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from theage.com.auBishops reject condoms in battle against AIDS
By ED O'LOUGHLIN
JOHANNESBURG
Wednesday 1 August 2001Condoms are an "immoral and misguided weapon" in the fight against AIDS and could be one of the main reasons for the spread of the disease, the Catholic Church in southern Africa has proclaimed.
According to a statement released late on Monday by a conference of bishops from South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland, the use of condoms fuels the HIV epidemic by contributing to "the breaking down of self-control and mutual respect".
It concludes: "Abstain and be faithful is the human and Christian way of overcoming HIV-AIDS."
The strong reaffirmation of the church's ban on artificial contraceptives has dashed hopes that the bishops would reopen debate in light of the region's massive epidemic of HIV-AIDS.
Before the seven-day Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference in Pretoria, Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg had made several public appeals to the church to reconsider its position.
Bishop Dowling believes the church could approve condoms for "preventing the transmission of death, and therefore not as a contraceptive to prevent the transmission of life".
His views are believed to have the tacit support of many priests and nuns dealing with HIV-AIDS in communities, and received editorial backing from the main Catholic newspaper in South Africa, the Southern Cross. Bishop Dowling is reported to have left the conference early on Monday and has not been contactable since.
The bishops' hardline stance has been criticised by HIV activists and by South Africa's Health Department, which said it was "sad that one of the few methods of preventing the transmission of HIV, and thus saving the lives of millions of our people, has been characterised as immoral and misguided".
The department also rejected the bishops' claim that condoms were a major contributor to the epidemic, saying there was overwhelming scientific evidence that condom usage was preventive and protective.
Ironically, one passage in the bishops' statement seemed to unwittingly endorse the protective role of condoms. It said that married couples can use condoms when one or both of them is HIV-positive, and provided they abstain from sex while the woman is ovulating. In this way there would be no artificial barrier to the propagation of life.
Speaking last week, Bishop Dowling said he had been moved to question the status quo by his own personal experience of the AIDS epidemic in his diocese.
The mining region around Rustenburg is one of the hot-spots in a country in which up to five million people, or more than one in 10, now carry the HIV virus. Around 1500 people are infected with the virus each day in South Africa and it is estimated that the continent will have 28 million AIDS orphans by 2010.
Some leading Catholics have warned that the church's continuing insistence on abstinence as the only weapon against HIV-AIDS risks undermining its moral authority in the face of reality.
Bishop Dowling wrote last month: "If we simply proclaim a message that condoms cannot be used under any circumstances, either directly or through not trying to articulate a proper response to the crisis we face, then I believe people will find difficulty in believing that we are committed as a church to a compassionate and caring response to people who are suffering, often in appalling living conditions."
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday named former Ugandan health minister Crispus Kiyonga to head a team setting up a multi-billion-dollar global war chest against AIDS.
Mr Annan, who announced the idea of a global fund to combat the epidemic at an AIDS summit in Abuja, Nigeria, in April, wants the fund operational by the end of the year.
Mr Kiyonga will be chairman of the Transitional Working Group for the Establishment of the Global Fund for AIDS and Health, said UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe.
- with AGENCIES
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