Papist Perfidy, Part 666
by Jonathan Quince
Monday, July 3, 2006 17:16:04
Rarely do I comment on the Catholic Church; thus far, I simply have deemed such enterprise to be unworthy of my time. Yet occasionally, some piece of information draws my attention back to the vileness of spirit that is the Papacy. Just such a moment occurred when this old Associated Press dispatch crossed my desk and reminded me how anti-life the Holy Mother Church truly is (emphasis added):
At Pope Benedict XVI’s request, the Vatican is preparing a document about condom use by those with AIDS, a top cardinal has said.…
“My department is carefully studying it, along with scientists and theologians entrusted with drawing up a document about the subject that will soon be made known,” the Mexican cardinal [Javier Lozano Barragan] said.
“It is Benedict XVI who asked us for a study on this particular aspect of using a condom by those afflicted with AIDS and by those with infectious diseases,” he said.…
The Vatican opposes the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against contraception. It advocates sexual abstinence as the best way to combat the spread of the HIV virus, which causes AIDS.
Last week, retired Milan Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a former papal contender, said in comments published in the Italian newsweekly L’Espresso that condoms were the “lesser evil” in combating the spread of AIDS.…
Lozano Barragan has said in the past that condoms can sometimes be condoned, such as when a woman can’t refuse her HIV-positive husband’s sexual advances.
First of all, I find interesting the dearth of options seemingly offered to a woman whose diseased husband is forcing himself upon her. Rather than divorcing him or having him thrown in prison under the relevant laws, it is evidently a given that she must take his HIV-infected semen into her vagina. Fortunately for her, at least one cardinal condones her usage of a condom—thus providing a 50-micron film of latex between the infected fluids and her own—and the Pope himself is graciously considering that such an allowance perhaps should be universal Catholic doctrine.
Thus, the Vatican is now debating whether, given a choice between condom use and HIV proliferation, condom use may be the lesser evil. The Pope has convened a panel of scientists and theologians to ponder this intricate and heart-rending question. The sheer difficulty of this conundrum is probably keeping poor Mr. Ratzinger awake at night; angels would weep, should somebody commit the sin of Onan whilst protecting herself from disease and death!
Anybody who does not see the drastic anti-life implications of the above is someone I do not want living in the same society as I inhabit.
The article goes on to note:
In the La Repubblica interview, Lozano Barragan was asked about Martini’s suggestion that unmarried women could carry frozen embryos to term if the alternative is letting them die in the freezers of fertility clinics.
Church teaching holds that all procreation must take place within marriage; moreover, the Vatican opposes many assisted fertility procedures.
The modern Catholic Church (unlike the medieval church) holds that life begins at conception. Leave aside, for the moment, the absurdity of this proposition; it shall suffice that they do (claim to) believe it. Given that, they would rather let a human person die than allow such a person’s life to be saved outside of marriage. At least, one Cardinal is logical enough to suggest otherwise.
(Background information: For those who are not familiar with it, Catholic theology holds that marriage is a three-way covenant between a man, a woman, and God. A logical twist or two later, since man cannot sunder what God hath wrought, divorce is impossible. Or so the Pope would have you believe.
(Laws in many places prohibit HIV-infected persons from using deception or force to have sex with uninfected persons; and if I were the district attorney involved, I’d add on capital murder, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly (biological) weapon charges, plus first-degree rape for the scenario aforementioned. Recklessly or wilfully infecting someone with a deady disease sounds like malice aforethought to me; and reckless disregard for life is sufficient for a murder charge in many jurisdictions. Acting in the face of knowledge that an action will likely harm and/or kill a person is ipso facto demonstration of intent in my book, thus rounding out the charge of malice and moving from recklessness to wilfulness. Even if she did not become infected, the attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and (obviously) rape charges still hold. If the jurisdiction carried any bio-weapon or weapons of mass destruction statutes, I would prosecute under those, too, given how a virus has a habit of spreading to wider society. People who despise human life shall rue the day I become their prosecutor.)