Catholic cardinal endorses condoms

A senior clergyman in the Roman Catholic Church says he supports the use of condoms, not for contraception, but for disease prevention.

Despite the Vatican's opposition to all forms of articial birth control, including prophylactics, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini calls condoms a "lesser evil" than AIDS.

Martini was responding to questions from the Italian scientist and bioethicist Ignazio Marino, who heads the transplant center at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

Martini agreed with the questioner that condoms were a "lesser evil" than the risk of transmitting the disease.

"There's also the unique situation of a married couple, one of whom is afflicted with AIDS. That one is obliged to protect the other, and the other must be able to protect him or herself," the cardinal said.

Vatican observers considered Martini a more liberal alternative to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected pope in 2005 following the death of John Paul II. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has reaffirmed the church's opposition to all forms of contraception, including condoms, saying that the only fail-safe way to prevent AIDS is abstinence.

Let's leave aside the question of sex between unmarried people. The church holds that as sinful, and the prohibition against birth control can be understood in that context.

I have never understoond how the Catholic Church reconciles its absolutist stance against abortion with its absolutist stance against contraception, even for married couples. I suspect that the opposition to artificial birth control has its roots in the Old Testament prohibition against a man spilling his seed on the ground to avoid impregnating the woman he is having sex with. There is plenty of room for theological debate over how, or even whether it should apply to modern people.

But, in an age in which unmarried sex is a societal norm, and in which most people have had sexual experiences before they meet and marry their spouses, pregnancy prevention cannot be the only consideration when weighing the merits of contraception, particularly in the case of condoms.

Social conservatives insist that condoms are not fool-proof methods of avoiding pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. This is certainly true. Abstinence is the only fool-proof method of avoiding those things. But this does not mean that condoms are worthless in those regard. They are, in fact, quite effective.

Condoms Are Effective in Preventing Unintended or Unwanted Pregnancy.


• In one year, only two of every 100 couples who use condoms consistently and correctly will experience an unintended pregnancy—two pregnancies arising from an estimated 8,300 acts of sexual intercourse, for a 0.02 percent per-condom pregnancy rate.



• In one year with perfect use (meaning couples use condoms consistently and correctly at every act of sex), 98 percent of women relying on male condoms will remain pregnancy free. With typical use, 85 percent relying on male condoms will remain pregnancy free.



• In one year with perfect use, 95 percent of women relying on the female condom will remain pregnancy free. With typical use, 79 percent relying on female condoms will remain pregnancy free.



• By comparison, only 15 percent of women using no method of contraception in a year will remain pregnancy free.


Condoms Are Effective Barriers.


• The condom—latex or polyurethane, male or female—is the only technology available to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV.



• Laboratory studies show that latex condoms provide an essentially impermeable barrier to particles the size of HIV and other STI pathogens. Studies show that polyurethane condoms also provide effective barriers against sperm, bacteria, and viruses such as HIV.



• Several studies clearly show that condom breakage rates in this country are less than two percent. Most of the breakage and slippage is likely due to incorrect use rather than to the condoms' quality.


Source: Advocates For Youth

The arguments of conservative social engineers against condoms simply are not based on the body of scientific knowledge about them. They just believe that sex should take place within the context of reproduction, if it should take place at all.

Whether you agree with this or not, no rational person can dispute the notion that in today's world, that argument is shamefully simplistic. As we have noted, whether or not you believe it should be so, most people have had sex with one or more people before they meet and marry their mates. One of the arguments that social conservatives make in favor of abstinence-only education is that sexually-transmitted diseases are rampant and that abstinence is as much a health issue as it is a moral issue. So, why do they seek to deny people access to a method of contraception that is, when used properly, 95 percent effective in preventing pregancy, and an "essentialy impermeable barrier" to HIV? Who knows? Maybe they're just crazy.

But even if you grant that, it still leaves the question of why the Catholic Church denies even married couples the right to use contraception without a fear of eternal damnation. I suppose the easy answer is that the world has passed the church by. Most Catholic couples, I suspect, would agree. Modern people want to control the number and spacing of their children. They consider it a basic human right. Studies indicate that the Vatican's unyielding stance on birth control has driven many families away from the church altogether, or has caused them to become "cafeteria Catholics" who remain in the church but tend to stick with the elements of doctrine they can live with, and discard the rest.

Historically, this conflict has dealt primarily with pregnancy. Today, this is no longer the case. The advent of HIV/AIDS raises the stakes to a matter of life or death. Any institution that fails to acknowledge this is failing to address the needs of its people.

I suspect Cardinal Martini knows this and accepts the reality of it. Hence, his refreshingly enlightened declaration that, for married couples at least, condom use is a lesser evil than AIDS. Pope Benedict cannot help but understand this, as well. In his refusal to acknowledge it, he is failing his church and its people.