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10/04/2009 15:03
 
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New Archbishop of Westminster
defends Pope's stance on condoms

by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

April 10, 2009


The new Archbishop of Westminster today defended the Pope's stance on condoms and Aids and called for sexuality to be "humanised".

But he dodged the issue of whether the Church should advocate condom use as a health measure when one party in a marriage has aids or HIV.

[He was right not to be drawn into this nitpicking side issue. The Church has yet to take a definitive stance on it - the media have been speculating for years that this particular aspect is under study - but meanwhile, it is a private issue for the concerned couple and their confessor.]

The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, who will be installed at Westminster Roman Catholic cathedral in May, refused to comment on whether he would advise a faithful married couple to use condoms if one of them had AIDS.

Instead, he argued that Pope Benedict XVI had been misrepresented in his recent comments and that his aim had been to defend African women.

The Pope was greeted by a chorus of international condemnation after he told journalists during his recent visit to Africa that the rate of Aids and HIV infection on the continent was "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems."

The Holy See did not dispute the Pope said this, but later altered the "official" record to indicate that what he had intended to say was that condoms "risk" aggravating the problems. [Fairness requires that Gledhill should also mention the Vatican restored the Pope;s original words after the tampering was pointed out, and that Fr. Lombardi addressed the misstep publicly.]

Archbishop Nichols, a conservative who, at 63, has a potential 27 years at Westminster, is likely at some stage to have no option but to state his position on an issue where the Catholic Church's official stance appears increasingly untenable. [Untenable only to those who advocate condoms and sex-at-any-cost, as well as those who follow them. Where is it written that abstinece is out of the question for a Catholic couple when one of the partners is infected?]

Many Catholic and non-Catholic Christians have no issue with the Church's stance on life issues generally, supporting its opposition to euthanasia, abortion and promiscuity.

But the Church's refusal even to consider sanctioning condom use as a health measure in countries where Aids is rampant is being condemned at the highest levels of scientific and intellectual debate in the West as ill-informed, unscientific and inhumane. [And here, there is blatant omission of the fact that equally authoritative levels (including the 'prestigious' British magazine Lancet which then turned around and ignored what it previously published, to lash out at the Pope) as well as objective data do support the Pope's statements. Like they do about the global warming issue, liberals will not even acknowledge objective facts that run counter to their ideological biases.]

Archbishop Nichols, asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the Pope's statement that condoms can make Aids worse, said: "I am not sure that's exactly what he said at all. What he actually talked about was the need to humanise sexuality. And I think to some extent he was speaking up in protection of African women. And I think we face the same challenge."

Urging Catholics to protest against plans to liberalise television advertising for condoms and abortion advice services, he said: "The adverts at present on television for contraception actually are demeaning of young people. They depict two people having sex on a street corner and some more just in a drunken orgy, and that is not a fair representation of young people today. We really need to do an awful lot to raise expectations of each other and to humanise sexuality, to use the Holy Father's phrase." [This part of Archbishop Nichols's statements deserves a headline and separate story of its own!]

Asked whether he would suggest condom use to a married faithful catholic couple who came to him for advice where one of them had Aids, he said: "Well obviously that's a very sensitive point and obviously there are different views on that."

Asked what his own view was, he insisted: "No, no, that's not what this public debate is about."

He continued by arguing that he wanted to pursue the point about humanising sexuality.

"We really do have to raise people's expectatins about themselves. Today is Good Friday. What do we celebrate today? We celebrate this enormous gift of God's love to us, which teaches us how much dignity we have, and we have to encourage as a society people to live off their best instincts, their best generosity and not constantly be portraying our society as degraded and in need of elastoplast all the time."


AIDS and condoms:
Morality and lives

by Donald DeMarco

April 19-25, 2009 Issue


An associate professor of political science at a Catholic university has ruffled a few feathers with a newspaper article entitled “Pope Puts Doctrine Ahead of Lives.”

The author was referring to Benedict XVI’s recent visit to Africa and his “stubborn” opposition to the use of condoms. This is enough, according to the author, to make the Holy Father “a preacher of death.”

So now we know that the Pope is promoting the culture of death while, presumably, the secular world is promoting the culture of life.

The Sixth Commandment forbids adultery. Does the use of the condom rescind this interdict? Does the modernized version read: “You may commit adultery as long as you use a condom”? Does latex replace the confessional? Was it a shock to the major media that Benedict XVI did not toss aside the Sixth Commandment?

[It spoils the whole presentation that the writer inexplicably associates condom use only with adultery, when condom users include many who indulge in premarital sex or who are, in fact, married couples!]

It is an extraordinary thing to place greater faith in a band of latex than in Christianity, prayer, virtue and Catholic teaching.

Where a program of chastity and premarital abstinence is used, such as in Uganda, the rate of AIDS has gone down by half during the last decade. Congressman Chris Smith has witnessed and reported on the positive results of the abstinence message when he toured Uganda.

Dorothy Kwanze, a HIV activist in Kenya, has reported, “Abstinence education remains the best strategy, especially for the risk group aged 15-25. The concept has worked well for Uganda and can work for other African countries.”

Fortunately, Ms. Kwanze is not influenced by gross media distortions such as what is found in some American newspapers.

Our misguided political scientist suggests, rhetorically, that, “Perhaps the Pope doesn’t know that 12 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are suffering with the disease [HIV/AIDS].” [PUH-LEEZE! Few leaders could be better informed about disease statistics in Africa than the Pope who gets regular reports from Catholic missions and bishops on what they do!]

What the Pope does know is that the promotion of premarital abstinence works very nicely. Uganda once had the highest HIV infection rate in the world. In the 1990’s, 30% of the country’s population was infected. Today’s rate (2009) is down to about 8%.

The headline, accusing the Pope of putting “doctrine ahead of lives,” is scurrilous journalism at its worst.

The author, of course, is not without his own doctrine, which is barbaric in its essence. Widespread fornication, together with its negative impact on marriage, the family and personal integrity, appears to be of no concern to him. Would a wife be satisfied to know that her philandering husband always uses a condom?

The author feigns an interest in the lives of those infected or those who may be infected by the HIV virus, but his unremittingly vicious attack on the Holy Father certainly calls into question his supposed altruism.

He refers to the Holy Father as “immoral,” offering a “ridiculous belief,” expressing an “abhorrent motive,” and spreading a “general fear of sexuality,” while showing a “disregard if not contempt” for the people of Africa,” and, “instead of praying for those in need,” “preying on them.”

This is a fairly comprehensive, though recklessly intemperate, swipe that is seldom levied against even the most villainous of criminals.

The Church is concerned about saving souls as well as lives.

Condoms do not always work. They have both user as well as product failure rates. To be concerned exclusively with lives, but not with their moral quality, is not only irresponsible, but a sin against charity. The Church is vitally concerned about both, but the moral dimension must take precedence. To those who are good, good things will follow: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

This is surely the message of Christ when he bids us to seek first justice and the Kingdom of heaven. To countenance out-of-control sex is not an expression of love. But to believe that a thin layer of latex is Africa’s most pressing need is superstition in its most virulent form.

Morality must come first. If it does not, immorality will grow without check.

And this is why Pope Benedict stated that the distribution of condoms “increases the problem.” When morality is ignored, immorality grows by leaps and bounds.

The Church is supposed to move the world, though the world is certainly intent on moving the Church. The Church is a light.

Yet, that light is sometimes sent into a darkness that is so impenetrable that it cannot receive it. The venomous and slanderous attack on the Holy Father is a recurrence of the attack against Christ, which is also an attack against the light. “Let there be light” should be the maxim of all newspapers, secular as well as religious.


Donald DeMarco is a professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary and Mater Ecclesiae College.

Certainly not the most solid piece of commentary on the issue but certainly well-intentioned....

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/04/2009 08:40]
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