Vatican could relax condom rules to fight AIDS epidemic

[milmor_1]

Surely this should have happened years ago. It may NOT have stopped the progress of the epidemic, but might have saved innocent lives.

Vatican could relax condom rules to fight AIDS epidemic

Thursday November 23rd 2006


Pope considers concessions over banned use of contraception



POPE Benedict XVI is considering concessions over the use of condoms to fight AIDS.

However, the Vatican's overall ban on condoms will almost certainly remain intact despite the relentless rise in deaths from AIDS in Africa, Vatican sources say.

Medical and theological experts advising the Pope have suggested that married couples could be allowed to use condoms when one of the spouses is HIV-positive or a drug user.

Infection

Vatican watchers said this would "open a small chink" in the Vatican's uncompromising opposition to condoms.

There was no question of reversing the basic doctrine laid down in Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical in which Pope Paul VI rejected any relaxation of church rules on birth control.

The policy was reiterated by Pope John Paul II and by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then his head of doctrine and now the pontiff.

According to the annual UN report on AIDS, released yesterday before World AIDS Day on December 1, there are almost 40m people living with HIV.

The most alarming increase was in Uganda, which experienced a rise from a 5.6pc infection rate among men and 6.9pc among women in 2000 to 6.5pc and 8.8pc respectively.

In a speech to African bishops last year, Pope Benedict blamed contraception for a breakdown of sexual morality, saying abstinence and marital fidelity were the only effective way to prevent the spread of HIV.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, said this week that a 200-page study on the spread of infectious diseases commissioned by the Pope in April had been completed. The cardinal said that the spread of AIDS is something that worries the Pope a lot, but added that "no response from the Church can be one that encourages a libertine sexual attitude".

Some leading Catholic liberals have advocated a policy change, describing condoms as the lesser evil in situations where there is "widespread misery, promiscuity or use of drugs".

These include Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the former Archbishop of Milan and once a contender for Pope, Monsignor George Cottier, a papal theologian, and Cardinal Godfried Danneels, of Belgium.

Conservative

Such voices are in a decided minority, however, in the current conservative Vatican climate.

Pope Benedict will meet the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, today before his controversial trip to Turkey next week.

Yesterday, the Pope announced that he would release the first volume of a study entitled 'Jesus of Nazareth' early next year, saying: "I do not know how much time and strength remain to me."

He said the book was not a magisterial statement but a personal reflection, and readers were therefore free to contradict it. The Pope, who turns 80 next April, was the oldest cardinal to be made Pope for 275 years when elected last year.

[The_Federalist]

How many high risk folks actually follow the Vatican?

I don't think much of Africa would really care if the Pope said it was OK to use condoms...

[Snowden]

I don't think many Catholics pay much attention to the Pope regarding matters of marital relations any more. Somehow, it seems no longer to compute, and hasn't since birth control pills. If it did before.

Some things are sacred beyond what the Pope can be expected to understand. He leads the largest church in the world, but he is a man, and many see him that way now.

At least this is a step in the right direction - if anybody is listening.

[Woodmonkey]

Originally Posted by The_Federalist

How many high risk folks actually follow the Vatican?

I don't think much of Africa would really care if the Pope said it was OK to use condoms...

I agree - in both cases.

Originally Posted by Snowden

At least this is a step in the right direction - if anybody is listening.

The ones who should be wearing condoms won't start because the Pope says it's ok in 'some' instances.

[Snowden]

There are simply some things the Pope should let people decide for themselves, at least to a great degree.

When Bob and I were married, our church said families should increase to the extent the parents can afford to feed, clothe and educate. That makes sense, at least.

[Betty Boop]

To relax the ban against the use of condoms in sexual relations, no matter what the reason, I think would be two-fold:

1) It would condone sexual relations outside of marriage by the church;
2) It would recognize that human sexuality is God-given for other than procreative purposes exclusively.

On the former, I can't imagine any Christian church (Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant) encouraging human sexuality outside of a monogamous relationship and on the latter, well any fun-loving Protestant would have told you long ago that was the case!