Well, even if you grant that the Church is being consistent in withholding information, it is still possible to attach blame to the actions (or inaction.) Whosr fault is it if a child dies because a parent refuses medical attention, on the grounds that medical attention is against that parent’s religion? Surely the child would have lived had the doctors been allowed to do their work.
I agree it is foolish to expect the Church to accept the blame, or even acknowledge that there is any. This seems to me to be a weakness on the part of the Church.
What it has always done: keep the blinders on, forge ahead with programs and ideas that were bad to begin with and that are getting worse as time goes by, promote irresponsible and endless procreation regardless of economic ability, availability of food, or land to support a burgeoning population, meanwhile tut-tutting about the plight of the poor and expecting everyone of means to contribute to that plight when the Church is as responsible as anyone for creating it. Whew!
Could I please have a cite for the Church teaching that condoms do not prevent AIDS? I’d be very interested in the context and the specifics of that claim.
As for Anaamika and her ilk, I’m simply going to point out that while you may feel the Church should teach certain lessons, you are not in charge of the Church. It’s their money, their labor, and they are thus entitled to teach what they please.
Is their teaching harmful? No, sez I, for the precise reasons articulated ably above: they are teaching that pre-marital and extra-marital sex is wrong. If people follow those teachings, AIDS is not a threat. Their teaching about the use of condoms may properly be considered only in the context of those other rules.
Now, if in fact the Church has been claiming that condoms are useless for the protection of the body against disease, then THAT teaching is, I agree, harmful.
I’d like to see the specifics of this claim, though, before I concede its reality.
Personal responsibility is dependent on making a choice based on available information. When institutions of authority are defrauding people, they bear some of the responsibility for ill-informed choices.
At the very least, the Church is guilty of hypocrisy and lying when they assert that “nothing is more important than the preservation of life” in the Schiavo matter. Apparently it’s more important to avoid using a condom than to use one and continue living.
If, indeed, the Church said, “Nothing is more important than the preservation of life,” with respect to the Schiavo case, it’s unclear to me what, precisely, this has to do with condom use. The statement “Nothing is more important than the preservation of life,” if issued with respect to Schiavo, was clearly in the context of Terry Schiavo’s fight for life, and had nothing to do with condom use.
That link is from the BBC. In it, the BBC reports on a TV program that makes the claims in question. The BBC does not cite another source, nor does it endorse the claims.
That’s the extent of it. Apparently, several religious are interviewed in the program, making statements of dubious medical accuracy.
The problem is that when a nun makes a statement, it’s not “the Church” speaking – although I can understand how some might believe this is so. But there are a billion Catholics in the world, and they are not all authorized to commit the Church to particular points of view.
By way of analogy, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, went on record several years ago with the pronouncement that Bill Clinton could run for a third term – because the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution was unconstitutional. I trust you see the problem with taking that statement and proclaiming: “Democrats Hold That Twenty-Second is Unconstitutional!”
Now, what is true that if someone with APPARENT authority makes a statement that he or she is not entitled to make, and, further, is in error, then I agree it’s incumbent upon the organization to work on correcting the misapprehension. If a senior cardinal is making absolutely incorrect statements of fact, as was alleged here, then the Church DOES have a responsibility to correct those – not because the cardinal in question actually has the authority to promulgate doctrine or teach infalliably – he does not – but because such action creates the false appearance that he is teaching doctrine, and it is a reasonable mistake for an observer to make.
So – to the extent that the Church is being criticized above for promulgating false medical information, I agree they have some responsibility in this area, assuming the Panorama program’s report is accurate.
My apologies if I missed it, but has this been cited yet? I ask because I want to be sure it isn’t the Church saying, “Condoms don’t work as well as chastity”, which, AFAICT, is true.
I don’t know that this is true, but I am not sure how you could prove it.
But I don’t believe that the Church is responsible for the fact that Africans are often too poor to buy condoms.
It’s probably true that lots of Africans don’t know about condoms, but that is at least as much the fault of their own “leaders” as it is the Catholic church.
I think where we disagree is on the notion that “abstinence isn’t an option”. I suspect the Catholics believe chastity is never optional. It’s obligatory, even for poor people. I expect it could even be considered demeaning to treat the Africans as if they were so low on the scale that they cannot be expected to act responsibly or chastely. “No sense in expecting - well, those people - to behave like civilized folks. They simply don’t have it in them.” If you see what I mean.
Not that I am accusing you of saying this, but it could be considered a tendency in this line of thought. Thus it becomes the White Man’s Burden to provide the benighted heathen with the condoms that will save them from themselves.
You could even make the argument that, in an environment where condoms are not widely available, it makes even more sense than usual to limit yourself to mutual monogamy with an uninfected partner. That seems to be most of the reason that AIDS is not particularly common among Americans who live monogamously (and don’t use IV drugs).
I hasten to add that of course it is true that AIDS is transmitted in other ways besides sex, especially (apparently) in Africa, but then the increased use of condoms isn’t going to interrupt those ways, either.
Regards,
Shodan
PS - On preview, I suppose it is possible to interpret my post such that the next three pages will be The Usual Idiots frothing that “You said people who aren’t monogamous deserved to die of AIDS! You evil nasty etc., etc.”
Which says: “The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.”
So the catholic church is warning people against using condoms, because they might spread AIDS.
So the catholic church is, in fact, very much guilty of spreading AIDS to epidemic proportions.
Another cite taking a direct quote from a Vatican official.
I see your point, but what I haven’t seen is a single African person saying what you say they say, which rather makes it moot. What I have seen is a lot of Western people accusing the Church and other irresponsible organisations deliberately misinforming said Africans. Your point also erroneously assumes that everyone contracting HIV is doing so through extramarital sex, which is plainly not the case. The wife whose philandering husband comes home most certainly should be using a condom, and is breaking no other Catholic teaching, yet the Church’s concern for her life is such that it prefers she contract HIV than let her husband spill his seed. And, as demonstrated, it is prepared to disseminate blatant lies to perpetuate its stance.
Bricker, from the Guardian article, a direct quote:
To me, it doesn’t get plainer than that. A Cardinal stated that the AIDS virus can pass through the condom, directly to the BBC.
Don’t get me wrong, there is vociferous debate in the Church on this matter - apparently a lot of dissent amongst Brazilian clergy, and this is a good thing. From my earlier link:
However it surely can not be disputed that the lie represents the official position of the Vatican at present.
So this, too, is not original, but simply reports on the content of “Panorama.”
Apparently, the Vatican has decided to suspend its other methods of communication, and promulgate its official policy soley by means of the BBC program “Panorama.”
Is there some reference to this that does NOT rely on “Panorama?”
Yes and yes. We’re getting somewhere now.
And, anu-la1979, you’re helping to make the point, although you might wish you weren’t.
The fight against fornication **IS ** the fight against AIDS.
The Catholic solution to the spread of AIDS is more foolproof than the condom solution. Therefore, if you’re going to make a choice as to how to limit the spread of the disease, why not pick the more efficient and spiritually superior one? That’s the Church’s stand, and, numerically and philosophically, it’s hard to argue with it.
What about the case of the wife who is monogamous, but whose husband isn’t? That’s not an isolated or hypothetical case; it’s apparently quite common in Africa (much as it was here before the discovery of AIDS). You can’t exactly blame the wife for catching AIDS that way. True, if everyone followed the teachings to the absolute letter there would be no new infectees, but that’s never going to happen. Why should so many people suffer because the Church doesn’t want to admit that humanity isn’t ideal?
Shodan: I was mostly referring to the marriage possibility, where a woman might feel obligated to have sex with her husband even if he’s been screwing around. Yeah, she could say no, but then she might be subject to abandonment or beatings. Of course, a guy who would beat his wife for not having sex with him probably wouldn’t wear a condom either, but I think there are some legit cases where abstinence isn’t an option.
[QUOTE=anu-la1979]
Here’s an interview with the individual featured in my apparently baseless citations where he says
But those comments are true, are they not? While condoms are effective in reducing the spread of HIV, they do not ELIMINATE it. There IS a percentage of grave risk. The only area with which you can possibly quibble is the last phrase: “…and that the rate of failure is quite high.”
“Quite high,” when talking about a deadly disease, means - what, exactly? 0.5% ? One half of one percent is a low rate… or is it, when the consequence is lingering death?
In the interests of accuracy, I might have said “Therate of failure is UNACCEPTABLY high,” rather than “quite high,” because “quite high” is vague and “unacceptably high” correctly communicates the issue: that even a small failure rate, when talking about serious consequences, can be an unacceptabel risk.
If you think about it for a moment, you might realize that while there is an insignificant yet still extant chance of transmission of HIV with a condom, the chance of trnasmission without one is many orders hgher.