Condoms and Catholicism
March 27th, 2009
The Pope stirred up AIDS activists again last week when he stated that promoting condom use would “aggravate” the problem of HIV in African countries. Years of work by sexual health advocates could be demolished in a few words by the head of the Catholic Church. You only need to look to Uganda, where the effects of switching from comprehensive sex education to abstinence only messaging has resulted in an increase in HIV infections. The Canadian AIDS Society responded quickly to the Pope’s words in Canadian newspapers, as did many other sexual health representatives. While I liked headlines like “Marriage is Not a Condom,” I took hope from Catholics themselves.
Catholics for Choice, a nonprofit group that sponsors campaigns like Good Catholics Use Condoms, was quick to point out that they felt the Pope was wrong, and that the Vatican likely realized it too. A Catholics for Choice posting states a belief that the Church’s stance on condom use could change, but that enormous a change takes time. It compares it to the Church’s change in thinking over Galileo’s theories that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe, which was firmly believed at the time (and reported in the Scriptures). It took time, but it happened. Optimistically, those at Catholics for Choice think a change in thinking on condoms won’t take the hundreds of years it took for the work of Galileo, himself long dead by the time it was accepted.
A collective refusal to think of the many dead that could occur because of the words of the Pope sparked the swift and strong international reaction to the Pope’s words. But the words were spoken, and so ongoing cooperation is needed with and within religious communities to address the balance of sexual health education for all while honouring spiritual beliefs. Regardless of religious affiliation, we must recognize the complexity of sexual decisions and acts, and the human rights that are violated when people do not have all the information they need.
Religion and healthy sexuality can go together, but there is still a lot of work to do to ensure everyone receives this message.
- Janet
This blog represents the ideas of individual writers, and does not necessarily reflect any formal stance taken by Positive Women's Network.
This was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under HIV Prevention, News . Feel free to respond, or trackback.
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