WOW!
This BBC interview with our Cardinal is really good!
You *have* to read it! Condoms, Aids, priestly celibacy, he laid some Catholic smack-down (as Chris said!)
GOD BLESS HIM!
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You wanna know what I think is ridiculous?! I think it is ridiculous when people try to say that the Catholic Church's stance on condoms is causing the AIDS epidemic to increase.
People who say that just want a someone to blame for the fact that their 'solution' of throwing condoms every-where is clearly not working.
AIDS is increasing everywhere, despite condoms being everywhere.
And people (e.g. Tony Blair) don't want to admit it and so look for anyone to blame. and as usual, the Church gets it!
(just like the rate of teenage pregnancies increasing everywhere in the UK, despite the fact that there is so much contraception in schools).
The MAJOR way in which AIDS is spread throughtout Africa (& the world) is via huge huge amounts of sexual promiscuity.
These people CLEARLY aren't listen to the Catholic Church's teaching on not having sex outside of marriage, so why on earth would they be listening to the Church's teaching on not using condoms?!!
The Church's teaching on condoms has nothing to do with it, because such people don't listen to the Church ANYWAY!!!
If people listened to the Church in the first place, and treated sex with the reverence and dignity with which it deserves to be treated (in marriage between husbands & wives) there would be no AIDS epidemic at all!
I would say that it is exceptionally rare for people to have AIDS if they are in a strictly monogomous marital relationship, where neither husband nor wife have ever had sex with anyone except their spouse.
(that situation is rare even amongst practicing Christians today, imagine in the world at large).
and even IF one of the spouses had AIDS and the other didn't, then surely if they truely loved their spouse and didn't want to risk transmitting the virus, they would do the safest thing....which is abstaining from sex altogether.
If condoms have a failure rate for pregnancy, meaning a sperm can get out, then their faliure rate for the AIDS virus, which is like a gajillion times smaller than a huge sperm (we're talking like an ant compared to a whale), must be even bigger.
The SAFEST option, if you have AIDS and don't want to risk give your spouse AIDS, is not to have sex at all. Then you can be 100% certain they won't catch it.
Promiting behaviour change is the ONLY thing that will have any effect.
And saying stuff like "Get real! People aren't like that" is loser-talk!
You can't just assume that humans are like animals with no willpower or ability to change! We are ALL capable of better!
and anyway, you can't just change moral laws because people are too sinful to follow them!
PEOPLE need to change to do what it right by God; we can't just change what is right to suit people!!
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3 comments:
"AIDS is increasing everywhere, despite condoms being everywhere.
And people (e.g. Tony Blair) don't want to admit it and so look for anyone to blame. and as usual, the Church gets it!"
Yes, and the statistics speak for themselves. I blogged on this not too long ago and linked to an article that lays out the statistics quite clearly:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/june2006/browder.htm
Definitely worth a read.
The statistics ALSO show that Uganda has been making headway in reducing AIDS rates with programs that promote abstinence and chastity.
Good to see someone with medical background pointing out the obvious, too! Thanks for that!
Happy Advent!
If I'm CWM, I very much did try to engage in dialogue. I posted some questions for you after your post.
One problem with saying that there is an ethical reason behind allowing spouses to use condoms is . . . why would that not apply to other cases "between spouses?" We could come up with very serious reasons for avoiding pregnancy. Because the Church leaves this reasoning/discernment up to the individual couple, a reason that is less serious for one couple may be very real and serious for another couple. Why isn't "postpartum depression" classified as life and death, as it could be a life and death for one woman? What about a woman with a serious need to avoid pregnancy, say, whilst undergoing cancer treatment? Why, then, would the HIV couple be granted "leniency" while other couples are denied?
I know you don't approve of what you call my "just say no" attitude. But if you're trying to draw parallels of ethical principles, it seems as if Church teaching would be far from consistent by saying the condom is justified "just in *this* case."
The reason ectopic pregnancies fall into a different category is that the pregnancy will NEVER be viable. The child will die. That is why treating such a pregnancy is not abortion.
I thought the interview was terrible. The Cardinal barely got a chance to actually state a case for why condoms won't solve the AIDs problem, and he appeared to indicate that the pope is going to change his mind by not categorically stating he won't. I really hope not.
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