Infallible and incorrigible

On his first Africa visit, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the Vatican’s disastrous AIDS policy – By Bartholomäus Grill

A Christian can never remain silent in the face of suffering and violence, poverty, hunger, corruption and the abuse of power,” said Pope Benedict XVI on his first visit to Africa. Yet he remained silent as he sat enthroned next to Cameroon’s president, receiving the devout people’s tributes. He was alongside Paul Biya, of all people, who has been abusing his power for 27 years – ordering the torture of critics and the shooting of protestors. Biya is one of the world’s most corrupt heads of state, one who has brought misery and poverty to his country.

The autocrat smiled blissfully, with his first lady, Chantal – she of the opulent tastes – on one side, and the kindly white father from the Vatican on the other. Together they made an unforgettable triptych.

Then it was the turn of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos to let the light of His Holiness shine on him. Dos Santos is another leader who shamelessly plunders the resources of his oil-rich country while most people eke out a meager existence. You could say in the pope’s defense that even the pontiff has to bow to the constraints of a state visit. He could have included democratic countries like South Africa or Ghana in his itinerary; even chaotic Nigeria would have been an alternative. But as it stands, the head of the Roman Catholic Church has blessed two sanctimonious kleptocrats.

But Benedict XVI caused the greatest offense before he even arrived. While still en route, he declared that AIDS could “not be eliminated by distributing condoms; on the contrary, there is a risk that will increase the problem.” It was a papal pronouncement with terrible consequences for Africa. No other continent is as ravaged by AIDS. Twenty-five million Africans have died of the disease; 1,000 more die every day in South Africa alone.

Condoms help prevent transmission of the virus during sex – that has been proven in scientific studies. Yet the pope and his advisors do not want to recognize that. In reality, of course, this is not about a little piece of latex. It is about whether Catholic teachings on sex are still appropriate in the age of HIV/AIDS.

Anyone who asks that question as uncompromisingly as Cape Town priest Stefan Hippler is treated like a heretic. He distributes condoms in the townships, where the rate of infection in some cases is above 50 percent. He developed an admirable AIDS project that has drawn praise from the likes of former South African President Nelson Mandela and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. And, in cooperation with this writer, he wrote the book “Gott Aids Afrika,” a polemic that promptly landed on the Catholic Church’s blacklist. Hippler was strongly “advised” to refrain from public readings from the book or interviews. In the secular world, that would be called a decree muzzling freedom of speech.

But what is it about the questions raised by a socially committed priest that so angers the church hierarchy? It is the accusation that the church would rather let millions suffer than depart from its antiquated moral teachings? That it continues to preach its pious strategies against the epidemic by telling its members: Be faithful! Be abstinent! Do not sin! And don’t dare use a condom!

That has been the message – unreserved and infallible – since 1968, when Pope Paul VI forbade all forms of artificial contraception in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, against the advice of a Vatican commission of experts. In 2001, in the face of devastating AIDS statistics, South African bishops allowed an exception for those married in the church – condoms could be used if one partner was HIV-positive. But the Vatican continues to preach its irreversible general line – rubbers are wrong; they prevent life and unleash the dark forces of lust. Therefore, only faithfulness and chastity can provide protection from AIDS.

Anyone who has spoken with young Africans about sexuality knows how unworldly and dangerous the Catholic Church’s dictates are. For this is not just about the Catholic flock – it affects all the believers and unbelievers who come knocking on the church’s door seeking help. Many priests, nuns and lay Catholics are carrying out tremendous humanitarian work in Africa. They are leaders in the field of AIDS patient care. You can talk to them about dying and about life after death; but when it comes to life before death, to prevention and education, most of them prefer not to discuss it.

The unyielding line of the church has caught many of its workers in a terrible moral dilemma. They want to fight the disease but are not allowed to do so with all available means. Many do it anyway – Rome is far away but the suffering is right up close.

Why is the Catholic Church finding it so difficult to adapt its outmoded moral code to today’s reality? Because this matter is about the temptations of a permissive society, the relativism of modernity, which threatens to subvert all of Christianity’s basic principles. The biggest dangers lie in unbridled sexuality; the papal guardians of morality quoted the medieval wisdom of St. Augustine – inter faeces et urinam nascimur (we are born between feces and urine.) The father of the church taught that Original Sin is perpetuated in the act of sex until the end of time.

Sexuality therefore remains something dirty and reprehensible, for ever and ever. The old men at the Vatican are incapable of seeing it with the “unfearing, loving and philanthropic view” recommended by the German reform movement “Wir sind Kirche.” Nor do they want to hear the calls of concerned priests in Africa: Look into your hearts, brothers! Think about a contemporary AIDS theology! Be, like Jesus, compassionate with the threatened and the afflicted!

It is an outrage that Hippler will have to be silent if he wants to remain a Catholic priest. He can only hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will enter the Vatican, and that the Almighty in Rome will finally be able to weigh up the moral and theological pros and cons – and that the benefits of the condom in preventing disaster lie heavier in the balance than the “damage” it does as a contraceptive.

A lot would be achieved if the pope could at least share the views of a thoughtful theologian like Hans-Jochen Jaschke. The auxiliary bishop of Hamburg recently wrote in the newsweekly Die Zeit: “There can be absolutely no question. Anyone who has AIDS and is sexually active, who changes partners, must protect others and himself... So – no taboo on the subject of condoms. But no myths or pretending they solve all the problems, either.”

Bishop Jaschke is right. Condoms cannot cure the AIDS epidemic; they are merely one weapon in the battle against its spread. They cannot do away with the causes of HIV/AIDS in Africa – extreme poverty, superstition, ignorance, traditional sexual practices, the crisis of health care and disastrous hygienic conditions. Condoms cannot overcome the powerlessness of women or the machismo of irresponsible men. Nor can they make a difference to the errors of African governments that deny or trivialize the problem.

But condoms can reduce the consequences of the pandemic. In short – condoms must be an instrument in every enlightened AIDS strategy.

But it does not appear that the pope is open to this kind of enlightenment. Less than a year ago, Benedict XVI declared that the teachings of the encyclical Humanae vitae continue to be true. And now, on his first visit to Africa, he has once more underlined the recommendations considered criminal by his harshest critics in these times of mass death. It seems purity of doctrine is more important to the Catholic Church than the fates of millions of people. Pope Benedict XVI, the infallible, has shown his true face in Africa. It is the face of the incorrigible Ruler of the Church, Joseph Ratzinger.