The Church and AIDS

Mr Anthony Manduca (The Sunday Times, April 3) asserts that the Pope's doctrine on contraception has contributed to the spread of AIDS in the Third World.

This is a very serious, unjust and untrue accusation which needs to be rebutted. In the countries of Asia where Hinduism, Buddhism and Shintoism predominate and where the AIDS epidemic is exploding, Catholics constitute an infinitesimal minority.

Hundreds of millions of the inhabitants of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc. have never even heard of Christ, let alone the Catholic Church and its teachings. The same can be said about the 800 million Africans of whom only about one-eighth are Catholic.

On the other hand, in the developed post-Christian Western countries, which are inundated with contraceptives and continuously bombarded with 'safe sex' propaganda and where children as young as ten are taught how to put on a condom, the AIDS epidemic has not stopped, although now AIDS sufferers thankfully live longer, due to the cocktail of drugs being provided.

Surely the Catholic Church cannot be blamed for this too! We cannot on the one hand declare that the Church's teachings on the use of contraceptives are largely ignored by Catholics, let alone by those who are not, and then blame the Church for the spread of AIDS because people follow its teachings.

Sadly enough, there is no cure for AIDS and an AIDS vaccine has still not been developed. It is tragic to note that the fact that one can continue to live with the HIV virus for a long time before it develops into full blown AIDS, will inevitably lead to the growth of the disease unless one abstains from sexual relations and decides to lead a chaste life.

Those who disagree with this should quietly ask themselves whether they would honestly advocate the use of the condom if one of the couple concerned is a carrier of the HIV virus.