Condoms don't protect against AIDS, says Catholic Church

double post, sorry!

 

Question: why does the church say that people are obligated to be "open to the possibility of procreation"? Why is it wrong to not want children?

Maybe that "be fruitful and multiply" thing - they're taking it as a commandment you must follow?

 

You're forgetting that Africa is a huge missionary country for the Catholic Church. Part of the message of the Church regarding sex is abstinence outside of marriage. If this is being taught, then the message of just "screwing in an unprotected fashion" is not relevant, as most avid true Catholics recognize.

Yet the Aids epidemic remains ... interesting.

Funny, all I have to do is watch 5 minutes of MTV, to say nothing of the absolutely dreadful HBO series "real Sex # whatever" to know that this attitude if fiated all over the place.

I never had HBO, and I try to avoid MTV for multiple reasons. For one, it sucks, and for two they don't ever play music. So I don't see that much, I'm afraid.

I for one, however, don't subscribe to the 'blame the media' thing.

 

a_g - The reason the Church teaches openness to children is Scriptural. It's literally one of the first commandments of God: "Be fruitful and multiply." He blesses Sarah and Abraham with children; He chooses to come into the world being born of woman, part of the holy family with Mary and Joseph. Procreation is part of how God allows us to share in the creation of new life, and we are to see it as a blessing. We also understand it from the very nature of sex, in that it is the reproductive act, though children do not result from every act (nor are they intended to). The Church also teaches that a purpose of sex is the unity between husband and wife, and this cannot be separated from an openness to life as well.

You understandably may disagree with this, but I did want to show that is why the Church teaches as it does.

 

Damnit!!!!!! I was typing a long response, and somehow my computer erased it all! AAARRRGGGHHH!!!



In any event, I have more responses, but I'll have to post later on tonight. Thanks for the interesting discussion!

Tadji

 

irish: Honestly I would feel sorry for any kid who had to have me as a mother.

That aside--yes, I disagree, because parenting is such a great responsibility that the only people who should do it are those who truly want it.

 

Maybe that "be fruitful and multiply" thing - they're taking it as a commandment you must follow?

That was fine if Adam and Eve were the only two people on the face of the earth. That is not the case. The population of the world numbers in the billions now.

 

"Be fruitful and multiply."

We've been fruitful. We've multiplied. I think it's time we take a break.

 

I'm not sure the Church is inappropriately conflating these issues by pointing out that condoms aren't entirely effective, since that is a true statement.

I guess my issue, irishjedi, is that I don't believe that's what the Church is saying -- if that's what I thought they were saying, this story wouldn't even have crossed my mind twice. Because it's absolutely true that condoms aren't 100% effective in preventing STDs or pregnancy. The Church, IMO, is going further than saying that condoms don't work all the time, they are saying that condoms are dangerous, that they should be approached in the same manner as cigarettes from a health perspective. *That* is why I think there's some conflation of the issues, because they aren't just saying that they aren't 100% fool-proof, they're going well beyond that. Why?


People are just taking issue with the Church's stance in general, because they disagree with the Church's entire stance on birth control in general.

I won't speak for anyone else, but for me, that's not the issue. The issue for me is whether the Church is stating false information about the effectiveness of condoms, and what effect those statements might have, particularly in countries where the AIDS epidemic is essentially out of control. The birth control issue is not paramount to me, not with the HIV/AIDS infecting and killing so many people every year in Africa.


However, the fact the use of condoms constitues a moral infraction within the eyes of the church renders the argument of their effectiveness moot, and therefore inseperable.

TadjiStation, I agree 100% -- up to the word "moot". If the Catholic Church believes using condoms is wrong, then it doesn't matter one whit whether they are 100% effective or 1% effective. Which is why I have problems with the Church commenting on their effectiveness, much less doing so in a way that I find less than scientifically honest.

I have no problem whatsoever with the Church saying, "Condom use is wrong." I do have BIG problems with the Church saying "Condom use is ineffective and dangerous." Not only is that untrue, but it has nothing to do with the moral question of condoms, which is, at the end of the day, what I would assume the Church is concerned with. The issues are not unseparable; they are unrelated.


Condom's effectiveness wouldn't be a subject if they didn't exist. If people had a truly healthy attitude towards sex, their use would be invalidated.

That's perfectly true. It's also a moral argument. If people had the morally correct attitudes about sex, there wouldn't be a need for condoms. That has nothing to do with the effictiveness of condoms in preventing STDs and prgenancies. Unless I'm misreading you, you're saying that if people weren't doing the wrong thing, or wanting to do the wrong thing, condoms wouldn't be around...which makes condoms immoral. Not ineffective. Not dangerous.


That said, I also indicated that I believed that the article, as presented at the beginning of this thread, was fundamentally flawed with regard to the Church's portrayal. In other words, I don't think we're being presented the complete picture.

Please -- and I'm sincerely asking -- if there is some clarifying information somewhere, can you link it here or send it to me in a PM? I certainly don't want the Catholic Church to be saying what I think they're saying, or promoting what I think they're promoting. It would be much better if that's not the case.

 

That's a very fair response, ami-padme. I can see where you're coming from. I will try to find some more information on where specifically the Vatican was coming from in saying what it did. People may have posted some of it earlier in the thread, I'm not sure.

 

"Be fruitful and multiply" but don't do so with your neighbor's wife. These are features of the Christian meme that enable it to spread more effectively. The family unit is a central device for spreading the Christian meme - mom and dads tell their kids what to have faith in and the kids usually follow along. "Be fruitful and multiply" basically means create as many meme spreaders as you can but "not with your neighbor's wife" is a restriction on the sexual reproduction directive since otherwise they might conflict. Preserving the family unit is important too so making sure people aren't copulating with other people's spouses is a key consideration also.

 

As for believing the Catholic Church's claims concerning condoms and AIDS, they also claimed that sexual misconduct amongst priests was essentially nonexistent also.

 

Singularity, ever read Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross? You remind me of the Turnbull character with his printing press.

"Create as many meme spreaders as you can"? That's a new one on me. I always hoped to be blessed to have children someday, not to create meme spreaders to further the nefarious papist conspiracy. Guess I should study my Catechism better

And the Church was right - as horrible as the sex abuse scandal was, fewer than 1% of priests were involved in this country. The vast majority of priests do follow their vows. What's your point, except to slur religion again?

 

It's not a conspiracy. It's just the way alot of religions work. It is suspicious that members are expected to have as many children as possible, raising them all to be members of the church of course. But there's no need for a conspiracy there, it's just how things work.

 

Irish wrote: Singularity, ever read Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross? You remind me of the Turnbull character with his printing press.

Do I? And here I thought Christians were the printing press experts since they've printed more copies of the Bible than any other book in history. What better way to spread a meme than drown the public in the central religious text?

"Create as many meme spreaders as you can"? That's a new one on me.

Imagine that.


I always hoped to be blessed to have children someday, not to create meme spreaders to further the nefarious papist conspiracy. Guess I should study my Catechism better.

Not conspiracy, just memetic mechanics - survival of the fittest mind virus if you will. If a central tenet of Christianity was to commit suicide immediately then that wouldn't be a very fit meme now would it? All the potential meme spreaders would kill themselves off. If a meme said have only one child then that would be very competitive against the meme that prohibits contraceptive use.

And the Church was right - as horrible as the sex abuse scandal was, fewer than 1% of priests were involved in this country.

You aren't really that dense are you? Look at the frequency of sex abusers among Catholic priests and then look at the frequency of sex abusers among the general population. The frequency among Catholic priests is seven times that of the general populace.

 

Create as many meme spreaders as you can

That's not the basis for the Church's teaching. If you look at it cynically, it might seem that way, but I don't think that's how it is.

It's just a matter of marriage and the families that result from those marriages.


The frequency among Catholic priests is seven times that of the general populace.

This is off-topic in general, but perhaps you could produce to statistics or other evidence to substantiate that claim.

In the 1980s, daycare centers were under fire for similar reasons, and schools have long had to deal with sex offenders within their ranks. It doesn't mean they actually had any more offenders than the average group population.

 

Well yeah, people want to spread their own ideas, you don't have to be cynical to know that. I'm not so sure I'd go so far as to call it a mind virus though. *rolleyes*

 

Please -- and I'm sincerely asking -- if there is some clarifying information somewhere, can you link it here or send it to me in a PM? I certainly don't want the Catholic Church to be saying what I think they're saying, or promoting what I think they're promoting. It would be much better if that's not the case.

Well, I can only give some of my own observations, as a cradle and still practicing Catholic.

There are a lot of mis-information and myths spread about contraception within the church, but hardly any of it is from the vatican ... its more from lay catholics. I don't think that's unique to the church either, because I've heard ridiculous things about contraception from non-religious friends, but I guess there's a lot more of it within the church.

The church kinda sees the issue of STDs as an 'us vs the secular viewpoint' situation. They see the secular viewpoint as promoting condoms as a solution to the spread of STDs, where as the church sees abstinence until marriage as a solution.

They view the idea that condoms are the solution with suspicion, because condoms are so widely available these days, and yet STDs are flourishing.

I don't agree with the church's stance on this, but I can see what has led them to think as they do. Their heart is in the right place, and they have thousands of humanitarian organisations working in Africa.
And I do think they're right in claiming that abstinence and monogamy are the only sure solutions. There's always that risk of breakage or leakage with condoms, which you can't completely eliminate.

But the reason I don't agree with the church, is that I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of cases involving the spread of HIV involved no protection at all. People just think 'it won't happen to me'. A friend of mine slept with a guy who had recently immigrated from South Africa (where HIV is flourishing), and her reason for not bothering with a condom was 'it was late at night, it would have been hard to find anywhere selling them.' I'm guessing there are a billion excuses like that floating around ... the tragedy is so many end up dying because they didn't want to kill the mood. To me, the problem isn't contraception itself, but the attitude that 'it's okay to have sex with whoever, whenever these days, because of contraception' but then not bothering to even use it, or appreciate that its not always effective.

But in the long run, if people don't take the churches teachings on abstinence seriously, they aren't going to take their teachings on condoms seriously, either.

The bishop of my Catholic diocese has a very sensible attitude to all this, imo - he says 'Save sex for the special person you want to spend your life with. However, if you choose to have sex outside of marriage, contracept yourself to the eyeballs'. He gets a lot of flak for saying that, but I think it works.

 

Thanks, irishjedi49.

And thanks for your post, Kitt327. I want to believe the Church's "heart is in the right place" -- and I know how much work they do in Africa. I just hope that the organizations in Africa aren't repeating what was in the article at the beginning of this thread. Because then the harm they could cause could easily compete with the good they want to be doing. And again, if they were or are simply claiming that condoms aren't perfect and only abstinence is, then I wouldn't have a problem with that at all.


But the reason I don't agree with the church, is that I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of cases involving the spread of HIV involved no protection at all.

I agree.


But in the long run, if people don't take the churches teachings on abstinence seriously, they aren't going to take their teachings on condoms seriously, either.

Well...if they don't take the moral teachings on abstinence seriously they might or might not believe the Church when they say condoms are dangerous. I just worry that it's telling a lot of people what they want to hear. There is a lot of ignorance and a lot of myths and half-truths about HIV/AIDS and how you get it, or avoid it, or treat it, and those myths are killing people. With the Church's authority, saying something like, "condoms don't prevent the transmission of HIV because the holes are bigger than the virus cells," could lead potentially lead many to either believe it, or rely on the Church as an excuse not to use condoms (because they already don't want to).

'Save sex for the special person you want to spend your life with. However, if you choose to have sex outside of marriage, contracept yourself to the eyeballs'.

I think that is sensible.

 

That's not the basis for the Church's teaching.

Well, of course not. Memetics is information epidemiology not religious philosophy.

If you look at it cynically, it might seem that way, but I don't think that's how it is.

I am looking at it scientifically.

 

I am looking at it scientifically

Science is not the be-all, end-all of life, especially when it comes to faith and humanity.

 

Yeah, science and religion understand eachother about as much as Kal-El and a Kryptonite condom.

 

Which is unfortunate, because they can coexist just fine if you let them.

It just requires thinking on multiple levels, as opposed to running them into each other.

 

Science is not the be-all, end-all of life, especially when it comes to faith and humanity.

I am not sure what a "be-all, end-all of life" is. However, I will agree there is little intersection between science and faith. Faith is belief in something without any appeal to evidence, rationality, reason or logic (flawed appeals to logic are not appeals to logic). Science is a structured approach to learning about the universe based on hypothesis, observation, evaluation and modification.

Are you saying you need faith in something to be human? to be moral? What are you saying?

 

I'm saying something that's off-topic and doesn't belong in this thread.

It's for another thread.