To the Catholic Church, marriage is a sacred relationship. Both husband and wife are urged to remain faithful towards each other throughout their lifetime and avoid extramarital relationships at all cost. It is also necessary among Catholics not to engage in sex before marriage as a sign of respect for their religion. The church’s catechism is that all sex acts must be done only to unite a couple and allow them to have children.
But since the olden days, the church’s position on the use of condom and other contraception as a form of family planning and even as a way to prevent the transmission of disease has always been a big no. The Catholic Church’s stand has always been unbending despite claims by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the U.S. that condom usage lowers the risk of HIV/AIDS infection by 10,000 times against not using any protection at all. But to the church, it is a sin to use such contraceptive and based on official teaching, unless users confess their sin of using condoms and do penance, they won’t achieve salvation. For the Roman Catholic Church, only the natural family planning method and abstinence is acceptable.
Many Catholics remain conservative in their views on condoms even until today. They believe that the condom prevents the conception of life which is very sacred. To them, only God can end life.
The Roman Catholic Church’s traditional ban on birth control was stated in the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul VI. The late Pope John Paul II, for his part, was also known for his strong opposition on the use of condoms as a form of contraception and method of preventing disease. He was highly criticized for his stance but he stood by it until the end.
But then again, many people who have high hopes and strong faith believe things can change for the better. And the change they have been longing for has somehow become a reality when the new Pope Benedict XVI, after his election, expressed interest in looking into the possibility of allowing the use of condoms as a means of averting the spread of disease notably HIV/AIDS. The Pope’s health minister is said to be instrumental in this change of position.
The National Catholic Reporter pointed out that the Vatican document will allow the use of condoms in an effort to prevent the spread of HIV only inside marriage and the family and not outside of it. Specifically, condom use will be sanctioned in a marriage where one spouse is infected with HIV/AIDS and the other is not.
Earlier, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI asked his office to prepare a document on this issue. The document was approved by the consultors of the Council for Health Pastoral Care and reviewed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Cause oriented groups supporting the worldwide drive to prevent AIDS have long been urging the Vatican to modify its stand on condoms. They partly blame the Catholic hierarchy for blocking attempts to save millions of lives because of the condom ban. Even the head of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS program had personally talked with the Vatican people to find out if any change could be carried out regarding the issue.
In Latin America which is dominated by the Catholic faith, not all countries follow the ideology of Catholicism. One example is Brazil which is 85 percent Catholic. The country actively promotes and distributes condoms in an effort to help curb the rate of HIV infection.
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