UN agency welcomes Pope’s condom comments

THE United Nations AIDS agency has welcomed the Pope’s comments that condom use might be justified in some cases, but has cautioned they were only a first step toward making the use of condoms acceptable among Catholics.

Pope Benedict XVI opened the door on the previously taboo subject of condoms as a way to fight HIV, saying male prostitutes who use condoms may be beginning to act responsibly. Previously, the pontiff has blamed condoms for making the AIDS crisis worse.

“This is a significant and positive step forward taken by the Vatican,” said executive director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibe.

“This move recognises that responsible sexual behaviour and the use of condoms have important roles in HIV prevention.”

The UNAIDS spokesman said while over 80% of HIV infections are caused through sexual transmission, only 4% to 10% result from sex between men. There are no reliable statistics about how many infections might be prevented if male prostitutes routinely used condoms, he said.

The Pope made the comments in an interview with a German journalist, published as a book entitled Light Of The World: The Pope, The Church And The Signs Of The Times, to be published tomorrow.

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano ran excerpts on Saturday.

Church teaching has long opposed condoms because they are a form of artificial contraception, although the Vatican has never released an explicit policy about condoms and HIV. The Vatican has been harshly criticised for its position.

Pope Benedict said condoms are not a moral solution to stopping AIDS, but he said in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, their use could represent a first step in assuming moral responsibility “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection”.

The Pope made the remark in response to a general question about Africa, where the spread of HIV in heterosexuals is rampant.

He used as a specific example male prostitutes, for whom contraception is not usually an issue, but did not mention married couples where one spouse is infected.

The Vatican has come under pressure from even Church officials to condone condom use for such monogamous married couples to protect the uninfected spouse from transmission.

The Pope drew the wrath of the United Nations, European governments and AIDS activists when, en route to Africa in 2009, he told reporters that the AIDS problem on the continent could not be resolved by distributing condoms.

“On the contrary, it increases the problem,” he said then.

Journalist Peter Seewald, who interviewed Benedict over the course of six days this summer, raised the Africa condom comments, asking him if it was not “madness” for the Vatican to forbid a high-risk population from using condoms.

“There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralisation, a first assumption of responsibility,” Pope Benedict said.

Asked if that meant that the Church was not opposed in principle to condoms, the Pope replied that the Church “of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but in this or that case, there can be nonetheless in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality”.

Elsewhere in the book he reaffirmed Church teaching opposing artificial contraception.