Bishops Contradict Pope on AIDS Policy

Contradicting Vatican doctrine against artificial birth control, the French Bishops Conference said this week that the use of condoms is necessary to prevent AIDS from spreading.

Pope John Paul II has insisted that abstinence outside marriage and fidelity within marriage are the only legitimate weapons against the sexual transmission of AIDS. The Vatican had no immediate comment on what apparently is the first time a bishops’ conference has contradicted the pope’s teachings on the subject.

“Many competent doctors affirm that a condom of good quality is currently the only method of prevention. In that respect, it is necessary,” the bishops’ conference said in “AIDS: Society in Question,” a 235-page report.

“Those responsible for public health, legitimately worried about the spread of AIDS and the cost of treating it, support the use [of condoms],” the report said. “The church, suspected of being totally opposed to their use, sees itself accused of working in favor of death.”

The report was written by the conference’s social committee. A spokesman for the conference said the report reflects the official policy of the French Catholic Church.

Marc Gentilini, the president of a committee of Catholic French doctors, said the church “cannot be against the use of condoms, a method that prevents the transmission of death.”

Even in his travels in Africa, where AIDS is rampant in many countries and wives are commonly infected by unfaithful husbands, the pope has refused to ease the church’s prohibition on the use of condoms.

“The use of condoms is understandable in the case where sexual activity is already part of the person’s behavior and there is a need to avoid a grave risk,” the report said.

Nevertheless, the report strongly defends faithfulness in sexual relations as a way of preventing the spread of AIDS and says sexual education for young people cannot be limited to encouraging the use of condoms.