En route to Cameroon for his first visit to Africa as pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI made his first public statement on condoms and AIDS last week and with it triggered yet another controversy.In his private plane flight to Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, the Pope told reporters condoms are not the answer in the continent’s fight against HIV/AIDS and even blamed condoms for worsening the AIDS pandemic.
“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the Pope said. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
While Benedict had not addressed this issue before, his position on condom use is nothing new.
The Humanae Vitae of the Roman Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms and any other form of artificial contraception.
Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was often quoted saying sexual abstinence was the way to prevent the disease, and in 2003, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo made headlines for saying condoms actually help spread HIV/AIDS through a false sense of security and claimed condoms weren’t effectively blocking transmission of the virus.
Catholicism is spreading rapidly in Africa and with these remarks, the Pope is sending a dangerous message that could worsen the AIDS pandemic, particularly in Africa where condom usage is already low and HIV/AIDS is at its highest.
According to UNAIDS, currently, 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are living with HIV.
The European Union, AIDS campaigners, health professionals and even some Catholic bishops were quick to condemn the Pope’s remarks, stating condoms do not aggravate the disease.
Benedict said the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS, but the Vatican still believes the use of condoms promotes promiscuity and that fidelity to one partner and abstinence are the best ways to combat the spreading of the disease.
Currently, the only form of contraception that carries the stamp of approval of the Catholic Church is natural family planning. In NFP, a woman checks the temperature and consistency of her cervical mucus to determine her fertile days and abstains from intercourse on those days.
Statistics from the Department of Health and Services Center of Disease Control and Prevention show only 0.2 percent of sexually active women ages 15-44 are currently using NFP, and only 3.5 percent have used it at some point.
The Catholic Church says NFP is “a way of following God’s plan for achieving and/or avoiding pregnancy.”
But pregnancy isn’t the only consequence of unprotected sex. Sexually transmitted diseases are rarely discussed, as NFP can only be effective if the method is strictly followed and the woman only has one sexual partner, her husband. During fertile days and before marriage, couples are supposed to practice chaste abstinence.
NFP is time-consuming and difficult. It leaves no room for spontaneity and does nothing to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS or any other sexually transmitted infection. Not to mention abstinence is a rather unrealistic expectation. Condemning the use of condoms and meanwhile ignoring the fact an increasing number of people have sex before marriage has serious consequences, as unprotected sex is the leading cause of HIV/AIDS transmission.
Condoms, on the other hand, have been scientifically proven to reduce the transmission of the virus. The UN World Health Organization found for couples in which one person is infected with HIV, the consistent use of condoms resulted in a less than 1 percent transmission rate.
Luckily the Pope’s remarks were met with global criticism, and the protests against the Pope’s remarks have taken an interesting (and rather humorous) turn.
As a welcome back present, the Pope is receiving a bombardment of condoms. Protesters, assembled on the social networking Web site Facebook, are urging people to send condoms to the Pope. More than 60,000 subscribers have vowed to send a condom to the Vatican. The condom campaign has spread, and similar groups throughout Europe have joined the protest.
One Web site calls on people to either send a real condom addressed to “His Holiness” at the Vatican via post or to overflow his e-mail box with pictures of condoms instead. In France, condoms have appeared in wrappers depicting the Pope and the words “I said no.”
While the Pope’s remarks signify dangerous ignorance about sexual behavior and STIs, the global protest and activism of young people around the world is a good sign. Hopefully, the Vatican will find a good use for the condoms.
Be informed — if you’re having sex before you’re married, there are worse possible consequences than pregnancy.
Also, if you’re having sex before marriage, you’re already breaking Catholic doctrine, so use a rubber.
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(Source: UITA)