Reply #57: The Catholic church has meddled into the politics of many countries

[PA Democrat]

with some truly horrendous results. Please read the impact the church has had on AIDS prevention programs in the third world. There are many governments who have bent their official policies to EXCLUDE condom education and distribution after being pressured by the church. Yes, thousands of people dying each day of AIDS in Africa does not affect me personally, but it deeply offends my own personal ethics.

It's about much more than "whining". BTW, I am a disgusted ex-member of the Catholic Church, and I will continue to speak out when the Church's policies cause such egregious pain and suffering.


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In addition to insisting that there is no room within Catholic theology to allow the compassionate use of condoms, officials of the Catholic church have repeatedly tried to cast doubt on the effectiveness of condoms in fighting AIDS. In Kenya, even as the government belatedly declared that the AIDS epidemic was reaching crisis levels, Catholic Bishop John Njue propagated false scientific information by claiming that condoms are to blame for the spread of AIDS.38 Shortly after AIDS was declared a national emergency in the country and the government officially embraced the use of condoms to curb the epidemic—over the loud objections of the Catholic church—a member of the Kenyan Parliament called the church “the greatest impediment in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”39 The impact of the church is so great that Paul Delay, who heads USAID’s AIDS programs, said the agency has asked the Catholic church not to say anything about condoms “if you can’t say anything nice,” particularly in regard to casting doubts on the effectiveness of condoms.40

In 1997, a doctor who is a member of the Vatican Council for the Family said that using condoms will not prevent HIV infection. Father Jacques Suaudeau wrote in the journal Medicina e Morale,”Using a condom to protect yourself against HIV amounts to playing Russian roulette.”41 A report from the National Institutes of Health in the United States recently confirmed the predominant medical opinion that “consistent and correct condom use prevents...HIV infection.”42 Despite medical opinion confirming the use of condoms to prevent HIV, it seems as if the church’s anti-condom propaganda may be winning converts. A recent survey conducted by the Kenyan Media Institute found that 54% of Kenyans do not believe that condoms are effective in preventing HIV and that “condoms encourage immorality, which exposes people to the risk of contracting the virus.”43

In Africa and around the world the hierarchy of the Catholic church has worked actively to suppress condom use, education and distribution. In 1996, the local Roman Catholic church in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, prevented the distribution of one million condoms by health and election officials at polling stations during a primary election. Honduras has the highest incidence of AIDS in Central America.44 That same year, in Nairobi, Kenya, Cardinal Maurice Otunga, Kenya’s leading Roman Catholic church official, burned boxes of condoms and safe sex literature.45 After Brazil launched an innovative AIDS prevention program that stressed the need for the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, Brazilian Roman Catholic officials criticized the program for not stressing abstinence. Cardinal Eugenio Sales of Rio de Janeiro said the campaign would stimulate sexual activity, thereby spreading AIDS.46 Just this year in Zambia, health officials withdrew a hard-hitting anti-AIDS campaign that urged safe sex and condom use after the church complained that it promoted promiscuity.47

http://www.condoms4life.org/facts/lesserEvil.htm