From: People For Peace
Date: Sat, May 19, 2012 at 1:12 AM
Subject: Regional News
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News 
UNDERSTANDING
FAITH TODAY
BY FR
JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
SATURDAY,
MAY 19, 2012
With the Apostolic Letter of 11 October 2011, Porta fidei, Pope
Benedict XVI declared a Year of Faith
to begin on 11 October 2012 with the 50thanniversary of the opening of the
Second Ecumenical Vatican Council called by Blessed Pope John XXIII in October
11, 1962. It will conclude on 24 November 2013, the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus
Christ, Universal King.
Inset-from left to right-Pope John XXIII, Paul
VI, John Paul I and current Pope-Benedict XVI. He says condoms were not “a real
or moral solution,” in some cases they might be used as “a first step in the
direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility.” He cited as
an example a male prostitute who might use a condom so as not to spread
disease/ File
While the Pope announced the year to help Catholics
appreciate the gift of faith, deepen their relationship with God and strengthen
their commitment to sharing faith with others in accordance with the spirit of
the Second Vatican Council, the challenge however, is whether our Catholic
faith corresponds to the needs of our time as Pope John XXIII wished it.
Today, the world seems to be changing quickly and
spinning out of control with recent developments in science and culture calling
almost everything into question that we once believed. Scientists today appear
to debate almost everything of cultural significance, from whether the unborn
are persons from conception to whether miracles are possible.
The greatest challenge facing Christians today is not
finding answers to specific questions or solutions to specific problems, but
making clear to our culture that the Christian faith is relevant to all
questions and all problems.
According to Pope John XXIII, the most popular of
modern times-and perhaps ever, the church must move within the signs of time.
Although he did not categorically condemn the contraceptives, some liberal
theologians maintain that had he lived today, no doubt he would allow condoms
to be used as means to save life from people with HIV/Aids.
He wanted the Church that could bring Christ to the
world. Christ who came to save life and not destroy it. Pope John XXIII even after his death he is enormously popular and widely
admired as a man of goodwill, holiness and vision.
There is a say that good people do not last longer. At
the death of Pius XII he was elected Pope on 28 October 1958, taking the name
John XXIII. Although his pontificate lasted less than five years, this
presented him to the entire world as an authentic image of the Good Shepherd-
meek and gentle, enterprising and courageous, simple and active.
He carried out the Christian duties of the corporal
and spiritual works of mercy: visiting the imprisoned and the sick, welcoming
those of every nation and faith, bestowing on all his exquisite fatherly care.
His social magisterium in the Encyclicals Pacem
in terris
and Mater et Magistra
was deeply appreciated.
He convoked the Roman Synod, established the
Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law and summoned the Second
Vatican Council. The faithful saw in him a reflection of the goodness of God
and called him "the good Pope". He was sustained by a profound spirit
of prayer. He died on the evening of 3 June 1963, in a spirit of profound trust
in Jesus and of longing for his embrace.
Pope John XXIII in the encyclical emphasized the need
to speak of man's rights. Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily
integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life,
particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the
necessary social services.
In consequence, he has the right to be looked after in
the event of illhealth; disability stemming from his
work; widowhood; old age; enforced unemployment; or whenever through no fault
of his own he is deprived of the means of livelihood.
On Rights Pertaining to Moral and Cultural Values he
emphasized that man has a natural right to be respected. He has a right to his
good name. He has a right to freedom in investigating the truth, and—within the
limits of the moral order and the common good—to freedom of speech and
publication, and to freedom to pursue whatever profession he may choose. He has
the right, also, to be accurately informed about public events.
Also among man's rights is that of being able to
worship God in accordance with the right dictates of his own conscience, and to
profess his religion both in private and in public. Human beings have also the
right to choose for themselves the kind of life which appeals to them: whether
it is to found a family—in the founding of which both the man and the woman
enjoy equal rights and duties—or to embrace the priesthood or the religious
life.
Men are by nature social, and consequently they have
the right to meet together and to form associations with their fellows. They
have the right to confer on such associations the type of organization which
they consider best calculated to achieve their objectives. They must live
together and consult each other's interests.
Man's personal dignity he says requires besides that
he enjoy freedom and be able to make up his own mind when he acts. In his
association with his fellows, therefore, there is every reason why his
recognition of rights, observance of duties, and many-sided collaboration with
other men, should be primarily a matter of his own personal decision.
Each man should act on his own initiative, conviction,
and sense of responsibility, not under the constant pressure of external
coercion.
Like Pope John XXIII, Pope John Paul I had dreamed of
a Roman Catholic Church that would truly respond to the needs of its people on
vital issues such as artificial birth control.
He dreamed of a Church that would dispense with the
wealth, power and prestige it had acquired through Vatican Incorporated; of a
church that would get out of the marketplace, where the message of Christ had
become tainted; of a Church that would once again rely on what has always been
its greatest asset, its source of true power, its greatest claim to a unique
prestige: the Gospel.
One of Pope John Paul I’s
dreams was to clean up the Vatican Bank which was later riddled in 1982 with
scandals revealing the
According to David Yallop in his Book: “ In God’s
Name” he was killed on the 33rd day of his papacy, the number 33 being an
occult symbol that good will never defeat evil and the disguise and duplicity
of the Vatican will never be uncovered.
He was the first pope to choose a double name and did so to honor
his two immediate predecessors, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. He was also
the first (and so far only) pope to use "the first" in his
regal name.
Like Pope John XXIII, Pope John Paul I never lived
longer. But even those who do not die sooner, their efforts to bring the church
within the signs of time are frustrated. Renowned Catholic theologian, Fr
Charles Curran is one of such.
He was removed from the faculty of the Catholic
University of America by the Vatican in 1986 for reaffirming the need for a ban
on artificial contraception and questioning the Catholic Church's authority on
teaching moral issues, including premarital sex, abortion and homosexuality.
He challenged Pope Paul VI’s
encyclical Humanae Vitae, published in 1968, and largely
rejected by lay Catholics and clergy around the world. In his book: 'Loyal Dissent', he says you can be a
faithful Catholic but disagree with the pope. He concurred with his fellow
theologian, Hans Kung who refutes the idea that Pope is infallible.
Their arguments concur with philosopher Kierkegaard
who argues that Christian faith is not a matter of regurgitating church dogma.
It is a matter of individual subjective passion, which cannot be mediated by
the clergy or by human artefacts.
The carton depicts Kierkegaard’s theory of leap
of faith- faith based on fear and doubts-because you are not sure whether what
you believe in represents the will of God. In its most commonly used meaning, a
leap of faith is the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or
un-provable, or without empirical evidence.
The choice of faith he says is not made once and for
all. It is essential that faith be constantly renewed by means of repeated
avowals of faith. Christian dogma, according to Kierkegaard, embodies paradoxes
which are offensive to reason.
In other words, faith must change with time. That is
why, even though the Vatican has insisted it won’t change its stand on
contraceptives even those dying from HIV/Aids, some high ranking authorities of
the Roman Catholic Church argue that in the case of HIV/Aids Vatican must
change its stand.
In May 2011, Monsignor Kevin Dowling, bishop of
Rustenburg, South Africa, said in an e-mail that condoms are in line with
Catholic teachings “in certain circumstances, [when] the use of a condom is
allowable not as a contraceptive but to prevent disease.”
He said of the HIV ministry program he administers,
“We do not give out condoms, but people are fully informed about prevention
methods and helped to make informed decisions about how they can protect
themselves and, if they themselves are HIV positive, how they can avoid
infecting someone else.”
In December 2010, Archbishop
Bernard Longley, archbishop of
That is how I read and understood what he was saying
about the use of a condom in those particular circumstances that he outlined
and that one could see how conscience works within an individual” (The Tablet,
“Treading a fine line,” December 10, 2010).
In response to Pope Benedict’s statement
condemning the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV, Bishop
Clemente of Portugal denounced the pope’s remarks stating that in the case of
HIV, condoms are “not only recommended, they can be ethically
obligatory,” Associated Press, March 29, 2009.
Bishop Dowling, in an interview about HIV/AIDS prevention
and treatment in
The issue is to protect life. That must be our
fundamental goal." Drawing attention to the especially difficult
plight of women in the traditionally male-dominated societies of his diocese he
continued, "My passion is for the women. I'm in that corner."
About the African people, he says, "They must use condoms,"
maintaining his stance despite the
Mombasa Archbishop Boniface Lele,
Kenya said, “With some counseling—and this is
something we don’t tell everyone—you can ask couples to use condoms, so that
the rate of re-infection goes down,” Kenya London News, August 25, 2006.
In an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur,
the archbishop of Douala, Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi, defended the decision to use condoms to prevent the
transmission of HIV/AIDS between married couples, saying, “If a partner in a
marriage is infected with HIV, the use of condoms makes sense,” The Tablet, May
11, 2006.
In an interview with a Scottish newspaper, Mario
Conti, the Archbishop of Glasgow, pledges his support for the Pontifical Council
for Health Care Workers' recent decision to conduct and release a study on
condom use to fight AIDS and contends that using condoms to stop transmission
of the disease from one spouse to another is "common sense," The
Scotsman, May 5, 2006.
South African Bishop Kevin Dowling addresses a forum
sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights about the use of condoms in preventing
the spread of AIDS. While he reiterates the important place that fidelity and
abstinence before marriage can have in stopping the deadly virus, he maintains
that this approach alone is not a pragmatic solution based in the realities of
people's lives around the world. He insists, "Abstinence is fine as an
ideal, but it does not work in all circumstances (Washington Post, April 26)
Condoms are worn during intercourse to prevent
pregnancy and the spread of some sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), such as
HIV, gonorrhea, and chlamydia.
Although Benedict said condoms were not “a real or moral solution,” in some
cases, they might be used as “a first step in the direction of a moralization,
a first assumption of responsibility,” citing as an example a male prostitute
who might use a condom so as not to spread disease, the statement appeared to
be a sign of the lingering confusion when the Vatican said later Pope was
misquoted.
In a book published 2010, Benedict XVI-Light of the
World-Conversation with Peter Seewald, the Vatican
said that Benedict’s comments had been misinterpreted and manipulated by those
who effectively saw them as permission for more widespread use of condoms,
which like all birth control, goes against church teaching. Some conservative
Catholics, especially in the
Inset- a buddhist
monk at
In the book’s German and English editions, the text
cites the example of a male prostitute, implying homosexual sex, in which a
condom would not be a form of contraception.
Although the Italian edition uses the feminine form of
prostitute, Father Federico Lombardi, the Director of the Vatican Press Office
said that the Italian translation was an error, but added that the pope had
specifically told him that the issue was not procreation but rather disease
prevention — regardless of gender.
Peter Seewald is a veteran German journalist who
has done two other internationally best-selling book length interviews with
Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI): Salt of the Earth and God and the World. He is also the
author of Benedict XVI: An
Intimate Portrait, and the photo-biography, Pope Benedict XVI: Servant of the Truth.
Kenya Episcopal Conference (KEC) while reacting on
Pope’s statement blamed media for misrepresenting the remarks of Pope Benedict
XVI on the issue of sexual morality and the struggle against the HIV and AIDS
infection.
The bishops in their statement reaffirmed that the
position of the Catholic Church as regards the use of condoms, both as a means
of contraception and as a means of addressing the grave issue of HIV/AIDS
infection has not changed and remains as always unacceptable.
They said the media reports had unfairly quoted the
Pope out of context and banalized the deeply
sensitive medical, moral and pastoral issues of HIV/AIDS and accompaniment of
those infected or affected, reducing the discussion on the demands of sexual
morality to a mere comment on condoms.
The book in question “Light of the World: the Pope,
the Church and the Signs of Times- A conversion of Pope Benedict XVI with Peter
Seewald” the bishops said in a statement was the
result of an interview and was not written by the Pope.
People for
Peace in Africa (PPA)
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org