"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility..."
What's interesting about his comments is that he's approving the use of condoms by male prostitutes, who are presumably engaged in gay sex, but he's not backing down from the Vatican's official position that married couples shouldn't use them. So if a male prostitute uses a condom, it's moral behavior, but it's immoral if a Catholic couple with four children uses one.
What's going on here?
There's a simple way to look at it which clears up not only this position, but also many other strange aspects of religion: a religion is not a moral code, spiritual guidance or cosmological explanation, but simply as a meme, that is, a set of beliefs and practices which is capable of reproduction and adaptive mutation.
Imagine that you put a large group of people on an island who hold a variety of religious beliefs. Which of the following beliefs will still be practiced in a hundred years?
- You shouldn't have children through sexual reproduction, but instead adopt children and teach them to do the same (which was part of the belief system of the Shakers).
- The only way to eternal salvation is to practice X (fast on certain days, say certain prayers), and it is your responsibility to save as many people as possible by converting them to your beliefs. Mormonism and evangelical Christianity contain this belief.
- The only way to eternal salvation is to practice X, which includes prohibitions against using birth control.
- Girls should not be educated, and women should be denied professional advancement.
- There may or may not be an afterlife, but there's no Hell, and we are unified in our shared search for spiritual growth (the Unitarian position).
I think all of these belief systems spread using several basic strategies:
Evangelism, where a belief system teaches that the adherent's duty to spread it.
Fear, where a belief system teaches that there are unacceptable consequences to abandoning it, such as eternal damnation.
Practices that increase sexual reproduction, such as prohibiting birth control or preventing girls from receiving education (since educated women have fewer children). Most people become Catholics, Muslims or Hindus because they are born to Catholic, Muslim or Hindu parents. The more children people have, the more likely it is that their belief system will spread.
Inclusion, in which a belief system is easy to belong to, such as the principles of the Universalist Unitarian church, or encompasses an extremely diverse set of beliefs, such as Hinduism.
Looked at this way, the Pope has been selected by the Catholic meme as the best expression of its reproductive strategy. He won't take any position that might prevent Catholics from having more children, but of course, gay sex isn't going to lead to children...so why not make a special exception? Especially when it might save Catholic lives, say that of a married Catholic man who has sex with male prostitutes on the side?
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