Chronologies of Bishops and Condom Use: Support and Opposition

 

On 18 January, the Spanish bishops’ conference secretary general P. Juan Antonio Martínez Camino told reporters that “condoms are part of the integral and global prevention of AIDS.” This set off a flurry of statements and responses from bishops and bishops’ conferences that supported and clarified this original pro-prevention message. Ultimately, the Vatican and the Spanish bishops’ conference cracked down on the discussions about the appropriate use of condoms as part of a full and comprehensive prevention strategy for HIV/AIDS.

The Condoms4Life Campaign wishes to draw your attention to the fact that there have been other courageous bishops who have made public acknowledgments recognizing a role for condoms in the fight to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. To that end, we have produced a chronology that highlights some of the key statements and activities of these bishops over the past 15 years.

Condoms4Life has also tracked the detrimental steps that bishops and the Vatican have made during this time.

Condoms4Life hopes that these chronologies will provide positive examples for other bishops to come forward, as well as call attention to both the positive and negative actions that have been taken by the Catholic bishops.

Simultaneously, Condoms4Life urges the Vatican to lift its ban on condoms as a moral and humanitarian matter. By the end of 2003, an estimated 37.8 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS, including the almost 5 million people who acquired HIV in 2003 alone. We ask bishops opposed to the use of condoms to clarify that their objections to condoms as a means of HIV/AIDS prevention are ecclesiastical, not scientific. Finally, we call upon the bishops and clergy to repudiate the incorrect information that has been circulated by officials of the Catholic church, and we strongly encourage all to be scrupulously honest in describing the effectiveness of condoms in the future.

Click here to read the chronology of statements and actions supporting condom use.
Click here to read the chronology of statements and actions opposing condom use.

###

The Condoms4Life campaign is a project of Catholics for a Free Choice designed as a worldwide public education effort to raise public awareness about the devastating effect of the bishops’ ban on condoms. Catholics for Free Choice (CFFC) shapes and advances sexual and reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a commitment to women’s well being and respect and affirm the moral capacity of women and men to make sound decisions about their lives. Through discourse, education and advocacy, CFFC works in the US and internationally to infuse these values into public policy, community life, feminist analysis and Catholic social thinking and teaching.