Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J. kjenner pave Benedikt svært godt og er også ansvarlig redaktør for Ignatius Press, som har utgitt den siste boka om paven på engelsk. Derfor kjenner han pave Benedikts argumentasjon meget godt og har også detaljinformasjon om den nyutgitte boka – og han sier:
Did the Pope “justify” condom use in some circumstances?
No. And there was absolutely no change in Church teaching either. Not only because an interview by the Pope does not constitute Church teaching, but because nothing that he said differs from previous Church teaching.
Then why all the headlines saying that he “approves” or “permits” or “justifies” condom use in certain cases?
That’s a good question. So good that the interviewer himself asked virtually the same question during the interview.
The Pope made a statement in the interview, which statement has now been widely quoted in the worldwide media. Immediately, the interviewer, Peter Seewald, posed this question: “Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?”
The Pope clarified and expanded on his previous statement. So let’s look at the two statements.
After saying that “we cannot solve the problem [of AIDS] by distributing condoms…” and that “the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality…” the Pope says: 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”.
That is a heavily qualified, very tentative statement. Nevertheless, it prompted Seewald’s question, quoted above