Most Catholics Disagree With Pope's Stance on Condoms
A few pundits jumped to defend the pope’s position—even after the Vatican had amended his comments to reflect some uncertainty. However, these supporters picked up a small part of what the pope said, ignoring the fact that the pope spoke generally against condom use and the spread of HIV. Clearly each individual situation deserves a unique, evidence-based response; nobody argues with that. But the Vatican’s opposition to condom use – even in a loving, monogamous sero-discordant relationship – is worthy of condemnation.
Despite the Vatican’s stance, the vast majority of Catholics disagrees with the pope and use condoms to protect themselves and their partners against STIs, including HIV. According to a recent poll commissioned by Catholics for Choice, which interviewed Catholics in Ghana, Ireland, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States, support for condom use among Catholics is overwhelming. When asked if "using condoms is prolife because it helps save lives by preventing the spread of AIDS," 90% of Catholics in Mexico, 86% in Ireland, 79% in the US, 77% in the Philippines and 59% in Ghana agreed. Unfortunately, the Catholic hierarchy's position holds the most sway in the countries least able to deal economically and medically with the disease.
Catholics the world over unequivocally state that using condoms is prolife and disagree with the Vatican's ban on condoms. Now is not the time for the pope to be dismissing the importance of condom use. Let us hope and pray that he reconsiders and reverses his position, and in doing so, adopts the truly prolife position that ordinary Catholics have already embraced: using condoms saves lives.
It took the church hierarchy 359 years to stop continuing the line taken by their predecessors on Galileo. We hope that this error does not take so long to change.
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Have they re-written the Bible? Or have Catholics switch to another Bible or maybe they just decided to tear out the part they don't agree with. Do they agree that adultery is wrong ? What about theft? The point is just becasue something is popular does not make it right. And just because it's right it sure doesn't make it popular. I'm not sure you speak for all your fellow brethren but if you do it's obvious that your faith is now based on the latest poll . Thank God that your pope doesn't pay attention ot exit polls. What about what God says... doesn't that count for something? - www.Sex-Edforparents.org
I believe the Pope speaks for most Catholics, and Jon does not. Jon makes a foolish statement when he states 'Most Catholics Disagree With Pope's Stance on Condoms.' Perhaps most Catholics Jon knows disagree, but Jon might be surprised at how many Catholics throughout the world follow the Pope's teachings as head of the Church.
Most Catholics Disagree With Pope's Stance on Condoms
This is just a lie.
There is no public health debate over the efficacy of condoms in preventing the transmission of HIV . It is weak reporting to assert that there is sufficient scientific doubt to call this "a debate."To call this canard "a long-simmering debate," is to deny the reality of virtually every scientific study. The consequence of virtually every abstinence experiment is increased disease & death. The pope lied. There is not more basis in reality for abstinence as a public health measure in the Age of AIDS . It is a free world, at least it has been marginally more free since the power to run it was wrested away from popes; anyone is entitled to believe anything. Fortunately, President Obama promised " science -based public policy." That should provide some improvement in America's approach to public health. European countries have less of a problem as they have suffered centuries of repression at the hands of popes and they are generally better at making judgments independent of papal bulls.
Because of the leverage of ideologues, like this pope and the Gary Bauers of the failed Bush Administration, America is behind the curve on AIDS prevention; we have far more infections than would exist if we had implemented the recommendations of every National AIDS Commission from the early 1990s. Many have died; many more are infected. These were preventable infections. The price of lies is high. In this case the price of these men's lies is measured in human lives. Pope Benedict has once again shown contempt for human life in favor of orthodox phantasy.
If what I wrote is correct --- and anyone can check --- this pope's pronouncement is worthy of contempt. If you are sincere in calling yourself " pro-life ," you have a moral obligation to check these facts from sources independent of the convoluted distortions of Roman Catholic delusion.
When the Pope said, “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms . On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
I believe what he meant is: "The problem (of AIDS & HIV transmission)" is caused by sex outside of marriage/non-monogamous sex. Condoms make it SEEM safe to have sex outside of marriage, and thus promote and increase the occurrences of sex outside of marriage "which increases the problem (of HIV transmission)" since condoms aren't 100% effective, and can have microscopic holes, or break. The solution is monogamous marriages/relationships, not condoms, because if people would have sex with one only person, then condoms (only concerning STDs) would not be necessary.
When the Pope said "increases the problem," I believe that he was NOT referring to scientifically increasing the likelihood of transmitting HIV or anything realated to the actual virus, but saying that condoms idealogically/religiously worsened the situation by promoting sex outside of marriage.
I am a Christian, not a Catholic. No one that knows what I believe would ever confuse me of being a fan of Catholicism. I am against MANY of the things that Catholicism believes and is, but I don't HATE Catholicism. YOU, after saying "convoluted distortions of Roman Catholic delusion," DO seem to hate Catholics, which in my book, reduces your credibility since you are unlikely to state anything that is not a "convoluted distortion."
What the Pope meant, i think, -and anyone can have different opinion on his sentence: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=15403 - is that to pretend to solve the problem by advertising that condoms are the solution is very dangerous:
* because they are not 100% effective not even to work as a method of birth control, even less for HIV .
* because they trivialize and impulse libertarian sexual activity.
This is confirmed here:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTNlNDc1MmMwNDM0OTEzMjQ4NDc0ZGUyOWYxNmEzN2E %3D
What Catholics for 2000 years have failed to understand is the the people of the world do not need your permission to have sex. As the young woman who spoke at Bill Clinton's African AIDS Summit said: "Sex is fun and it is free..." , In a world with a high prevalence of HIV , condoms make having sex MUCH less dangerous. The Catholic Church, with its 2000 year history of repression and perversion is in no position to judge the attitudes of non-Catholics towards sex. We take it to be insufferably arrogant and hypocritical. No institution that condones the predatory behavior of its own pedophile priests with official white-wash & cover-up, deserves a place in this discussion.
What you call " libertarian sexual activity" is other people's freedom. As the Italians say: "Bed is the poor man's opera." That is true for women too. Despite the sexual sickness of Christianity, which, at least in its Pauline incarnations, is a body-hating and life-hating philosophy that posits the absurd fantasy that "true life" begins when you die, men and women get a lot out of sex. That's why we keep doing it. The opposite of that is why people have, in vast numbers, ceased going to Catholic Churches. I would say that is not because people no longer have spiritual longings and spiritual needs rather because, with the Church's obscene obsession with other people's behavior, the spiritual needs of congregations are not being met there.
As to condoms being "100% effective," no responsible public health professional ever claimed that they were fool-proof but properly used they are very effective. Forced to make a choice between the efficacy of condoms vs. the efficacy of abstinence, as a public-health intervention, I'll bet on condoms.
I am an AIDS prevention professional, I know the risks. Let me tell you a personal story of condoms. I know the value of sex in my life. For over five years, my life-partner was a person with AIDS, Because of condoms and gloves and dental dams we were able to physically express our love for one another until shortly before she died of that horrible disease. Sex added immeasurably to our lives, while the consistent use of protection kept me from becoming infected. We could share almost everything without transmitting a virus that she carried and I do not.
What you believe is none of my business. The decision of the Catholic Church to attempt to impose their flawed ideology, with the added dishonesty of distorted science , upon public policy is insensitive at best, In the first-world it will fail. Where it succeeds, it will accelerate the spread of HIV disease among those who can least afford it. As I wrote in another post: I leave it to the pope to concoct the requisite theological contortions to call that a "Pro-Life" position. I do not.
The article says "Catholics Disagree With..." not Joey disagrees.
Does your experience as an " AIDS prevention professional" give you more insight than the "AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies"?
Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies said this week: “The best evidence we have supports the Pope’s comments."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5987155.ece
Back to the point I want to make, this article is about "Catholics". If you allow people who call themselves "Catholic" to be quoted then yes they disagree with Pope. However, if you limit "Catholics" to those who follow the teachings of the Church, you will not have an article.
As an example a man can run around and tell everyone he is a Girl Scout, that does not make it so. He may be a Girl Scout Leader or be employed by the Girl Scouts, but he is not a Girl Scout. Likewise, just because someone calls themselves a Catholic does not by the Church's definition they are. If you study Catholic teaching , you will find that some issues are black and white while others are allowed latitude of opinion.
Condom (and other contraception ) use for a Catholic is about the prevention of life through procreation, not about stopping disease. Trying to prevent our part of the transmition of life is a matter of disobedience to God.
As far as sex being enjoyable and therefore any attempt to limit it being body-hating, would you make the same argument about eating food ? Sex has a purpose, a goal, and is for a time and place. In the Christian view that place is marriage, the purpose is to be "open" to life and the goal is to unite the couple.
Yes sex has been called the last free entertainment . However, that is not a "Christian" view. Man (humans) has the ability to choose. A good parent does not give its child everything it asks for. Is it a bad thing for "man" to say no from time to time?
Are condoms/abstinence the only factors in HIV /AIDS prevention? No. I was reading an article about Africa, the spread of HIV/AIDS went down while ABC was being promoted. The numbers went up when fewer condoms were handed out. As a side note at the same time condom distribution went down, refugees came into the area. Is it possible that the refugees influenced this increase? It is likely that the refugees did not receive the abstinence and prevention training that the locals did. Also I saw no reference to drug use.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/public-health-and-religion-aids-america-abstinence-480593.html
For you to say that condom use is more pro-life than not using them, you need to show how many lives are lost on both sides. The numbers of HIV/AIDS cases can be calculated (or at least estimated). How would you go about calculating or estimating the loss of life from the use of condoms? There are figures for the percent fertility of women based on age, from this you can determine the odds that each group of women would become pregnant each month (modified for the number that would be pregnant from previous months). Which number do you think is larger?
Back to the point, if they disagree with the Church then they are not Catholic, so the article is misleading.
I will respond with quotations from the responsive editorial in The Lancet (The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9669, Page 1054, 28 March 2009), which is arguably the most prestigious, peer-reviewed medical journal in the world; "The Vatican felt the heat from an unprecedented amount of international condemnation last week after Pope Benedict XVI made an outrageous and wildly inaccurate statement about HIV / AIDS . On his first visit to Africa, the Pope told journalists that the continent's fight against the disease is a problem that “cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms : on the contrary, they increase it”.
"The Catholic Church's ethical opposition to birth control and support of marital fidelity and abstinence in HIV prevention is well known. But, by saying that condoms exacerbate the problem of HIV/AIDS, the Pope has publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine on this issue."
World Health Organization (WHO) released an updated position statement on HIV prevention and condoms, which said that “the male latex condom is the single, most efficient, available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV.”
The Lancet editorial concluded: "Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear. But the comment still stands and the Vatican's attempts to tweak the Pope's words, further tampering with the truth, is not the way forward. When any influential person, be it a religious or political leader, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record. Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics, who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide."
You and your pope have every right to believe preposterous nonsense. You do not have the right to call absurd distortions of fact "science." Neither do you have the right to distort science in ways that will certainly endanger millions of human beings then call those lies " pro-life ." Condoms prevent the spread of HIV. That is the scientific fact. There is no truth in the unwise words that Pope Benedict VI proclaimed in Africa. To tell that lie, to the most vulnerable high-risk population on earth, is a disgrace that I am very glad did not take place in the name of my religion , because it is a source of shame. And judging by the outraged reaction that took place around the world, the whole world knows it.
PS. It's not a good idea to quote science from newspaper articles; they quite often don't get the facts straight. It's a bad practice unless, of course, you need distortions of science to support positions that have no basis in fact. That's what happened; you learned just enough to get it wrong. I'll share something I learned in grad school: "The plural of anecdote is not data."
Since Dr. Green's statement about the data is countered by an opinion--labeled as such by the distinguished Editorial Board of Lancet, I'll go with Dr. Green. Truth is often counter-intuitive, and in a field as complex as human sexual behavior, it is possible that the subtleties are easy to miss. For example, in an actual study, (not editorial) reported in Lancet, it was found that access to health -related materials AND condoms actually decreased condom use.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736 (00)02376-X/fulltext
The "opinion" expressed in the Lancet editorial is backed by an overwhelming body of scientific research, as is the WHO position paper on the subject of the efficacy of condom use in the prevention of HIV infection.
Anyone can find "an actual study" that appears to conclude almost anything. That study which you cite, which you claim indicates that knowledge decreases positive health behavior, would run counter to virtually every study in every field of health science . But if you need to find support for an otherwise untenable ideologically driven conclusion, that is your right. Freedom is the right to be wrong. However, neither you nor the pope has the right to call that opinion the consensus position of the scientific community, because that is a lie.
Commitment to ideology over the evidence before ones eyes is an act of faith . Denying the existence of clear evidence that conflicts with faith is moral cowardice. Teaching lies to children , whether the lie is "creation-science" or misinformation about safer-sex practices, is child abuse . Teaching lies to those at the highest risk of HIV infection is a crime against humanity. By refusing to retract his demonstrably false statements, against the efficacy of condom use in preventing the spread of HIV, Pope Benedict XVI convicts himself of an atrocity against the vulnerable African faithful, Attempts to muddy the clear and long-studied position of the scientific community will not cover-up the guilt that will be measured in preventable infections. I hope the pope sees the error in his position before more lives are lost to this horrible disease.
I believe that the data could be interpreted another way. It is true that the rate of condom use decreased in the presence of information, but the rate of sexual activity was not measured by the study. It is quite possible that the rate of carrying through on the plan to have intercourse decreased as much as, or even more than, the rate of condom use decreased. This would mean that intercourse decreased, and the rate of condom use in intercourse actually increased. The point is, data is always data, but interpreting the data is done differently by different people.
Even if all the world believes the world is immovable, that the sun and stars move round it, because of the evidence before their eyes, it moves.
The pope and Dr. Green offer a different interpretation of the data than the consensus position of Lancet and WHO.
It's late, so I'll go out on a limb and say that this quotation: "Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies said this week: “The best evidence we have supports the Pope’s comments." is either taken out of context or the person who said it will be taken to task by scientific colleagues and will either qualify or retract it.
That is not my professional answer. I will look into the quote and the person who made it and get back with a detailed response.