the use of condoms can constitute in certain situations a lesser evil."

The 79-year-old Martini was considered a liberal alternative to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 conclave that elected Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, pope. Martini is one of the most prominent church leaders to call for an easing of the position on condoms.

Martini was responding to questions from the Italian scientist and bioethicist Ignazio Marino, who heads the transplant center at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

Martini agreed with the questioner that the church could consider condoms a "lesser evil" than the risk of the disease.

"There's also the unique situation of a married couple, one of whom is afflicted with AIDS. That one is obliged to protect the other, and the other must be able to protect him or herself," the cardinal said.

Martini repeated church teaching that opposes research on embryonic stem cells and also reiterated church opposition to abortion and euthanasia.

However, he acknowledged that in abortion, there were cases when the life of the mother was at risk where abortion might be considered the "lesser evil."

"In such cases, it seems that moral theology has always supported the principle of the legitimate defense and the lesser evil, even if it concerns a reality that shows the dramatic and fragility of the human condition," he said.