Morality and death
The Catholic Church administers more than a quarter of the world’s non-governmental activities in response to the HIV/Aids pandemic. According to one expert in the field, of all religious bodies in South Africa, only the Catholic Church and the Salvation Army have responded adequately to the crisis.
Alas, all this good work is overshadowed by an unresolved issue. When it comes to HIV/Aids, the spotlight is fixed firmly on the Church’s perceived ban on condoms in preventing the transmission of the disease.
To a large extent, this is the Church’s own doing.
The opponents of the use of condoms in Aids prevention, who seem to articulate the current official line, have not succeeded in explaining their position persuasively to the public, in part because it is based on complex theology.
In the mind of many non-Catholics (and perhaps a number of Catholics, too), the Church is allowing thousands to die in order to maintain a theology of morality that is irreconcilable with the experience of modern society. The hysterical and absurd allegation of genocide has even been levelled against the Church.
It is wrong to presume a consensus even within the Church hierarchy on condoms and Aids. As we reported last week, Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi of Cameroon has said that if a partner in a marriage is infected with HIV, the use of condoms makes sense, echoing what several bishops conferences, including that of Southern Africa, have already asserted.
Cardinal Tumi went even further, suggesting that there could even be a rethink on the use of condoms outside marriage, if individuals are unwilling or unable to abstain.
Earlier this year, the theologian of the papal household, Cardinal Georges Cottier said that the fifth commandment should be considered in cases where sexual activity involves a partner infected with HIV.
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who heads the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, has opposed the distribution of condoms because this might entrench a promiscuous culture, a warning often sounded by Church leaders. However, when abstinence is not an option, he believes the use of condoms is admissible.
While there is an unassailable unanimity in the Church that abstinence outside marriage and fidelity within are the safest forms of protection against Aids, there clearly is no consensus on the question of condoms. The debate, therefore, cannot be closed.
The theological question of condoms and Aids requires conscientious review, debate in particular by examining whether ethical principles such as the doctrine of double effect and the greater good can be applied and ultimately a resolution.
The pastoral need, however, is immediate. Thousands of people are at daily risk of dying of Aids-related causes. Many single mothers are forced into sexual activity by poverty. Is the Church’s teaching on the primacy of human life consistent with the admonition that she must not use a condom? Is the condom, or even the act in which it is used, really more evil than a preventable death from Aids?
It is questions such as these, not the finer points of theological principles, which the Church must ask itself in its efforts to find a pastoral, Christ-like response to the Aids pandemic. And the answers cannot wait.
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