Use Of Condoms Sometimes OK to stop AIDS: Pope

 Using condoms may sometimes be justified to stop the spread of AIDS, Pope Benedict says in a new book, in a major shift that relaxes one of the Vatican's most controversial positions on their use to combat the disease, according to the following article. The pope's words in the book to be published on Tuesday -- while limited in scope and which do not change the Catholic ban on contraception -- were nonetheless greeted as abreakthrough by dissident Catholics, AIDS workers and commentators. It appears to open the door just a crack to a potential change in Church policy.
      .  .  .  June

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Condoms sometimes permissible to stop AIDS: Pope
Top News | Reuters:

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Using condoms may sometimes be justified to stop the spread of AIDS, Pope Benedict says in a new book, in a major shift that relaxes one of the Vatican's most controversial positions on their use to combat the disease.

The pope's words in the book to be published on Tuesday -- while limited in scope and which do not change the Catholic ban on contraception -- were nonetheless greeted as abreakthrough by dissident Catholics, AIDS workers and commentators.



"It is a marvelous victory for common sense and reason, a major step forward toward recognizing that condom use can play a vital role in reducing the future impact of the HIV pandemic, said Jon O'Brien, head of the U.S. group Catholics for Choice.



In the 219-page book, "Light of the World," the pope also speaks frankly about the possibility that he could resign for health reasons and defends wartime pontiff Pius XII against Jewish accusations that he turned a blind eye to the Holocaust.


He says scandals of sexual abuse of minors by priests. were "an unprecedented shock," even though he had followed the issue for years, and says he can understand why people might quit the Church in protest.


But it is the section on condoms in the book -- a long interview with German Catholic journalist Peter Seewald -- that marked a crack in the once tightly shut door of Church policy.


He cites the example of the use of condoms by prostitutes as "a first step toward moralization," even though condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection."


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5 ANGLICAN BISHOPS Will Be Welcomed By The Vatican

With a joint letter of resignation, 5 Anglican bishops plan to join the Roman Catholic Church, according to the following article.  One of the reasons may have been the permitting of women bishops and the blessing of homosexual unions that the Anglicans had embraced. The Vatican is making plans to welcome them
    . . . June

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As bishops convert, Vatican moving on plan to welcome Anglicans
Catholic News Agency (CNA):

Vatican City, Nov 10, 2010 / 04:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Just weeks after a papal pilgrimage to England, the announcement that five Anglican bishops plan to resign by year’s end and join the Catholic Church is setting wheels in motion at the Vatican.

The Nov. 8 announcement seems to have caught Vatican officials by surprise. And the question of just how these bishops and other former members of the Church of England will enter the Catholic Church has quickly become an important topic of discussion inside the Vatican.

The bishops — Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet, Keith Newton of Richborough, and John Broadhurst of Fulham, along with retired bishops Edwin Barnes and David Silk — cited Pope Benedict XVI’s “generous” invitation last year to Anglicans who are seeking “full communion” with the Catholic Church.

In Nov. 2009, the Pope issued the invitation in an apostolic constitution, "Anglicanorum Coetibus.” The document proposed that former Anglicans could enter into “full communion” with the Church as members of specially-tailored jurisdictions, or “personal ordinariates.”

According to the Pope’s plan, these jurisdictions would be under the authority of local Catholic bishops, but members could maintain their “liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions,” including the traditional permission for priests to be married.

With the five bishops’ announcement, eyes are now on the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which has yet to provide details on the final shape these ordinariates, might take.

But a timetable does seem to be on the horizon. The doctrine office’s head, Cardinal William Levada, will be leading a special closed-door discussion of the matter with the College of Cardinals on Nov. 19.

One of the resigning bishops, Bishop John Broadhurst, told CNA that his decision to leave the Church of England came after many years of hoping that the Anglicans would move closer to Rome.

Instead, he said, Anglicans have distanced themselves further by embracing such radical departures from Christian tradition as permitting women bishops and blessing homosexual unions.

. . . .  In their joint letter of resignation, the five bishops said they were “distressed by developments … in Anglicanism which we believe to be incompatible with the historic vocation of Anglicanism and the tradition of the Church for nearly two thousand years.”

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Interesting. Do you think that the Church of England position of allowing women bishops and blessing homosexual unions is correct or the position of the Roman Catholic Church, which, so far allows neither. Please leave a comment.


June


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Catholic Church Scandal Over PAPAL KNIGHTHOOD of Kufuor

Recently, The Roman Catholic Church conferred the most pretigious Papal Knighthood on ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana, according to the article below. Apparently, someone forgot to do due diligence because they overlooked the fact that Kufuor was a senior member of the Freemasons, long-hated by the Catholic Church. Whoops!
      . . . June

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Scandal Hits Catholic Church
General News 2010-11-06:

…Over Kufour’s Knighthood

A scandal is erupting within the Roman Catholic Church over the recent conferment of the prestigious Knight Commanderhood Order of Pope Pius IX on ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor by Pope Benedict XVI.

A damning article in circulation within the Roman Catholic Church reveals the ex-president’s senior membership status of a powerful secret society in the UK, called the United Grand Lodge of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons of England, which he served as a Senior Grand Deacon (SGD) and a Grand Sword Bearer (PGSwdB

The Freemasons are bitterly abhorred by the Vatican, and all Roman Catholic worshipers have been prohibited by the Pope himself from joining. Anybody who disobeys this order automatically ceases to be a member of the church.

The article also questioned the selection of Mr. Kufuor for the conferment in the face of his alleged adulterous affairs with Gizzle Yadzi, endemic corruption, murders, narcotic drugs afloat the shores of Ghana during his tenure as president and his membership of a secret society, the Freemasons.

A member of the church, Dominic Sagoe, Ghanaian resident in Norway, wrote the article and insists that Mr. Kufuor is undeserving of the knighthood because he is not a Roman Catholic, but rather an Anglican who became a catholic under bizarre circumstance.

It also accused the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference of hypocrisy and the Catholic Standard Newspaper of dishonesty.

While the article reveals that Ghana Catholic Bishops for whatever reason, failed to do due diligence on Mr. Kufuor before presenting his name to Pope Benedict XVI, for the title to be conferred on him, it also exposes a situation where Mr. Kufuor committed sacrilege by dishonestly receiving the award knowing he is not supposed to by virtue of his membership of a Lodge.

The revelation also puts his wife, Mrs. Theresa Kufuor, in collision course with both the Vatican and the Ghana Catholic Bishops for not drawing their attention to her husband’s membership of a secret society which the church has banned its members from joining.

The Catholic Church has been a persistent critic of Freemasonry. Since the early 18th century, the Vatican has issued several papal bulls banning membership of Catholics from Freemasonry under threat of excommunication. Currently, as reiterated in 1983, Catholics who become Masons are in a state of Grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion, but the penalty of excommunication is not formally declared.

The Church argues that Freemasonry’s philosophy is antithetical to Christian doctrine and that it is at many times and places anti-clerical in intent. The 1913 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia argued that some of the ceremonial in the Scottish Rite is anti-Catholic. The Masonic use of Biblical imagery is also seen by the Catholic Church being done in a way that suggests antichrist.

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