Message #135513

[Bianca]

Better lives

 
The Pope says HIV/Aids threatens economies and societies.
 
The Pope is echoing the teaching of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, whose own advocacy of abstinence was also fiercely criticised, and led to accusations even that he was responsible for the spread of disease.

The Church's case has not been helped in the past when senior figures - including the president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo - have insisted that HIV inevitably passes through holes in the latex from which condoms are made, a claim dismissed by the World Health Organization.

However, the Church's concern about condoms is only part of wider teaching aimed at allowing people to live better, more fulfilled lives.

It believes that encouraging people to use condoms to minimise the worst effects of behaviour that in itself impoverishes their lives is to fail them.

Pope Benedict put it this way not long after he took office in 2005. He told African bishops that contraception was among trends leading to a breakdown in sexual morality.



"It is of great concern that the fabric of African life, its very source of hope and stability,

is threatened by divorce, abortion, prostitution, human trafficking and a contraception mentality."



In other words, there is something at stake that is greater even than the fight against Aids - particularly as, in the Church's view, condoms are not as effective as abstinence in combating this deadly infection.