America Magazine Spreads Disinformation About Church's Position

by Dr. Brian J. Kopp, DPM

"Stopping the Spread of HIV/AIDS, Prophylactics or Family Values?" by Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau of the Pontifical Council for the Family, appeared with little fanfare in the April 19, 2000 L'Osservatore Romano. The beautiful simplicity and intelligence with which Msgr. Suaudeau discussed the very real tragedy of the AIDS epidemic, and the enlightened response of the Catholic Church and her varied relief efforts, displayed an unequaled depth of compassion and understanding on the part of the author. Despite the difficulty of the issue and the powerful forces of political correctness surrounding it, the article was orthodox and faithful to the principles of Catholic sexual ethics. It was a veritable breath of fresh air to those of us in America soured on the politically correct treatment of AIDS by such documents as The Many Faces of AIDS , issued by the administrative board of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1988, and rightfully denounced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the time.

Unfortunately, on Friday, September 15, 2000, a UPI wire story appeared in major papers across the country and the Internet. "Vatican Newspaper Says Condom Use Tolerated to Battle AIDS," cried the headlines. The opening line, tabloid style, claimed, "In what amounts to a theological U-turn, the Vatican's official newspaper has said that condom use may be permissible for containing the spread of the AIDS virus." Catholics were dismayed, for there simply is no such thing as a "theological U-turn," as such would be to admit that Catholic "truths" are transient, and situational ethics have won the day at the Vatican. How could the Vatican contradict one of the foundations of moral theology, that "the Church cannot support evil means so that a good end may be achieved"? (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1756).

Interestingly enough, the UPI article originated as a piece in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 15, which contained details conveniently eliminated from the subsequent UPI wire story, which received far wider press. It seems that the "hints" at a "reversal" of the 1988 Vatican denunciation of The Many Faces of AIDS, which embraced condoms for containing the spread of AIDS, were only conclusions drawn by authors writing for America magazine, from an analysis of an article appearing in a recent edition of L'Osservatore Romano.

"Tolerant Signals: The Vatican's New Insights on Condoms for HIV Prevention," found in the September 23, 2000 edition of America, was written by Jon D. Fuller, S.J., M.D., and James F. Keenan, S.J. Where did these authors find these new "tolerant signals" by the Vatican concerning condoms? Unbelievably, they claim to have found these hints hidden within Msgr. Suaudeau's excellent April 19 article itself.

How this as-of-yet unpublished article from America, a marginal liberal Catholic theological journal, came to be reviewed by a staff writer of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, remains a mystery. However, some of the quotations in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article of September 15 may serve to illuminate this mystery:

"Bishop Anthony Bosco of Greensburg, Pa., a coauthor of that 1988 statement on AIDS, told the Post-Gazette he now feels vindicated.

"'This proves to me that maybe the logic that led me to that conclusion follows from sound moral principles. Maybe Cardinal Joseph Bernardin helped from heaven, because he was on that committee, too,' Bosco said, in a reference to the late archbishop of Chicago, who died in 1998.

"Bosco had urged his fellow bishops to say that condom use was the lesser of two evils for both married couples where one spouse was HIV positive and for those who would not refrain from promiscuity."

In 1988, in the document The Many Faces of AIDS, the American bishops, at Bosco's insistence, wrote, "educational efforts, if grounded in the broader moral vision [of sexuality], could include accurate information about prophylactic devices or other practices proposed by some medical experts as potential means of preventing AIDS. We are not promoting the use of prophylactics, but merely providing information that is part of the factual picture."

At the time in 1988, an article appearing in L'Osservatore Romano responded:

"To seek the solution to the disease in the promotion of the use of prophylactics is to take a path that is not only unreliable from a technical point of view, but also and above all, unacceptable from a moral point of view."

In the end, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article last week:

"The bishops buried The Many Faces of AIDS after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, denounced it in a letter to the Vatican's representative to the United States.

"'It hardly seems pertinent to appeal to the classical principle of tolerance of the lesser evil.... In fact, even when the issue has to do with educational programs promoted by the civil government, one would not be dealing simply with a form of passive toleration but rather with a kind of behavior which would result in at least the facilitation of evil,' Ratzinger wrote."

The Post-Gazette article starts to make sense when the reader realizes that Bosco's Greensburg Diocese is adjacent to the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and that the Jesuits' interpretation of the Osservatore Romano article vindicates his views from The Many Faces of AIDS. The fact that the headline, "Vatican Newspaper Says Condom Use Tolerated to Battle AIDS," went out across the media landscape, seems to further vindicate a bishop with a theological ax to grind.

Yet the analysis of the America article itself needs critical analysis. An objective evaluation of Msgr. Suaudeau's April 19 article is the best starting point.

Upon a thorough reading of "Stopping the Spread of HIV/AIDS, Prophylactics or Family Values?," it is eminently apparent that Msgr. Suaudeau is consistent with Cardinal Ratzinger's 1988 comments, both in the totality of the article and its minutiae. Although Msgr. Suaudeau is always charitable and compassionate, his disdain for the very concepts the America magazine article claims to have found between the lines is palpable. It is not possible to reprint his entire article here, but some quotations will do well to illustrate this undeniable fact.

In the April 19, 2000 Osservatore Romano article, Msgr. Suaudeau contrasts the example of attempts to eradicate malaria, unsuccessful because they did not address the roots of the disease, with the attempts to prevent typhoid, successful because behavior was indeed corrected:

"With malaria, for example, a disease comparable to HIV/AIDS because of its effect on the population and the number of deaths it causes, the preventive measures developed over the years ... were those of 'containment,' because they did not go to the roots of the disease. Effective in theory, these measures proved ineffective in practice because it is impossible to destroy all the larvae, drain all the lakes, or prevent people from having uncovered water supplies.

"Another example is typhoid fever. Prevention was effective here, because it was possible to convince people to be careful about their sources of drinking water. This was real prevention, because the mistaken attitude that had been responsible for people's contamination could be corrected.

"If people really want to prevent AIDS, they must be convinced to change their sexual behavior, which is the principal cause of the infection's spread. Until a real effort is made in this regard, no true prevention will be achieved.

"The prophylactic is one of the ways to 'contain' the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS, that is, to limit its transmission."

The last line above is clearly understood to be made by way of explanation, and is certainly not an acceptance nor endorsement of condom use, as is clear when he goes on to explain why they will always fail:

"However, everyone recognizes that 'perfection' in this area does not and cannot exist.... The truth is that for various reasons 'prevention' has been equated with 'the proper use of prophylactics,' without their effectiveness in the HIV/AIDS epidemic having been statistically proved....

"This 'decision of principle' has deliberately obscured what has been known ... about the relative effectiveness of the prophylactic ... almost 15 failures per 100 sexual acts 'protected' by condoms. We are asked to believe that the HIV virus, 450 times smaller than spermatozoa, can almost always be magically blocked by a condom.... Further statistics — which should be prudently interpreted — constantly show a failure rate of at least 10%" (emphasis added).

This is strong language for an author whose writings the Jesuit authors claim to signal a sea change on the Vatican's position about condoms and AIDS.

He goes further:

"Lastly ... the publicity given to the condom in the fight against HIV/AIDS could have an effect contrary to what is desired inasmuch as such publicity might lead people to riskier sexual behavior because of the sense of safety they feel when using a prophylactic.

"... Thus there is no hope of halting the HIV/AIDS epidemic with condoms alone."

He sums up the essential truth of any sane discussion of the AIDS issue admirably:

"The most radical prevention of HIV/AIDS, the one which is absolutely effective and which no one can deny, is sexual abstinence for adolescents before marriage and conjugal chastity in marriage. This is the Church's message. Merely to ask adolescents to use prophylactics in their sexual experiences means continuing to feed the vicious cycle of sex which is at the root of the serious pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It is an illusion to equate the effectiveness of the HIV/AIDS battle with the number of prophylactics distributed in a given population."

Msgr. Suaudeau presents cases where condom distribution is claimed to be successful, in Uganda and Thailand. Even here, his fundamental disagreement with condom supporters is seen:

"In the case of Thailand, ... it is unclear whether or not the promotion of condoms in this country has had an effect on the overall advance of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The use of prophylactics in these circumstances is actually a 'lesser evil,' but it cannot be proposed as a model of humanization and development. Perhaps Thailand's authorities might have asked themselves first about the reasons for the particular growth of prostitution in their country."

He maintains that success in Uganda came not from condom use at all, but from behavior changes the Catholic Church itself recommends:

"The case of Uganda seems a better example, since efforts have been made on all fronts and have effectively reached the very roots of the epidemic.... If the questionnaires show that sexually active men and women use prophylactics more frequently, the factor we consider more important is the change in the sexual behavior of young people, who are delaying their first experience of sexual relations ... and are marrying at an older age; another important factor is the decrease in sexual relations outside marriage."

In summary, he then presents the role the Catholic Church has played in the true victories in the battle against AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, among groups of young people organized by religious and laity, involved in fighting HIV/AIDS among their classmates and companions, with a commitment to sexual continence until marriage and to conjugal chastity after marriage:

"These groups are not theoretical projects. They really exist and have existed for years, ... young people who are 'normal,' smiling, happy ... lovers of life but not of prophylactics.

"Undeniably, this is the model to be followed: It is certainly not an easy model, but it is fully human, based on faith and hope and not on something made of latex to be distributed.... With the millions of dollars spent on the prophylactic industry, far more could have been done for the young people of Africa, for their education, for their support, and for effective prevention of contracting HIV/AIDS.

"The Catholic Church believes in the value of the human person and his resources.... In the area of HIV/AIDS, we have treated man as if he were an animal being treated by a veterinarian.... Just as Malthus was mistaken in his projections because he had not considered that man could multiply his resources by using his genius, an error has been committed in dedicating every effort to the 'containment' of HIV/AIDS by using an artificial barrier unworthy of human sexuality and unworthy of the human person."

Simple Explanation

Given this superb defense of the Church's teaching on the dignity of man, human sexuality, and the insult to both represented by the prophylactic mentality, just what form of mental gymnastics is required for two Jesuits to come up with an analysis of the same article titled, "Tolerant Signals: The Vatican's New Insights on Condoms for HIV Prevention"?

Fortunately for them, no mental gymnastics were required at all. It seems, like the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade "finding" a penumbra of a right to abortion within the Constitution, that the authors also found shadows between the lines, in order to suit an agenda already condemned by the Vatican.

With the September 23, 2000 America article by Jon D. Fuller, S.J., M.D., and James F. Keenan, S.J., the reader's incredulity begins even before completing the first paragraph:

"Here [within Msgr. Suaudeau's article] we find important signals of what many have suspected all along: that while individual bishops and archbishops have occasionally repudiated local HIV prevention programs that include the distribution of prophylactics (more commonly referred to as condoms), the Roman Curia is more tolerant on the matter."

They then commence their willful misinterpretation.

As noted above, when Msgr. Suaudeau makes the statement, "The prophylactic is one of the ways to 'contain' the sexual transmission of HIV-AIDS, that is, to limit its transmission," it is clearly understood to be made by way of simple explanation, and is certainly not an acceptance nor an endorsement of condom use. However, the Jesuit authors' entire thesis swings on a misinterpretation of this single line, maintaining that herein lies the entire, airtight evidence of the Vatican's change in stance, interpreting this single line to represent this change. They write:

"With that distinction in mind, Suaudeau advances his thesis regarding prevention: 'Family values guarantee true human victory. Wherever there is true education in the values of the family, of fidelity, of marital chastity, the true meaning of the mutual gift of self ... man will achieve a human victory, even over this terrible phenomenon.' He adds:

"'If people really want to prevent AIDS, they must be convinced to change their sexual behavior, which is the principal cause of the infection's spread. Until a real effort is made in this regard, no true prevention will be achieved. The prophylactic is one of the ways to "contain" the sexual transmission of HIV-AIDS, that is, to limit its transmission.'

"After citing apparently conflicting data about the reliability of prophylactics, the author backs away from the issue...."

Given this perverted interpretation of the author's and the Vatican's intent in that first single line, they derive further conclusions that defy logic:

"It does not attack the endorsement, promotion, distribution, or use of prophylactics. Rather, it introduces a distinction between containment and prevention and claims only that prophylactics alone are inadequate prevention."

Msgr. Suaudeau is too charitable to directly "attack the endorsement, promotion, distribution, or use of prophylactics." He does it indirectly and admirably, though, through his illustrations and observations. The authors seem to have skipped over Msgr. Suaudeau's lines such as "there is no hope of halting the HIV/AIDS epidemic with condoms alone," "can almost always be magically blocked by a condom," and "an error has been committed in dedicating every effort to the 'containment' of HIV/AIDS by using an artificial barrier unworthy of human sexuality and unworthy of the human person."

In this brief article, the remainder of America's agenda-driven conclusions then come fast and furious:

"Msgr. Suaudeau's article conveys important insights about Vatican curial thinking on HIV prevention.... Publication in L'Osservatore, the official newspaper of the Curia, is a sign that the article represents a broad constituency of curial thinking ... it does not attack the endorsement, promotion, distribution, or use of prophylactics. Rather, it introduces a distinction between containment and prevention and claims only that prophylactics alone are inadequate prevention....While noting that further studies regarding the adequacy of prophylactic usage for HIV prevention are still needed, it does not categorically deny their effectiveness. Fifth, it acknowledges the positive function that prophylactics have played in two populations critically affected by the HIV epidemic. Sixth, it recognizes the use of prophylactics as a lesser evil.

"While many readers may be surprised by the article's tolerance, we are not....

"Health care workers and moral theologians have encountered an implicit tolerance from the Roman Curia when they have first asserted church teaching on sexuality and subsequently addressed the prophylactic issue. For instance, more than 25 moral theologians have published articles claiming that without undermining church teaching, church leaders do not have to oppose but may support the distribution of prophylactics within an educational program that first underlines church teaching on sexuality. These arguments are made by invoking moral principles like those of 'lesser evil,' 'cooperation,' 'toleration,' and 'double effect.' By these arguments, moralists around the world now recognize a theological consensus on the legitimacy of various HIV preventive efforts.

"Without known interference, the Vatican has allowed theologians to achieve this consensus. Vatican curial officials now seem willing publicly to recognize the legitimacy of the theologians' arguments. Hesitant local ordinaries will in turn, we hope, note Msgr. Suaudeau's tolerant signals and more easily listen to the prudent counsel of their own health care and pastoral workers and their moral theologians."

Amusingly, in their arrogance, after making the first leap to conclusions that fit their agenda, the America writers do not even make a pretense of supporting the rest.

But a lack of anathemas does not mean the Vatican has failed to make itself perfectly clear with the publication in April of Msgr. Suaudeau's document. By any analysis, a lack of condemnation of spurious theological opinions does not translate into official Vatican acceptance of dissent. The Vatican simply does not send out "editorial spies" to comb through dissident theological journals, looking for heterodoxy in the ranks of American theologians. Frankly, the Vatican knows that many theologians here openly dissent from the truth, and it has come to realize that attempts at correction of renegade theologians is met with stonewalling, at best, by Western hierarchies.

To then turn around and advance evidence that "Rome is silent," as theological grounding for prophylactic programs in the face of AIDS, is less than childish, or even disingenuous, and borders on sinister.

The negative impact of this willful deceit, in the form of worldwide secular headlines trumpeting a "theological U-turn on a fundamental issue," will take years to correct. How this obscure, deceitful article was introduced into the secular media and "morphed" into a vicious headline worldwide, undermining the credibility of the Vatican with the issue of AIDS, demands further investigation.

"Gifts From God"

If any doubts remain about the intent of the Jesuit authors, below are quotations from one of the authors, Jon Fuller, S.J., M.D., from a recent article, "Priests With AIDS," in America for March 18, 2000:

"In my estimation, many instances of AIDS among religious and priests in the United States are at least partly related to ... the strongly negative attitude of the church toward homosexuality. This has made it difficult, if not impossible, for many gay persons to feel confident and healthy about who they are, and even to accept the fact that they are homosexual.... Orders and dioceses are made up of human beings who share the same spectrum of sexual orientations as the population at large ... the central issue is not one's sexual orientation, but that one be fully integrated, authentic, faithful to the vows, and capable of working and living with persons of other sexual orientations as one exercises the priestly ministry or lives the order's charism. It has spawned formation programs that develop individuals with interior freedom, integrity, self-knowledge, and self-confidence because they believe that along with their vocations, their sexual orientations, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are also gifts from God" (emphasis added).

(Dr. Kopp is a foot surgeon who practices in Johnstown, Pa.)

Related articles:

Stopping the Spread of HIV/AIDS

Stopping the Spread of HIV/AIDS -- A Response

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