Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herlad - Tuesday, July 31, 2001
The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference said "condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV/AIDS," according to a document released at the end of the bishops' annual meeting.
"Apart from the possibility of condoms being faulty or wrongly used, they contribute to the breaking down of self-control and mutual respect," according to the statement, read by Cardinal Wilfrid Napier at a news conference Monday.
Prevention programs should replace condom distribution programs with efforts to promote abstention, Napier said.
"This is God's way. Choose life. Don't choose the way of sin or destruction," he said.
However, married couples could use condoms if one or both them was infected and they abstained from sex while the woman was ovulating, Napier said.
This way, the condom would not prevent the creation of life.
"This is one possibility during which the condom could be used in a morally responsible situation," Napier said.
The Vatican had no immediate comment.
The bishops' views carry little weight without Vatican approval.
In his 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae" ("Of Human Life"), Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the church's ban on contraception, a position that some governments and AIDS activists say has hindered efforts to contain the AIDS pandemic.
The southern African bishops' debate was provoked by a proposal for the conference to sanction condom use as part of a wider program to stop the spread of HIV in Africa, where more than 25 million people are infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
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