“Pope Benedict’s assertion that chastity outside marriage and fidelity within it are ‘the only sure way of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS’ is self-evident. In the context of the extent of the problem in Africa it is unhelpful” 
Fr Kevin Hegarty It has been a springtime of controversy for Pope Benedict XVI. His decision to lift the excommunication edict on four bishops of the Society of St Pius X, an organisation which opposes the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, attracted severe criticism, in particular because one of them, Richard Williamson, was revealed to be a Holocaust denier.
Last week, during his visit to Africa, the Pope asserted that AIDS ‘cannot be overcome by distributing condoms. It only increases the problem’.
AIDS is one of the curses of modern Africa. In 2007, according to a UN report, about 22.5 million Africans, south of the Sahara, were suffering from it. This is two thirds of the number afflicted worldwide.
It is difficult to calculate the number of Africans who have died of AIDS as the virus destroys the body’s immune system, so victims often perish of diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria. The UN reckons that over 20 million people have died of AIDS-related diseases. Life expectancy in southern Africa had increased from an average of 40 years in 1955 to 55 in 1990. It is now below 40 years. There are multitudes of orphans roaming African settlements.
The World Health Organisation claims that ‘consistent and correct’ condom use reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90 per cent. So it is not surprising that the Pope’s comments have been criticised by those who argue that the availability of free condoms is an important measure in the fight against the spread of the disease.
Among the critics have been the French, German and Belgian governments. A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry voiced ‘sharp concern over the consequences of Benedict XVI’s comments. While it is not up to us to pass judgement on Church doctrine, we consider such comments are a threat to public health policies and the duty to protect human life’.
Even in Catholic circles the Pope has come under the lash. In a feisty letter to the London Times, Brian Hall, President of the Australian AIDS Fund, a Catholic AIDS-care agency working in Malawi, wrote that ‘the Pope especially needs to recognise the paradigm shift in the use of condoms over the years. Initially, they were designed as a contraceptive device but, with the arrival of HIV/AIDS, they are a lifesaver as they block the transmission of a fatal disease. To deny their value is pure folly and to condemn their use in those marriages in which a partner is infected by HIV is to abandon every semblance of Christianity’.
Pope Benedict’s comments are rooted in the Catholic Church’s condemnation of contraception. Pope Pius X expressed it trenchantly in 1930 in his encyclical, ‘Casti Connubi’. Sexual intercourse in marriage is designed by God primarily for the procreation of children. Those who frustrate ‘its natural power’ sin ‘against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious’. What the Church calls the secondary purpose of sexual intercourse in marriage, the communication and deepening of the relationship, is seen merely as an adjunct.
By the 1960s there was widespread expectation among Catholic couples that the Church would change this teaching. Through the insights of modern psychology there was a growing awareness that sexual intercourse in a committed relationship is an important means of expressing and strengthening intimacy between a couple. The Second Vatican Council had opened the door to reform in the Catholic Church. It was hoped that this new openness would extend to the sphere of contraception.
In 1963 Pope John XXIII established a commission to consider the issue. This commission was continued in office by his successor, Paul VI. The majority of its members were lay Catholics. It included married couples, doctors, economists and demographers.
The commission ended its work in 1966 and was divided in its recommendations. The majority recommended a change in the Church’s teaching on contraception, arguing in somewhat technical theological language that, ‘in some cases intercourse can be required as a manifestation of self-giving love, directed to the good of the other person, or of the community, while at the same time a new life cannot be conceived’. Church teaching on moral matters such as usury and religious liberty had changed over the centuries. The minority argued that there should be no change. Such change would call into question the moral efficacy of the Church’s teaching on other matters.
After much tortured reflection, Pope Paul accepted the gist of the minority report and in his encyclical in 1968, ‘Humanae Vitae’, continued the Church’s condemnation of contraception. He failed to convince Catholics in the developed world. Surveys indicate that well over 80 per cent of Catholics of child-bearing age do not observe the encyclical’s teaching.
Given Pope Benedict’s strict adherence to theological conservatism, his comments on AIDS in Africa are not a surprise. His assertion that chastity outside marriage and fidelity within it are ‘the only sure way of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS’ is self-evident. In the context of the extent of the problem in Africa it is unhelpful. Ideals have to grapple with reality.
Cardinal Murphy O’Connor said some years ago: “While we can say that, objectively, the use of condoms is wrong, there are places where it might be licit, or allowable, as when there’s a danger of intercourse leading to death.” Those who support Pope Benedict’s stern view might reflect with profit on the maxim that the perfect may sometimes be the enemy of the good.
