Condom Zombies Hijack Pope Benedict!

The firestorm was caused by the fact that a lot of people either unwittingly or intentionally misrepresented this as some kind of blanket endorsement by the pope of condoms.

It was nothing of the kind. Responsible parties debated precisely what the pope’s meaning was, as there was some ambiguity to what he said, but it was clear that whatever he was saying was extremely limited in scope and certainly nothing like the broad aspirations of “safe sex” advocates.

At most, he was presenting the use of condoms by prostitutes as a way of limiting the evil done in the act of prostitution—because, y’know, prostitution is kinda like a soul-destroying mortal sin to begin with—so that in addition to destroying the soul through sin the act might not also destroy the body through a horrible disease.

Indeed, the pope spoke of this as being only a “first step” in taking responsibility for one’s actions, a step along a path that would lead one to cease the immoral sex altogether, making condoms unnecessary.

And then there was the fact that he also stressed that condoms are not the solution to the overall problem, which is a defective view of human sexuality.

It was really tough to get these points across—the limited nature of what Pope Benedict appeared to be expressing openness to—amid the throng of condom advocates mindlessly chanting that the pope had “approved condoms” much in the manner of a swarm of zombies mindlessly chanting “Brains . . . ! Brains . . . !”

Now the hordes of the spiritually undead have returned to their mindless chant with a new ad campaign designed to hijack Pope Benedict’s words and turn them to their own evil ends.

Thus the infamous “Catholics for Choice” and its “Good Catholics Use Condoms” campaign (condoms4life.com) have taken out an ad in a major Italian daily newspaper. Their press release is headlined,

Catholics Stand Behind Pope’s Statement that Condoms Save Lives — Urge Conference Attendees to Resist Minority Dissent

The occasion is a conference being held by the Vatican on HIV/AIDS.

Now consider the sheer willful malice and misrepresentation that is present in the headline alone:

* Catholics stand behind pope’s statement? Implies that all Catholics, or at least all faithful Catholics, endorse the goals of CFC, and that if you want to be a faithful Catholic, you must, too.

* Pope’s statement that condoms save lives? Implies that the pope issued a standard “safe sex” ideology endorsement of condoms, a reading only a brain-dead zombie could give to his remarks.

* Urge conference attendees to resist? Implies that conference attendees should rebel against traditional Catholic moral teaching—in spite of what the pope said about condoms not being the overall solution, etc. In other words, they should rebel against the pope in the name of the pope’s words.

* Resist minority dissent? Double-stigmatizes their opponents as both members of a minority and as dissenters—when in fact they are upholders of traditional Catholic morals and they include Pope Benedict himself among their number. In actuality, it is the CFC zombies who are themselves the dissenters.

The quality of chutzpah has often been defined as that of a person who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy on the grounds that he is an orphan. The sheer level of malice and deceit present in just the headline of the CFC brings this definition to mind.

But whatever chutzpah it may display, there is no way it constitutes a legitimate moral appeal. No one with a functioning conscience could so deliberately misrepresent the pope’s remarks in this way and, in fact, urge people to dissent from the pope’s teachings about sexuality on the grounds of the pope’s teachings about sexuality, all in the name of being a good Catholic.

The kind of conscience that could make that kind of pitch as a moral appeal has something about it that is seriously disordered—unhealthy—dead.

And so the condom zombies go shuffling on, trying to bite and infect as many other people with their deadly moral contagion.

Things go downhill from the headline of the press release, and it proceeds to tell us about an advertisement they’re placing in a major Italian newspaper in which they thank Pope Benedict in the following words (except in Italian):

We believe in God.
We believe that sex is sacred.
We believe in caring for each other.
We believe in using condoms.
We thank Pope Benedict for acknowledging that condoms save lives.

You can view the ad here (.pdf).

And read the rest of the press release here.

Watching a group like this so soullessly trying to subvert Pope Benedict’s words is just disgusting.

I’ll have more to say about this gang of moral miscreants soon, but in the mean time . . .

What do you think?