Non-denominational Christians

[Carol_Coombe]

Well, it will save the other one’s life if one of them has HIV or an STD, and is having sex anyway.

The woman cannot ask: she is trained to be submissive and it is expected of her if she wants to keep her marriage together.

Um - okay. Not using a condom is good, especially if they want children. If the woman is willing to risk her life rather than offend her husband, I don’t know that I agree with that or would recommend it, but surely that is her call to make.

I think I have tried to suggest that it is *not *her call to make: her mother taught her how to behave according to traditional culture; her husband learned to be macho and polygamous (a long tradition) from his father and observing other males. If she wants a marriage, she submits, unless she is (1) willing to give up her kids to the husband for not fulfilling her responsibilities as wife; and (2) willing to give up her marriage and the economic support it provides for her and her children.

Obviously (imho) the best case scenario would be for her to leave the guy if he is “making the common life unbearable,” as it states in the canon law of the Church (1153.1), but it is her decision to make, whether she is better off with him, or without him.

Economic conditions, where 90% of people are unemployed, as in Zambia, and 70% live on less that one $USD per day, are paramount.

I know that one of my foster children in Zambia was taken away by his mother; she left with him and some of his brothers and sisters because she believed that the father had AIDS or something. He then took up with her sister; I don’t know what’s up with that, but at least the boy and his mother appear to be safe, now.

I don’t think that I have mentioned that I am a Zambian citizen (after renouncing Canadian citizenship). Many women are asking for an AIDS test before marriage; or they ask for an AIDS test, get pregnant, and live separately from the father of the child - because they assume that the father will at some point fool around and become HIV+. It is customary in Zambia for the sister of the wife to replace her in case of her death or separation from the husband.

This is a completely different problem, I think - and while I do understand the need for children, it seems irresponsible to have sex when one has HIV.

One reason in the USA is that in Florida, homosexuals on the HIV drug regime were re-engaging in risky sex. They became re-infected by HIV because the prion/virus was able to mutate thereby getting around the drugs and creating a new a different infection - for which there were no drugs. This was announced within the past three years by the Centres for AIDS Control in the USA.

Many people on the drug regime (ARV) live normal lives, with their blood counts stabilised. They take the drugs at the same time each day for the rest of their lives. They want to live as you do, to have families, to enjoy life and to have jobs, rather than facing death. They want to keep themselves and their partners safe. Many do abstain and live celibate lives. This is however not customary in our region - or in many others.

Don’t they have any arts or music? (etc)

Some of your analogies are not applicable. People are poor. However, traditionally, people and kids sat around the fire at night telling stories of the creation, Kalulu the Hare who was very clever, socialising and teaching children (schools don’t do this very well, and I would prefer sometimes to go back to the old ways), developing practical skills in herding, ploughing, planting, weeding, etc. Yes there is lots to do - not much fun. Theatre and poetry, making up and acting out stories of real events gives great pleasure. Do you think this is enough for kids who have seen the bright lights of town?

But I don’t see the difference between abstaining from sex and using a condom, as far as having kids goes. Abstaining has a greater success rate (100%) in not passing on the virus.

I agree, but it limits creation just as much as a condom, even more perhaps. So come and make a plan using your principles. We need practical help after dealing with this for over 30 years.

 

[Carol_Coombe]

Carol:

The most effective way to work against HIV is mandatory whole-population frequent testing, and positives being isolated from society until they die, especially if that death comes by needle or bullet shortly after confirmation of being a carrier.

We are testing more frequently, because people want to be tested. Mandatory testing sends many underground and does more damage than good. Isolation - too late now anyway - denies human rights. Cuba did this in the very early days of the outbreak, with some success, but the influx of tourists will undo much good.

HIV is spread primarily through sex; usually illicit and/or immoral sex. (Considering that it’s derived from a monkey STD… who did the moneky?)

AS Christians, we are called to love the sinner, but hate the sin.

In the case of HIV, most of the persons suffering from it ARE SINNING when they contract it; any act which would spread it is also a sin, as it is a harmful and often fatal disease. We are not called to tolerate the sin, merely to show love (and mercy) to the sinner. Allowing, or even encouraging, them to risk transmission is morally reprehensible.

I have referred to the issue of sin above. You are right in that courts in many countries are now taking HIV into account in determining sentencing in rape cases - if the rapist new he was HIV+, then he will be guilty of attempted murder and sentence appropriately.

No one here, I think, is allowing or encouraging people to risk transmission. I have set out the ABC campaign, which is often run by young people: abstain, be faithful, if you are a foncused human being and not necessarily a Catholic, use a condom. We promote safety, not ‘sinning’, however you define that in a pandemic.

Given that condoms have failure rates of note, the only way to insure not getting HIV is to avoid blood contact and be abstinent.

I have agreed that abstinence is the best way, and way I would prefer. But I am only one person. Look at the reality of how people - especially those is wretched conditions, who are not always or even ever able to make their own choices, and then examine your point of view. We cannot apply our middle class conditions to others globally. BTW, condoms may have a minor failure rate, but it may be better to save most, that not to save any using this many.

In at least some jurisdictions, spreading HIV knowingly is considered attempted murder… (Texas, for one, has prosecuted on this theory.) Condom or no, it can be spread by sex.

See above. I wish we could leave the issue of condoms, because it is not taking us anywhere. There are fundamental differences in belief and in experience. And there are far more weighty problems of the response of Christianity to this pandemic which is ravaging people worldwide. And we cannot believe that it will not hit every community including those in North America.

Abstinence is thus the only morally right action to take once one has contracted HIV, unless it is with a partner who also already has HIV, and then, only within the bounds of marriage.

This is a safe and acceptable opinion.

**

Also, you come to a Catholic board, spout heresy, and then expect to be patted on the back?

**

True Christians MUST chastise you, politely but firmly, when you spout sinful matter.

My understanding is that those who would like to be Catholics (including me) are welcome on the board. I am not asking to be patted on the back. I do not spout heterdoxy. True Christians would get on with the job of saving the lives of others who are divine and equally divine, learn to be less judgemental, and learn more about what canon law teaches about the responsibility of those with ‘an informed conscience’ to make a correct decision which does not abrogate the laws of the Church.

 

[Carol_Coombe]

Actually the theory is that someone ate the monkey. It’s not clear how the disease got from that person to the next person, though - or even how long it was around before people started to notice it in the early 1980s.

The first large group of people to die of it were a group of young homosexual men in New York, in 1981. Obviously, only one member of that group had to have acquired it before infecting the rest of the group, but how he got it (or even who it was) is unknown.

Ground Zero seems to have been a Candian airline steward who was homosexually promiscuous in the 1970s. This applies only to North America and perhaps Haiti.

 

[Carol_Coombe]

I do wish someone would sort out this thread. It is meant to be non-denominational Christians, but has fled in the direction of treatment of HIV, the use of condoms, our responsibility as Christians for the wretched of the earth.

Can someone help here? There are two very disparate interest groups at work, not counting the third which I think had to do with the perverse behaviour of Catholic priests.

 

[MrS]

If this thread had a condom on it… perhaps the unwanted little germs of other topics would not have gotten through…

But then even a “thread condom” doesn’t work all the time , does it??

.

 

[eliasaph99]

You are wrong because it is a principal of RCC that you put life before procreation if a choice has to be made. That means that if condoms save lives, it is arguable - and it is being argued within the hierarchy - they should be used.

This is false. It is not being discussed in the hierarchy.

The RCC does not teach that you put life before procreation.

As an example, abortion is wrong in all circumstances, period. Even if the mother’s life is in danger, it is an intolerable evil to kill the fetus.

 

[eliasaph99]

People, like students, those in the 15-29 year old age group, really need condoms before they get HIV, and that’s the idea. Many are choosing to abstain, many are being faithful to one partner. BUT, there are a number of circumstances which I have pointed out, including boozing, where morals may go out the window (you see it in your own colleges) and then condoms can save a life.

Many people do seem to be celibate when they become HIV infected. It’s not a great way for a couple to live, but it’s OK. There are a couple of problems however. Men are traditionally taught that they have the right to sex on demand; women are taught to be relatively passive/submissive. So as behavioural roles continue, danger of infection rises. It is not even possible, as doctors tell us, for a woman to ask her husband to use a condom: she must pretend that she does not know that he is likely to be infected because of his sexual predilections, and she must not offend him by asking him to use a condom - thereby suggesting that he is engaging in extra-marital liaisons.

There is another issue: children are precious to families, and unprotected sex will produce the child you dearly want, sometimes without HIV infection, if the mother receives a particular drug during labour. Most mother-to-child infection can be prevented in this way. Problem is that you then have a dead mother (HIV+) and a live baby, likely to become an orphan. Catch 22 either way. Problem is, you probably live too far away from the clinic or hospital to get the drug, or that you prefer to give birth at home because of conditions in the hospitals.

It’s interesting that you asked if there is not more to life than sex. It has been a real concern of mine since I arrived in Africa as a volunteer in the late 60s. I can promise you that in 99 per cent of villages in rural areas, there is nothing to do in the way of sport, TV, or other leisure activities. Sex is not just ‘one pleasure out of many’. People in urban areas are only now learning that you can have spare time, and that you can use it in enjoyable ways with the family or partner or friend.

That being said, if you live in a rural village, you have three things: the church (fair walk to get there), the tavern (one rich man or woman in the village) and sex (free, fun and fairly readily available). I am not sure that this equation applies only to Africa - USA, India and China are probably similar in certain areas all over the place. Sex is a game; lots of people do not have Victorian hangups about it; it is procreative and gives fathers not only labour for the farms, but the only old-age pension they will ever have - support from their children.

I love the way you continue to be oblivious to the fact that the world has been this way always. In medieval Europe, was it not as you have just described above?

And yet the teaching of the Church was the same. People, in general lived chaste lives. Moreover, your suggestion that the only things these people have to do are go to church, drink or have sex is disturbingly elitist of you. How much do you look down on them?

Do you think that they don’t have creativity? They don’t have songs and games and art? How utterly condescending and reprehensible of you to say such a thing!

 

[Carol_Coombe]

Sometimes the facts perhaps escape us. Because of your charges, I have consulted a canon lawyer - of impeccable credentials. This might help you, and others.

**
From Aramis; Also, you come to a Catholic board, spout heresy, and then expect to be patted on the back?**

True Christians MUST chastise you, politely but firmly, when you spout sinful matter.

Canon law describes two principles in such a case: the principle of double effect, and the principle of the lesser of two evils. The principle of double effect means that following the Church’s rule against artificial contraception has two outcomes: in this case (1) prevention of conception and (2) prevention of infection with, say HIV, which would lead almost inevitably to death in many instances.

This is where the lesser of two evils principle and the application of informed conscience comes into effect: the primary aim of the Church is to facilitate procreation, but prevention of infection and life-saving may be the choice of the ‘informed conscience’.

Morally, the ‘informed conscience’ cannot choose evil, but if contronted by two potential but antithetical outcomes, may at least choose one of the two (or more) options which it considers the lesser of two evils.

I do hope this is useful.

 

[fix]

You are wrong because it is a principal of RCC that you put life before procreation if a choice has to be made. That means that if condoms save lives, it is arguable - and it is being argued within the hierarchy - they should be used.

It is a type of false choice. Sin is never an answer. Yes many question and even dissent from the teaching. I would not act on some theologian’s view that is at odds with the magistrium.

Again, a good end is never justified by an evil means.

 

[Carol_Coombe]

This topic would probably find a much better audience on the moral theology section…you are bringing a public health issue to a Catholic forum and expecting that people here will respond with something other than church teaching. It is fine if…you wish to discount the scripture.

I’ve been trying to get the thread changed - alas. A public health issue, which affects innumerable Catholics worldwide (many are infected, dead) surely has a place here? I have noted church teaching here, with regard to double effect, and lesser of two evils canon law principles, and this might help to place the issue squarely in perspective of Church teachings. Scripture not discounted; Church teachings clarified.

Let’s also say that I did not expect to have a full-fledged discussion of HIV here! I simply made a reference to it, and it happened all by itself, especially driven by the condom heresies.

You are saying that you are valuing primarily individual humans and christian responsibility for the HIV holocaust. Yet you are bringing this issue to a place where everyone is going to give primacy to the church teaching and the scripture. You seemed very put out with everyone because they put these theological values above the public health problem. I am saying that you brought your issue to the wrong audience.

I did not bring the issue here - see above. But if the discussion happened, perhaps it means that people were in fact concerned. I did not expect that the discussion would be so single-minded - ie death vs condoms - or that there would be only one interpretation of the Scriptures which would be given automatically in defence of what is perceived as a heresy. That’s really too bad.

And perhaps we should consider if putting theological values above *not *public health problems *but the value of human life perceptions, by Christians, *is rational. Someone said the end does not justify the means: apply that to watching your child die.

You seemed to come here expecting that everyone here would share your passion for the things that you are called to do. It didn’t happen.

Nope, it didn’t happed, and I wonder what other Christians are called to do. Not sure. But maybe, for those on this thread, they are called to protect the repository of the faith. Perhaps that is enough?

Yes, but different responsibility belong to the Catholic Church. The protection of the deposit of faith is primary. All corporate works of mercy flow from there.

I don’t understand this - (1) the protection of the deposit of faith is primary (although this is one reason I wish to join the Church) and (2) all corporate (and individual?) works of mercy flow from there. I shall follow up on this elsewhere, but I find it hard to understand that the Catholic Church is only interested in doctrinal correctness, and leaves the Christian correctness - in terms of daily behaviour as Christians - to individual congregants.

Faith in Christ is the best cure. It is not effective to contrive the environment to control behaviour. By that I mean to say that steps like the one you have outlined should not be taken, just that they are only “half measures” that will not address the ultimate source of wrongdoing, which is in the human heart.

I agree with you, although your formulation is a bit strange. Of course they are half-measures. I have insisted that the way to confront this terrible plague must be a multi-faceted response, as in a war. If sufficient resources, ‘generals’, ‘aircraft carriers’, integrated national plans, money, ‘ground operatives’, tanks and all the rest of the materiel thrown into the 9/11 follow-up, and into the Iraq conflict, we might be winning this war. 70 million dead, and hundreds of millions infected has not attracted the same commitment of resources, alas.

You seemed to be looking for a response on this forum that you did not find?

I am learning from the Forum - not necessarily that which I sought originally - but from this thread, there has not been much of use. I think Aramis put it bluntly when he insisted that this heretical information has no place on a Catholic forum, etc., see his post for further details.

 

[Carol_Coombe]

If this thread had a condom on it… perhaps the unwanted little germs of other topics would not have gotten through…

But then even a “thread condom” doesn’t work all the time , does it??

.

So you ***would ***promote the use of condoms in this case! I knew there was hope all the time!

 

[MrS]

So you ***would ***promote the use of condoms in this case! I knew there was hope all the time!

they are also good for party balloons if you can’t afford the real thing …

point is, they are not good, approved, or in any way moral for the pro-creative act.

if you choose to promote them for any reason (for which they were intended)… then for you there is no hope.

 

[fix]

I’ve been trying to get the thread changed - alas. A public health issue, which affects innumerable Catholics worldwide (many are infected, dead) surely has a place here? I have noted church teaching here, with regard to double effect, and lesser of two evils canon law principles, and this might help to place the issue squarely in perspective of Church teachings. Scripture not discounted; Church teachings clarified.

Double effect says the action in question must be morally good or neutral. Comdomistic sex is always evil so double effect does not appply.

 

[Rachel_Malloy]

This thread has drifted FAR off topic.

It is now closed. Thank you for your participation.

God bless-

Rachel