Will Pope Green Light Condom Use?

The Vatican is studying whether condoms can be condoned to help stem the tide of AIDS and a host of other bioethical issues such as stem cell research, but there is no indication of when or whether it would pronounce itself on the matter, officials said.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who heads the Vatican office for health care, was quoted over the weekend in Italy's La Repubblica daily as saying his office was preparing a document on the question of condoms and AIDS, and that it would be released soon.

But on Tuesday, he clarified that his office was merely studying the issue at the request of the pope as part of a broader "dialogue" with other Vatican departments.

"We are conducting a very profound scientific, technical and moral study" on how to deal with married couples when one is infected with HIV, he told Vatican Radio.

He said the study would be presented to Pope Benedict XVI, "who with his wisdom and the help of the Holy Spirit will take a decision and tell us where we are going."

While the Vatican has no specific policy concerning condoms and AIDS, the Catholic Church opposes the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against contraception. It advocates sexual abstinence as the best way to combat the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The issue was reignited last week when a one-time papal contender, retired Milan Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, said in comments published in Italian newsweekly L'Espresso that condoms were the "lesser evil" in combating the spread of AIDS.

Other cardinals and prelates have made similar comments, arguing that when confronted with the possibility that within a married couple, an HIV-positive spouse could transmit the virus to the other, it was a "lesser evil" to condone the couple's use of condoms.

Other cardinals, however, have flatly rejected their argument — an indication that the issue is still undecided at the Vatican.

Two Vatican officials said Tuesday that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — which was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became pope — had for some time been gathering information on a broad host of bioethical issues, including AIDS and condoms.

Lozano Barragan's office, as well as the Pontifical Academy for Life, a Vatican think tank that focuses on bioethical issues such as artificial procreation, end-of-life care and stem cell research, have contributed to the congregation's study, the officials said, speaking on condition they not be identified further.

However, the officials said there was no indication that the congregation was actively preparing a document on the issue, much less about when a pronouncement might emerge. "It might have been put on the back burner," one official at the Academy for Life said.