Vatican press office alters Pontiff’s words on AIDS

March 19, 2009

A growing chorus of journalists and bloggers is criticizing the Holy See Press Office for altering the text of Pope Benedict’s comments made by Pope Benedict in his flight en route to Cameroon. Reporters who heard and taped the Pope's words say that the press office added the concept of “risk” in the following sentence, thus softening the Pope’s words: “the scourge can't be resolved with the distribution of condoms: on the contrary, there is a risk of increasing the problem.”

The press office issued a remarkable "clarification" of the Pope's remark, in which Father Federico Lombardi said that "the Holy Father was reiterating the position of the Catholic Church and the basic lines of her commitment to combat the terrible scourge of HIV/AIDS." Father Lombardi added his own considerably softer statement that the Church does not believe "relying primarily on the greater dissemination of condoms is, in fact, the best, most longsighted or effective way to combat the scourge of HIV/AIDS and safeguard human life."

 

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Further information:

• Clarification of the Pope's remarks on HIV/AIDS (VIS)
• Interview of the Holy Father during the flight to Africa (Holy See, Italian)
• Vatican backtracks over Pope's condom stance (The Times)
• Damian Thomspon: It looks like some idiot in the Vatican press office tampered with the Pope's quotes. Time for sackings (The Telegraph)
• Was Pope Benedict misquoted on condoms in Africa? Maybe not. (American Papist)