What the media is missing in the 'condom debate'

You've probably seen the reports on a possible "Catholic shift on condoms" at the Vatican. Secular and liberal Catholic media go ape over this sort of news, and just as predictably miss the point.

Michael Luccione says that he wouldn't worry about any of this too much: "In the first place," he says, "even if the Pope did permit condom use by married couples for AIDS prevention, that would not involve any endorsement of contraception. The contraceptive effect of condom could be unintentional and thus, by the principle of double effect, morally neutral. But it is unlikely that he would encourage even purely prophylactic use of condoms in such a case. They don't work as well as abstinence for either purpose, so approving their use in these circumstances would only encourage people to take undue risks."

Secondly, he says, "The disagreement among theologians about this issue is not over contraception but over the question whether condomistic intercourse counts as a conjugal act at all.... The people who think it's not are, in my opinion, right for the wrong reasons."

See Luccione's three-part blog series on the topic over at Sacramentum Vitae: "The Catholic condom debate."