Briefing. A rare victory of common sense in the EU talking shop.
From Lifesitenews: The European Parliament has rejected a measure to condemn Pope Benedict XVI's anti-condom remarks, which he made during a trip to Africa in March.
The vote was 253-199 with 61 abstentions. The measure was intended to 'energetically condemn the recent declarations of the Pope, who has prohibited the use of condoms and has warned that condoms can even bring about a greater risk of illness.'
On March 17, the Pope told a reporter who asked about AIDS prevention that 'one cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they risk increasing the problem.'
The Pope's statements, which have provoked a firestorm of criticism from UN officials and anti-family politicians such as Tony Blair, are supported by an increasing number of scientists who have observed an increase in the rate of HIV transmission in countries that emphasize the use of condoms as a protective measure.
European countries spend millions of Euros annually on AIDS programs for Africa that include the promotion and distribution of condoms, despite moral objections from the native population and the United Nation's admission that condoms have a 10% failure rate.
The Catholic Church teaches that artificial birth control is a grave sin. It has repeatedly denounced the use of contraceptives and called on nations to prohibit their sale and distribution.
The Belgian Parliament has already denounced Benedict's comments, and the Spanish Congress is considering a measure to do so. The authors of the Spanish measure have expressed hope that the Belgian legislation will create momentum in their favor; however, the defeat in the European Parliament is likely to undermine their case. [LSN]
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Euro Parliament refuses to condemn Pope over condoms
Monday, March 23, 2009
Joanno Bogle with Jon Snow
Comment. Joanna Bogle was ambushed: yes, but it was so obvious she would be, on this topic with this interviewer, that she must have seen it coming. Her response was reasoned but comes accross as shrill.
We have a problem here: too few people are prepared to defend the Church in public. Who is going to second Mrs Bogle? We need people who are cool under fire, and can put their opponents on the back foot with quick and unexpected responses. Knowing lots of facts isn't enough: Joanna should have leant that in the school debating society.
See the comments on Snow's blog.
Pope correct on condoms and AIDS, says expert
Briefing.
'The pope is correct,' Green told National Review Online Wednesday, 'or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope's comments.'
'There is,' Green added, 'a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded 'Demographic Health Surveys,' between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction 'technology' such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by 'compensating' or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology.'
The Harvard AIDS Project's webpage on Green lists his book 'Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries'. It is stated that Green reveals, 'The largely medical solutions funded by major donors have had little impact in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS. Instead, relatively simple, low-cost behavioral change programs--stressing increased monogamy and delayed sexual activity for young people--have made the greatest headway in fighting or preventing the disease's spread.'
The full text of Pope Benedict XVI's exchange with the reporter, which has set off a firestorm around the world in the media, has been released by the Vatican press office.
The pope was asked, 'Holy Father among the many evils that affect Africa there is also the particular problem of the spread of AIDS. The position of the Catholic Church for fighting this evil is frequently considered unrealistic and ineffective.?'
Benedict XVI replied, 'I would say the opposite.
'It is my belief that the most effective presence on the front in the battle against HIV/AIDS is precisely the Catholic Church and her institutions. I think of the Community of Sant' Egidio, which does so much, visibly and invisibly to fight AIDS, of the Camillians, of all the nuns that are at the service of the sick.
'I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome with advertising slogans. If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem. The solution can only come through a twofold commitment: firstly, the humanization of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another; and secondly, true friendship, above all with those who are suffering, a readiness - even through personal sacrifice - to be present with those who suffer. And these are the factors that help and bring visible progress.
'Therefore, I would say that our double effort is to renew the human person internally, to give spiritual and human strength to a way of behaving that is just towards our own body and the other person's body; and this capacity of suffering with those who suffer, to remain present in trying situations.
'I believe that this is the first response [to AIDS] and that this is what the Church does, and thus, she offers a great and important contribution. And we are grateful to those that do this.' [LSN]
Friday, March 20, 2009
Reactions to attacks on the Pope
Comment: some good letters appeared in The Times, including this excellent one from Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor:
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor
Archbishop of Westminster
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Pope attacked over condoms
However the Code has little to say about hate speech, since it is covered by the law of the land, including the 2007 Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which outlaws incitement to hatred, though not ridicule and insult. How these two principles are supposed to work together is anyone's guess.
Nevertheless the PCC is the obvious first place to go for redress, so please make the point that this cartoon is insulting to Catholics and denigrates their religion and beliefs. Just imagine how long it would be tolerated if it insulted the Chief Rabbi, an Iman, or a homosexual.
"I would say the opposite. I think that the reality that is most effective, the most present and the strongest in the fight against AIDS, is precisely that of the Catholic Church, with its programs and its diversity. I think of the Sant'Egidio Community, which does so much visibly and invisibly in the fight against AIDS ... and of all the sisters at the service of the sick.
"I would say that one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS only with money -- which is important, but if there is no soul, no people who know how to use it, (money) doesn't help.
"One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.
"The solution can only be a double one: first, a humanization of sexuality, that is, a spiritual human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another; second, a true friendship even and especially with those who suffer, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices and to be with the suffering. And these are factors that help and that result in real and visible progress.
"Therefore I would say this is our double strength -- to renew the human being from the inside, to give him spiritual human strength for proper behavior regarding one's own body and toward the other person, and the capacity to suffer with the suffering. ... I think this is the proper response and the church is doing this, and so it offers a great and important contribution. I thank all those who are doing this."
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Vatican: no condoms to curb AIDS
Briefing: condoms are an easy but false solution to AIDS, since they encourage the behaviour (promiscuity) which spreads the disease while only reducing, not eliminating, the risk of infection. This simple point is apparently incomprehensible to the condom-pushers, but that is because they think promiscuity and contraception are good in themselves.
From LifeSite, via CFNews: Following the report that an official of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) had told media, in defiance of established Catholic teaching, that the use of condoms by HIV and AIDS-infected spouses is morally permissible, this position was soundly trounced in an article in the Vatican Newspaper L'Osservatore Romano by a member of the Pontifical Council on the Family. Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau slammed the idea of condoms for AIDS prevention, saying it 'cannot be proposed as a model of humanization and development.' Msgr. Suaudeau also pointed out the danger of relying upon latex condoms to prevent the transmission of the AIDS virus: 'We are asked to believe that the HIV virus, 450 times smaller than spermatozoa, can almost always be magically blocked by a condom, without taking into account that spermatozoa themselves can pass through the latex barrier in 15 out of 100 completed sexual acts.'
The condom-for-AIDS theory, while directly contradicting the teaching of the Catholic Church as repeatedly reiterated by Vatican officials, also flies in the face of recent statistics showing a correlation between increasing rates of AIDS infection and the spread of condom use in the Philippines. In 2006, the Philippine Health Secretary reported that the number of HIV/AIDS cases almost doubled in three years from about 6000 in 2002 to 11,168 in 2006. This was the same period in which private companies and UN-funded international NGOs began bringing condoms into the country. In 2004 alone, DKT, a private organization run by a well-known US pornographer, with the support of the Packard Foundation, distributed 27.8 million condoms as well as chemical abortifacients and contraceptives in the Philippines. Indeed, in many countries, statistics have shown that far from reducing the transmission of AIDS, the use of condoms has greatly exacerbated the problem.
The relentless push by foreign 'experts' for condoms is being increasingly condemned by local governments in the developing world who have seen successful AIDS prevention programmes undermined by the western obsession with latex. The first lady of Kenya said in 2006 that the western programmes pushing condoms in her country were the primary culprits in the spread of AIDS. Lucy Kibaki spoke to Kenyan schoolgirls at an awards ceremony, telling them, 'The condom … is causing the spread of AIDS in this country.' Mrs Kibaki said the rapid spread of AIDS in Kenya could be put down to pressure from abroad to use condoms instead of practising self-control. 'I am not telling you to use condoms. I am not in favour of condoms.' Officials in charge of the most successful AIDS prevention programme in Africa have recently condemned the efforts by western advisors to undermine their programmes promoting abstinence and marital fidelity.
A Ugandan official wrote a piece last week for the Washington Post, saying that the western obsession with casual sex was killing the people of his country. The spread of artificial methods of contraception in the Philippines has long been one of the major goals of the international population control movement, funded through agencies like International Planned Parenthood and the United Nations Population Fund. The Philippines was one of the countries specified in a 1974 US government document, the National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM), authored by Henry Kissinger, that re-directed the work of such international organisations as UNICEF into population control in order to protect US economic interests by lowering fertility rates in the developing world.
In 2002, the Catholic bishops conference of the Philippines issued a statement condemning the attempts by various international organisations to implement the NSSM 200 programme by pushing artificial contraceptives. Currently the attempt has been made again and the Church is vehemently opposing two pending pieces of legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives that will allow 'family planning' organisations to begin their contraceptive programmes in the strongly Catholic country. [LifeSiteNews]
