Catholic Cardinal Pushes for Condoms

[msproule]

Elizabeth B.:

It’s interesting to note that in Uganda where 43% of the population is Catholic, only 4% of the adult population is infected with HIV.

In Swaziland, where only 5% of the population is Catholic, the infection rate is 42.6%.

zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=77051

It seems both Faith and Science agree on this one.

Excellent post, Elizabeth! It really appears to point to the core of the problem.

I feel very sorry for this Cardinal. The use of condoms is objectively immoral, regardless of the circumstances. It always has been; it always will be. As in any case, to suggest that a married couple should be entitled to exploit the marital act for selfish reasons insults the human person and contravenes our responsibilities as True Chistians. It will solve nothing! Proponents of it suffer from terrible and dangerous shortsightedness.

 

[snow_white]

I recognize somewhat of a connection with this Cardina’s logic and those who think that since babies are going to be aborted anyway, might as well use their dead bodies for stem cell research. It’s like this attitude that bad things will happen, might as well do what we can with what we got. Ugh! :banghead:

 

[cyprian]

stanley123:

From the news, it looks like a rather large number of priests, bishops and lay Catholics who do not support the Catholic doctrine on ABC.
You were the one who mentioned excommunication in the first place, not me. I don’t know of a single bishop, priest or Catholic layperson who was ever excommunicated on the issue of ABC, do you? But I see that people with large families, of thirteen children and more coming, are excommunicated for saying a rosary and attending Mass at SSPX. And I don’t see these large families at the local Catholic Church.

I could ask you “how long have you been using birth control ?” And so, the church does not ask these questions to each member but it is incumbent upon each to follow the rules.Bad popes and bishops and priests and the like, there will always be those who think they know better, the wheat growing with the tares, you know, and so we are left only with Jesus, his Church not ours and all these decisions by which we will be held accountable. But alas, we always have the abandoned sacrament
of confession. It’s apparent(communion vs. confession) that a lot of cath’s have it wrong as far as what they believe the church ought to do, you may even be one of them. I was. Sin? What?

 

[batteddy]

I’ve heard people in the Church say, without being condemned, the following…and it makes some sense:

Married couples can use condoms to prevent the transmission of STD’s, if that is truly their intent…and through double-effect…the prevention of conception is merely an unintended, though foreseen, side-effect. However, the Church requests that in order to ensure correct intent, the couple should practice NFP too, and not have sex on days they could get pregnant, but only use the condoms to prevent disease on the days in the cycle they couldn’t get pregnant anyway, to prove that there intent is to stop disease, and not pregnancy.

 

[Roman_Army]

batteddy:

I’ve heard people in the Church say, without being condemned, the following…and it makes some sense:

Married couples can use condoms to prevent the transmission of STD’s, if that is truly their intent…and through double-effect…the prevention of conception is merely an unintended, though foreseen, side-effect. However, the Church requests that in order to ensure correct intent, the couple should practice NFP too, and not have sex on days they could get pregnant, but only use the condoms to prevent disease on the days in the cycle they couldn’t get pregnant anyway, to prove that there intent is to stop disease, and not pregnancy.

That is also wrong. The point is that the sex be fertile! The Encyclical of Pope Paul VI implies that you can use medications (such as chemotherapy) that have a bad side effect that prevents procreation in order to cure a bodily disease. But, In this case, it is not a therapeutic means to cure a bodily disease, but only using evil to prevent another great evil, in which there is a good method available: chastity.
Pope Paul VI:

Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity, and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (18)—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.

Lawful Therapeutic Means

1. On the other hand, the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever. (19)

 

[Nohome]

Elizabeth B.:

It’s interesting to note that in Uganda where 43% of the population is Catholic, only 4% of the adult population is infected with HIV.

In Swaziland, where only 5% of the population is Catholic, the infection rate is 42.6%.

zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=77051

It seems both Faith and Science agree on this one.

Curious that you would bring up the example of Uganda, because faith and science most certainly do not agree on this one. A decade ago, the infection rate of Uganda was well over 20%. An agressive government program that includes the promotion of condoms is the reason for the drop.

“The study’s findings suggest that Uganda’s “much-lauded success” in reducing its HIV prevalence has “little to do with” the abstinence and monogamy programs emphasized by the Bush administration under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Reuters reports (Fox, Reuters, 2/24).”

You can read all about it here:

medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=20349

Nohome

 

[estesbob]

Nohome:

Curious that you would bring up the example of Uganda, because faith and science most certainly do not agree on this one. A decade ago, the infection rate of Uganda was well over 20%. An agressive government program that includes the promotion of condoms is the reason for the drop.

%between%

Nohome

The Ugnadan Aids Commission strongly disagrees with you.
aidsuganda.org/response/index.htm

The study you linked to has been widely discredited. If condoms were the answer, as the study you linked to suggests, we would not have seen skyrocketing infection rates in the countries Neghboring Uganda that placed their faith in throwng condoms at the problem .

 

[Holly3278]

CatholicCid:

Makes one wonder, if the illness was so great enough to cause one to want to contracept to protect their partner, why would they even want to take that chance? Condoms aren’t always 100% effective in stopping STD’s, and it only takes one time to pass a disease along to your ‘loved’ one.
Why would they not go that 100% sure fire way and abstain as Genesis315 suggested?

The answer is simple. It is selfishness. Just pure selfishness. Selfishness is almost always behind someone wanting to use contraception.

 

[nico1089]

Phew!!–I thought it said Catholic Cardinal “Pushes” Condoms! Now THAT would really butt heads,–nicolo

 

[estesbob]

Holly3278:

The answer is simple. It is selfishness. Just pure selfishness. Selfishness is almost always behind someone wanting to use contraception.

I think the main reasn the Ugandan program works is becuase it treats people like HUMAN being. Most AIDs prevention programs view man as sexual creatures who can not control their sexual lust. Thus dont teach them that promiscouity is dangerous-just try and convince them of the “big lie”. That is that there is such a thing as “safe” promiscouity.

 

[Nohome]

estesbob:

The Ugnadan Aids Commission strongly disagrees with you.
aidsuganda.org/response/index.htm

The study you linked to has been widely discredited. If condoms were the answer, as the study you linked to suggests, we would not have seen skyrocketing infection rates in the countries Neghboring Uganda that placed their faith in throwng condoms at the problem .

I’m surprised that you would provide this link to discredit my comments. The Uganda AIDS project promotes the use of condoms. The following is from the link you provided:

“The major project results were the observed decline in HIV prevalence rates; the tremendous increase in condom use; the decrease in reported casual sex relations; and the high level of knowledge on HIV/AIDS in the country.”

I’m not saying that abstinance and monogamy are not part of the solution, but condoms (as you have now pointed out) are most certainly part of the solution.

Nohome

 

[Nohome]

Elizabeth B.:

It’s interesting to note that in Uganda where 43% of the population is Catholic, only 4% of the adult population is infected with HIV.

In Swaziland, where only 5% of the population is Catholic, the infection rate is 42.6%.

zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=77051

It seems both Faith and Science agree on this one.

Elizabeth,

I gave these statistics a lot of thought and I’ve come to the conclusion that they are meaningless. The author simply took two examples the fit her purpose and put them together as proof that Catholic values are preventing AIDS.

Just for the fun of it, I compared the percentage of Catholics in all African nations against the adult incidence rate of AIDS. This is exactly what the author you quoted did, but here is what was left out:

Lesotho, 70% Catholic, 28.9% AIDS infection rate
Niger, 0.10% Catholic, 1.3% AIDS infection rate

I could list many more examples, but this is enough to make the point. There is no correlation between the Catholic population in Africa and in infection rate of AIDS. I did discover, quite by accident, that there is a very positive correlation between AIDS and literacy. I’ve provided the rates for the nations mentioned thus far.

Uganda, 33%
Swaziland, 20%
Lesotho, 17%
Niger, 84%

So if the Church won’t give them condoms, perhaps they can at least teach them to read so they can figure out how to save thier lives on their own.

Nohome

 

[Libero]

This Cardinal is only reiteratting what Cardinal Daneels has been saying for some time now…

 

[Nohome]

Libero:

This Cardinal is only reiteratting what Cardinal Daneels has been saying for some time now…

Of course, that would be expected from two who have seen first hand the horror of this health crisis.

Nohome

 

[Jaypeeto3]

One thing folks may not have noticed is that, if the Cardinal really is teaching these things, then he is a heretic and by Divine law has, by the fact of his heresy, AUTOMATICALLY been deprived of all office and jurisdiction in the Church, and that without needing an official declaration from the church.
Love, Jaypeeto3

 

[AJC]

Maranatha:

Cameroon: Catholic Cardinal Pushes for Condoms

A Catholic Cardinal has approved the use of condoms as a protective measure against HIV/AIDS, provided the couple using them is married.

The 75-year-old Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi told Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Saturday, “If a partner in a marriage is infected with HIV, the use of condoms makes sense.”

Although the Catholic Church considers sex between unmarried couples as immoral, Tumi commented that “possibly there can be a rethink there”

Nonetheless, the cardinal did not expect the Vatican to stray from its traditional stance against the use of condoms

Why teach Cardinal when you can look to the world for your answer? Condoms are readily available in North America, India, and China. In all 3 countries HIV/AIDS is on the rise. Far be it for me to suggest the Cardinal wear a condom as a hat.

 

[Nohome]

Jaypeeto3:

One thing folks may not have noticed is that, if the Cardinal really is teaching these things, then he is a heretic and by Divine law has, by the fact of his heresy, AUTOMATICALLY been deprived of all office and jurisdiction in the Church, and that without needing an official declaration from the church.
Love, Jaypeeto3

The story said “Nonetheless, the cardinal did not expect the Vatican to stray from its traditional stance against the use of condoms”. So he isn’t “teaching heresy”, he is just expressing an opinion that the Church should rethink its position. The Church does not forbid free thinking.

Nohome

 

[Holly3278]

Frankly, I don’t care if the Cardinal approves of it or not! The Church does NOT approve of condoms in any case including this one! :banghead: I say excommunicate him!******

 

[Nohome]

Holly3278:

I say excommunicate him!

Well, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, the laity has no “say” in the Catholic Church.

Nohome

 

[AJC]

Holly3278:

Frankly, I don’t care if the Cardinal approves of it or not! The Church does NOT approve of condoms in any case including this one! :banghead: I say excommunicate him!****

Don’t hold your breath. You know the old line about when you really don’t have an answer or a solution form a committee. Unless it is some Bishop tending toward traditionalist orthodoxy the Vatican will do one of two things: Try and ignore the pronouncement or study said pronouncement hoping it will be forgotten.