AIDS Challenges Religious Leaders

Faced with a proposal to allow the use of condoms for AIDS prevention, southern African Roman Catholic Bishops meeting in Pretoria last month sided instead with the Vatican. They pronounced the "widespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms . . . an immoral and misguided weapon in our battle against HIV-AIDS." They said, "condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV-AIDS."

The dilemma is unique neither to Africa nor to Catholics. Warnings that AIDS-related sex education and condom promotion will undermine individual responsibility and morality and lead to social destruction have come from Islamic leaders in Pakistan and evangelical Protestants in Jamaica. Zambian President Frederick Chiluba has called condoms "a sign of weak morals." But Uganda's Islamic Medical Association went the other way and supported a prevention campaign that has been highly successful. And in Senegal, where more than 90 percent of the population is Muslim, the spread of the virus slowed after Islamic and Christian leaders joined a government AIDS-prevention campaign advocating condoms along with abstinence and fidelity.

"What we are seeing now is that there is a debate going on in the Catholic Church," said Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS. "Clearly, there are many Roman Catholics who feel uncomfortable with the current official position." "The one thing everyone in the church agrees on is that the problem is very grave, but there are differences in the way in which we think the situation should be handled," said the Rev. Ricardo Rezende, a parish priest in the Brazilian state of Parana. "The church is offering its assistance through programs to those infected with the disease, but the ongoing debate is how to reconcile Vatican doctrine with the realities of modern Brazil."

Catholicism has had a major role in virtually all aspects of the global response to AIDS since the disease was identified. With its hospices and hospitals, orphanages and parish outreach, the Catholic church provides more direct care for people with AIDS and their families and communities, particularly in Africa and Latin America, than any other institution. Yet, while the UN, most governments and governmental agencies and almost all of international organizations working in AIDS agree that condoms are the most effective means of slowing the spread of HIV, the Vatican has remained steadfast in its opposition to their use.

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