Year: 2010

Secretive Body Advising the Vatican on Theology

Itc

Okay, well, they do meet behind closed doors, but they're not really that secretive. At least they're not any more secretive than every other body that meets behind closed doors. They even give notifications to the press of what they're talking about behind closed doors.

So anyway, there is a group that works for the Holy See known as the International Theological Commission. It isn't one of the regular Vatican dicasteries (departments) but an advisory body. Basically, it's a group of theologians from around the world who are selected by the Holy See to advise on various theological matters.

As such, it writes reports for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (whose prefect is also president of the ITC). These do not of themselves have the character of magisterial statements (at least they don't necessarily), but they are useful summaries of where mainstream Catholic theology is.

This is the group that, a few years ago, issued the document stating that limbo is not the only way to view the fate of unbaptized children.

While the ITC's work goes on throughout the year with work on various issues, the group meets once a year for a week in what's known as a plenary ("full") session.

Next week is that week for 2010!

So what's the group going to be talking about, you ask?

According to the Vatican News Service, 

According to a communique published today the commission will study three important themes: the principles of theology, its meaning and its methods; the question of the one God in relation to the three monotheistic religions; and the integration of Church social doctrine into the broader context of Christian doctrine.

While not all topics that the commission talks about end up getting turned into position papers, this is an indication of what subjects the ITC may address in print. So: In the next few years we may see papers on theological method, God in relation to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and the relationship of social doctrine to broader Christian doctrine.

Each a worthy subject.

Also, there's this:

At the end of their deliberations the members of the International Theological Commission will be received in audience by the Holy Father.

I'll be interested to see the transcript of the address the Holy Father gives them. It may contain further pointers about what they're doing and what's likely to come out in the future.

Incidentally, there are two volumes out of the ITC's previous documents, the first collecting them from 1969 (when the commission was founded) through 1985 and the second from 1986 to 2007. Many of these are not available in English anywhere else (that I know of).

They make for fascinating reading. For example, back in 1985 they did a document on the consciousness of Christ (y'know… did he know he was God, know his mission, etc…. all that stuff the trendy theological kids want to deny). In the introduction to the document the commission writes:

In fact, who would trust a Savior who may not have known who he was or was unwilling to be what he was? It is clear, then, that the Church attaches maximum importance to the problem of the awareness (consciousness) and human knowledge of Jesus. We are not dealing with mere theological speculations but with the very foundation of the method and mission of the Church in all its intimacy.

Yeah! Take that, theological trendies!

Anyway, you might want to get the books (and there are Kindle editions, too!)

International Theological Commission: Texts and Documents, 1969-1985

International Theological Commission, Vol II: 1986-2007

New Developments on the Pope and Condoms

LIGHTOFTHEWORLD

Each new day seems to bring several new twists to the pope/condom story, so let’s look at what’s happening now. (PART I OF THIS SERIES, PART TWO.)

First, here are some web resources to check out:

* Ed Peters’ trenchant remarks on L’Osservatore Romano’s PR debacle

* Papal spokesman Federico Lombardi’s initial clarification of the Pope’s remarks

* Reportage on Lombardi’s second clarification

* An interview with Archbishop Burke for his take on what the pope was saying

* Damian Thompson’s latest posts (first post, second post, third post)

I don’t want to unduly pick on Thompson, but blood-crazed ferret that he is, his latest posts continue with a rather snarky, triumphalistic tone toward those he terms “conservative” (meaning theologically orthodox) bloggers, who he perceives as disagreeing with the opinion Pope Benedict expressed in his new interview book, The Light of the World ( YOU CAN ORDER IT HERE).

He continues to insist that

he did say that the use of condoms was justified in certain circumstances [emphasis in oridinal].

Not so fast, Damian. Let’s try to keep from putting words in the Pontiff’s mouth. As you yourself have noted on a prior occasion, the Pope did not use the word “justified” or “permissible” or anything along those lines.

One is tempted to ask, a little cheekily, “What part of the Pope’s statement that the Church ‘does not regard it as a real or moral solution’ don’t you understand?”

The issue requires some care, not for the least of reasons because what the Pope said is (a) not as clear as it could be, (b) there are known translation issues here (e.g., L’Osservatore Romano mistranslating “male prostitute” as “female prostitute,” prompting Lombardi’s second clarification), and (c) other differences in the different language editions of his remarks.

So let’s start with what the Pope said (English version):

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, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

If you’ve been following the development of the story carefully, you’ll notice that the same phrases keep coming up in this regard. In Lombardi’s first clarification he stated that

” the Pope considers an exceptional circumstance in which the exercise of sexuality represents a real threat to another person’s life. In such a case, the Pope does not morally justify the disordered practice of sexuality but maintains that the use of a condom to reduce the danger of infection can be ‘a first act of responsibility’, ‘a first step on the road toward a more human sexuality’, rather than not using it and exposing the other person to a mortal risk.

And in his second clarification Lombardi states:

“I asked the pope personally if there was a serious distinction in the choice of male instead of female and he said ‘no’,” Lombardi said.

“That is, the point is it (the use of a condom) should be a first step toward responsibility in being aware of the risk of the life of the other person one has relations with,” Lombardi said.

“If it is a man, a woman or a transsexual who does it, we are always at the same point, which is the first step in responsibly avoiding passing on a grave risk to the other.

The fact that the same phrases keep being used—without paraphrases like “justified” or “permitted” or even “lesser evil”—suggest that this use is studied. It is intentional. They are deliberately not using terms like “justified,” “permitted,” and the like.

So if the Pope has chosen not to use such words, let’s not put them in his mouth, shall we?

From what I can tell the “first step” language can be taken in one of two ways, which are as follows:

1) The decision to use a condom represents a first step toward a moral exercise of human sexuality in that it shows the person is inwardly aware that not everything in the sexual sphere is permissible (e.g., risking the life of the other).

2) The decision to use a condom represents a first step toward a moral exercise of human sexuality in that a person is concretely limiting the danger to another.

These two senses are not mutually exclusive. One can view condom use as a first step toward morality in both senses.

The first understanding speaks to the inner attitude and awareness of the person using the condom. On this view one might say, “It’s a good thing that the condom user has at least some awareness of the limits of what is moral. It’s still not justified for him to use a condom—even in the context of an act of homosexual prostitution—but at least he has some kind of moral awareness that may grow with time.”

One also could hold sense (1) and simply not address the issue of whether the use of a condom is justified in such a context. One might simply be noting that the awareness of some moral limits is a good sign and not address the question of whether the condom use is justified.

Or one could say that the moral awareness is good and that using a condom limits the evil of the sex act in question: It may still be an act of homosexual prostitution that poses some risk of HIV to the other, but at least the risk is limited. It’s thus “less evil” than it would be without the condom. This converges with sense (2), above.

Even then, though, it is still misleading to say that the use of condoms is “justified.”

Consider a parallel moral judgment: “If you are going to shoot bullets into someone’s body for no good reason, it is less evil to aim randomly than to aim directly for a vital organ.” This judgment is quite true, but it puts the accent on the wrong moral sylLAble to pass this off with headlines like “Pope: shooting bullets randomly okay in some cases.”

The fundamental moral structure of the overall act is gravely morally disordered, just as is shooting bullets into a person’s body for no good reason. Acts of homosexual prostitution (and heterosexual prostitution!) are always gravely immoral. The most that could be said is that using a condom in such acts in an HIV-positive situation might be “less evil” than not using one.

The Pope, the Church, and for that matter theologically orthodox bloggers, are right to resist misleading characterizations that try to isolate consideration of the condom apart from the larger framework of the moral act, which is gravely evil.

To focus on the condom itself and trumpet it “justified” is to miss the moral forest for a single tree. The overall moral structure of human sexuality is what needs to be the focus of attention, and thus the Pope and his assistants have been assiduously pointing to the forest, though the press (as usual) seem to have myopia.

And it’s not even certain at this point that the Pope is endorsing the “less evil” view just articulated. Many competent readers have looked at his remarks and seemed to think he was endorsing some version of interpretation (1), above (the “moral awareness is good” view rather than the “condom use is less evil” view).

When I initially encountered his remarks, this was one of the first thoughts that suggested itself.

I try to give a careful reading to texts like this, and the Pope’s initial statement, “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals” suggested that the Pope meant more than just the “moral awareness is good” view. The word “basis” seemed in this context to suggest a basis for some kind of action, like the act of using a condom, which would get us to the “condom use is less evil” view.

But I don’t consider this to be decisive since there can be translation issues affecting this, as well as the fact the Pope was speaking rather than writing and he simply may have been a bit tongue-tied or awkward in trying to get across his point.

I thus see there as still being a significant amount of ambiguity here, and I would expect further clarification with time. As things progress, we should get more evidence about whether the Pope intended the moral awareness view or the less evil view.

I also don’t view the fact that the same thing was said about females as males as being any kind of surprise. In philosophy and theology, it is common to select an extreme case for purposes of making the principles clear and then seeing how those principles apply to other cases. It makes sense to start with a male (and thus presumably homosexual) prostitute since there is no procreative potential in his sexual acts and use that to identify principles that may also apply to other situations.

It’s important to note, though, that the Church tends to proceed in a stepwise manner, starting with limited, particular cases, and then filling in the picture by considering others.

At this point we don’t even have a Magisterial action on this question (it was an interview asking the Pope’s personal opinions, after all), but Pope Benedicts remarks—and the subsequent clarifications via Lombardi—represent indicators of what the Magisterium may say in the future.

What do you think?

Understanding the Pope’s Dilemma on Condoms

Lightoftheworld

In yesterday’s post on Pope Benedict’s remarks concerning the use of condoms in AIDS prevention, I promised there would be more to follow, so here ‘tis.

For those who may not be aware, there is a new, book-length interview with Pope Benedict in which he made remarks that were sure to—and were—widely misunderstood and misrepresented in the press. “Press gets religion story wrong” is about as common a narrative as “Dog bites man” or “Sun rises in east.” Go figure.

Anyway, it’s a fascinating book. YOU CAN ORDER IT HERE.

It was inevitable that the press would parse the Pontiff’s comments along the lines of the Pope “modifying the Catholic Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms,” as Damian Thompson of the Telegraph put it.

I want to give kudos to Thompson, though, for correcting himself very promptly. May his journalistic tribe increase!

The idea that the Catholic Church has an “absolute ban on the use of condoms” is widespread, though, so let’s take a moment to look at it.

Just how absolute is the ban?

Well, as I’ve noted before, on more than one occasion, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (quoting Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae):

“[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil [CCC 2370].

I’ve boldfaced the phrase “conjugal act” because it’s the key to understand what is being said. Many gloss over this phrase and assume it means “sexual act.” It doesn’t. “Conjugal”—like its Latin equivalent, coniugale—doesn’t mean “sexual”; it means “marital.”

If you are having sex with someone you are (heterosexually) married to then you are engaging in the marital act. Otherwise, not. If you are engaging in sexual behavior but not with someone you’re married to then it is a different kind of act (masturbation, adultery, fornication, etc.).

What the Church—in Humanae Vitae and the Catechism—has done is say that one cannot deliberately frustrate the procreative aspect of sexual intercourse between man and wife.

That’s actually a fairly narrow statement. It doesn’t even address all situations that may arise in marriages, because there may be situations in which the law of double effect would allow the toleration of a contraceptive effect as long as this is a side effect of the action rather than being intended as a means or an end.

It thus would rule out the use of a condom to prevent a husband and wife from conceiving a child, but that doesn’t address condom use in other situations. Thus far the Church has not explored the question of condom use—or other, typically contraceptive acts—in cases outside of marriage.

Why not?

The Church holds that all sexual acts outside of marriage are gravely sinful. To start exploring the question of contraceptive use outside of marriage would put the Church in a really weird position that could lead to the subversion of the very moral values it is trying to promote.

We all know how in the public schools sex-ed teachers often pay lip service to the idea that people shouldn’t have sex before marriage and then spend enormous amounts of time spelling out just how to do it and what contraceptive and “safe sex” alternatives there are. The frequent result is thus a message of, “Don’t, but allow me to give you an extended discourse on just what to do in case you decide otherwise.”

School kids recognize the phoniness and pretense of this and that it amounts to a tacit permission for them to go off and sexually misbehave.

The Church, understandably, does not want to be put in the same position. It’s about calling people to authentic moral and ethical values, not giving them advice on how to sin.

And so it’s left the field largely to moral theologians to discuss and not really treated it on the Magisterial level.

That’s something that may change, though. It’s easy to see how changing social factors—including the AIDS crisis—could cause pressure for this question to be treated on the Magisterial level. That’s one reason I’ve addressed this subject in the past, to help people understand what the Magisterium has and has not said thus far, so that if it says something in the future, they will have the context to process and assimilate it.

That this kind of work is needed was evidenced yesterday when many people online were saying how their hearts or stomachs lurched when they encountered the first press reports of the Pope’s remarks.

Now, the Holy See could in the future say that the principles articulated in Humanae Vitae regarding contraception also apply to all sexual acts outside of marriage, or some of them, or none of them. At least it could, hypothetically.

What is it likely to do in practice?

It’s hard to say, but Pope Benedict’s recent interview is suggestive. In the interview he considered the case of a male prostitute. Male prostitutes aren’t all that common from what I’m given to understand. Certainly they aren’t as common as the female variety is supposed to be. Which raises the question of why the Pontiff would zero in on this example.

Presumably, it is because male prostitutes most commonly service male clients, in which case the act is homosexual in nature and thus has no procreative aspect to begin with. The question of contraception thus doesn’t arise because there is no openness to new life in the act in the first place. He also might have chosen this example because males, whether behaving homosexually or heterosexually, have a greater chance of infecting others with HIV, but my guess is that he’s thinking of homosexual prostitution in particular.

It’s easy to see how one could look at that situation and say, “Male homosexual prostitutes are at high risk of both contracting and transmitting HIV; it would be better if they gave up prostitution altogether, but if they are engaging in this activity then the use of a condom would reduce the risk of HIV transmission, and it wouldn’t make the acts they are performing any less open to life than they already are.”

The trouble would be how to present this judgment in a way that does not cause more problems than it solves.

Pope Benedict’s remarks in the interview seem to be an attempt to do just this. He could have phrased himself more clearly, but (a) this was an interview, and in interviews one does not have the kind of leisure to carefully craft one’s remarks that writing allows and (b) he’s straining to find words that communicate the basic moral insight without leading to headlines like “Pope approves condoms!” and “Pope changes Church teaching on sex!”

All in all, his “first step on the road to a more human sexuality” approach is not that bad. Also, addressing the matter in an interview—rather than in a Church document—is a not-that-bad way of getting the subject on the table while blunting some of the problems that could result.

Or not.

One can certainly judge that it would have been better for the Pope to leave the subject unaddressed or to have addressed it in a different way or in a different venue. He himself stated repeatedly in the interview that there have been problems communicating through the press in his reign (even describing the Vatican’s PR efforts as a “failure” on one recent subject), and in hindsight he may (or may not) judge that this was the case here as well.

We’ll have to see.

I have to say that I admire Benedict’s courage.

Oh, and as I predicted, the Holy See swiftly came out with a new statement clarifying the pope’s remarks.

I couldn’t help observing (with some satisfaction) how many of the exact same notes were hit in the clarification that were hit in yesterday’s post, including the fact that the pope was speaking “in a informal and not magisterial form,” to quote papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi.

One last thing: Over at The Telegraph, Damian Thompson does a bit of speculating that I’d like to address.

After quoting from the post I did yesterday, Thompson ponders the case of theologically orthodox bloggers

who claim that the Pope didn’t say what he obviously did say… and then emphasise that he was only speaking in an interview AND how dare L’Osservatore Romano release these quotes out of context. Hmm. There is a strong whiff of cognitive dissonance in the air. I hate to pick a fight with bloggers I admire, and I won’t mention any names, but I get the strong impression that certain conservatives are tying themselves in knots trying not to say what they really think.

Which is that they disagree with the Pope.

I don’t know if I am a blogger who Thompson admires (though if I am, let me say that I also admire Thompson and, in fact, am envious of The Church Times having once called him a “blood-crazed ferret”). However, one might suppose that I am among those he is talking about here since I am one of two bloggers mentioned by name (the other is Eric Giunta) and I did emphasize the interview nature of the Pope’s remarks and the fact that the increasingly-erratic L’Osservatore Romano did a disservice to the public in releasing the comments the way it did.

So let me clear up any potential misunderstanding: I don’t disagree with the Pope on this issue.

There are issues I do disagree with him on (e.g., I tend to be more skeptical of claims regarding global warming than he appears to be), but this isn’t one of them.

I agree that if you’re going to engage in homosexual prostitution that it is better to do so in a way that lessens the chance of getting or giving someone a fatal disease.

I also believe that if you are going to have extramarital sex that it is better to do so with a person who is a willing accomplice rather than raping someone. However, I wouldn’t want to see false and misleading headlines like:

Akin says adultery sometimes permissible to stop rape

Akin: adultery can be justified in some cases

Akin says adultery can be used in the fight against rape

Certainly there is a disanalogy here. Adultery is intrinsically wrong and can never be done, regardless of the circumstances. On the other hand, if Pope Benedict is right that it is better for a person engaging in homosexual prostitution to limit the danger of HIV by using a condom (as I think he is) then this use does not add a new sin to the ones already being committed.

But there is a danger of sending a highly misleading message here. Headlines stating things like “condoms sometimes permissible” and “condoms can be justified in some cases” or “condoms can be used in fight against AIDS” will not be understood by the general public in the limited sense that the Pope is addressing. They will be understood way more broadly than that, and that makes them fundamentally misleading.

I do acknowledge that there is cognitive dissonance here, but it’s not dissonance caused by disagreement with the Pope. It’s caused by the same communications dilemma the Pope faces: How to communicate a moral truth about limiting the harm caused by sin without appearing to give tacit permission to the sin itself or to other, related sins.

The Pope Said WHAT about Condoms???

Lightoftheworld

Pope Benedict’s new book, Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times, isn’t even officially out yet but is already at the center of an online media controversy.

ORDER THE BOOK
The controversy erupted Saturday morning when L’Osservatore Romano unilaterally violated the embargo on the book by publishing Italian-language extracts of various papal statements, much to the chagrin of publishers around the world, who had been working on a carefully orchestrated launch for the book on Tuesday.

Among the extracts was one dealing with the use of condoms in trying to prevent the spread of AIDS, and the press immediately seized on this (e.g., Reuters, Associated Press , BBC online).

And so we were treated to headlines like:

* Pope says condoms sometimes permissible to stop AIDS

* Pope: condoms can be justified in some cases

* Pope says condoms can be used in the fight against Aids

Particularly egregious is this statement by William Crawley of the BBC:

Pope Benedict appears to have changed the Vatican’s official stance on the use of condoms to a moral position that many Catholic theologians have been recommending for quite some time.

GAH!

Okay, first of all, this is an interview book. The pope is being interviewed. He is not engaging his official teaching capacity. This book is not an encyclical, an apostolic constitution, a papal bull, or anything of the kind. It is not published by the Church. It is an interview conducted by a German-language journalist. Consequently, the book does not represent an act of the Church’s Magisterium and does not have the capacity to “change[] the Vatican’s official stance” on anything. It does not carry dogmatic or canonical force. The book (which is fascinating and unprecedented, though that’s a subject for another post) constitutes the Pope’s personal opinions on the questions he is asked by interviewer Peter Seewald.

And, as Pope Benedict himself notes in the book:

It goes without saying that the Pope can have private opinions that are wrong.

I don’t point this out to suggest that what Pope Benedict says regarding condoms is wrong (we’ll get to that in a moment) but to point out the status of private papal opinions. They are just that: private opinions. Not official Church teaching. So let’s get that straight.

Among the disservices L’Osservatore Romano performed by breaking the book’s embargo in the way it did was the fact that it only published a small part of the section in which Pope Benedict discussed condoms. As a result, the reader could not see the context of his remarks, giving the reader no way to see the context and guaranteeing that the secular press would take the Pope’s remarks out of context (which they would have anyway, but perhaps not this much). Especially egregious is the fact that L’Osservatore Romano omits material in which Benedict clarified his statement on condoms in a follow-up question.

So L’Osservatore Romano has performed a great disservice to both the Catholic and non-Catholic communities.

Fortunately, now you can read the full text of the Pope’s remarks.

Also, in anticipation of the controversy that these statement would produce, Dr. Janet Smith has prepared a helpful guide to what the Pope did and did not say.

Let’s look at the Pope’s remarks and see what he actually said.

Seewald: . . . In Africa you stated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

Benedict: . . . In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. [EMPHASIS ADDED] Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.

As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

Note that the Pope’s overall argument is that condoms will not solve the problem of AIDS. In support of this, he makes several arguments:

1) People can already get condoms, yet it clearly hasn’t solved the problem.

2) The secular realm has proposed the ABC program, where a condom is used only if the first two, truly effective procedures (abstinence and fidelity) have been rejected. Thus even the secular ABC proposal recognizes that condoms are not the unique solution. They don’t work as well as abstinence and fidelity. The first two are better.

3) The fixation on condom use represents a banalization (trivialization) of sexuality that turns the act from being one of love to one of selfishness. For sex to have the positive role it is meant to play, this trivialization of sex—and thus the fixation on condoms—needs to be resisted.

So that’s the background to the statement that the press seized on:

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, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality. [EMPHASIS ADDED]

There are several things to note here: First, note that the Pope says that “there may be a basis in the case of some individuals,” not that there is a basis. This is the language of speculation. But what is the Pope speculating about? That condom use is morally justified? No, that’s not what he’s said: that there may be cases “where this [condom use] can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way to recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed.”

In other words, as Janet Smith puts it,

The Holy Father is simply observing that for some homosexual prostitutes the use of a condom may indicate an awakening of a moral sense; an awakening that sexual pleasure is not the highest value, but that we must take care that we harm no one with our choices.  He is not speaking to the morality of the use of a condom, but to something that may be true about the psychological state of those who use them.  If such individuals are using condoms to avoid harming another, they may eventually realize that sexual acts between members of the same sex are inherently harmful since they are not in accord with human nature.

At least this is the most one can reasonably infer from the Pope’s remarks, which could be phrased more clearly (and I expect the Vatican will be issuing a clarification quite soon).

Second, note that the Pope immediately follows his statement regarding homosexual prostitutes using condoms with the statement, “But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

By “a humanization of sexuality,” the Pope means recognizing the truth about human sexuality—that it must be exercised in a loving, faithful way between a man and a woman united in matrimony. That is the real solution, not putting on a condom and engaging in promiscuous sex with those infected with a deadly virus.

At this point in the interview, Seewald asks a follow-up question, and it is truly criminal that L’Osservatore Romano did not print this part:

Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

Benedict: She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

So Benedict reiterates that this is not a real (practical) solution to the AIDS crisis, nor is it a moral solution. Nevertheless, in some cases the use of a condom displays “the intention of reducing the risk of infection” which is “a first step in a movement toward . . . a more human way of living sexuality.”

He thus isn’t saying that the use of condoms is justified but that they can display a particular intent and that this intent is a step in the right direction.

Janet Smith provides a helpful analogy:

If someone was going to rob a bank and was determined to use a gun, it would better for that person to use a gun that had no bullets in it.  It would reduce the likelihood of fatal injuries. But it is not the task of the Church to instruct potential bank robbers how to rob banks more safely and certainly not the task of the Church to support programs of providing potential bank robbers with guns that could not use bullets.  Nonetheless, the intent of a bank robber to rob a bank in a way that is safer for the employees and customers of the bank may indicate an element of moral responsibility that could be a step towards eventual understanding of the immorality of bank robbing.

There is more that can be said about all this, but what we’ve already seen makes it clear that the Pope’s remarks must be read carefully and that they do not constitute the kind of license for condom use that the media would wish.

More to come.

PART TWO OF THE SERIES: UNDERSTANDING THE POPE’S DILEMMA ON CONDOMS

PART THREE: NEW DEVELOPMENTS ON THE POPE AND CONDOMS

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Goodbad The final installment of the Man with No Name trilogy is the film The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (two-disc edition).

(For my review of the first two films, see: A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.)

There are two things that, if you know them before  you watch the picture, you will probably enjoy it much more:

1) Despite being the third part of the trilogy, this film is not a continuation of the story of the characters we've met. It's about different characters who are reminiscent of the ones in the first two films.

2) This film is really long, so be prepared for a marathon movie-watching session. The American version is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, and the Italian version is apparently a full 3 hours (compared to the 90 minutes of the first film and the 2 hours of the second).

I didn't know either of these before I started watching, and I found my enjoyment hampered as a result. I'd probably like it more on a second watching.

Why isn't this a continuation of the characters established in the first two films? Two reasons: First, at the end of the second film Clint Eastwood's character had become rich. He therefore would have no need to continue bounty hunting, which is–and which certainly was then–a dangerous and unpleasant profession.

Second, and more importantly, Sergio Leone wanted to set this story during the American Civil War. This is earlier than the classic period of the "Old West" genre, which focuses on the years from about 1870 to 1900, which saw great western expansion and settlement, in significant measure driven by the need to get out of the economically impoverished, Reconstruction-era South.

Leone therefore needs to yank us back about 25 years in time from when the first two films were apparently set, to what seems to be approximately 1863 (plus or minus a year).

Why does Leone want to set this film during the Civil War?

Because he's an Italian director and he wants to make a point about the brutality and senselessness of war. What other reason could there be?

The thing is, though … it helps first-time watchers if you clearly communicate right from the beginning that we're in the 1860s rather than the 1880s and that these are not the same characters we met in the first two movies. If you don't tell them that then the viewers will experience cognitive dissonance until they figure it out.

That takes some time due to Leone's slow-pacing of this film. We don't even meet Clint Eastwood's character until something like 30 minutes into the movie. He's the last of the three title characters to be introduced.

Speaking of which, let's talk about the title. The films in this trilogy seem to be plagued with title problems. In themselves, the titles are awesome. A Fistful of Dollars. For a Few Dollars More. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Good titling!

But the titles don't always actually fit the movie. And that's especially true in this case.

Admittedly, they came up with a better title for this one than what the purely descriptive one would have been: "For a Heaping Huge Pile of Dollars"–which is what the stakes are this time ($200,000 in gold, in 1863 dollars).

Leone loved the title they finally came up with for this movie. He loved it so much that–just to make sure you appreciate it–he explicitly identifies Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach as (respectively) "the Good," "the Bad," and "the Ugly."

He does this at the beginning and the end of the film by writing these words on the screen during a freeze frame of each character.

How is it, then, that the theatrical trailer misidentifies Wallach as "the Bad" and Van Cleef as "the Ugly"? Leone made the identifications pretty clear.

The problem is with the identifications themselves. On the one hand, none of the three characters in the film is actually good. They are all vicious criminals out to make a buck.

Despite being explicitly identified as "the Good," Clint Eastwood's very first act in the film is to gun down three innocent men to keep them from lawfully claiming a bounty that he wants to claim himself. While he does do one genuinely altruistic thing in the movie (comfort a dying soldier toward the end, at very little cost to himself), he is–as the final line of the movie says–"a dirty S.O.B." (Only the final line doesn't say "S.O.B." but what it stands for.)

In terms of moral rectitude, Eli Wallach's character actually has a better claim on the term "good." He does bad things, but it's clear that he has a more robust conscience than the other two title characters, and while he isn't above taking revenge, he doesn't gratuitously kill people like the other two.

Ultimately the primary good that Eastwood has in comparison to the other two is good looks. Both Wallach and Van Cleef could vie for the title "the Ugly" (as the theatrical trailer made clear).

The one identification that is really solid, though, is "the Bad." 

That is Van Cleef's character in spades. He is a brutal, sociopathic killer whose villainy dwarfs those of his title companions.

In this movie.

The thing is, he wasn't like that at all in the previous movie. He was a good guy. Gooder, even, than Eastwood's character! Which only adds to the cognitive dissonance until you figure out he's not playing the same character.

And it's not like Leone helps you with this. The Eastwood and Van Cleef characters are meant to evoke the ones they played in the second film. Eastwood still wears the same hat, the same brown poncho, and smokes the same little cigars. Van Cleef is still better dressed and smoking a pipe. And they're both still gunslingers. Visually they are the same, but they're not the same people.

It's like … Invasion of the Character Snatchers or something.

Or at least like an episode of The Goon Show, where protagonist Neddie Seagoon can be prime minister of England one week and a private detective the next and a postal inspector the third.

The basic plot of the movie is as old as The Pardoner's Tale: Three thieves competing for a stash of gold.

It's a well told tale in the sense that it has a lot of interesting, inventive stuff in it. There are twists and surprises. In fact, given the length of the film, one at times feels like there may be a few too many twists and surprises.

The Eli Wallach character is the true soul of the movie. It's more about him than about the other two. And he is an interesting, rambunctious, comedic, and annoying character. He is capable of getting the best laughs of the film and the most pathos. You feel for him in a way you can't for Van Cleef or Eastwood–the first because he is pure evil and the second because he is pure stoic.

Sergio Leone reportedly said, "I like Clint Eastwood because he has only two facial expressions: one with the hat, and one without it."

Like the previous two movies, his one has amazing music and scenery, both effectively used by Leone. 

In fact, it may have a little too much music. Leone reportedly could not bring himself to cut some shots because he wanted to let the music play out, thus adding to the film's bulk and slowing its pacing.

The pacing is the single biggest flaw in terms of craft with the film. Leone has become too self-indulgent in the film. There is a point, about two hours into the movie, where they've set up all the pieces they need for the climax and they could proceed directly to the conclusion, but you realize, "Oh, no! They're going to insert a whole 'nother act before they let us get to the conclusion! Just so that the director can make his 'futility of war' statement, we have to take a big, huge plot detour."

When we finally get to the climax, though, it's a good one. And, oddly, the pacing isn't the problem that it has been up to now.

I didn't believe it at first but the climactic, Mexican standoff between the three characters in this film really does go on for five minutes! (I timed it.)

I thought it could have been cut a little, but it is so gripping that I felt like a character in a Monty Python sketch, declaring, "That was never five minutes just now!"

Oh, and speaking of humor, that's one thing that this movie has much more than the other two. It really does have multiple laugh-out-loud moments and some great zingers in the script.

Like its predecessors,it is both compelling and flawed. It's easy to see why it is considered a classic of the genre. It's by far the most ambitious of the three films, which leads both to its best and worst elements.

Morally it is unsatisfying. Clint Eastwood just is not "the Good" that the title promises. He's not even "the Good" relative to the two other characters. Eli Wallach is just as good as Eastwood. and the very ending (after the showdown is over), while not sad like that of the Pardoner's Tale, comes off as contrived.

Still, it's a landmark film in the history of Westerns, and it's loaded with style and camp appeal.

For A Few Dollars More

Fewdollars The second installment of the Man with No Name trilogy is the film For a Few Dollars More (two-disc edition).

(For my review of the first film, see: A Fistful of Dollars.)

This time they translated the title from Italian correctly!

Unfortunately, while it's a good title in itself, it doesn't perfectly reflect the content of the movie–in at least two respects.

First, we aren't talking about "a few dollars." The number of dollars that are on the line in this movie is huge. Better than $40,000–which was an enormous sum back in the 1880s/1890s, when the film presumably takes place. As Lee Van Cleef tells Clint Eastwood at one point, he stands to be "rich" if his plans meet with success.

Second, the title doesn't point to a man's-inhumanity-to-man story nearly as well as the first film's true title ("For a Fistful of Dollars"). Why? Because in this film Clint Eastwood's character–the Man with No Name–isn't a drifter out to make a buck and willing to amorally play two sides against each other to get it.

Instead, he's a bounty hunter. And thus, in principle, he is an agent of law and justice.

Sure, the rule of law was shaky in the Old West, and justice was often hard to come by, but the work Eastwood's character does is in principle on the side of the angels.

He may be rough-edged, but he's doing work that needs to be done.

Oddly, perhaps in an attempt to preserve some of the moral ambiguity of the first film, Eastwood and others like him are referred to as "bounty killers" rather than bounty hunters, but it's clear that they aren't simply soulless killers–a fact that the conclusion of the movie more than amply demonstrates.

As a result, this got an A-III (adults) from the U.S. bishops' movie review service rather than an O (morally offensive) or an L (limited adult audiences, which then would have been styled A-IV, adults with reservations, if I understand correctly).

The A-III rating is probably about right.

The fact that the film is on safer moral ground means that I don't have to say as much about the plot and so can leave more plot elements unspoiled in providing a review.

What I will note is that Eastwood's character starts out, again, as a ultracool, supercompetent, Old West Mary Sue, just like he was in the first film.

So how do you top that?

Confront him with his equal: another Mary Sue.

Enter Lee Van Cleef.

Van Cleef plays another ultracool, supercompetent Old West bounty hunter . . . uh, bounty killer.

But he's different than Eastwood, you see? He's older. And he uses different weapons. And while Eastwood is always smoking a cigar, Van Cleef is always smoking a pipe. Get it? These two characters are totally different, while they're also totally the same.

(Memo to both characters: Smoking during a gunfight is a Bad Idea. You don't need extra distractions. I'm sure that this is covered in the NRA gun safety course. Please review!)

And like any two such larger-than-life characters, what's the first thing they have to do? If you've ever read an issue of Marvel Team-Up or Marvel Two-In-One, you guess right: Fight each other!

But before you can say "Epic of Gilgamesh" (or at least "Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk"), they've become friends.

Sort of.

Partners, at least. 

And their partnership will be tested.

Why that is the case is a little hard for me to fathom. With 40,000 1885-dollars on the line, it seems that there is plenty to share! (Especially when it turns out that money isn't the only motive involved here. This isn't just about "a few dollars more.")

We also get more of the stunning visuals and haunting music that are series trademarks. The plot is nicely complicated, though it doesn't have the same element of mystery as in the first film. The first time around Eastwood's character was clearly way ahead of the game and part of the fun was trying to figure out what he was planning. There's some of that here, but not as much.

One thing that does recur–and probably necessarily so–is a scene in which Eastwood gets the snot beaten out of him. Only this time he isn't alone. Van Cleef get's the same treatment–at the same time–again with a maniacally laughing villain in the background.

The reason that this scene is necessary is that we're watching two ultracompetent characters playing their opponents for fools. We need their luck to run out at some point. To create real drama (as opposed to simple wish-fulfillment) the bad guys need to become a credible threat at some point. If you haven't established that early in the picture, you need to do it before the climax or the climax won't have the punch you need.

Back in the 60s, when these came out with a year between them, the similarity probably would have gone unnoticed, but watching the movies back to back I found myself thinking, "Hey, didn't I just watch this same scene—also at the 3/4 mark–in the previous film?"

Another minor annoyance in the film is that–despite the fact that Clint Eastwood is famously playing "the Man with No Name" (something explicitly pointed out as early as the theatrical trailer for the first film)–they appear to give him a name in this film: Manco.

Actually, that's not a name but a nickname. "Manco" is Spanish for "one-armed," and supposedly Eastwood does almost everything in the movie with his left hand, only using his right hand to shoot. Or that's the claim. Personally, I didn't notice that and didn't care enough to keep track. It's too much of a subtlety, as is expecting an English-speaking audience to know what "manco" means in Spanish.

Despite its flaws, For a Few Dollars More is probably the most watchable film of the trilogy. It's less ingenious but more fun than the first film. Watching Eastwood and Van Cleef outcool and play headgames with each other is definitely fun. The film is also less ambitious–and thus less drawn out–than the third film. 

Too bad that, as the middle child of the trilogy, it's probably the most overlooked of the three.

A Fistful of Dollars

Fistful I recently watched the Man with No Name trilogy–also known as the Dollars trilogy–starring Cling Eastwood. 

This series originally came out when I was a baby (pre- and post-born), and if my parents took me to it when it was in theaters, I have no memory of it.

What I do remember is my dad's copy of the album (remember vinyl?) and the haunting, wailing, chanting music that was used to score the films.

I never saw them growing up (this was pre-cable and pre-VCR), but I finally got around to watching them, and thought I'd review them here.

The first film–A Fistful of Dollars (2-disc edition here)–features Clint Eastwood as a wandering gunslinger with no money. Not surprising, since the film was inspired by Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo, which features Toshiro Mifune as a ronin, a wandering samurai who doesn't serve any master.

Clint Eastwood's character has no name. What he also doesn't have is a well defined sense of morals. Upon learning that the Mexican town in which he has arrived is dominated by two rival families–the Rojas and the Baxters–he decides to make money for himself by playing the two sides off against each other. He alternately hires himself out two both groups, sometimes at the same time.

And large numbers of people die as a result.

This was part of director Sergio Leone (operating under the absurdly Americanesque pseudonym "Bob Robertson")'s effort to reinvent the Western film genre using more morally ambiguous characters and even anti-heroes.

The film's point is somewhat blunted by the slight mistranslation of the title from Italian. In Italian the title would literally translate as "For a Fistful of Dollars"–i.e., that's why Clint Eastwood's character started the bloodbath in the first place, a grim statement about man's capacity for inhumanity.

The Man with No Name isn't completely sociopathic, however. He does do one, major, genuinely selfless thing in the movie, which is to help a captive family escape. When the mother in the family asks him why, he says that he knew someone like her once (his own mother?) but there was no one there to help.

Ironically, this proves to be his big mistake. Up to this point, the character has been a total, supercompetent, gun-slinging Mary Sue, who can not only shoot better than anyone else but who is also five steps ahead of the people on both sides.

To keep the character from being totally consumed by Mary Sueness, he needs to be taken down a peg, and when his act of kindness is discovered Eastwood is beaten to a pulp while one of the villains laughs maniacally.

Eventually one of the families massacres the other, and Eastwood–in an impressive and inventive final duel–brings a kind of belated justice to the conclusion.

At the end of the movie he rides off with his dollars (which are rather more than a fistful; he made out well from these two families) and the audience is left to contemplate the morality–or lack of it–of his actions.

This got an O (morally offensive) rating from the U.S. bishops' film review service.

Though I wonder if it would today. Back in the 1960s, when this came out, the kind of brutal violence that the film contains would have been quite a bit more shocking than today.

Actually, the violence is amazingly bloodless. It's basically "bang, you're dead." One shot per customer; no visible wounds; the victim falls over and doesn't move again. What's startling is that Eastwood will do it to three people right in a row–bang! bang! bang! And we get a hip-level camera shot, so it's rather like watching a first-person shooter game.

Also, if the title had been properly translated it would have been clearer that the filmmakers are showing what man can do for a fistful of dollars but they're not approving of it.

In other words, we've got a man's inhumanity to man story here.

I probably would have given it an L (limited adult audience) rating.

While Leone was trying to get away from some of the cliches of Westerns, he was only partially successful. The film embraces as many cliches as it eschews.

On the positive side, the film has beautiful visuals (who knew that Andalusia in Spain looks so much like the deserts of Northern Mexico and the American Southwest?), haunting music, an intricate plot with a good number of twists and surprises (which I have not spoiled), and something to think about: How justifiable–or not–are Eastwood's actions at different turns.

It's easy to see why it was popular (very popular), why it's considered an iconic film, a classic of the genre–and why it got a couple of sequels.