I have often stood alone, especially in my battle against the pseudo-science of Peter Duesberg and Thabo Mbeki and it was indeed gratifying to be invited to the recent UN Humanitarian Awards regarding my position on this issue. I have always openly said that it is morally wrong to force a HIV/AIDS infected partner to sleep with another human being in the knowledge that the sexual act will in all probability cause the death of the innocent person. In 2001, a group of Catholic Bishops from Southern Africa condemned the use of condoms to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. Bishop Michael Coleman stated, "their use is immoral and dangerous and the promotion of condoms is a misguided weapon in our battle against HIV/AIDS". He then continued, "condoms don't make a difference...this country is saturated with condoms yet we have the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world". This again, is pseudo-science masquerading itself as scientific fact. Dr. Halpenny states "apart from the fact that condoms has done nothing to halt the spread of AIDS" and unwittingly falls into this propaganda trap flouted by the Catholic Church in Africa to promote the policies of the Humanae Vitae doctrine. On this basis, I will deal with the scientific issue first.
The WHO has recently condemned the Catholic Church's views, saying: "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million." The United Nations have also recently been profoundly disturbed by propaganda from the Catholic Church telling people in HIV/AIDS stricken countries not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass. The Church is making these claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV. A senior Vatican spokesman, the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, backs the claims about permeable condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that they are false. Scientific research by a group including the US National Institutes of Health and the WHO found "intact condoms... are essentially impermeable to particles the size of STD pathogens including the smallest sexually transmitted virus... condoms provide a highly effective barrier to transmission of particles of similar size to those of the smallest STD viruses".
Things get worse, in Lwak, near Lake Victoria, Gordon Wambi, the director of HIV/AIDS in the area has gone on record stating that local priests in the region are telling the populous "that condoms are laced with HIV/Aids." In Kenya (where an estimated 20% of people have HIV) the Archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki has gone of record stating, "the Catholic Church condemns condoms for promoting promiscuity and the rise of HIV/AIDS in that country. He also repeats the claim about permeability. So why would the ecclesiastical authorities openly tell lies against scientific fact and try to spread false propaganda to the distressed and diseased people of the plague stricken African nation.
Thankfully, the days of Galileo (who proclaimed the truth of the Copernican doctrine) where the Holy See believed itself to be the supreme authority in all matters of science are now behind us. In order to withstand the perceived wrath of the Catholic Church which states that the doctrines of Humanae Vitae "are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and defined with a solemn judgment as divinely revealed truths either by the Roman Pontiff when he speaks 'ex cathedra,' or by the College of Bishops gathered in council, or infallibly proposed for belief by the ordinary and universal Magisterium", I am going to use the intellectual argument of "licit dissent" to challenge the respective canons of the Codes of Canon Law. It is recognised by the Catholic Church that, as long as the disagreement against Humanae Vitae is well founded and respectfully stated, and as long as the Church's official teaching is properly con veyed alongside the theologian's expressed doubts, such theological dissent can be classified as "licit."
To be fair, neither Blessed John XXIII nor his successor Paul VI foresaw the conflagration of public dissent that occurred following the issuance of the encyclical Humanae Vitae in July of 1968. The majority of Catholic professors teaching theology in North America and many others worldwide at the time-publicly dissented from the doctrines of Humanae Vitae and this opposition has lasted up to the present day.
The problems started when Pope Paul VI attempted to clarify the Catholic Church's ancient teaching on artificial contraception following the Protestant church's reversal on the ancient prohibition of birth control during the Lambeth conference of 1930. Doctrine relating to the regulation of birth and the prohibition against artificial contraception was defined in doctrines, dating back to the Council of Nicea, (Canon 1) AD 325. The Church's teaching that the procreative element cannot be removed from the act of sex without incurring grave sin and violating the sanctity of marriage was largely influenced by theologians like St. Augustine, who we should remember prior to his conversion to Christianity, was a lustful youth who lived for years with a woman who bore him a son. This theologian was also enamoured with a dualistic philosophy called Manichaeism, which viewed matter as an evil opposed to spirit.
Unquestionably, these experiences coloured his views on marriage and sexuality and questionably still have some part to play in the deaths of HIV/AIDS patients in Africa. We should also remember that theologically the Bible has virtually nothing to say about birth control per se. The closest we get to this is the story of Onan (Gn 38: 1-11) being condemned to death for practicing coitus interruptus and this pertains more to his refusal to father children for his deceased brother (as Jewish Law required) than the practice of a form of birth control.
Eventually in 1964, Pope Paul VI created the Papal Commission on Population and Birth Control. The commission consisted of two parts, one of 64 lay persons, the other of 15 clerics, and they met from 1964 to 1966. One of the clerics was Pope John Paul II, then a Polish cardinal. Unfortunately, Pope Paul VI gave the Commission only one mission, not to review the moral doctrines relating to birth control but rather to determine how the Church could change its position on the issue without undermining papal authority. In 1966, the Commission concluded that it was not possible to make this change without undermining papal authority. They also stated that the Church should make the changes anyway because it was the right thing to do! In fact, the lay members voted 60 to 4 for change, and the clerics, 9 to 6 for change. Of more interest is the fact that the co-author of one report Karol Wojtyla (who is now Pope John Paul II) stated:
"If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930. It should likewise have to be admitted that for a half century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error".
