Global Policy Forum

By Steven Swindells

Catholic bishops from southern Africa on Monday condemned the use of condoms to fight the Aids pandemic gripping the continent, saying it was immoral and dangerous. The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference wrapped up a seven-day meeting by denouncing the use of condoms, which they said destroyed moral fibre and encouraged casual sex. "The Bishops regard the widespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms as an immoral and misguided weapon in our battle against HIV-Aids," the conference said in a statement issued after talks in the South African capital Pretoria. "Abstain and be faithful (in marriage) is the human and Christian way of overcoming HIV-Aids," the bishops said. Sub-Saharan Africa is at the epicentre of the global Aids crisis, with more than 25 million sufferers.

South Africa has more people living with HIV-Aids than any other country, with one in nine or about five million people HIV- positive. Neighbouring Botswana has the highest adult infection rate in the world, with more than a third HIV-positive. Aids activists, who argue that condom use is integral to any prevention programme, condemned the bishops' position. "It's a very unfortunate position for them to adopt and make so public. Condom use is the major way we have in blocking new HIV infections," said Mark Heywood, national secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa's leading Aids activist group.

Nkululeko Nxesi, director of the National Association of People Living with Aids, said: "The use of condoms provides us with a solution that ensures we scale down the rate of the epidemic. You need a backup system and condoms provide that." But the bishops' stance that condoms were no substitute for abstinence and sexual responsibility was shared by Doctors for Life, a grouping of some 700 doctors in South Africa.

"There has to be a change in lifestyle behaviour. Just distributing condoms has no effect... Society as a whole has to change its value system," said Albu van Eeden, a member of Doctors for Life. The bishops' statement came despite growing calls for the Catholic Church to soften its stance on safe sex in the face of the crippling impact of Aids on the continent. "Condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV-Aids. Apart from the possibility of condoms being faulty or wrongly used they contribute to the breaking down of self-control and mutual trust," the bishops said.

They said condoms went against human dignity, did not guarantee protection against HIV-Aids and turned sex into a selfish search for pleasure. They urged the young not to be misguided by offers of condoms, to abstain from sex before marriage and to be faithful when married. The Vatican has reaffirmed its opposition to condom use. The Catholic church in Africa has been criticised for standing in the way of greater distribution of male and female condoms. Zambian health authorities this year withdrew a hard-hitting anti-Aids campaign that urged Zambians to practise safe sex through condom use after church groups protested that it encouraged promiscuity and moral decay.

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