HIV/Aids: Catholic Church in Condom Palaver

AllAfrica ^ | Chioma Obinna

[narses]

The Catholic Church has been accused of warning people in African, Asian and other countries with high rates of HIV infection that condoms do not protect against the transmission of the virus, the claims come just a day after a report revealed that a young person is now infected with HIV every 14 seconds.

According to BBC report, "cardinals, bishops, priests and nuns in four continents of the church have been quoted as saying HIV can pass through tiny holes in condoms but latest warnings were made in a Panorama programme called 'Sex and the Holy City' by one of the Vatican's most senior cardinals Alfonso Lopez Trujillo who allegedly suggests that the AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon and could pass through net formed by the condom.

Trujillo, President of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, called on governments to urge people not to use condoms.

His words "These margins of uncertainty, should represent an obligation on the part of the health ministries and all these campaigns to act in the same way as they do, with regard to cigarettes, which they state to be a danger."

In swift reaction to this claim, the World Health Organization (WHO) has condemned the comments and warned the Vatican to desist from putting lives at risk with such utterances.

A spokeswoman to WHO was quoted as saying that" Statements like this are quite dangerous"We are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people and currently affects around 42 million. "There is so much evidence to show that condoms don't let sexually transmitted infections like HIV through. "Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong."

Also reacting, Catherine Hankins, Chief Scientific Advisor to UNAIDS,, argued that the statements by Catholic Church are totally incorrect saying that Latex condoms are impermeable. She added that latex condoms are not only good but can perfectly prevent HIV transmission from one person to another during sex.

According to her, " "It is very unfortunate to have this type of misinformation being broadcast, "It is a concern. From a technical point of view, the statements are totally incorrect. "Latex condoms are impermeable. They do prevent HIV transmission."

Meanwhile, several anti - AIDS campaigns have also condemned the call by the Vatican arguing that condoms are straightforward and effective way of preventing HIV transmission and to suggest otherwise is dangerous.

However, the claim by the Catholic Church is already having effect on the condom distribution activities of some anti HIV/AIDS programmes.

Efforts to get a reaction from Catholic Secretariat in Lagos were unsuccessful as at press time.

[Stone Mountain]

the kind of sex that these people practice is, forgive me, ANAL. The only kind of sex that is known to transmit the HIV virus. Yes, it's a fact.

This is a joke, right? You think AIDS is spreadly SOLELY through anal intercourse? Wow. Got a source?

[CobaltBlue]

Jesus told us not to lust in our heart in the context of adultery. Having sex with your spouse isn't adultery.

Duh.

[CobaltBlue]

When a man is authorized to speak for God, and you don't do what he says, the Person you're disobeying is God, not the man.

Duh.

[Unam Sanctam]

I never said anything about not having sex with one's spouse. Duh back at you.

[sneakers]

Condoms are not 100 percent safe. Abstinance is. Why should the Church condone the use of something that lessens the chance of pregnancy or disease, when it can condone choices that completely prevent pregnancy and disease? Society has been pushing condoms for years and - guess what - it isn't working! The pregnancy and disease rate is STILL through the roof! I would suggest that the WHO look at it's own flawed methods -not put down the Church's teaching on abstinence.

[Romulus]

the Person you're disobeying is God, not the man.

Three Persons, actually. But since you seem to get the concept, it doesn't make much sense your copping a "non serviam" (that's Latin) attitude about obediance.

[Romulus]

It's not often we get to see the face of AmChurch here on FR.

Do you smell smoke?

[Romulus]

BTW, from your silence in response to my exploding your arguments for condoms as an AIDS preventative, I infer that you've folded completely.

[CobaltBlue]

Actually, I was making dinner. :)

And now I have to go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, the library, etc., etc., etc.

It's a beautiful day. Don't let it get away.

[Intolerant in NJ]

... Both of our sons were conceived as planned...good things come to those who know what they're doing. Fortunately I never experienced any unintended incidents during those times when I used condoms either. At the risk of sounding elitist though, I suspect there are lots of people around who are not as careful and responsible as you (well technically, your husband) and I. Accidents can happen, and I believe even some of the condom manufacturers have given a range of 10 to 20 percent as a rate at which condoms can fail to provide physical protection. It seems to me unconscionable that in advocating some fancied sexual nirvana anyone would continue to push condoms as representing "safe sex" without at least acknowledging both this rate of physical failure as well as the "leakage" rate noted in some of the previous posts here, given that the very real possibility in any failure is not simply a few anxious weeks hoping that someone's next period will finally arrive or an unplanned pregnancy, but a very unpleasant death.....

[honeygrl]

Unfortunately, he's not joking. There is a large number of people around the forum who really believe you only get AIDS from anal sex. (personally, i hope they don't test out their theory)

[Cicero]

The African population is dying of AIDS. One of the main reasons is that they have bought the UN line that AIDS can be prevented by wearing condoms. To the contrary. No one in his right mind would have sex with someone who is HIV-positive, with or without a condom.

Abstinence, marriage, and monogamy are the only real cures for the spread of STDs. The statistics are so obvious they are unavoidable.

That's entirely apart from the moral truth that you cannot separate sexual pleasure from procreation of children without major damage to yourself and your partner. Humanae Vitae got that right many years ago.

[TradicalRC]

God will decide who goes to Heaven and who doesn't. One of the things he says in His Book is that if my brother is in error and I do not reprove him, my soul will be in jeopardy.

I have done what He has asked of me.

The church may have been wrong but not you?
Interesting theology.

[Havisham]

This is a joke, right? You think AIDS is spreadly SOLELY through anal intercourse? Wow. Got a source?

It's not a joke. Their are no documented cases of women contracting HIV through conventional intercourse--contaminated needles, traumatic sodomy, yes. It's all in Michael Fumento's book, "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS'. Take a look:

http://www.fumento.com/myth.html

[BlackElk]

Those priests and nuns are Catholic as you are not. If you reject the Teaching Magisterium of the Church, you reject the Church.

I made no reference to Protestantism.

I also made no reference to birth control being desirable in its results for anyone.

Norplant is abortifacient. It does not revent conceptioon but does prevent implantation. Likewise Depo-Provera.

[BlackElk]

Thanks for confirming what was suspected by so many of us.

[BlackElk]

If you deny the Teaching Magisterium of the Church, you reject Catholicism. Just as there are some anti-Semotic Jews, there are anti-Catholic "Catholics" particularly in the obsessively materialistic and very poorly catechized liberal "Cathiolic" circles of the United States known as AmChurch.

[Havisham]

You calling it a fact does not make it so. Prove it.

You could read the book, 'The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS' by Mike Fumento for proof but that would mean having to let go of the jetsam and flotsam you're clinging to, better known as ignorance and prejudice. I'm satisfied knowing that ten years from now you will blush at your childish denouncements of the grownups who tried, ever so gently, to present the other point of view on sexuality and human worth.

[BlackElk]

God gave us reason and ingenuity. Some use those to plan bank robberies or political assassinations or opportunistic murders.

Some use them to prevent the birth of children or to destroy the spousal relationship by denying to the spouses the degree of intimacy that allows for both the unitive and the procreative aspects of each act of genital intercourse, interfering with neither.

Some misuse reason and ingenuity to attempt to shadow box with God and His Truths in their pursuit of the worship of their own personal preferences.

[BlackElk]

If you are a regular reader of the National PseudoCatholic Reporter whose writers include the likes of Rembert Weakland, it is rather easy to see how you rejected the Faith.