By THE AUSTRALIAN
Added: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:00:00 UTC

Thanks to Michael Murray for the link.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24031610-12377,00.html

'Condoms won't change HIV rates'

A SOUTH African Catholic cardinal says the rampant HIV infection rate in Africa would not change if the church ordered its faithful to use condoms during sex.

Speaking on the SBS Dateline program tonight while visiting Sydney for World Youth Day, Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier said he had long been opposed to the use of condoms to prevent HIV.

When asked why the church had not instructed its followers to use condoms to slow the spread of HIV, he said such a call would make little difference.

Uganda had turned around an HIV prevalence rate of 29 per cent, reducing it to six per cent in 10 years, using a program that included abstinence for unmarried Ugandans, monogamy within couples and condoms issued only to married couples, he said.

But condom use in South Africa had not arrested the HIV infection rate, one of the highest in the world, Cardinal Napier said.

"The country with the highest distribution rate of condoms is South Africa, and the opposite result is happening," Cardinal Napier said.

"I don't think the death rate is because the people, they are not using the condom, and yet it's available.

"You expect that because people are hearing from bishops, `You must use a condom', that they will do what the bishops say?

"We have already been preaching all our lives, don't have sex outside of marriage."

The church had faith in the ability of people to control their own lives and avoid HIV infection, Cardinal Napier said.

"At the moment, if you go on a policy of condom distribution as the only solution to HIV and AIDS, you are telling people that they cannot take control of their own lives," he said.

"And, therefore, I think you are doing them an injustice by saying: `You are so stupid. Even though this disease is a killer, you cannot take control of your own lives'."

TAGGED: HUMAN RIGHTS, MEDICINE, MORALITY, RELIGION