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Rosemary Neill: A Catholic culture of death

May 07, 2005

POPE John Paul II was known for his unwavering belief in the "culture
of life", his conviction that euthanasia and abortion infringed the
sanctity of human life. Yet the late pontiff allowed a culture of
death - and it seems likely his successor, Benedict XVI, will do the
same - in relation to the AIDS pandemic raging through the developing
world.

It is widely assumed that Benedict, the former doctrinal enforcer,
will maintain John Paul II's ban on contraception, which included the
use of condoms to combat AIDS. Benedict said recently that the
Catholic Church was at risk from a "dictatorship of relativism", the
notion that moral principles have no objective standards. At his
inauguration mass, he said his "program of governance is not to do my
own will ... but to listen, together with the whole church, to the
word and the will of the Lord".

Last Sunday, Sydney's Cardinal George Pell warned Australians that
"for those hoping for radical change, there is no reason for optimism
in Benedict XVI".

But - not before time - an increasing number of senior church figures
are speaking out against the Vatican's deadly condoms ban.

Last February, pontifical household theologian Cardinal Georges
Cottier said condoms could be used where there is "a risk of
transmitting death" in poor areas of Africa and Asia. In those cases,
reasoned Cottier, the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" applies.

Cottier is the most senior Vatican figure to have argued this. But he
also stressed his views were "strictly personal". Days earlier,
Spanish bishops had been forced by the Vatican to retract similar
statements supporting the use of condoms to protect against AIDS in
developing countries.

So it seems the Vatican will maintain its cast-iron opposition to
condoms, even in cases where faithful spouses are at risk of being
killed. As a result, many poor, Catholic wives will become infected
and give birth wondering who will die first: they or their babies.

If the Vatican persists with its condoms taboo in AIDS-ravaged
countries, it will eventually be accused of crimes against humanity
that will dwarf the sex abuse scandals that plagued the church during
the John Paul II era.

Prominent clergy from South Africa, which has one of the highest HIV
infection rates, have expressed their frustration that Benedict seems
unlikely to lift the condoms ban. One bishop spoke of the "crucifying"
experience of seeing young women and their babies dying, "in terror
and fear and totally rejected". Former Anglican archbishop of Cape
Town Desmond Tutu said he had hoped for a pope with a "more reasonable
position with regards to condoms and HIV-AIDs".

About 40 million people worldwide are HIV positive and most are from
sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa, where more than 20 per cent of
the population is HIV positive, people spent more time at funerals
than they did shopping or having barbecues, according to a 2004 survey
cited by the AIDS charity AVERT.

The church's culpability is compounded by the fact it has not simply
opposed condoms, it has demonised them. In 2003, a senior cardinal in
the Vatican told the BBC that condoms were unsafe because they have
holes in them that could allow the HIV virus to pass through.

Brazil's government-backed AIDS prevention body, the National HIV-AIDS
Program, responded that the church's position could be "a crime
against humanity", as it could lead millions to mistrust condoms and
contract a life-threatening disease.

The fact is, condoms - along with behavioural change - are the
cheapest and most effective means of stopping the spread of the virus.
Through condom promotion and free anti-retroviral drugs, Brazil's AIDS
death rate has dropped dramatically since the mid-1990s. In Australia,
safe-sex messages coupled with condom use have had a radical effect in
reducing the AIDS death toll, especially among the gay community.

Yet even in countries where the death toll is rising, the Vatican
continues to privilege unfeeling dogma over compassion. It is
interested only in abstinence, making no allowance for cultures where
a wife doesn't have the right to refuse her husband's sexual demands.
While in India years ago, I heard about a woman from a poor, rural
village who contracted HIV from her husband. Yet it was she, rather
than he, who was ostracised and thrown on to the streets.

Despite the ostentatious Catholic ritual on show in Rome during the
past month, Italians openly defy the Vatican's contraception ban: they
have one of the world's lowest birthrates. But in poorer, more
religiously observant countries, contraception isn't merely a
lifestyle decision; it's a life and death dilemma.

Within hours of his death, the clamour for John Paul II to be
canonised was almost deafening. But how can a leader whose moral
rigidity has contributed to innocent men, women and children
contracting a fatal disease be considered saintly?

This view of the late pontiff is only possible if AIDS victims in
dusty shantytowns are abstracted to the point where their individual
humanity is erased. Rather than belonging to the culture of life, they
are condemned by religious zealots to the culture of awful, premature
death.

Rosemary Neill is a senior writer for Review.

© 2005 The Australian