Condoms never, surely

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez
Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa said public
debate on comments by Pope Benedict
on condoms last year provides an
opportunity for parish priests.

You can't defend against AIDS with a balloon

I have been totally puzzled for years hearing that debate has been going on about whether condom use is moral for a married couple in which one spouse has AIDS, in an effort to reduce the possibility of transmitting the disease.

Some thinkers, citing Humanae Vitae, have said the Church can never approve a practice that goes against the understanding of the conjugal act in marriage as a complete form of self-giving that is open to life.

Quite apart from this argument, though, is the conviction that seems to be worldwide that condoms do not have 100 per cent efficiency in preventing pregnancy (something like 95 per cent seems to be the highest claimed), and even less efficiency in preventing transmission of AIDS.

My argument would simply be how can a truly loving spouse subject the other to ANY risk associated with this killer disease? Any sexual contact at all is simply playing Russian roulette.

Now the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, is weighing in with an article written by Father Juan Perez-Soba, a moral theologian who teaches in Rome at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.