By the way, I suspect the Pope has confirmed an aspect of African HIV transmission—that male on male sex is the primary mode of transmission there as it is every where else in the world—that many of us have suspected for a long time.
It came up in the comments here. I suspect there is less to this than meets the eye.
Look at the Pope's actual words as quoted in the story:
"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 moralization, a first assumption of responsibility," Benedict said.The first thing to note here is the grammar. The entire statement is conditional. "There may be!" And there may not be.
The second thing to note is that this is nothing any good confessor could not have told you. The male prostitute who moves from unprotected sex to protected sex is moving in a moral direction. Much as some might like to think otherwise, this isn't a new moral position for the Catholic church.
A Catholic priest serving as this young man's confessor would congratulate him on recognizing that there are moral consequences he needs to take into consideration. And then the priest would quietly begin urging the young man taking a further step and then another until he gave up prostitution and then sexual relations with other men.
In the end, however, you have to be at least trying for the whole moral enchilada.
By the way, this sort of moral argument—that is to say moral arguments that take the particularities of the moral situation in mind—is called casuistry.
Anyone really interested in this story should watch GetReligion site. There is obviously a lot of context here and they will be the ones most likely to provide that context quickly and accurately (it won't be the New York Times that does!). I'll post the link if and when it comes up.
But nobody will do the whole moral enchilada, and Benedict knows this. He opened the door and there's no closing it now, and lay people will provide their own context thank you very much. I'd love to hear priests tackle this from the pulpit with old ladies and kids in the congregation! Of course, they won't.
ReplyDeleteBTW, if what you say is true about African HIV, which I know is not the case, then why are so many women there infected? And what difference does it make anyway? I agree that the Church has done a lot for people with AIDS in Africa and here in the US. In the 1980s John Cardinal O'Connor turned St. Clare's Hospital in NYC into essentially a hospice for people with AIDS. In NYC at that time that meant almost exclusively gay men. And rightly so since so many gay men comprise the ordained priesthood and hierarchy of the Church, and sadly many of them have died of AIDS.
Benedict hasn't said anything that Louis IV's confessor didn't say. I know the news media are playing this, as they always do, but I don't think there is any story here.
ReplyDeleteAs to how do women get infected with HIV in Africa. That's the easy part. They get infected by men.
The mystery is how do the men get infected in the first place. The likelihood of women infecting men is very low and, this is really telling, it doesn't happen in significant numbers anywhere else in the world. That's the giant mystery.
The only really plausible explanation is that there is a whole lot of male on male sex that is unacknowledged. And, given the intense anti-gay feeling common in many African cultures, it isn't hard to guess why it's unacknowledged.
hoop,s I meant Louis XIV's confessor.
ReplyDelete"The only really plausible explanation is that there is a whole lot of male on male sex that is unacknowledged. And, given the intense anti-gay feeling common in many African cultures, it isn't hard to guess why it's unacknowledged."
ReplyDeleteI agree with that, because of the social stigma--didn't they try to pass a law making homosexuality punisheable by death in Uganda?--they don't talk about how the men got it. I misunderstood what I thought you were trying to say.
"Benedict hasn't said anything that Louis IV's confessor didn't say."
I take your word that this is true, but how many people know this? I didn't, and the average lay person certainly wouldn't. I think most people are going to take this at face value and extrapolate what they need to their own circumstances. The interesting--and I think so far overlooked--aspect to this is that to my knowledge, for the first time there is an acknowledgement that morality or virtue is a process, and using condoms might be the first step in that process for some people. But more importantly, there is an public admission by the Pope no less that circumstances can determine the morality of an action. But wait...no, it can't be...I'm not sure I can even type the words...isn't that....God forgive me...."moral relativism?"
"The interesting--and I think so far overlooked--aspect to this is that to my knowledge, for the first time there is an acknowledgment that morality or virtue is a process, and using condoms might be the first step in that process for some people. "
ReplyDeleteAnd that, i think we can agree, is a very good thing.
Absolutely.
ReplyDelete