Dear JohnJack Valero's statement is as follows:
A priest friend has recently alerted me to the fact that some people reading your blog entry on my appearance on Sunday Morning Live in early September in which you quote me, have got the mistaken impression from it that I was advocating the use of condoms, which would create scandalous confusion. I would therefore ask you to put in your blog another entry with the paragraph below in full so that your readers are not left in error.
Regards
Jack
"Some people who did not see the whole of my appearance on Sunday Morning Live (BBC1) in early September and only read what was selectively quoted on this blog may have misunderstood my views about condoms and AIDS. I would like to make it clear I totally support the Magisterium of the Church as expounded in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and all the relevant encyclicals (Humanae Vitae, Veritatis Splendor, Evangelium Vitae, etc). Anyone who would like further clarification can easily contact me through Catholic Voices, Opus Dei, Facebook, etc."Unfortuntately, Jack Valero's statement includes nothing which addresses the scandal caused by what he said on Sunday Morning Live in early September. Indeed it compounds that scandal by suggesting that his comments on Sunday Morning Live can be understood to be true to Catholic church teaching on the transmission of human life.
Here again is what Jack Valero said on behalf of Catholics:
Jack Valero: The Church is not against condoms the Church is against promiscuityJack Valero attempts to make a distinction between the use of condoms to prevent conception and the use of condoms to prevent HIV; and attempts to claim that the Church is not against condoms on the grounds that the Church is not against the use of condoms to prevent HIV.
Julie Bindel: The Church is against condoms!
Jack Valero: The Church is against promiscuity and sex outside of marriage
Colm O'Gorman: Is the Church now supporting the use of condoms?
Jack Valero: No, the Church is against... er... promiscuity
Colm O'Gorman: In marriage? Does the Church oppose the use of condoms in marriage?
Jack Valero: Well, no, the Church is against contraception of course.
Colm O'Gorman: So it's against condoms?
Jack Valero: But, but, we're talking here about HIV, no the Church is against contraception.
Yet Humanae Vitae is crystal-clear in its prohibition of any action by a couple to close the marital act to the transmission of life:
"[E]ach and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life." (Humanae Vitae, 11)As I said at the time, Mr Valero is providing a bridgehead for other Catholics in representative positions to adopt their own dissenting interpretations, not just of Catholic teaching on the use of condoms, but on other areas of Catholic teaching on life and family.
I say this, quite openly, in the spirit described as follows by Archbishop Raymond Burke, soon to be made a cardinal, in his address to the World Prayer Congress for Life earlier this month:
" ... One of the ironies of the present situation is that the person who experiences scandal at the gravely sinful public actions of a fellow Catholic is accused of a lack of charity and of causing division within the unity of the Church. In a society whose thinking is governed by the "dictatorship of relativism" and in which political correctness and human respect are the ultimate criteria of what is to be done and what is to be avoided, the notion of leading someone into moral error makes little sense. What causes wonderment in such a society is the fact that someone fails to observe political correctness and, thereby, seems to be disruptive of the so-called peace of society.And on Humanae Vitae and the separation of the unitive and the procreative dimensions of sexual intercourse, Archbishop Burke said:
"Lying or failing to tell the truth, however, is never a sign of charity. A unity which is not founded on the truth of the moral law is not the unity of the Church. The Church's unity is founded on speaking the truth with love. The person who experiences scandal at public actions of Catholics, which are gravely contrary to the moral law, not only does not destroy unity but invites the Church to repair what is clearly a serious breach in Her life. Were he not to experience scandal at the public support of attacks on human life and the family, his conscience would be uninformed or dulled about the most sacred realities ... "
"... A second fundamental presupposition of my presentation is the essential relationship of the respect for human life and the respect for the integrity of marriage and the family. The attack on the innocent and defenseless life of the unborn has its origin in an erroneous view of human sexuality, which attempts to eliminate, by mechanical or chemical means, the essentially procreative nature of the conjugal act. The error maintains that the artificially altered conjugal act retains its integrity. The claim is that the act remains unitive or loving, even though the procreative nature of the act has been radically violated. In fact, it is not unitive, for one or both of the partners withholds an essential part of the gift of self, which is the essence of the conjugal union."And elsewhere he said:
" ... A most tragic example of the lack of obedience of faith, also on the part of certain Bishops, was the response of many to the Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae of Pope Paul VI, published on July 25, 1968. The confusion which resulted has led many Catholics into habits of sin in what pertains to the procreation and education of human life."Visitors may wish to make up their own mind about the nature of Jack Valero's comments by watching Sunday Morning Live for themselves.
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
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