Condoms and Catholicism

The mainstream media has once again gotten all excited about what they've perceived as a weakness in the Church's stance on something.  In this case it's condoms.

The Pope, bless him, made a statement about how the use of a condom by a male prostitute may show that he's developing a moral sense.

No, this does not mean that the Church endorses condom use...ever.

But is the Church against condoms?  Is the Church against guns?  Garden tractors?

A condom is a piece of rubber (or something).  In and of itself it has no morality.

It is its frequent use as a means of birth control that is the problem.  If a male (presumably homosexual) prostitute uses a condom, it is not going to be for birth control.  So the Holy Father can actually see the USE of a condom, with the intent to reduce harm, as a sign of a good development.  That there is a condom involved is rather peripheral.  The user is showing concern for the other party and attempting to prevent further evil from occurring, in the form of disease. 

I've seen this likened to someone seeing that a murderer stops torturing his victims before killing them as a sign of a developing sense of compassion.  The murder is still obviously evil, but it is not compounded evil.

The Holy Father, by making statements such as the latest one public, is showing that he believes we have the intelligence to understand what he is saying.  He is not dumbing things down for us.

Let's respond by showing that we do have the intelligence he knows is there, and thinking with the mind of the Church.

And I do thank the poster at Catholic Answers for being the catalyst for this post.