In those cases, the husband refuses to use a condom with his extra-martial encounters … why? Because of Church teaching? And he fails to use a condom with his wife… why? Because of Church teaching?
So the Church’s teaching would not be persuasive enough to get him to stop fucking around on his wife, but, were they to advocate condom use, the unfaithful husband would slavishly follow this lesson?
Can I also ask for cites where the Church has actually stopped other organizations from providing condoms, education, and medical attention? Are there priests out there with M-16s keeping other organizations from helping the African population? :rolleyes:
As for the cites given, I sense that these statements are out of context. Condoms are not 100% effective. They DO decrease the risk of pregnancy and STDs dramatically, but not 100%. Therefore, I think the Church is pointing out that using condoms is inferior to abstainance. The method they use to communicate this to the populace is probably crude and somewhat ignorant, but the overall message is not with hypocritical tendancies like others have suggested. I can see SOME responsibility by the Church, and this needs to be addressed.
As for the comment about condoms laced with the AIDS virus…that is deceitful and dangerous and she is in need of an education. If there are many other spokespeople like her, then there is a bigger problem that the Church must address. But I think that this is someone who is on the fringe.
What I don’t get is the other comment that if someone told you not to use a condom during sex because an STD can pass through small pinholes, then why would you have sex with the same person at all without a condom? 
I think the point was that the WIFE or the LOVER might request that HE wear a condom. As opposed to everyone thinking that condoms don’t work. He may still refuse, but at least everyone realizes that they have some protection.
The problem isn’t that he refuses to wear a condom, but the impression that they don’t work or go against GOD.
People pick and chose which commandments they break all the time, Bricker. One may still be a murderer and honor thy father and mother.
[QUOTE=gobear]
Of course.
But the scenario in which the rate is zero is: no extra-marital sex.
Unless one is infected via blood by-products and then goes home…Zero isn’t exactly accurate is it?
As I said, if the Church is teaching, or appears to be teaching, that condoms are utterly ineffective against transmission of disaease, that’s wrong, and they deserve criticism for that.
As to the “go against God” part – well, in the case of the LOVER, the entire act goes against God, and the Church makes that clear. In the case of the WIFE, only the presence of the LOVER makes the act unsafe – and the LOVER’s presence is already prohibited.
Yes - what of it? Should the Church teach, “Don’t kill - but if you are going to kill, don’t dishonor your parents!” Of course not - such a stance would vitiate the prohibition against killing. Better that the Church teaches: “1. Don’t kill. 2. Honor your father and mother,” and work for BOTH commands to be obeyed.
(Strictly speaking, it’s “5. Don’t kill. 4. Honor your father and mother.”)
[QUOTE=Bricker]
Actually the only scenario from an individual standpoint is : no sex at all. As has been pointed out, unfaithful husbands can infect faithful wives (and vice-versa, I suppose.)
Fair enough. Zero plus epsilon.
And an accurate rendition of Church teaching would permit condom use in the case of conjugal relations with an infected spouse, since the intent of the use of the condom is to prevent the transmission of existing disease, NOT to prevent the transmission of new life. The contraceptive effect is an unintended, secondary effect, and thus permissible.
So you’re imagining a scenario where condoms are impossible to come by but blood transfusions are to be had for the asking?
The debate is whether it’s OK to blame the Catholic Church for the spread of AIDS because it refuses to endorse a method of prevention that is less safe and against its teachings, yet more congruent with human nature, rather than a method that is both completely effective and within its teachings, yet requires a bit of discipline.
Certainly true, and yet mutual monogamy with an uninfected partner, which is the Catholic position, is even safer than sex wearing a condom.
Bricker is, as usual, doing better than I could defending the comments for which I requested a cite (and thanks to those who did so), so I will leave him to that.
As far as the “condoms are infected with the AIDS virus”, I don’t know anyone who would not condemn such a remark. I do. Has it also been cited by a reliable source?
A good point, which I cannot dispute.
I would even take it further. A man who forces his wife to have sex after becoming HIV-infected is, in my opinion, violating Christian ethics. I would even wager he is acting against the wishes of the Catholic church as well. So, far from picking and choosing among Catholic doctrines, he would be rejecting even more of the truth than would a person who wore condoms.
I’m not sure I understand you. What I was saying was that I didn’t believe there were a lot of Africans picking and choosing to follow the Catholic proscription against condoms, but not the proscription against fornication, adultery, homosexuality, drug abuse, etc. What they seem to be doing is rejecting the Catholic positions on sexuality in toto, by not wearing condoms (largely because they are difficult to obtain and not because the Church condemns them) as well as by patronizing prostitutes, having multiple sex partners, coercing their partners into sex after becoming HIV-positive, etc. Sorry if I was unclear.
I thought I had been clear in saying that AIDS was spread in lots of ways, especially in Africa.
And I’ve never been exactly clear on why that is true in Africa and not the West.
AIDS in America has historically been limited mostly to gay and bisexual men, IV drug abusers, and their sex partners. There are other groups - recipients of infected blood (much rarer now, thank God), hemophiliacs (my sister’s brother-in-law died that way, poor fellow), and some others. But the explosion in heterosexual AIDS (defined here as transmitted female-to-male-to-female and onward) has not, by and large, occurred.
But in Africa, this is not true. There, AIDS seems to be transmitted much more often in ways different than in the US.
Why is that? The only mechanism I ever heard suggested was concomitant infections with other STDs that produce lesions that give the AIDS virus passage to the bloodstream. Is that the reason that female-to-male transmission (if that explains heterosexual AIDS in Africa) is more common there? Or is it the other factors already mentioned - mother-to-child transmission, sharing or reusing needles, etc. - the explanation?
My apologies if this is a highjack.
Regards,
Shodan
You completely ignore the point. THE MOTHERS AND THE BABIES ARE ADHERING TO CHURCH TEACHING. But they end up dying anyway.
Moron.
Did you miss Bricker’s earlier post?
I believe he is even a canon lawyer, IIRC.
Regards,
Shodan
Typing in catholic church africa condoms in google got me to this site:
http://www.cathnews.com/news/310/53.php
There is a list of links at the bottom about the vatican saying condoms don’t stop aids. The links go to The Guardian, Reuters, and others.
Just in case someone wanted to see other sources.
-Tikster
Bricker* Yes - what of it? Should the Church teach, “Don’t kill - but if you are going to kill, don’t dishonor your parents!” Of course not - such a stance would vitiate the prohibition against killing. Better that the Church teaches: “1. Don’t kill. 2. Honor your father and mother,” and work for BOTH commands to be obeyed.*
Perhaps I misunderstood your oringinal post or wasn’t clear in my own. You appeared to be saying that if the unfaithful husband already broke a command, what assurance do we have he would listen to the Church if they said “if you cheat on wife, at least don’t kill her too!” The answer is of course none…however it’s been my experience that people often break commands, yet somehow manage to find one or two, that they will slavish uphold; for no apparent rhyme nor reason.
It just seem strange to throw up ones hands and say why would he listen to the church and not kill his wife, when’s he already ignoring the Church and cheating on her.
Whoops…continuing: Especially if the means to prevent such an act are readily available. I don’t see why his wife should pay for his sin with her life.
Bricker:* And an accurate rendition of Church teaching would permit condom use in the case of conjugal relations with an infected spouse, since the intent of the use of the condom is to prevent the transmission of existing disease, NOT to prevent the transmission of new life. The contraceptive effect is an unintended, secondary effect, and thus permissible.*
So then why don’t they just say that? Wouldn’t that solve this problem? Perhaps they have and I’ve missed it, but wouldn’t saying exactly what you just did, go a long way to solving this problem?
Probably because the chances are the husband is not aware he is infected. Chances are the wife is not aware either, being that he is unlikely to detail his sexual history to her. Not to mention that they probably can’t afford AIDS tests.
One way of doing it would be for the church to allow everyone to assume that everyone is infected unless proven otherwise - kind of like the safe sex teachings here. But that would be condoning condom use, and is no doubt against Church teaching.
Since I haven’t anyone say the church should not teach chastity and abstinence, it boils down to when in the real world these teachings fail, it is better for millions to die than for the church to budge from its position. I wonder if Jesus would have approved of that position?
I just blame the Church for everything. It’s easier.
“Condoms don’t work as well as chastity”. That’s actually a far more philosophically and logically interesting statement than it initially appears. On one level, it’s clearly true. If you go out and are chaste for a year, and I go out and have lots of sex with lots of different people, but always use a condom, your odds of contracting AIDS are definitely lower than mine. On the other hand, if you are in charge of raising 1,000 children through the age of 25, and you tell them “do not have sex, because if you do, you will catch AIDS”, and tell them nothing at all about condoms, and I am in charge of raising 1,000 children, and tell them, from a very young age, “these little rubber doobies are called condoms, and they are VITALLY important to use, and here’s a big bowl of them outside my door, feel free to come take some if you need them, I won’t judge you”, well, which of the two of us do you think will have fewer kids with AIDS at the end of it?
Or to put it a different way, the important number is arguably not what percentage of people who succesfully practice abstinence get AIDS, it’s what percentage of people who are instructed in the practice of abstinence get AIDS. If condom use is only 97% as effective, when perfectly practiced, as abstinence, when perfectly practiced, but 95% of people have the combination of intelligence and will power to perfectly practice condom use, but only 60% of people have the combination of intelligence and will power to perfectly practice abstinence, then which is really the “more effective” practice? Like I said, it’s an interesting debate.
And on the general topic of this debate, I think the Catholic Church can definitely be at least partially blamed for the situation. Not necessarily in a “we’ll put them on trial for crimes against humanity” sense, but in a “here are ways they could have acted differently which would have resulted in fewer deaths” sense.
This gets back to one of the root problems that I, as an agnostic, have with organized religion, which is that it places value on things (in this case, abstinence-for-abstinence’s-sake and not-allowing-birth-control) that I do not value. And that means that the choices that people following that moral code make seem wrong and sometimes evil to me. To propose a slightly wacky hypothetical (and who doesn’t like slightly wacky hypotheticals?), imagine a religion which has, as one of its central tenets, a very very strong “children should not talk to adult strangers” belief. And to support this belief, members of this church provide a very safe, very insular, very enclosed way for children raised in this religion to get from home to school and back every day. So as long as the children rigorously follow what they are told and have perfect self control to never look into the forbidden and mysterious world behind, they will be VERY safe, safer than children of other religions who are freely roaming the streets, going into stores, and getting into typical childhood mischief. However, children in this religion are taught NOTHING about, say, stop signs. Teaching them about things like that would tacitly encourage them to Go Outside. Thus, they are left totally ignorant of how to survive Outside, and when some do rebel and Go Outside, they are utterly unprepared for the dangers they face out there, and many of them die.
Now, is this church responsible for these deaths? I mean, the church teaches that there are troubles when one goes outside. The church tells the children never to go outside. The church provides a massive support structure to keep children from going outside. If only those darn children would actually DO WHAT THE CHURCH SAYS and not Go Outside, they would be VERY safe, far safer than those heathen children who wander around outside. So how can you blame the church?
And note that I’m not necessarily saying that the people who make and enforce these rules are evil. It’s very possible that there are church elders who know very well the risks, and who are (being good people) positively being ripped up inside at having to make what they see as an extraordinarily tough choice, between taking actions that could save chilren’s lives, and taking actions that they see as violating a fundamental moral principle of their faith.
But, when you get right down to it, it is the decisions that the church makes, and the way it weighs its values and morals, that lead to those deaths. Thus, I do, in fact, hold the church responsible (although I don’t think it’s a slam dunk clear cut issue).
(And yes, I’m aware that my analogy is flawed in that it if one took it too literally it would imply that all Africans are like children who are incapable of making decisions. If you like, you can read “children” in the above analogy to mean “people under the age of 40”. Adults of all colors are famous for not being all that disciplined when it comes to not having sex, just like children of all colors are famous for not being all that disciplined, in general.)
Or, just perhaps, there AREN’T a gang of Usual Idiots who follow you around waiting to spit on you.
And you can’t see the forest for the trees.
The point is that adherence to Church teachings would take care of the husband.
And these are the Church’s points, not mine. Go back and read MY points about it again, and then throw your “moron” at that, if you can figure it out.
Moron.