Anorexia condoms

Condoms are to the intent of sex as anorexia vomiting is to the intent of
eating.

Both sex and eating are pretty basic, and have a natural control. Eat less in
one case, and have sex when you are open to the transmission of new life in the
other.

If you are eating, but do not want the natural result of nutrition, you vomit
voluntarily. And well, you know, condoms function about the same way.

Both vomitting and rubbers are inventions of man's cleverness in fighting the
natural design of things.

Not very appetizing, or romantic, or normal.

link

Condoms have always been banned by the Vatican on the grounds that they deny the full reality and implications of sexual intercourse and prevent life that might naturally be conceived. Now the Pope has commissioned a scientific and theological report from Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan of Mexico. He is understood to be recommending that the use of condoms be allowed where one person in a marriage is HIV positive. Although a small shift in the eyes of most non-Catholics, it would be a huge change in Vatican teaching. Only last year, Pope Benedict XVI said the spread of HIV and Aids should be fought with abstinence and fidelity alone. Contraception was encouraging a "breakdown in sexual morality".

The Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, has said, "If the church is really interested in having its followers live, it should back the use of condoms."

The report by Cardinal Barragan has now gone to the traditionally conservative Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and to the Pope himself, who led the Congregation under his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Together they published in 1987 a document called Donum Vitae which stressed that the church would never be able to condone the use of condoms by gay or unmarried couples. It did not mention marriage. The Pope may choose February, the twentieth anniversary of Donum Vitae, to state a new view.

Cardinal Barragan hinted at a rethink this week but said "no response from the church can be one that encourages a libertine sexual attitude".

Donum Vitae was published in 1987 and signed by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become his successor. It reiterated the church's total ban on contraception.

Pope Benedict XVI told African bishops Aids could be tackled by only abstinence and fidelity, not condoms.

The Pope's theologian Cardinal Georges Cottier signalled a shift last year, saying: "The virus is transmitted during a sexual act, so at the same time as [bringing] life there is also a risk of transmitting death. That is where the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' is valid."

I like to bet small stakes, but I am staying away from this one. I think the
decision could go either way.