From the "They Haven't Got a Clue " file.

Dr. Michael Sidibe praised Pope Benedict for giving new room for dialogue, apparently by saying something new.

The head of the U.N. AIDS agency told a Vatican conference Saturday that the pope had opened the door to greater dialogue with his groundbreaking comments on condoms and HIV prevention – even as Vatican officials stressed abstinence and marital fidelity as the best prevention.


Dr. Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, was invited to speak to the conference on preventing HIV and caring for HIV-positive people, a significant event in and of itself, given that the Vatican usually only invites like-minded outsiders to its conferences and UNAIDS has not been like-minded on this issue at all.

UNAIDS holds that condoms are an "integral and essential" part of HIV prevention programs, which it says should also include education about delaying the start of sexual activity, limiting sexual partners and marital fidelity. The Catholic Church opposes condom use as part of its overall opposition to artificial contraception.

The Church does, however, play a crucial role in caring for HIV-positive people, particularly in Africa where some two-thirds of the world's 22 million infected people live. It runs hospitals and hospices, orphanages and clinics and has played a critical role in helping to de-stigmatize those with the virus and stress the need for changes in sexual behavior to stop its spread.

But the Church has long been accused of contributing to the AIDS crisis because of its opposition to condoms.

That was why Pope Benedict XVI made headlines last year when he said in the book "Light of the World" that a male prostitute who intends to use a condom might be taking a first step toward greater responsibility because he is looking out for the welfare of his partner.

"This is very important," Sidibe told the conference. "This has helped me to understand his position better and has opened up a new space for dialogue."

At the same time, however, the Vatican officials speaking at the conference either glossed over or made no reference whatsoever to Benedict's condom remarks – evidence of a certain "one step forward, two steps back" mentality that often characterizes developments in the Catholic Church.

Dr. Sidibe and the author of this column demonstrate that they have spent so much time listening to their "amen corner" that their ability to hear and understand something other than what they want to hear has atrophied.

Benedict did not endorse condom usage.  What he did was say that when a person choose to commit a moral wrong in a way that limits worse evils to other people rather than lesser evils, that person may be making the first steps toward a conversion. 

That's all.

It's nothing new really, and hardly surprising, except to people who can't handle shades of gray in their moral outlook.