Pope denounces using condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS in Africa
Published: March 28, 2009
Updated: March 29, 2009
Pope Benedict XIV spoke out against using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS last week in Cameroon.
On his first visit to Africa, a continent that is nearly one fifth Catholic, the Pope cited abstinence as the number one way to curtail the number of new HIV infections.
Condoms might actually facilitate more new HIV/AIDS cases, he said.
“HIV/AIDs is a tragedy that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem,” the Pope said.
The Pope did not waste much breath explaining exactly how condoms contribute to the spread of the disease, unlike some leading Catholics, like the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo. Trujillo’s claim? A condom’s latex is porous and permits HIV to pass from one partner to another. (False, said the World Health Council).
Instead, reports BBC New’s Religious Affairs Coorespondent Robert Pigott, the Pope posits HIV/AIDS
“should be tackled through fidelity and abstinence rather than condoms.”
The Pope further declared “the traditional teaching of the Church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids.”
Not all Catholic leaders denounce using condoms to restrict the spread of the epidemic, Piggot illuminates. He points to the Belgian Cardinal Goddfried Daneel, who said condoms were often “the lesser of two evils,” when it came to battling HIV/AIDS.
2007 UN figures put the number of individuals infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-saharan Africa at 22 million. Still, the Pope follows his predecessor Pope John Paul the II in condeming condoms to fight the epidemic.
“Pope Benedict said on the eve of his trip that he wanted to wrap his arms around the entire continent, with ‘its painful wounds, its enormous potential and hopes,’” reports BBC News in a related article.
Wrap his arms around Africa he may, but a Papal embrace can’t prevent the spread of a global killer.
It’s a shame one person can do so much damage, and more painful considering where he’s done it: on a continent already ravaged.
Make a conscious choice not to listen to him. Make a conscious choice to learn about the real-world problem and contribute in some small way to a fix. There are plenty of relief efforts, plenty of organizations. If you can’t find one for Africa, donate to Planned Parenthood or other organizations here at home–wherever home is–so that maybe someone local will benefit a lifetime from your gesture and go on to discover great things for us.
My conscience tells me that without the Condoms, the number of individuals infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-saharan Africa would have been put at 44 million. Looking for proof? Then withraw circulation of condoms in in sub-saharan Africa for 6 months then you would get it!
Sounds like people are already “making a conscience choice not to listen to” scientific evidence indicating the condoms are likely not to prevent the spread of any virus. Latex condom voids are 5 times larger than viruses. Marital monogamy and abstinence are 100% effective in preventing the spread of viruses, every time someone tries them. If we simply cannot control our sexual urges, then who’s to say that someone can prevent their urge to steal from you, or the urge to seduce your partner, or the urge to (etc).
Isn’t it ironic that no one wants to teach these dying people about the one certain way to save their lives, in favor of the one way that “may” save their lives if the do every thing exactly according to prescription in the heat of the moment. Emphasize “may” as written on the outside of your condom package. Even the condom lawyers won’t wager “will prevent”; why is that?