Is The Pope Ready to Endorse Trojans and Other Condoms?: HIV May Shift Catholic Stance on Condom Use

I never dated a Catholic that didn't use birth control despite the church's stand. Perhaps, the Pope is very late on the subject, but there appears there might be a shift on the Catholic church's belief on condoms. The Pope's book questions why the Catholic has taken so long to even come close to approving condoms for stopping the spread of disease, and why it has taken him so long to say its time for the Vatican to reconsider their stance.

However, at this time, the Catholic church has not changed its stand on birth control. It's only looking back at history to see if their does need to be a change in their policy considering the AIDS epidemic.

Quotes from a new book of interviews with him made headlines around the world and some commentators went overboard by saying the Roman Catholic Church had made a sudden about-face on birth control and finally caught up with modern society.

A close reading of those quotes shows the pontiff not breaking from past teachings but thinking his way through the issue with logic dating back to the 13th century Saint Thomas Aquinas. He concludes that condom use, while still wrong, can be a lesser evil in certain circumstances.

Many Catholic theologians came to the same conclusion years ago and some priests in Africa privately advise this if the alternative is infection, for example to a woman whose HIV-positive husband demands sex.