Faced with widespread criticism that its strident anti-condom stand has killed millions of people affected with AIDS, the Catholic church may review its policy.
NEW DELHI: Faced with widespread criticism that its strident anti-condom stand has killed millions of people affected with AIDS, the Catholic church may review its policy. Church sources say the Vatican is preparing a document on allowing the use of condoms in certain cases.
Church sources said Pope Benedict XVI, who had two years ago maintained that “we have not changed our minds about the condom thing”, is moving away from the “absolutist stand of his precedessor John Paul II”.
On the eve of World AIDS Day, the Indian Catholic church sources said on Thursday that married couples could use condoms.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), under the banner of the National Catholic Coalition for HIV & AIDS in India, is organising a pledge by one million youth across the country between November 30 and December 1.
Though the five pledges do not exhort the youth to use condoms, church sources said married couples may use condom. It is forbidden for others on the grounds that it promotes promiscuity.
The Church has of late come under criticism from the UN and many NGOs across the world for its rigid stand against condoms, especially in the wake of reports that Sub Saharan Africa alone accounts for over 30 million HIV cases. The disease is spreading in Latin America and in Asia too.
In collaboration with different Catholic educational and charity institutions across the country, the campaign to mark World AIDS Day will focus on increasing awareness among youth about this dreaded scourge.
Churches throughout the country will observe December 2 as AIDS Sunday.
Asked why the church was not highlighting the use of condoms for the campaign, Fr. Alex Vadakumthala, executive secretary of the CBCI’s Commission for Health, said the “condom is only one aspect of prevention of AIDS. We did not concentrate on condoms. It comes only in the context of marriage. We leave [the use of condoms] to the couples … that they take a conscious decision.”
Asked why others were not supposed to use condoms, Father Alex said “that would encourage sexual promiscuity, you are sending a wrong message.”
CBCI spokesperson Father Babu Joseph said “we are against the use of condoms ‘in principle’, because it is life retarding, artificial intervention. We are for abstinence and self-control befitting human dignity.
There has been a lot of criticism on the stand of church. Even the WHO position is self-control and abstinence with regard to HIV. All contraceptives are not foolproof to prevent AIDS, prevalent much among multi-partners.”
CBCI technical director John Franco Tharakan said 34 per cent of population in the country was in the sexually active 15-29 age bracket and that was why the church was targeting the youth to spread awareness about the disease.
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