The Church and condoms

After Bishop Kevin Dowling last year called on the Church to reconsider its absolute ban on the use of condoms in the fight against Aids, the local bishops took an important step.

Only a few months after the Vatican’s head of health care, Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, ruled out condom use as “never ethically permissible”, the bishops of Southern Africa–whose region covers three of the world’s most Aids affected countries–virtually endorsed condom use in marriages where one partner is HIV-infected.

This decision, contained in the pastoral statement A Message of Hope, was courageous and compassionate.

The bishops stopped short of lifting the condom ban for unmarried Catholics who fail to follow the Church’s teachings on sexual behaviour, arguing that the primary effect of permitting condoms would result in greater promiscuity.

This week we report that Bishop Dowling has restated his view that the Church should permit the use of condoms as an instrument of Aids prevention.

It is important to emphasise that Bishop Dowling is no dissident, nor are those who support his point of view in rebellion against the magisterium.

Indeed, Bishop Dowling’s arguments are supported by rational and established theological principles.

Chief among these is the doctrine of the greater good (sometimes the less precise terminology of “lesser evil” is employed), which would hold that it is preferable to use a condom to potentially save a life, than not to use a condom, and potentially die.

The Vatican last month repudiated this argument when Archbishop Barragan seemingly suggested that the use of condoms, for whatever purpose, might contribute to condemning its user to an afterlife in hell. This, surely, is a brutal notion of salvation.

Archbishop Barragan’s reasoning may also be counterbalanced by the doctrine of double effect, which holds that an object used for a function other than its original purpose assumes the nature for which it is being used.

For example, a pencil is ordinarily a writing instrument, but if used to stab somebody, it ceases to be a writing instrument, and becomes a weapon.

Pope Paul VI applied the doctrine of double effect in his 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, which banned artificial birth control, but authorised the use of the contraceptive pill when prescribed to manage irregular menstrual cycles.

Pope Paul died before the Aids virus was identified. A strong case exists today why the doctrine of double effect could also be applied to condoms when these are used to guard against HIV infection.

The Church is correct in teaching that the only safe form of avoiding HIV-infection is abstinence from sex before marriage, and fidelity within marriage. Should the Church find a way of lifting its absolute ban on condoms, the emphasis will have to remain on these sound principles.

Sexual behaviour, however, is not always a matter of choice, especially for women (who constitute the majority of Aids victims in Southern Africa). All sorts of social pressures and non-consensual forms of sexual engagements deprive women of autonomy over their own bodies. Are they to be held accountable for their powerlessness?

It is difficult to see how the Church’s teaching that all human life is sacred can be reconciled with a policy that may (and probably does) contribute to death.

Is the condom really more evil than death by Aids?