Duncan Gillies: Forgive me Father but I'm confused about evil

Opinion

Pope's blessing on condoms a step in the right direction but church has a dark history when it comes to prostitutes and Aids.

Pope's blessing on condoms a step in the right direction but church has a dark history when it comes to prostitutes and Aids.

One of the great things about growing up a Catholic was confession.

Basically, you could do anything and tell a priest and the slate would be wiped clean. As simple as that. You were no longer going to Hell.

The thing is, when you're a kid, priests are hard to impress. So, I would make up most of my sins.

I'm sure I'm not alone in having lied to a priest. Catholics know there are few things more stressful than being next in line for confession and not having any sins worth mentioning. You rack your brains searching for something that might get you at least a couple of Hail Marys as penance. Sometimes you get desperate. "Forgive me Father, but you know that body that washed up on the beach.."

It was only later in life when riddled with guilt at the mere thought of thinking something sinful that I realised just how liberating confessing one's sins can really be.

It doesn't help that many priests have heard it all. Wine, women and fast cars. And that's just from the wayward members of the clergy.

I imagine many from their congregations are no better. But I bet there wouldn't be many Catholics who have knelt down to confess their sins and said: "Forgive me father, for I used a condom."

Now, I might be completely wrong in saying that. Priests are forbidden from discussing what is said inside the confessional. That's why you don't see any tweets from priests saying, "OMG! Just gave Seamus O'Shea 10 Decades of the Rosary for cheating on his wife. That'll teach him for wearing a condom. LOL!"

But, from what I have read of the Bible, wearing a condom isn't actually a sin. So it is interesting to see that Pope Benedict, who last year said condoms could make the Aids crisis in Africa worse, has softened his stance on their use.

In Light of the World, a book by German journalist Peter Seewald based on interviews with the Pope, Benedict uses the case of a male prostitute as an example of when it is better to use a condom than to infect others with the Aids virus.

That a male prostitute should come to mind when the Pope spoke on the subject only led to more confusion.

It turns out he thinks it is also acceptable for women to rely on condoms to protect themselves from infection.

It must be noted that the church is still against married couples using condoms as a means of family planning. As one of the youngest members of a medium-sized Catholic family who quite possibly wouldn't be here today had contraception been promoted by the Vatican, I have mixed feelings on the issue. Promoting the use of condoms as a way of tackling Aids, though, seems to be a step in the right direction.

The church, however, has a dark history when it comes to prostitutes and Aids. In 2001 the Vatican acknowledged that nuns in at least 23 countries, mainly in Africa, had been sexually abused by priests, reportedly because they were afraid of contracting the Aids virus from the prostitutes they usually visited.

United States weekly magazine the

National Catholic Reporter

broke the story. Nuns were reportedly raped, encouraged to go on the pill, forced to have abortions and all along told to keep quiet. Pope John Paul II's official spokesman, Joaquin Navarro Valls, responded by saying: "The problem is known and involves a restricted geographical area. Certain negative situations must not overshadow the often heroic faith of the overwhelming majority of religious, nuns and priests."

I imagine the Vatican dealt with the problem swiftly and efficiently in much the way it dealt with paedophile priests, by placing the problem under one of three large cups and moving them around so quickly that when they lifted the cups the problem had magically disappeared.

Now, I'm not brave enough to suggest the Vatican would ever try to cover up such a sex scandal or to even suggest its new stance on condom use may in part be designed to avert similar scandals in the future. To suggest such things would be to risk the wrath not of the Catholic Church but of my devoutly Catholic parents and siblings who can be pretty scary when filled with the Holy Spirit.

I do, however, question why the Pope chose to say that to use a condom was the lesser of two evils when compared to passing on a deadly infection. In my view, it's the lesser of most evils. In fact, it's not an evil at all. I mean, it's hardly up there with, say, lying to a priest.

Duncan Gillies is the Herald's Foreign Desk sub-editor