The pope and condoms

The news has been gnawing away at me for days. In one way, Pope Benedict XVI's statements on HIV/AIDS during his Africa trip were not a big surprise to me. Nevertheless, they hit me like a ton of bricks--an effect that surely was felt by countless people all over the world. (The UN reports that 75% of AIDS deaths in the world in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa. About 22 million of the inhabitants of this area are infected with HIV.)

A reminder, if any reader needs one: Pope Benedict said (while on his way to Camaroon) that HIV/AIDS is "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem".

One of the strongest public reactions to the pope came from the British medical journal The Lancet. Their editorial said the pope "publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine on this issue." It continued: "Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear." And it called for a retraction: "When any influential person, be it a religious or political figure, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record. Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/Aids worldwide."

I'm proud to belong to the same religious order, the Redemptorists, as Kevin Dowling. who since 1990 has been the bishop of Rustenburg, South Africa. For years he has been a leading Catholic voice in Africa calling for the Church to reverse its ban on the use of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS.