VATICAN CITY: Dissident Catholic Groups Call on Pope to End Condom Ban

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

VATICAN CITY: Dissident Catholic Groups Call on Pope to End Condom Ban

Agence France Presse (07.25.08) - Monday, July 28, 2008
Martine Nouaille

Around 60 Catholic organizations have signed an open letter urging Pope Benedict XVI to reverse the Vatican's opposition to contraception. The letter, published Friday in Milan's Corriere della Sera newspaper, marked the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical "Humanae Vitae" ("On the Regulation of Birth"), which confirmed the Roman Catholic Church's condemnation of artificial birth control.

The dissident groups, which hailed from countries including Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, and the United States, said the 1968 encyclical has had "catastrophic" effects, with the world's poorest and weakest suffering most from the doctrine. The contraception ban has been "disastrous in the Southern hemisphere, where the Catholic leadership exercises considerable influence on the politics of family planning," the organizations wrote.

The church's position "puts the lives of women in danger and exposes millions of people to the risk of contracting the AIDS virus," the letter stated.

Vatican spokesperson Federico Lombardi characterized the signatories as "unrepresentative" of the Catholic Church. He noted the letter's content was not about expressing a "theological or moral position but paid propaganda in favor of the use of contraceptives."

Lombardi dismissed the idea that the church's stance on contraception has contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS as "obviously unfounded." "The spread of AIDS is totally independent of the religious denomination of populations and of the influence of religious hierarchies," he said, and policies aimed at preventing HIV transmission through condom use have largely failed.
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