Catholic World News News Feature
Vatican studying condom use for AIDS prevention November 21, 2006
The Vatican is proceeding with an in-depth study on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
At a November 21 press conference in Rome, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan revealed that the Pontifical Council on Health Care, which he heads, has finished a detailed report on the scientific aspects of the issue. That report is now being studied by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he said.
These Vatican offices are studying the question, Cardinal Lozano Barragan said, at the request of Pope Benedict XVI. The Pontiff, he said, is "certainly very much concerned" about the question.
Church teaching bars the use of contraceptives. But the particular issue now being studied is the more restricted question of whether condom use could be justified for married couples when one partner is infected with AIDS; the purpose of the condom use would then be not to avoid conception but to prevent the transmission of the virus. Pope Benedict has asked for a "private study" of that issue, Cardinal Lozano Barragan said.
"We have prepared a detailed study on condoms, from both the scientific and moral viewpoints," the Mexican prelate reported. "We have passed along our study to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." That dicastery in turn will report to the Pope, he said.
The study done by the Pontifical Council for Health Care runs to over 200 pages, the cardinal disclosed. The report summarized a wide range of views, he said, including perspectives from some experts who are strongly inclined to allow condoms use under those special circumstances, and some who defend an absolute ban.
"It is not up to us to reach a judgment," Cardinal Lozano Barragan told reporters. His office prepared a report on the views of scientists and theologians, he said; the final decision will be made by the Pope.
The cardinal told reporters that the Church has not taken any formal position on the narrowly defined topic that is being studied. In April, Cardinal Lozano Barragan had suggested that conflicting statements on the question, issued by ranking Church officials, had caused some embarrassment at the Vatican, and he predicted that the Holy See would issue a teaching document on the topic. Pope Benedict evidently asked the Mexican prelate to be more circumspect in his public statements, and at the November 21 press conference the cardinal said that it is not certain when-- if at all-- a Vatican statement on the topic will be released.
If a statement does eventually appear, the cardinal added, it will not change the overall thrust of the Church teachings regarding contraception. The particular issue being studied, he repeated, involved married couples, whose use of condoms would not be for contraceptive purposes.
"No response from the Church," he said, "could be such that it allows for sexual license."
