[Mb-civic] Outlawed AIDS prevention - James Carroll - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Outlawed AIDS prevention

By James Carroll  |  May 1, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

CARING FOR the sick has always been a defining act of religion, as if 
every conception of God must be measured by its generation of 
compassion. Among Catholics, the tradition of the ''corporal works of 
mercy," associated with Jesus himself, long ago spawned a commitment to 
provide for the health of human beings, which led to the 
institutionalization of medical service. Catholic hospitals are the 
pride of the church. When I was a child, family illness prompted visits 
to Providence Hospital in Washington, and I remember the winged garb of 
the nursing sisters as a particular symbol of all that made life on this 
earth trustworthy.

Such associations form the backdrop of the shock it was when the 
Catholic Church failed in its response to the arrival of HIV/AIDS. Not 
that compassion was lacking. Catholic hospitals and other ministries 
threw themselves into caring for those who became infected, and today, 
across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, much of such care is provided 
in Catholic settings. But the urgent need for active prevention soon 
showed itself, and because the disease can be transmitted sexually, that 
required the advocacy of condom use.

In 1987 US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop recommended condoms for the 
prevention of the spread of HIV. One scientific study after another 
demonstrated the effectiveness of condoms in reducing risk of infection, 
yet centers of cultural conservatism resisted that message -- none more 
consistently than the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

''Although proven strategies exist to prevent new HIV infections," the 
UN declared in 2005, ''essential prevention strategies reach only a 
fraction of those who need them." The Vatican has a special 
responsibility here, for it not only repeatedly rejected condom use for 
the sake of HIV prevention, but argued -- for example in its 2003 
document ''Family Values and Safe Sex" -- that condoms, instead of 
inhibiting the spread of HIV/AIDS, promote it. This unconscionable 
denial was rooted in the most rigid of moral theologies, as if any 
loosening of Vatican condemnations of contraception -- never mind that 
disease prevention differs from birth control -- would lead to the 
collapse of Catholic authority.

In the years since Koop's advocacy of condoms, HIV/AIDS has continued to 
spread, so that by now more than 40 million people are infected, and the 
rates are going up (13,000 new infections each day). No Vatican policy 
could have stopped the spread of the disease, but there can be no doubt 
that Vatican rejection of condoms, and its aggressive campaign against 
condom use, helped that spread, especially in areas of the world where 
Catholic influence is high.

Last week came news reports that Pope Benedict XVI has ordered a Vatican 
reconsideration of its position on condoms and HIV/AIDS. ''We are 
conducting a very profound scientific, technical, and moral study," said 
the head of the Vatican office for healthcare. The study may be 
restricted to condom use between married couples, one of whom carries 
the infection, but even a change in that limited context would be 
significant. Any mitigation of absolutism in Vatican rejection of 
condoms would be a welcome step in the right direction. Indeed, the 
announcement that a change is being considered is already a mitigation.

Yet as a Catholic I respond to this news with complicated feelings. It 
is one thing to toss out the doctrine of Limbo, say, or to drop 
regulations about abstaining from meat on Friday. The issue raised here 
is graver.

The consequences of this Catholic mistake have been catastrophic. 
Cultural prejudice against condoms, often widespread, has been 
reinforced. Women for whom condoms can be a crucial protection and a 
method of self-assertion have been kept at risk and disempowered. 
Priests, nuns, and the few bishops who denounced the condom ban have 
been disciplined. Catholic lay people who have been savvy enough to 
ignore it have been put in bad conscience. HIV/AIDS education has been 
equated with the promotion of promiscuity. Catholic leaders have falsely 
defined condoms as ineffective. Prevention of illness has been put in 
opposition to compassion for the sick. Homophobia has been sacralized. 
The Vatican's rigid adherence to this teaching in the face of monumental 
human suffering has been central to the broader collapse of Catholic 
moral authority.

But even these disasters pale beside the dominant fact of this tragedy: 
For more than 20 years, the hierarchy's rejection of condom use has been 
killing people. Even were the Vatican to change its position now -- and 
pray it does -- Catholics must still reckon with that betrayal.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/05/01/outlawed_aids_prevention/
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