Catholic Cardinal Pushes for Condoms

[Dale_M]

Perhaps something in the future that would target and kill the virus while leaving the sperm intact.

The vaginal microbicide called Carraguard is in the final stage of clinical testing and expected to end its trials this month. This should allow the first generation of microbicides to advance to the marketplace, after the study has been analyzed and approved by regulatory agencies. Laboratory testing shows that it is not contraceptive.

Although it is only 40% to 70% effective against HIV even this is considered a breakthrough. At the population level it will protect millions of lives. At the personal level microbicides will allow women to protect themselves when they are unable to negotiate the use of a condom (which has been a serious problem in Asia and Africa)
hivplusmag.com/column.asp?id=477&categoryid=1

Population Council, which has developed Carraguard, is committed to developing microbicides which are open to life. It has two second generation microbicides already in testing. popcouncil.org/microbicides/index.html.

 

[mrs_abbott]

Sure He did!

Remember, He told the Apostles “He who hears you, hears Me”

So when the Apostles, and their heirs, teach against Contraception, it is Christ Himself that we hear.

But who first stated that it was wrong and why? Don’t you think Jesus would have said something about it since He’s God and knows all and sees that alot of Catholics nowadays contracept?

 

[setter]

But who first stated that it was wrong and why? Don’t you think Jesus would have said something about it since He’s God and knows all and sees that alot of Catholics nowadays contracept?

…and pornography …drug abuse …wife beating …abortion …

The same principles for morality apply whether it is specifically recorded in scripture or not.

 

[mrs_abbott]

…and pornography …drug abuse …wife beating …abortion …

The same principles for morality apply whether it is specifically recorded in scripture or not.

Ok. Gotcha!

 

[vern_humphrey]

But who first stated that it was wrong and why? Don’t you think Jesus would have said something about it since He’s God and knows all and sees that alot of Catholics nowadays contracept?

Go to Genesis and find me the passages about the Big Bang, Nuclear Fusion (which powers the stars), or the electro-magnetic spectrum.

What sense would it make for the composer(s) of Genesis to talk about things their listeners couldn’t begin to understand?

Find me in the gospels the passages about the use of poison gas in warfare, bombing cities, or any other of the modern atrocities.

What sense would it make for Christ to talk about things His listeners couldn’t begin to understand? He left us a Church to expound on His teachings and apply them to new developments as they arose.

 

[mrs_abbott]

Go to Genesis and find me the passages about the Big Bang, Nuclear Fusion (which powers the stars), or the electro-magnetic spectrum.

What sense would it make for the composer(s) of Genesis to talk about things their listeners couldn’t begin to understand?

Find me in the gospels the passages about the use of poison gas in warfare, bombing cities, or any other of the modern atrocities.

What sense would it make for Christ to talk about things His listeners couldn’t begin to understand? He left us a Church to expound on His teachings and apply them to new developments as they arose.

Why would I need to find it in the Bible? I thought the Bible only contained part of what Jesus taught and the rest was Tradition?

 

[vern_humphrey]

Why would I need to find it in the Bible? I thought the Bible only contained part of what Jesus taught and the rest was Tradition?

Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? There are many things that are true – and have great moral impact – that are not only not in the Bible, but weren’t evern discussed by Jesus – because such discussion would have been meaningless to His deciples.

 

[hasikelee]

I can’t answer that, you see, I got married as a virgin and have only ever had sex with my wife. I’ve never had a blood transfusion, so I guess that is out of the question too. How would you answer the question?

Nohome

Nohome, I see your posts as well-constructed. So I must seek understanding here before I am able to answer. In your comment/question above, do you seek to project a sense that since you and your wife are free from sexually transmitted disease, you can simultaneously be held above the standard you are allowing for others while advocating that standard?

The old jingle of “I am personally opposed, but…” or “Well, I don’t personally engage in X, but others do…” is a very close-ended argument that isn’t receptive to developing solutions or engaging in open dialogue.

Thus, I am looking for clarification on the meaning of this quoted post from you.

And to answer the question, if I had HIV and/or if it had already converted to AIDS, I would not engage in sexual intercourse with my spouse. Unfortunately, I must admit that I am more bound to coldhearted conclusions rather than any intuitive feeling of sentiment or love. My simple process of thought would be to notice that the virus is almost 5 times smaller than the average openings of the latex, excluding any manufacturing or handling defects that may occur.

My next process would be to realize that the virus is primarily spread through sexual contact and then to notice the conversion rates are almost guaranteed.

These thought processes have led me to invest an enormous commitment and loyalty into the Catholic Church. I would like to say that I found faith through prayer and love and all that good stuff, but it is really just about seeing things the way they are and realizing that the Church has got an eerie ability to be right…

Makes one think it is supernatural…

 

[Nohome]

There is a third way which does not entail choosing the lesser of two evils – abstinence.

Can we agree that this third option has failed mankind since, well, forever? Or at least that mainkind has proven that it can’t achieve this ideal?

Nohome

 

[Nohome]

Nohome, I see your posts as well-constructed. So I must seek understanding here before I am able to answer. In your comment/question above, do you seek to project a sense that since you and your wife are free from sexually transmitted disease, you can simultaneously be held above the standard you are allowing for others while advocating that standard?

I don’t follow you. I don’t drink, but I don’t force sobriety on others. I don’t smoke, but I don’t force those around me to quit. I eat well and exercise, but I don’t impose the same standard on my peers. Why would sex be any different?

The old jingle of “I am personally opposed, but…” or “Well, I don’t personally engage in X, but others do…” is a very close-ended argument that isn’t receptive to developing solutions or engaging in open dialogue.

I prefer to say, “I’ve made decisions with my life that have worked well for me, but I can’t decide what is right for others”.

My simple process of thought would be to notice that the virus is almost 5 times smaller than the average openings of the latex, excluding any manufacturing or handling defects that may occur.

No offence, but your “process of thought” is too simple. The whole virus size vs. latex pore size argument is fundamentally flawed. Even if there were pores in latex that are larger than the virus, it won’t get through. You see, the AIDS virus is very much part of the fluid in which it is transmitted. Hold back the fluid and you hold back the virus. As this myth gets further busted, it will only discredit those who push forward the argument.

These thought processes have led me to invest an enormous commitment and loyalty into the Catholic Church.

I am sincerely happy for you. What about the 83% of the world’s population that isn’t Catholic?

Nohome

 

[Nohome]

All have a duty to refrain from spreading the disease – and there is only one way to accomplish that – stop the behavior that spreads AIDS.

Can we agree that up to now, mankind has nearly perfectly demonstrated its’ inability to stop said behavior?

Nohome

 

[vern_humphrey]

Can we agree that this third option has failed mankind since, well, forever? Or at least that mainkind has proven that it can’t achieve this ideal?

Nohome

So we’d be better off lying to people, telling them there’s such a thing as “safe sex” and encouraging them to carry on as if there were nothing wrong?

Here’s an interesting article in today’s news:

FRANCISTOWN, Botswana - The young and hip at ground zero of the AIDS epidemic meet, drink and pair off under the knowing gaze of bartender Brian Khumalo. Sometimes they first buy a three-pack of condoms from the box he keeps by the liquor, sometimes not.

So condoms are available, and anyone who wants them can get them.

Night after night they return for the carefree, beery vibe, with the same partners or new ones, creating a web of sexual interaction. A growing number of studies single out such behavior – in which men and women maintain two or more ongoing relationships – as the most powerful force propelling a killer disease through a vulnerable continent.

And yet . . .

This new understanding of how the AIDS virus attacks individuals and their societies helps explain why the disease has devastated southern Africa while sparing other places. It also suggests how the region’s AIDS programs, which have struggled to prevent new infections even as treatment for the disease has become more widely available, might save far more lives: by discouraging sexual networks.

Dang! And a brass band played “Whoda Thunkit!”

“The problem of multiple partners who do not practice safe sex is obviously the biggest driver of HIV in the world,” said Ndwapi Ndwapi, a top government AIDS official in Botswana, speaking in Gaborone, the capital. “What I need to know from the scientific community is, what do you do? . . . How do you change that for a society that happens to have higher rates of multiple sexual partners?”

Now waaaait a minute. I know someone told me no one in authority calls is “safe sex.” They call it “safer sex.” And the reason for that is so as not to fool people (who want to be fooled) into thinking you can be safe and promiscuous in the AIDS epidemic.

Khumalo, 25, tall and lanky with a crooked-toothed smile, described the problem succinctly as he pointed to a spiky-haired woman in a corner booth of the bar. “She’s new around here, so every guy is going to talk to her,” he said. “She will be with me today. Tomorrow she will be with my best friend. And I will be with somebody else.”

Khumalo moved from Gaborone to Francistown last March, finding a city of 85,000 with a red-brick downtown, modest concrete homes and an accommodating sexual culture. The first night, he slept with a woman he had just met, he said. He did the same the second night, the third, the fourth.

Though he used condoms each time, he said, an alarmed friend soon drove him to the white, low-slung buildings of Francistown’s biggest AIDS clinic. “I saw thousands of beautiful women going to get pills,” Khumalo recalled.
It scared him, but not enough. By the end of the year, Khumalo had slept with more than 100 women, he said.

Sounds to me it’s behavior, not lack of condoms at work here.

 

[vern_humphrey]

AIDS in Botswana (Continued.)

More than one regular partner

But the number of sexual partners is not the only factor that increases the risk of AIDS. The most potentially dangerous relationships, researchers say, involve men and women who maintain more than one regular partner for months or years. In these relationships, more intimate, trusting and long-lasting than casual sex, most couples eventually stop using condoms, studies show, allowing easy infiltration by HIV.

Lulled into a false sense of security, it seems!

Researchers increasingly agree that curbing such behavior is key to slowing the spread of AIDS in Africa. In a July report, southern African AIDS experts and officials listed “reducing multiple and concurrent partnerships” as their first priority for preventing the spread of HIV in a region where nearly 15 million people are estimated to carry the virus – 38 percent of the world’s total.

A day late, it seems to me, and a dollar short – the “give 'em condoms and that’ll solve it” strategy has produced a ghastly disaster.

But for many Batswana, as citizens of this landlocked desert country of 1.6 million call themselves, it is a strategy that has rarely been taught.

Well, why should it be taught? After all, there are people who say things like “Can we agree that this third option has failed mankind since, well, forever? Or at least that mainkind has proven that it can’t achieve this ideal?”

"There has never been equal emphasis on ‘Don’t have many partners,’ " said Serara Selelo-Mogwe, a public health expert and retired nursing professor at the University of Botswana, who recalled stepping past broken bottles and used condoms as she arrived on campus each Monday morning. "If you just say, ‘Use the condom’ . . . we will never see the daylight of the virus leaving us."

And once more the band played “Whoda Thunkit.”

But is it possible the “just use a condom” crowd has got them into a mess they can’t get out of? That it has fostered a belief in “safe sex” that cannot now be reversed?

International experts long regarded Botswana as a case study in how to combat AIDS. It had few of the intractable social problems thought to predispose a country to the disease, such as conflict, abject poverty and poor medical care. And for the past decade, the country has rigorously followed strategies that Western experts said would slow AIDS.

And it didn’t work. Well, I’ll be dipped in snuff!

With its diamond wealth and the largess of international donors, **Botswana aggressively promoted condom use **while building Africa’s best network of HIV testing centers and its most extensive system for distributing the antiretroviral drugs that dramatically prolong and improve the lives of those with AIDS.

And in aggressively promoting condom use, they promoted illicit sex.

 

[Nohome]

Here’s an interesting article in today’s news:

Kindly provide a link if you wish for me to comment.

Nohome

 

[vern_humphrey]

Kindly provide a link if you wish for me to comment.

Nohome

msnbc.msn.com/id/17407726

 

[jack_hawkins]

OK

“The problem of multiple partners who do not practice safe sex is obviously the biggest driver of HIV in the world”

sounds like a good advert for the use of condoms
the whole thrust of the article is that people stop using condoms then catch AIDS

 

[vern_humphrey]

OK

sounds like a good advert for the use of condoms
the whole thrust of the article is that people stop using condoms then catch AIDS

You missed the part about how they’ve been pushing condoms for years – and it isn’t working?

 

[mikew262]

You missed the part about how they’ve been pushing condoms for years – and it isn’t working?

Gotta use them for them to work. Same with pushing abstainance. Nobody is listening.

 

[jack_hawkins]

You missed the part about how they’ve been pushing condoms for years – and it isn’t working?

right, you must be reading it very selectively

 

[Nordar]

There would be no one left to support the Catholic Church if all of the people using birth control were excommunicated. The sheer hipocrisy of this thread is overwhelming and tiresome.

People using birth control are not supporting the Catholic Church. To support something you have to follow and obey it’s Teachings such as in The Catholic Church IE: Dogma and Magesterium. Which very clearly states NO artificial Birth control so if you use it Then you are not supporting The Catholic Church…Jesus told us “The gates of Hell will not prevail against us” so I wouldn’t worry about about having no one left to support The Church.