Pope Benedict XVI is in the midst of a trip to Africa this week, and remarks that he made about the use of condoms in connection with AIDS prevention have stirred quite a controversy. Among other things, he said, “You can’t resolve [the AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.” An example of the kind of hostility his words have stirred is Milsaps College professor Robert McElvaine, an alleged Catholic who writes in the Washington Post‘s “On Faith” column:
As I detail in my latest book, Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America (Crown), the cardinal sin of the Catholic Church — a literally deadly sin, if ever there was one — is its opposition to birth control. Far from being, as the Church contends, part of its moral doctrine, this policy is, plainly, the immoral doctrine of the Church. The use of condoms is a pro-life position.
Why does the Church persist in such a manifestly immoral doctrine? One suspects that it must be the usual twisted thinking about sex and women….
It should be obvious that the sin in an over-populated world is not attempting to control birth, but attempting to control birth control.
And now for the pope to go so far as to indicate that condom use worsens the spread of AIDS — there’s an outrage that tops Madoff and AIG!
And the Post editorial board, in the opinion piece from which I quoted the Pope’s words, says,” The late New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, ‘Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.’ This holds true even for the pope.”
Yes, well. There’s a lot of that kind of talk going around. There’s one problem. It isn’t true. Take a gander at this response to the Pope’s words:
“The pope is correct, or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments….[C]ondoms have been proven to not be effective at the ‘level of population.’”
“There is a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction ‘technology’ such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by ‘compensating’ or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology.”
If you thought this came from somebody at Liberty University or the Family Research Council, you’d be wrong. It actually comes from Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Green notes further that he agrees with the Pope’s answer to the problem of AIDS in Africa, which isn’t abstinence nearly so much as monogamy:
I also noticed that the pope said ‘monogamy’ was the best single answer to African AIDS, rather than ‘abstinence.’ The best and latest empirical evidence indeed shows that reduction in multiple and concurrent sexual partners is the most important single behavior change associated with reduction in HIV-infection rates (the other major factor is male circumcision).”
Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review, whose article quotes Green, concludes:
The pope added during that Q&A, “I would say that our double effort is to renew the human person internally, to give spiritual and human strength to a way of behaving that is just towards our own body and the other person’s body; and this capacity of suffering with those who suffer, to remain present in trying situations.”
We need to, in other words, treat people as people. Reason with them and show them there is a better way to live, respectful of themselves and others. It’s a common-sense message that isn’t madness whether you’re in Africa or dealing with hormonal American teenagers. It’s a hard message to hear over the same-old silly debates, parodies, and dismissals. But it’s one that based on real life—and acknowledged not just in Saint Peter’s Square but in Harvard Square.
Would that the mainstream media and much of American academia, which are convinced that the answer to AIDS is condoms, condoms, and more condoms, acknowledged it as well. Trouble is, they insist, not on their own facts, but on no facts at all.
The Reformed Pastor 
March 19, 2009 at 6:29 pm
David,
With respect, there’s at least one major problem with your analysis.
You’re using an analysis of US condom use & AIDS infection rates, and then extrapolating to Africa. However, that doesn’t work. The highest HIV transmission category in the US is male-to-male transmission, among generally middle class, out, white, gay men. In Africa, the highest transmission category is male-to-female transmission among poor, straight, married, African couples. Therefore one cannot assume that all of the myriad factors which play out in the US regarding HIV transmission are the same as they are in Africa. In fact, it seems to me that such an assumption would be obviously ridiculous on its face to anyone anywhere, no matter how unschooled in methods of basic social research. (A very different conclusion would be reached if you’d ever read anything about Brazil’s efforts to curb HIV/AIDS infections … an example much more applicable than the US. Even wikipedia has an OK article showing the significant number of lives saved by their governments intensive condom distribution efforts.)
The AIDS problem in the US is complex, and the answer is not only “condoms, condoms, and more condoms” even though that is often how it is seen by those outside the gay community, and initially it is how the gay community responded (I could go on and on about the failures here; they are legion.) However, I think it should be obvious that the solution to the AIDS problem in Africa is most certainly not “No condoms. Not now. Not ever.”
Maybe instead of preaching AT the entire continent of Africa about HIV/AIDS from his High Holy Perch and unilaterally determining what he will not support under any circumstances, the Pope’s time would be better spent finding out what does or might work there to save some lives.
Also, in addition to preventing AIDS, condoms can also help prevent unwanted pregnancy, which seems to be a fairly useful function in societies decimated by crippling poverty. I’d note that, interestingly, the part of Obama’s abortion policy that you criticize in an earlier post (ie. his failure so far to increase emphasis on contraception) is exactly what this pope is advocating in Africa: a failure to increase an emphasis on contraception.
To me, as a pro-life Christian, any decrease in unwanted pregnancies seems like a good thing. The Pope disagrees. And unfortunately it appears that you do as well.
The fact is, condom use does indeed decrease the likelihood of contracting AIDS at an individual level, as I’m sure you’re well aware. That fact is actually a fact, no matter how much the Catholics try to spin it. If you’d like, I’m sure I can find for you the pore size of a sheet of latex and the size of the HIV retrovirus to prove that HIV cannot traverse a latex barrier. Or are those just “facts” and not facts? Is there some anti-science way to spin even those basic measurements as well?
So then, since condom use does indeed reduce the risk of transmitting HIV, if the Pope would come out in favor of condom use, and it saved even one life, it seems to me that alone would be worth it.
Apparently the Pope disagrees. And unfortunately it appears that you do as well. If one ignores the political posturing on both sides, I think it’s pretty clear that the pope is on the wrong side on this one. Care to rethink your analysis?
March 19, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Umm…no, I don’t think I’ll take back what I said. I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say I’m using US data and extrapolating to Africa. The researcher quoted in the post, Edward Green, isn’t quite that dumb. Here’s a portion of his biography as it appears in the preface to his paper “The ABC Approach to Preventing the Sexual Transmission of HIV: Common Questions and Answers,” published in February 2007:
“Dr. Green is a Senior Research Scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. He currently serves on both the Presidential Advisory Council for HIV/AIDS and the Advisory Council, Office of AIDS Research, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For the past 20 years, Dr. Green has developed, evaluated, and implemented HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He is the author of Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries (Praeger, 2003) and AIDS and STDs in Africa (1994) and other books.”
The conclusions that he comes to regarding the efficacy of condom use in Africa are based on his own work on the continent, not in the US. He writes in that paper that “The ABC approach addresses the sexual transmission of HIV and has proven most effective in generalized epidemics, as opposed to epidemics concentrated among high-risk groups.” The ABC approach stands for “Abstain, Be faithful, or use Condoms.” He is not against the latter nearly so much as against a policy that focuses exclusively on so-called “mechanical” means, rather than addressing social, relational, and moral aspects of the pandemic. I agree.
Now as to your other points:
1) I may not have made myself clear about something. I was addressing solely the issue of condom use to fight AIDS. I was not addressing their use within marriage as a form of birth control.
2) You are correct, of course, that in any particular instance of sexual intercourse, condoms can be very effective in preventing HIV transmission. Green is looking at the larger picture, which is more complicated. A companion piece at NR notes that condoms have a 1-5% failure rate. For a promiscuous person, over time, even impeccable condom use has significant risks for both that person and any other partner.
3) I disagree with your characterization of the Pope’s “preaching.” There’s no question about the basis for his opposition to condom use, but it is also the case that there is empirical evidence to support that opposition. Uganda, among others, has demonstrated that changes in behavior have been more effective in reducing new HIV infections significantly than the use of “mechanical” means. That doesn’t mean that condoms don’t have their place (and I obviously disagree with Benedict in this regard); it just means that they are no panacea, and in isolation–the preferred method dealing with the pandemic on the part of most of the efforts supported by the West–it can be counterproductive.
March 19, 2009 at 8:04 pm
It’s really too bad when ideology trumps reality and pragmatism. That’s been the problem with HIV/AIDS prevention work in Africa for the last 20 years.
Dr. Green agrees with me. The “C” of the ABC approach is “Or use Condoms”. Forbidding condom use, as the Catholic church does, is not effective in the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS.
You can’t quite bring yourself to disagree with His Holiness, even though you know he’s wrong. You know that he, as a Catholic Pope, is against all condom use under any circumstances. Yet you write a blog post defending him for that position, even though you know it is wrong, and you cite someone who agrees that it is wrong. You defend his credentials and experience and yet contradict his work.
And you do so, I think, only to complain about some progressives’ similar lack of vision. There’s plenty of blame to go around here. Perhaps instead of praising efforts that we know do not work … ie. no condoms, not now, not ever … how about encouraging those efforts that do?
March 20, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I really don’t think David is saying what Alan claims he is saying.
March 20, 2009 at 1:53 pm
You’re quite right, John, I just didn’t want to flog the horse any further, and so didn’t respond the last time.
March 20, 2009 at 2:08 pm
No, actually I think David and I agree, though that wasn’t at all clear from his post initially. That is, David appears to believe that condoms are one part of a strategy for fighting AIDS in Africa (or anywhere else for that matter), as do I.
The problem is that David appears to believe that the Pope thinks the same thing, when he most certainly does not, and he never has. Benedict is, like the Pope before him, absolutely 100% against the use of condoms.
We’re talking about the fact that condom use does indeed help prevent the spread of HIV. But this is a fact that the Pope refuses to recognize. And yet is is the “mainstream media and much of American academia” that gets mocked for ignoring the facts.
The Pope is being criticized and mocked (and rightly so) because he is against all condoms all the time, for anyone, forever, for any reason. Not exactly a position any reasonable person would agree with, though David’s initial post does make it seem like he agreed with it.
For playing Russian roulette with people’s lives, the Pope should be condemned, not congratulated simply for the opportunity to write a post criticizing “the mainstream media and much of American academia.”
March 22, 2009 at 7:59 am
Alan, the problem I see with your perspective is that is not holistically Christian. This is not meant to be offensive, but you seem to be writing from a human perspective that says death is the end. The pope is looking at this from an eternal perspective. The problem with ABC is that all of them are considered equals. If I as a pastor condoned ABC, then I at least bear some of the guilt when my parishioner comes back to me and says, “I caught something.” Doesn’t have to be HIV. And if we cause some to miss Christ because we compromise our message to allow for a practical solution, woe is us! Jesus was not a man of compromise. Should he be condemned because he didn’t say, “Try to be perfect” but instead said, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”? It is not the place for the leader of a huge chunk of Christianity to compromise so that some people live longer lives on earth if it means they sacrifice eternity in the process.
March 22, 2009 at 6:56 pm
First of all, a person can reasonably emphasize any aspect of HIV prevention they care to. I don’t have a problem with that. But ruling as out-of-bounds one of the tools in the toolbox, particularly by people living in the comfort of a society that doesn’t have a 50% infection rate, is repellant. The ABC approach doesn’t have to consider them all “equals”. I don’t think people in developing countries are so stupid that they can’t understand a more nuanced message.
(I have to say that I find it odd that people seem to think this is an either/or question, as if condoms aren’t used by people who are in monogamous relationships. It’s as if only the promiscuous might benefit from condom use. I don’t know if that belief is just naive or downright blind or perhaps based on some overly pious notions of superiority.)
Yes there is life everlasting, Jason, but I don’t believe we should be in any hurry to speed along our meeting with Jesus. And I don’t think you actually believe that either. I assume you wear a seatbelt, or do you just assume that careful and responsible driving will save you, but if it doesn’t it’s no big deal? Nor do I think it is the job of pastors, priests, or pontiffs to speed along that meeting for their parishioners. But more important than what I think is what Scripture says, and there’s no Scriptural reason for hastening people’s deaths.
Since when is saving lives reduced to mere “pragmatism”? Feh.
But “sacrifice eternity” through the use of a condom? No Scriptural reason for that either. I’m pretty sure even the Catholics don’t buy that sort of works-based theology any longer, and we Protestants most certainly never have.
Pro-lifers like to complain of a holocaust of the unborn, but many, including this pope, seem to have no interest in doing *everything* possible to end the one happening in the developing world. Well, I guess it’s all just a matter of timing.
There are actually bishops in Africa burning piles of condoms in the street, based on these faulty and childish notions of theology and propriety. And you know what they’re going to learn eventually? It turns out that it’s really hard to preach the Gospel to corpses, Jason.
I agree that we should not compromise our message. Mine is a message of life. What’s yours? Generations of orphans. Continued crushing poverty. Sickness, suffering, vomit, and blood, and filth and feces and pain. All because recommending condom use would be too “practical.”
That’s not uncompromising; that’s unfeeling. and that isn’t just “not holistically Christian”, I don’t think it’s Christian at all.
March 23, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Chances are very good that Pope Benedict is going to be misquoted and that secular commentators are going to have a field day whenever he attempts to address a matter outside the bounds of Catholic doctrine.
That said, not a few of Pope Benedict’s public statements and recent decisions impress me as careless and ill advised. Does he discuss with any of his close advisors what he intends to say? If so, the Vatican’s vetting process is woefully inadequate in the face of today’s 24-hour news cycle and the expansive blogosphere. The result? The Pope and the Church for which he speaks appear tone deaf and out of touch with some hard realities.
The HIV/AIDS situation in Africa is one of those hard realities. Stemming the tide of infections will require every weapon in the public health arsenal as well as the resources of faith, family and morality. We rightfully expect the Pope to speak forcefully about the latter, but he did not need to foolishly denigrate one of the important tools of the former. No one would expect the Pope to speak favorably about condoms. But his silence on that point would have been more welcome than the confusing things he did say.
March 24, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Gullible with a capital G! Everybody knows that Harvard is in the Vatican’s back pocket!
Good job, Dave.
March 26, 2009 at 10:45 am
Folks, on the subject of HIV/AIDS prevention, I thought this little tidbit from the United Church of Christ would be of interest. It was introduced with some negative comments against the Pope. We’ve been chuckling around the office that this whole condom distribution thing is just a UCC publicity stunt: the proposal is clearly targeted at youth, something the UCC has almost none of!
Institute on Religion and Democracy
March 25, 2009
Pass the Offering Plate, Take a Condom
United Church of Christ Promotes Contraceptive Distribution in the Sanctuary
“Efforts to distance the UCC from its Puritan heritage have been a consistent trend, but this move to distribute condoms is truly a bold departure.”
-Alan Wisdom, IRD Vice President for Research and Programs
Washington, DC—According to the HIV and AIDS Network of the United Church of Christ (UCC), Condoms should be distributed at places of worship. The March 19 statement, issued at a presentation to the UCC Wider Church Ministries Board, also called for making condoms available at faith-based educational settings.
According to UCC executive Michael Schuenemeyer, “The practice of safer sex is a matter of life and death. People of faith make condoms available because we have chosen life so that we and our children may live.”
The UCC is the successor denomination to the Puritan and Congregationalist traditions. Membership has dropped steadily, from 2.1 million in 1967 to 1.2 million today. The UCC lost six percent of its membership in the most recent year, according to the 2009 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.
IRD Vice President for Research and Programs Alan Wisdom commented:
“Schuenemeyer claims, ‘People of faith make condoms available because we have chosen life so that we and our children may live.’ One wonders where the children will come from if UCC members are religiously using their church-dispensed condoms.
“It is ironic that the main thing the UCC is offering its sexually active members is the technical assistance of condoms. Those can easily be obtained at any corner drugstore. One would hope that a church would be offering some moral guidance not available at the drugstore.
“The UCC, which prides itself on being ‘ecumenical,’ was quick to criticize Pope Benedict XVI for reiterating longstanding Catholic doubts about condoms as the solution to HIV/AIDS. It might have done better to consider more seriously the reasons why Catholic authorities oppose artificial contraception: because it turns sex into an activity in which persons instrumentalize one another’s bodies for pleasure, thus promoting the kind of promiscuity that accelerates the spread of HIV/AIDS.
“Parents concerned about schools distributing condoms might assume that the church would have their backs, reinforcing the traditional Christian ethic reserving sex for marriage. In the case of the UCC, that assumption would be wrong. Now, apparently, parents need to think twice before dropping their kids off for Sunday school.”
“Efforts to distance the UCC from its Puritan heritage have been a consistent trend, but this move to distribute condoms is truly a bold departure.”