Catholic Church condom prohibition comes face to face with reality of AIDS in Africa

By Marcella Alsan
4/24/2006
Commonweal Magazine: A Review of Religion, Politics and Culture (www.commonwealmagazine.org)

BOSTON, Mass. (Commonweal Magazine) � As a young physician, I often second-guess myself. In practicing medicine such self-criticism is warranted, even obligatory, because a wrong diagnosis can lead to misguided therapy and may end in death. After working at a Catholic hospital in the small sub-Saharan country of Swaziland, however, there is one diagnosis I pronounce with uncharacteristic certitude: AIDS.

HIV/AIDS ACTIVISTS SHOUT DURING RALLY � HIV/AIDS activists shout slogans during a Treatment Action Campaign protest march in Cape Town, South Africa, April 23. The march was in support of a conference in South Africa seeking ways to make community-driven HIV prevention work in a country with one of the world's highest infection rates. (CNS/Reuters)

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The typical patient is a young woman between 18 and 30 years of age. She is wheeled into the examining room in a hospital chair or dragged in, supported by her sister, aunt, or brother. She is frequently delirious; her face is gaunt; her limbs look like desiccated twigs. Surprisingly, the young woman is already a mother many times over, yet she will not live to see her children grow up. More shocking still, she is married; her husband infected her with the deadly virus.

This is the reality: a married woman living in Southern Africa is at higher risk of becoming infected with HIV than an unmarried woman. Extolling abstinence and fidelity, as the Catholic Church does, will not protect her; in all likelihood she is already monogamous. It is her husband who is likely to have HIV. Yet refusing a husband�s sexual overtures risks ostracism, violence, and destitution for herself and her children.

Given these realities, isn�t opposing the use of condoms tantamount to condemning countless women to death? In the midst of the AIDS epidemic, which has already killed tens of millions and preys disproportionately on the poor, the condom acts as a contra mortem and its use is justified by the Catholic consistent ethic of life.

At least, this is the view of many Catholics at the front lines of the global HIV battle. Catholic organizations mercifully provide around 25 percent of the care AIDS victims receive worldwide. Many of the clergy and laity involved in treating people with AIDS, who otherwise fully ascribe to the church�s teachings on sexual ethics and the sanctity of marriage, nevertheless endorse the use of condoms. They argue that the preservation of human life is paramount.

Father Valeriano Paitoni, working in S�o Paulo, Brazil, summarized this perspective: �AIDS is a world epidemic, a public-health problem that must be confronted with scientific advances and methods that have proven effective,� he said. �Rejecting condom use is to oppose the fight for life.�

Bishop Kevin Dowling of South Africa has also been imploring the Vatican to view condom use as curtailing the transmission of death rather than precluding the transmission of life. In South Africa, 5.3 million people are infected with HIV and 25 percent of all pregnant women test positive for the virus.

Bishop Dowling prays that the Holy Spirit will intervene to change minds in Rome. He believes Pope Benedict XVI�s view on the use of condoms would change, �if his visits to poor countries were done in such a way that he could sit in a shack and see a young mother dying of AIDS with her baby.�

Not long ago, Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels stated on Dutch television that although sex with a person infected with HIV is to be avoided, �if it should take place, the person must use a condom in order not to disobey the commandment condemning murder, in addition to breaking the commandment which forbids adultery.� He added: �Protecting oneself against sickness or death is an act of prevention. Morally, it cannot be judged on the same level as when a condom is used to reduce the number of births.�

The Vatican has not budged. Condoms thwart conception; therefore, by the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, their use is proscribed. End of debate. In a 2003 Vatican document titled Family Values Versus Safe Sex, the use of condoms in HIV-prevention programs was forcefully rejected:

The Catholic bishops of South Africa, Botswana, and Swaziland categorically regard the widespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms as an immoral and misguided weapon in our battle against HIV/AIDS for the following reasons. The use of condoms goes against human dignity. Condoms change the beautiful act of love into a selfish search for pleasure-while rejecting responsibility. Condoms do not guarantee protection against HIV/AIDS. Condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, has elaborated on the latter point: �In the case of the AIDS virus, which is around 450 times smaller than the sperm cell, the condom�s latex material obviously gives much less security... to talk of condoms as �safe sex� is a form of Russian roulette.� Cardinal Trujillo called on ministries of health to require �a warning, that the condom is not safe� on packages distributed worldwide.

Although it is true that condoms are not 100-percent effective in preventing HIV infection, they do reduce the risk of transmission significantly. Comparing condom use to a suicidal dare, as Cardinal Trujillo does, is scientifically inaccurate and socially irresponsible.

A preponderance of medical research demonstrates that condoms help prevent the spread of HIV. For example, the European Study Group on Heterosexual Transmission of HIV followed 124 discordant couples (in which only one of the pair is ...

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1 - 10 of 17 Comments

Charles
9 months ago
I commend the author of this article however, his commentary is incomplete.

The author states that "In medicine, partial therapy is at best ineffective-and at worst lethal. " But that is exactly what Condoms are! They are partial therapy because they dont offer 100% protection from AIDS during intercourse. They are partial therapy because they do not address women's rights, or poverty alleviation, or the other issues which the author also noted.

The church does not only teach abstinence to women. It teaches this too to men. It teaches equality among sexes because it teaches abstinence to both husband and wife. It is true that abstinence cannot protect against AIDS infected from blood transfusion, but neither do Condoms.

The Church has been playing a big role in poverty alleviation, setting up schools, livelihood programs, places to stay, teaching people charity, and other things. Condom manufacturers dont do this and instead just use the money they earn to sell and promote their products even more. What makes us think that they care about AIDS patients? The other issues brought out by the article is actually addressed by the Church, not by condoms.

The Church teaches that true love cures and is the solution. Men who loves their wives (or future wives) should not do anything to get her infected. Giving these men the impression that they can just cheat on their wives while using a condom is not love at all.
iyke
2 years ago
the article sound good.it lie a good perfume it is onlly good solon as you do not swallow it. if you only read it with out taking it to the extreme no qualms. My grouse however is
"who is the one that conducted the vsaid research that proved that the use of condoms will reduse thev spread of HIV?" saying yes to the use of condoms will oly be banalising sex. there has to be a cosequence to every act.
Innocent
2 years ago
I do not believe that the condemnation of the church for its stand on condoms is driven by the need to save lives. Remember this same promoters of condoms also promote abortion and homosexuality. Why would some lives be protected with condoms while some other lives could be destroyed? Can someone stand up and tell me that condoms are 100% effective in preventing the transmission of HIV? If its not, are you not exposing humanity to more risks by promoting its use? The church today stands alone, but again thats the way it should be; Our Lord Jesus Christ stood alone. He was persected, ridiculed and crucified. If you are going to be a christian, dont expect the world to be in love with you.Viva Cristo Rex
Anastasio Michael
2 years ago
Marcellas experiences in Swaziland have undoubtedly affected her, and for her efforts there she has my utmost respect and empathy; yet I do not feel her experiences are enough to qualify the irresponsible assertions she makes in her article. Her views are heavy on rhetoric and light on facts, figures and logic. She gives no figure for the amount of Catholic AIDS victims she came into contact with in Swaziland, yet she can bravely lay the blame for “untold human suffering and the loss of millions of innocent lives” at the door of the Catholic Church. Even after she identifies the culture of promiscuity, infidelity and rape as an integral part of the problem in Africa, she still infers that it is the Catholic Church who is condemning millions of women to death through its policy on condom use. Its difficult to believe this article was written by a woman of science. Condoms will not change the culture she has so starkly illustrated, but perhaps the appreciation of values and morals as taught by the Catholic Church will have some effect. It would be interesting to know who Marcella thinks is to blame for the African AIDS victims who are not in communion with the Pope?

KEVIN, presumably the current mores of some people you mention are the beliefs of monogamy, fidelity and abstinence, long held and preached by the Catholic Church and its adherents. Perhaps these beliefs are why most countries predominantly Roman Catholic in religion e.g. Spain and Italy sustain a comparatively low AIDS prevalence rate. If it is a disease of society to hold these beliefs, or to not want to offend those who do so, then I shall pray that it is never cured.
Sometimes it is all too easy to neglect the value of empathy in one’s own response while busy judging the compassion in others.

God Bless
DeusVult
2 years ago
@Kevin

Why would it be 'nice' to suggest condom use as moot? Why not rather than take Doug's statement as an objective opinion based on the fact that condoms and their application are not 100% effective at protecting against STIs? Surely you see the bone of contention?
Personally, even with a condom, I would not sleep with an individual infected with AIDS/HIV because I do not trust it's efficacy in protecting me. I think most people would agree with that.
By having this discussion are we are proving that condom efficacy is indeed moot, and contrary to what the article suggests, this is indeed the case.
John D
2 years ago
Fabio has hit the nail on the head. Theonly way out of this miserable situation is for ALL to act morally - and that includes the men. There is no clearer example of the pitfalls that await humainty when we ignore the morals espoused by the RC Church.
Kevin
3 years ago
Anonymous: your number of worldwide abortions as one every 24 seconds is misleading, in the sense that it is almost surely too low. In fact, it's close to the the number you get by counting abortions carried out in the US only. What morality you wish to draw from this, and how it speaks to the question of AIDS in Africa I leave to you.

Doug: A disease always affects people who are innocent (in whatever sense you wish to mean by this) often via the actions of others. This doesn't make it a disease of society any more than any other disease. A disease of society which might be relevant however is the possibility that effective actions to fight a disease might offend the current mores of some people. This brings a moral challenge. It might be nice to think that the efficacy of condom use is "moot", but at least this article (which you acknowledge speaks more authoritatively than you are equipped to) suggests that this is simply not the case. To conclude that one must ignore this in order to avoid questioning one's own morality seems not the most compassionate response.
John
3 years ago
I am a catholic and from Africa!
I know it first hand-Aids problem cannot be solved by condoms-The church is right!
Condoms are only oncreasing promiscuity and a loss of sense of sin in people is being disguised -thank you!
Avec Nali
3 years ago
Saving earthly lives at any cost is NOT paramount in Catholic history or in the Catholic belief system. The great witnesses of the Catholic faith, the martyrs, chose to die rather than commit sin.

Many of the sins they needed to commit to save their lives would seem trivial today. Yet they refused. Why? because the teaching is consistant; if you love this life more than eternal life then all you shall merit is death.
Fabio Juliano
3 years ago
The only truly effective remedy for the AIDS crisis is indeed a moral one. Wholesale distribution of condoms will ultimately worsen the problem by facilitating sexual promiscuity and creating societies with ever lower moral standards. Besides, even if condoms were distributed, it is to be doubted whether the callous men who infect their wives would consent to use them.

The Catholic Church should continue to uphold higher values, exhorting moral rectitude and fighting for the rights and dignity of women.

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