Catholic condom ban helping AIDS

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ilovekittens said:
Not animals - weak human beings who are prone to making mistakes, no matter how good their intentions are.

If the Church really expects people to abide by Her teachings 100% of the time, then, gosh, why is there a need for a police force, or laws, or government, in Latin America? People in general don’t live blemish-free, sinless lives, even very good people. We all commit sin. The consequences of a random act of promiscuity in a land where AIDS is rampant can be great - not just for the person who commits the act, but for his/her unknowing and wholly innocent spouse, and maybe whatever children they may subsequently have.
Until an effective vaccine or antiviral medicine is found, the focus of AIDS treatment in third world countries has to be on prevention. Condoms, along with education and abstinence/monogamy promotion, are an important way of preventing the spread of this disease.
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So we are not to ask human beings - that have an intellect, to make choices that could save lives? As weak as one might be - we are not animals. Only animals live by instinct.

Why not carry this a step further - Why have any rules? We all understand that humans are weak. But this is a life and death issue. We have two options, one that could prevent much AIDS, and one that is guarunteed to stop the spread of AIDS.

I find it shocking that people pick the option that will save the least amount of lives.
 
Adonis33 said:
I find it shocking that people pick the option that will save the least amount of lives.
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Be shocked, then. This is the real world, with real people making real mistakes, living real lives - not la-la land, where every single person lives a chaste, devout life, free of sin and free of human weakness and temptation.
 
mlchance said:
So, then, we can put you down for opting to save the least amount of lives.

– Mark L. Chance.
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It would appear so. The biggest problem of all this is a kind subtle racism-a racism those who are embracing it don’t even realize. That is that Africans aren’t capable of controlling their desires and need the help of enlightened Westerners to save their lives.
 
estesbob said:
It would appear so. The biggest problem of all this is a kind subtle racism-a racism those who are embracing it don’t even realize. That is that Africans aren’t capable of controlling their desires and need the help of enlightened Westerners to save their lives.
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Yes, I’ve noticed that, too. I think that Africans, just like the rest of us, can be taught to marry monogamously and faithfully. This is where the focus should be. Condoms don’t solve anything - at best, they are a stop-gap - and they can only “save lives” when one person already has AIDS - “barn door open, horse gone” as we say around here. In order for both partners to be saved from AIDS, chastity (celibacy in the single life and faithfulness in married life) is the only solution.
 
estesbob said:
It would appear so. The biggest problem of all this is a kind subtle racism-a racism those who are embracing it don’t even realize. That is that Africans aren’t capable of controlling their desires and need the help of enlightened Westerners to save their lives.
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I think it’s more like an unconsciousness about the racist origins of the modern birth control movement. The drive to “internationalize” birth control programs and legal abortion has its origins in the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. The core assumptions of this supposedly scientific movement were that the births of more “undesirables” should regulated by “modern scientific” nations in order to curb the harmful effects of allowing the “undesirables” to “breed uncontrollably”.

After WWII, when the full horrors of the eugenics movement became blatant to anyone willing to look, the movement didn’t actually go away. It submerged for a time, reworked its vocabulary to be more palatable in a post-Hitler world, and then reasserted itself in the halls of medical schools, philosophy departments, et cetera.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
mlchance said:
I think it’s more like an unconsciousness about the racist origins of the modern birth control movement. The drive to “internationalize” birth control programs and legal abortion has its origins in the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. The core assumptions of this supposedly scientific movement were that the births of more “undesirables” should regulated by “modern scientific” nations in order to curb the harmful effects of allowing the “undesirables” to “breed uncontrollably”.

After WWII, when the full horrors of the eugenics movement became blatant to anyone willing to look, the movement didn’t actually go away. It submerged for a time, reworked its vocabulary to be more palatable in a post-Hitler world, and then reasserted itself in the halls of medical schools, philosophy departments, et cetera.

– Mark L. Chance.
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True. One need only look at international population control groups who are totally dedicated to limiting the number of black ,brown and yellow children born into this world. You don’t see much activity from them in places like Sweden and Switzerland. It’s the same in this country where abortion disproportionately affects minority groups. You don’t, for instance, by any abortion clinics in Beverly Hills but there are several in Watts.
 
The problem actually still lies with the “wages of sin”. Sexual activity outside of marriage may indeed be inevitible, as NewUlm and Kittens indicate. That much is true.

Just as it is also true there will still be theft, violence, drug use, and numerous other sins, violations of the laws of both God and man. What they object to is that sex should be punished by the possibility of death. But all sin is punished by the possibility of death. That is why sin should be avoided.

Is it tragic that such sinners die? More than anyone can guess, since Jesus indicated that one of His chief purposes was that we would have life and have it abundantly. Nobody has more compassion than Christ, NewUlm. But He still did not “tone down” His teachings; wrong still remained wrong, sin remains sin, and all our actions – good and evil – still have consequences. This is not unfair; this is life, this is reality as it is. (Sound familiar, Kittens?) Like the law of gravity. If you violate it, you pay by falling, no matter what your intention or condition.

The rules of the Church are still those of Christ. That is the faith. Who are we to dare alter His teachings just because our modern world does not find them convienyant? A lot of people seem to think this is a recent development. Well, surprise: since the very beginning of His Church many people found His teachings inconvienyant. It changes nothing; the truth of then is still the truth now. Just as 2+2 will always equal 4, no matter how many centuries pass.

Sometimes I wish things were like what a lot of people seem to think, that reality is that flexible and the truth is mutable. But then I think of the chaos that would ensue, and I get over it fast. The Church not only will not change its rules on the use of condoms,*** it cannot change those rules***. If it did, then it would indeed stop being Christ’s Church.
 
This reporter is stretching it - for all the Catholics I know who support, use or make available ABC, it’s unimaginable that the Church’s ban on condoms in a real factor under consideration when people decide to be promiscuous. Most who decide to sleep around aren’t really thinking much about what the Church teaches at the time, now are they?

Personally, if I ever found out that my husband cheated without using a condom and returned to the matrimonial bed saying nothing, he’d have to find another planet to live on to escape my wrath (as opposed to cheating and using one, in which case he’d simply have to find new accommodation). Cheating? Well nigh unforgivable. Cheating and selfishly exposing my life/health to risks that could have been lessened? Positively criminal.

Not exactly in line with Church teaching, but I’m being honest here…
 
estesbob said:
It would appear so. The biggest problem of all this is a kind subtle racism-a racism those who are embracing it don’t even realize. That is that Africans aren’t capable of controlling their desires and need the help of enlightened Westerners to save their lives.
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This is indeed a very neglected nuance of the issue: condom distribution is really just a form of neo-colonialism: those poor Africans can’t possibly help themselves, so we need to impose our (incredibly flawed!) Western value system on them. It’s social darwinism all over again!
 
what about those who are raped and bear children who are then born with aids its a viscious circle.
 
Burdock said:
what about those who are raped and bear children who are then born with aids its a viscious circle.
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Perhaps if people also took to heart the Church’s rape ban this problem would be resolved.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
The sort of people that do this dont care about that. Its the poor women that i feel sorry for.
 
Burdock said:
The sort of people that do this dont care about that. Its the poor women that i feel sorry for.
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But you think the rapist will care enough to use a condom? I don’t mean to be obtuse, but it doesn’t really seem as if you have a point regarding the Church’s prohibition against all forms of artificial birth control.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
manualman said:
Researchers and bureaucrats have for years made this fundamental mistake. All studies on this issue make the same underlying erroneous assumption: They ASSUME that the behavior of people is the same whether or not condoms have been accepted in the culture. But this is a MAJOR assumption.

As a former teenage male myself, I assert that the presence of a condom in the wallet (and the mindset that it makes one invulnerable in the mind) of a single male actually changes the BEHAVIOR of a good percentage of people.

This is similar to the use of levees in flood control in my profession (civil engineer). As a profession, we once subscribed to levees as a grand way to decrease the risk of flood deaths and property damage. But a strange thing happened: the presence of the levee actually ENCOURAGED development in the flood prone areas. People believed the levee protected them and that they no longer needed to keep their homes out of the floodplain. But levees, like condoms, are made by men and are not foolproof. Eventually, a storm comes up that is large enough that the levee fails and MORE people die and more property is destroyed than if the levee were never built in the first place (the largely unlearned lesson of Katrina).

Civil Engineers have learned not to implement programs that embolden foolish human behavior. I hope the medical community learns that lesson someday in regards to pushing condoms as a means to do what you want without risk. People ARE dying from AIDS in areas where there are no condoms and no knowledge of their function. Betcha they will die FASTER when the UN starts hauling in truckloads of Trojans.
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Thanks for the great analogy.
 
The point is that condoms protect against Aids . Im not saying that it means that people can do what they like either. I find the whole subject of the church forbidding contraception rather difficult. All the bible passages that you quote to mean that it is wrong dont make sense. I really feel drawn to become a catholic but cant get my head around this also i can imagine what my husband would say if i said that we cant use contraception anymore at 44 and 45 we dont want anymore children. As i have said before a lot of catholics do use contraception otherwise they would have had more children no one seems to have addressed this. The church seems to imply that sex is only for creating life and not to be enjoyed.
 
The Church’s condemnation of condom use does not have the effect of law. It is still legal to purchase and to use condoms. Nothing in the Church’s teaching prevents people from obtaining condoms if they so desire. Blaming the Church is a red herring to divert the weak-minded from the truth that it is risky behaviour that increases the chance of AIDS - not the Church saying that using condoms is a sin.

If people cared about what the Church said, they would not have extra-marital sex which the Church strongly condemns. To say they would listen to the Church about condom use but not about extra-marital sex, just doesn’t logically follow. Again, I reiterate., the Church’s condemnation of condoms does not stop anyone from obtaining them.

There is another factor no one seems to be addressing. Condoms do not protect against AIDS. The AIDS virus is small enough to pass through the holes in all condoms. Telling people to go ahead and have sex, just use ‘protection’, is like telling them to play Russian Roulette. Sooner or later, the live chamber will come around. Sooner or later, the virus will pass through the condom, even when it is properly deployed.

IMO, condoms are worse than useless. They are hard to put on properly, they come off, they break, they leak. They make a person believe they are protected against a whole host of STD’s and pregnancy when all they do is expose a person to a whole host of STD’s and pregnancy as they are encouraged to engage in indiscriminate promiscuous sex. The idea that there can be ‘safe sex’ just by using a condom is one of the most evil lies to come out of the last century and one of the most widely believed.

Far from preventing it, promoting ‘safe sex’ through condom use spreads AIDS and other STD’s and leads to the deaths of thousands, imho.
 
thanks for your reply. these arguments seem to just go round in circles . I realise condoms can break or split but unless they do they do offer protection. i am not saying that people should have sex whenever they like with whoever they want. Also yet again you have not answered my other comments. A lot of catholics do use contraception otherwise they would have more than 2 or3 children i still do not believe that god forbids contraception.
 
The Catholic Church also has a ban against extra marital sex. Extra marital sex is by far the overwhelming cause for the spread of H.I.V. Add to that all of the sodomy that occurs, and you have an H.I.V. epidemic. I doubt that if anyone who is going to engage in sodomy is going to pay any attention at all to what the Catholic Church says about condoms. If more people would adhere to the teachings of the Church, then H.I.V. would pretty much go away. Engaging in sodomy causes the spread of H.I.V. Being a good Catholic prevents it!!!
 
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