The Times
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
THE Roman Catholic Church’s leading international aid agency, Cafod, has come out in public support of the use of condoms in the fight against Aids, placing it in direct opposition to the Pope.
Cafod states in an article published today that it backs what is known as the “ABC” approach to the issue — “abstain, be faithful, use a condom”. Although the agency does not intend to go so far as to distribute condoms in the developing world, where the disease has hit hardest, the charity makes it clear that to deny condoms to potential Aids victims is itself a denial of the Catholic pro-life teachings.
By contrast, the Pope believes all contraception use is “intrinsically evil” and that the use of condoms to help prevent the spread of HIV is “morally illicit”. The Church teaches that abstinence, including for married couples, is the only morally acceptable way to prevent Aids. One senior cardinal, Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, has claimed that condoms cannot halt HIV because the virus is small enough to pass through them. The Church’s international credibility is being increasingly damaged by its stance on condoms and Aids. As the end of the present papacy approaches, the policy is beginning to be challenged by senior clergy within the Church.
In January this year, Cardinal Godfried Daneels of Belgium said that if someone who was HIV-positive did have sex, failing to use a condom would be sinful and a contravention of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. In an interview in July this year, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said he agreed with Cardinal Daneels. He said: “While we can say that, objectively, the use of condoms is wrong, there are places where it might be licit, or allowable, as when there’s a danger of intercourse leading to death.”
Cafod has been working with the victims of HIV for 20 years and has been taking the ABC approach on the ground for five years. Ann Smith, the agency’s HIV corporate strategist, went public about the stance in a paper presented in July at an Aids conference in Bangkok and published in an abridged form in today’s Tablet, the highbrow Catholic weekly. She says there are immense social and cultural pressures on poor men and women to conform to accepted stereotypes. “For many in Africa and Asia, sex is often the only commodity people have to exchange for food, school fees, exam results, employment or survival itself in situations of violence.” Most HIV-positive women are infected by the person they consider to be their monogamous, life-long partner.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1276826,00.html(sorry, paysite; if you want the whole story mail me and I'll let you have it)