William Oddie on the secular media and condoms

At the Catholic Herald UK, William Oddie analyzes the impact some Catholic commenters had on the secular media's reaction to the condom issue.

Francis Philips got it dead right in her last blog; the pope’s gripping, highly readable and indispensable book The Light of the World (and if you haven’t read it yet you really should) is about a great deal more than just sex.

The extraordinary distortion by the secular Press of his passing remarks about condoms is now generally seen for what it was: a sign of the fact that papers have to have splash headlines; that’s the way they’re designed: hence the Sunday Telegraph’s declaration of a “historic U-turn by [the] Catholic church”. So the secular response is understandable: journalists need stories; it’s not so much that they don’t care about the truth, but that they really aren’t necessarily equipped, in a story about the Church, to recognise it when it’s staring them in the face.

But parallel to this kind of understandable secular distortion, there was a jumping on this particular bandwagon by some Catholics who really didn’t have that kind of excuse. Perhaps the most informative example of the “historic U-turn by Catholic Church” syndrome among Catholic journalists was the Today programme’s “Thought for the Day” on the morning after the Sunday Telegraph splash headline, uttered from on high by Clifford Longley, the BBC’s token “authoritative” Catholic and the elder statesman of the Tabletistas.

 Read more...

Catholic Media Review on "Light of the World"

Julie D. at Catholic Media Review gives her reflections on Light of the World:

As most people know by now, Light of the World covers questions about modern times including, but not limited to, the sex scandals, relativism, the Church and Islam, ecumenism, global warming, contraception, AIDS, women priests, homosexuality, and relativism. In other words, if there has been bad press about it lately, Seewald asked about it.

The Holy Father gives honest and candid answers. If any reader ever wanted to ask the Pope questions ripped from the headlines, then this is just the book for them. More than anything I was impressed with the Pope's realism. He answered in a way that let us know he is completely aware of what people think about various issues for the most part. As he continually pointed out, he does not exist in a vacuum, and has meetings every day with people from around the world.

 Read more...

ZENIT: Light of the World a Must-Read

Elizabeth Lev, writing for ZENIT, reviews Light of the World:

I'd like to thank the New York Times and other secular media for helping me get my priorities straight. I had no plans to read right away Benedict XVI's new book-length interview with Peter Seewald, as I was buried under final exams. I was saving the book for quieter times.

But between the international headlines generated by the New York Times and Associated Press reports, I stopped everything I was doing and picked up "Light of the World." It was the best thing I did this semester, as his message of hope in the face of tremendous challenges offers calm amid chaos.

Not surprisingly, the secular media got the Pope's message wrong. One would think with all the expensive educations milling around these news conglomerates, someone might have taken a class in reading comprehension. Ironically, the Associated Press claimed: "Pope's remarks on condoms sow widespread confusion." I would have gone with "Journalist illiteracy wreaks pandemonium."

The point of contention is in Chapter 11, when the Pope speaks hypothetically of a prostitute using a condom as a sign of an awakening of his moral conscience. This tiny paragraph has now spawned novels -- proving the Pope's point in the preceding lines, that "concentrating on condoms alone banalizes sexuality."

His remarks make perfect sense, the only mystery being why Catholics would look to the secular media for interpretation of the Pope's teaching, especially those outlets that had spent most of this year trying relentlessly yet unsuccessfully to accuse him of complicity in the sex abuse crisis. Why not read Cardinal Raymond Burke, or papal biographer George Weigel, or a moral theologian such as Father Thomas Williams? Better yet, why not just read the Pope himself?

One thing is for sure -- reading "Light of the World" will be more satisfying and fulfilling than any pundit's pronouncements.

Read more...

"Misrepresenting Benedict’s Bravery"

Matthew Hanley, author of Affirming Love, Avoiding AIDS: What Africa Can Teach the West, writes about the Pope and AIDS at The Catholic Thing:

Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks about condoms and AIDS – or rather confusing manipulations of those remarks – are reverberating around the world. But they do not represent the change in his thought or Catholic teaching that the media have vigorously claimed, however much progressive or dissenting theologians, and perhaps even some papal aides, wish otherwise. And they are not a vindication of public health authorities who have, for decades, unsuccessfully advocated technical means of battling sexually transmitted epidemics, while refusing to emphasize the kinds of behaviors that would avoid infection altogether.

The New York Times tells us the pope’s words, in the newly published book Light of the World, were received with “glee from clerics and health workers in Africa, where the AIDS problem is worst.” The pope as anachronistic obstacle to global health has long been a fashionable narrative. But consider: decades of robust condom promotion (and other technical interventions) utterly failed to curb Africa’s AIDS epidemics, and common-sense changes in sexual behavior accounted for Africa’s handful of AIDS declines. Is one misrepresented remark from the pontiff now to do what lavish and sophisticated condom campaigns couldn’t? Public health leaders should be carefully scrutinized. They, not the pope, are explicitly charged with containing epidemics.

Read more... 

"Why Are the Media Fixated on Condoms?"

Dr. Janet Smith asks the question and responds to it in an essay for ZENIT:

Most people remember their grandmothers at some point telling them that pointing a finger at someone means that three fingers are pointing back at you. The media are obsessed with the issue of the Catholic Church and condoms because they seem to believe that condoms are the solution to preventing the transmission of the HIV. Might it be time they began to think about other organizations, such as themselves, that might bear some responsibility?

Who can deny that if people were living by the Church's teaching on sexuality, if people were having only married heterosexual sex, there would be no problem with the HIV (and a host of other problems)? Certainly, in this fallen world, that is not going to happen everywhere. But why doesn't it happen more often? Why does it seem that so many people think sex outside of marriage and homosexual sex is perfectly acceptable? That people should be allowed to have whatever kind of sex they want to have? Benedict XVI calls this the "banalization of sexuality."

I have been teaching on sexuality for many decades. When I started, nearly three decades ago, even though promiscuity was in full swing even then, I could generally count on young people agreeing with me that sexual intercourse was meant to be an expression of love. In fact, "making love" was a euphemism for "having sex," but who says that anymore? When I would speak about "sex" they would naturally think of an act performed by spouses. Some argued that if you were in love and intending to get married, it could be moral to have sex before marriage. Even so, there was also fairly widespread agreement, that if you weren't ready for babies, you weren't ready for sex. Few were arguing that it was moral to have any kind of sex.

How things have changed since then! Now, when I speak of "sex" people think of a profoundly pleasurable sexual act that has no connection to love, commitment or babies. Young people are a bit surprised when I maintain there is a natural connection between sex, love, commitment and babies.

Read more...

Dr. Deal Hudson, 'On Condoms: More Dostoevsky, Less Catechesis'

Dr. Deal Hudson weighs in on the "condom controversy":

There is, of course, no new rule about condom use: The Church still teaches that contraception during intercourse between a man and woman is forbidden, even in the case where one or the other is HIV positive.

What Benedict actually said is much more interesting than what is being wrongly reported by the media. The Holy Father was probing into an imagined individual's moral psychology, rather than rehearsing a new item in the next edition of the Catechism.

 Read more....

"The Church and Condoms"

Fr. Roger J. Landry provides another clear-sighted analysis of the Church's teaching on contraception and Pope Benedict's comments on condom use:

Last weekend, headlines focused on how Pope Benedict was apparently changing the Church’s teachings about the immorality of the use of condoms. The comments, excerpted from a book length interview of the Pope with journalist Peter Seewald, led many news outlets, like The New York Times, to claim that this was “the first Vatican exception to a long-held policy condemning condom use.” Many Catholics were confused. The controversy revealed widespread misunderstandings of the Church’s teachings with regard to the use of contraception. It’s therefore worthwhile to read what Pope Benedict said in context and then to make some important clarifications. 

 Read more...

"A public relations flub, but no seismic shift in teaching"

Russell Shaw, in an opinion piece for CNA, says regarding the condom controversy that "...a lot of people have blamed the media for the confusion that has surrounded this incident. In some instances, the media did indeed blow it, but that was hardly their fault."

Read more from his perspective here.

"Pope’s ‘switch’ on condoms"

Ignatius Press President Mark Brumley has contributed a guest editorial to the Napa Valley Register in California, debunking the media claims that the Pope has endorsed condom use:

Judging by the media hype, you’d think the pope just published a book about condoms. His new book, “Light of the World,” actually covers a wide range of issues raised by veteran journalist Peter Seewald: the clergy sexual abuse scandal, climate change, moral relativism, spreading the Gospel, relations among religions, the search for Christian unity, dialogue with Islam, religion in public life, the roles of faith and reason, reforms in the Church, and the second coming of Christ, to name only a few subjects.

The questions are direct, often challenging; the answers, equally direct and often perhaps surprising.
Yes, the pope talks a bit about condoms. But contrary to what has been widely reported, he doesn’t endorse their use, even in “rare cases.”

 Read more...

George Wiegel on The World Over Live

George Wiegel, who contributed a foreword to the US edition of Light of the World, appears to discuss the book on EWTN's The World Over Live. (Segment starts at the 6:00 mark.)

"Should the Pope clarify his remarks? He already did."

Over at Catholic Culture, Phil Lawler addresses the confusion some people are having over the Pope's words about condoms:

 Amid the furor about the Pope’s statement on condom use, perhaps you’re asking why the Holy Father didn’t say something clear and unequivocal. Why didn’t he condemn the drive to accept recreational sex, and rely on condoms for safety? Why didn’t he say something like this:

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.

The above paragraph, of course, is exactly what Pope Benedict did say—in the paragraph directly preceding the one that’s caused all the fuss. Find it on page 119 of Light of the World. 

Read more...

"Media Barriers to Truth"

National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Fr. Thomas Williams on Light of the World and the media reaction.

So what exactly did the pope say in his new book and what does the Catholic Church say about condom use? Father Thomas D. Williams is a Michigan-born Catholic priest, professor at Regina Apostolorum University in Rome, and author of Knowing Right from Wrong: A Christian Guide to Conscience, Greater Than You Think, and A Heart Like His, among other books. He took some questions about the current papal media frenzy about condoms.

Q. We’ve read in the New York Times that the pope is sowing confusion on condoms in the new book-length interview with him, Light of the World. What’s the pope thinking going around confusing people?

A: The fact is that people, including Catholics and even many priests, are already confused about the Church’s teaching on contraception and natural family planning. They know that the Church opposes contraception but they don’t know why. The pope’s remarks didn’t cause this confusion but they did bring it to the fore. All this attention on the possibility of using condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa actually provides us with a singular “teaching moment.” People are asking important questions: Why is the Church opposed to contraception? What about the use of condoms in homosexual relationships? How about condoms in the case of prostitutes? Unmarried couples? These issues are usually taboo, and now is a great time to discuss them.

Read the whole piece here.

"The Pope Whisperer"

The Irish Times profiles Peter Seewald:

...by the time of the book’s Vatican presentation, on Tuesday, Seewald had been quizzed for three days about nothing but condoms, condoms and condoms.

He complained to the assembled press that it was a “crisis of journalism” if 17 lines about condoms could overshadow the rest of his 214-page scoop.

 Read more....

Jimmy Akin discusses the condom controversy in the media

Phil Lawler: The Pope's message turned upside-down

Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture writes:

Today, what the world thinks Pope Benedict said is almost exactly the opposite of what he clearly intended.

In Chapter 11 of his new book, Light of the World, Pope Benedict mounts a strong defense of his argument that condom use is not the appropriate means of fighting the AIDS epidemic.

This week, millions of people received the impression that the Pope made precisely the opposite argument-- that he recommended condoms as a defense against AIDS...

He goes on to argue that the public relations effort on the part of the Vatican has fallen short. What do you think?

Read more...

CNA interviews Peter Seewald

CNA recently spoke exclusively with German journalist Peter Seewald, author of the new book-length interview with Pope Benedict XVI.

Last summer, Seewald interviewed the Pope over a period of several days at Castel Gandolfo. The conversations were compiled in his new book, "Light of the Word: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times."

Seewald previously published two books on then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "The Salt of the Earth," and "God and the World."

CNA's edited interview with Seewald is below:

Click here to read more...

ABC, CBS Inaccurately Report Pope's Condom Remarks as 'Change in Policy'

Newsbusters shows how inaccurately the mainstream news media has been in its reportage of Pope Benedict's statements on condoms:

On Tuesday evening, ABC and CBS furthered the mainstream media's largely inaccurate reporting on Pope Benedict XVI's recent remarks on the morality of condom use. While the pontiff stated that condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection," World News anchor Diane Sawyer stated that "the Pope shifts his rules on condom use." Evening News anchor Katie Couric labeled Benedict XVI's comment a "historic statement," and trumpeted how supposedly, "Pope Benedict says, for the first time, that condoms are okay to protect against HIV and other diseases."

Read more...

"Condoms! Condoms! Condoms!"

In a guest post at the Chicago Tribune's The Seeker blog, Fr. Robert Barron laments the tone of the coverage Light of the World has been getting.

He writes that "one of the stupidest and most dispiriting expressions of the media culture that I have ever encountered is the 'coverage' of Pope Benedict’s recently-published interview entitled Light of the World. I can’t really say that I was surprised."
Read more here...

Shedding Some Light on The Light of the World

Mark Brumley, President of Ignatius Press, and Carl E. Olson, editor of Ignatius Insight, talk about the unprecedented and heavily anticipated interview with Pope Benedict XVI, Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times, by Peter Seewald.

Click here to listen to or download this podcast.

Light of the World and the Mainstream Media

 

Ignatius Press president Mark Brumley has been busy fielding questions about Light of the World from a multitude of media sources. But they all seem to ask the same questions…

Mainstream Media:  So the Pope has written a book about condoms!

Mark Brumley: Well, actually, it’s an interview book.  And journalist Peter Seewald interviewed Benedict about a wide-range of topics, not just about condoms.

MM: Yes, but condoms must be a major theme of the book.  Look at all the coverage that has focused on condoms!

Mark: Actually, the Pope’s comments about condoms cover only about two pages out of about 200 pages of Q & As.

MM: Well, what did the Pope say about condoms?

Mark: You can go here and read for yourself what he said.

MM:  Many readers won’t want to be bothered to do that.  Can’t you just tell us?

Mark: Really, the Pope’s remarks aren’t very long.  And Ignatius Press has gone to the trouble to have them translated into English, so English-speakers can read them for themselves.

MM:  I’m sure people appreciate that, Mr. Brumley, but, please, summarize things for us.  When can we use condoms, according to the Pope?

Mark: The Pope never said we may use condoms.

MM: That’s not what I read online.  I read the headline “Pope Approves Condoms” or something like that.

Mark: May I suggest that you and your readers actually look at what the Pope said?

MM: Mr. Brumley, you seem like you’re trying to dodge my question.  Please, answer my question.  When, according to the Pope, may we use condoms?

Mark: Ok. Let me try to explain this to you.  The Pope did not approve condom use.  Not even on rare occasions, contrary to what some media reports said.