A Question for Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke ET AL

Hamburg Catholic Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke has recently written an article saying that the Pope is wrong to oppose the use of condoms to halt the spread of AIDS in Africa. While admitting that condoms won't solve the problem, Bishop Jaschke wrote that although their use cannot be ruled out. "Anyone who has AIDS and is sexually active, who seeks ever-changing partners, must protect others and themselves. If an infected husband has sex with his wife, he said, "protection is required."

In 2006, Bishop Martinus Muskens of the diocese of Breda in the Netherlands, told Radio Netherlands that, "It is permissible to opt for the lesser evil of condom use to prevent the greater evil of AIDS."

In 2004 Belgian cardinal, Godfried Danneels said: "When someone is seropositive and his partner says: I want to have sexual relations with you -- he doesn't have to do that, if you ask me -- but when he does, he has to use a condom."

In general the thing I am hearing all of you say is that you are all calling on the Pope to condone sin. Am I right?

Sorry Bishop Muskens, but the lesser of 2 evils is still an evil & thus sin. & a bit of the facts of life for Bishop Jaschke, there are plenty of ways for a couple to express their love to each other that do not require a condom. As for the "ever changing partners" bit, it sounds to me like you are condoning serial acts of sexual immorality.

Then I also have a memo to Fr. Eberhard von Gemmingen, the head of the German Section of Vatican Radio in Rome. He told Deutsche Welle: "Pope Benedict XVI has not strictly forbidden condoms, as is shown. The Pope has just said that the condom is not a 'solution'. That's one thing I hope we all agree." I hate to tell you this but you are wrong. On Thursday (19 March 2009) the Holy See Press Office Director, Fr. Federico Lombardi, made it clear that the pope in his remarks was "reiterating the position of the Catholic Church and the basic lines of her commitment to combat the terrible scourge of HIV/AIDS." In other words "NO CONDOMS!"

Meanwhile over in the United Kingdom, Britain's Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor actually defended what Papa Benedetto said. In a letter published in the letters section of last Friday's London Times (20 March 2009), the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster wrote that it "would be wiser for people to look at the issues that [Pope Benedict] was raising in his remarks."

He went on to say: "It is certainly true that the widespread distribution of condoms can run the risk of greater promiscuity and that the best way to combat the Aids epidemic is by healthcare, education and fidelity in married life." In other words, no sex outside of heterosexual marriage & fidelity within marriage is the only right way to go.

The Pope is actually getting more support from the Russian Orthodox Church than many of his own prelates who should be supporting him.

"It is incorrect to consider condoms as a panacea for AIDS," the deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin told a round table in Moscow on Friday, commenting on the international row concerned with the pope's statement in Africa.

AIDS can be prevented not by contraceptives but by education and a righteous life, the priest said."If a person lives a sinful, aimless and senseless life, uses drugs and is lewd, some disease will kill him one day, neither a condom nor medicine will save him," Fr. Vsevolod added.

Currently some organizations speaking on AIDS are seeking to simultaneously preserve the ideal of sexual freedom and the fight against AIDS, he said. It is impossible to reconcile these things, he said." (Moscow Patriarchate supports position of Pope Benedict XVI rejecting condoms)

Fr. Vsevolod, I have a few Bishops for you to talk to. They seem to think it is.

Source: German Churchmen Oppose Pope on Condoms