Quote Originally Posted by Moros View Post
Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla: as someone more informed on Catholic and Christian faith, how do you personally fit this into the church's and the bible's doctrine? I always was learned at Catholic school that sex was only morally okay, when used for reproduction. How then can the condom be morally okay to use when you are bringing someone else in danger of contamination? If this is the case, then one is not using sex for reasons it should? Hence abstinence is the morally correct solution. Thus isn't this rule implying that sex can be used for means other than reproduction?
I'm not against the use of condoms, but this rule doesn't make too much sense to me, when put into the perspective of the larger list of rules. I'm confused about what (I think) I know about catholic rules, now.
For some time now the Church has viewed sex as not only the means of reproduction but as an expression of love and closeness from one half of a married couple for their spouse. The "reproduction only" attitude was never doctrinally correct -- though some felt it should have been and went so far as to suggest sex after menopause was wrong.

The Church DOES assert that sex is part of marriage and that adultery and pre-marital sex "cheapen" what should be a more profound interaction between the spouses whose union has been made sacred through matrimony. The Church opposes condoms for married couples because such interferes with the potential for the creation of life through man's artifice. The Church opposes condoms among the unmarried because it opposes sex among the unmarried -- condom usage therein is secondary to that more basic point.

The Holy Father, responding to what is effectively a lovely "forced choice" question, acknowledged that condom usage to prevent HIV was better than spreading the infection to another -- not a difficult choice really. The Holy Father did NOT assert that extra-marital sex was on the "good" list.