Rules

Are made for exceptions.

In the 'Hate to Say I told Ya So' category for the morning:

The reason very often that something has to be made into an official "Rule" is because people didn't follow it before and something was getting abused- either a person or a practice. Sometimes the reason that it was not followed before had to do with the fact in some instances it did not make sense, morally or reasonally, to do it-and that is why when folks looked at only those instances a lobby was created to fight against it. That is why statutes very often have litanies of exemptions. Others disagreed. (Sometimes things are not 'rules' as such because they should not be at all-lets leave aside that for a minute.)

The Pope has recently come out with a statement- or set of clarifying statements- that speaks to the issue of contraception and when it might be appropriate- to curb the spread of AIDS. If your motivation is not birth control but stopping the spread of disease -or stopping it in someone else who has HIV- it is acceptable now to use contraception according to Catholic doctrine.--especially FATAL disease. It is life or death stuff.
This shockingly has some people wondering if the Pope is contradicting himself and thus not 'infallible' or where exactly the line is supposed to be drawn in this whole infallibility business. In some things he is infallible, some things he isn't apparently. Whether or not this signals a sea change in Papal attitudes (after quite controversial remarks made when the Pope went to Africa) or a clarification of what didn't get translated in the first place, one thing is clear: Catholic people, lay people and clergy, have to start using their brains a little better. Fides et Ratio, Ratio et Fides (Faith and Reason) are supposed to co-exist and are mutually compatible.

My brother in law who is a professor in a major university among other things hates that GPS thing in cars that speak your directions (bloody annoying). He said-when did people forget how to read their own maps and use their own brains?. He tells his little four year old son to "use your brain" when puzzling through things and not just ask for the answer to teach him that he has within him the ability to figure it out. Catholics need to 'use your brain' better. The GPS is programmed a certain way- but there are sometimes quicker better more scenic side streets that you need to look at on your own map to find the other way, which may be more excellent.
Sometimes the Irish do deserve the stereotype that they drink a bit too much (I'm part Irish I can say that) and sometimes Catholics deserve the stereotype that they are just stupid bleating blind sheep (I'm part Catholic I can say that). Let me show you a more excellent way.

If you are standing at a traffic light -and even if there is a traffic cop holding his hand up to stop you from crossing against a red light (traffic laws are laws after all) and your little five year old child darts across the street against traffic to chase his dog, are you going to stand there and let some traffic cop tell you not to run after your child and get her out of the traffic? Of course not. That's why the total ban against contraception is a law that makes sense but has exceptions that make more sense-morally, rationally, spiritually and now, thank God, legally.

This speaks to more than the fact that large segments of the Catholic world just take as dogma anything spoon fed them without trying to figure out why or if it makes any sense, but it begs the question-who is the Pope getting his advice from? Not just PR advice (and there have been a few colossal gaffs there haven't there) but who is giving him doctrinal guidance? Who set his GPS? Archbishop Dolan of New York said "The Pope is like Merrill Lynch-when he talks we listen." My question is -Who does the Pope listen to? Do they have hardening of the arteries around the heart? Are they just traditionalists out of lack of imagination?

Here is where the tragedy comes in- when Catholics actually persecute people who respectfully disagree. The hierarchy wants "civility" while the lay folks and few parish priests taking their cue want to send people to the stockades for using their brains. This really has to stop- on a wide variety of controversial issues actually. Disagreement on basic rational grounds does not mean we are all sliding toward Gomorrah. It may mean we outsmarted the GPS- because perhaps a few new roads were built after the GPS was programmed.
The Pope is less the great OZ behind the curtain and more an elderly German professor who consults with colleagues as do most professors, reads peer reviews, and tries to figure stuff out like the rest of us. He might be able to walk on water-but so might you. Use your brain- please, for God's sake.

Postscript: This new clarified position, or old untranslated position, or whatever you wish to call it-is a bit nuanced and I recommend reading the Zenit article to the right. Whatever you do don't call it however a 'justification' of condom use-even thought that is what it is. They don't want you justifying it so much as acknowledging it is just a lesser of evils. If you are going to have illicit sex, don't get killed in the process or kill anyone else. It is not an acknowledgment that illicit sex is right or that sex should be banalized or trivialized. Clearly, the African AIDS issue does not just involve however illicit sex. It involves married life- as in a guy contracts AIDS outside the marriage and brings it home to his pregnant wife killing two people or leaving an African orphan with a dead mother. So whether you call it a justification or not, clearly what the Pope is saying, or should be, is that if you know that there are any lethal diseases lurking in your bodily fluids, please don't pass them on, regardless of what you do with your body parts. The 'what you do with your body parts' aspect is something that the Pope, and the 'theology of the body' still have a lot to say about to make for good healthy marriages and the sanctity of the undefiled marriage bed, etc. Did we really need an entire Papal clarification or book to tell people the "please try not to kill anyone in the process" part? Apparently yes, because before people actually thought he meant "if you must, go ahead and enforce a red letter rule, because killing is just collateral damage for the strict blind adherence to irrational rules that protect more people than kill people." Because no one apparently looked at the numbers. Morality by numbers of dead people. Nice.