Archbishop says condom claim is 'wholly untrue'

BY TRACY-JO SMITH
THE SPIRITUAL leader of Scotland's Catholics has rejected claims that he endorsed the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow has expressed publicly his annoyance at remarks he made about the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS, which he claims have been deliberately taken out of context.
His reaction follows an Early Day Motion tabled by a group of Liberal Democrats in relation to the AIDS epidemic ravaging the African continent.
It said: "This House congratulates the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, for stating that it is legitimate to ask whether there are any circumstances in which, not for contraceptive, but for hygienic purposes, condoms may be used to prevent the spread of AIDS; and therefore further calls on all faiths to acknowledge condoms as one form of I-IIV prevention and to promote their use in countries where HIV is prevalent."
The EDM was signed by MPs Jenny Tonge, John Barrett, Sandra Gidley, Paul Holmes, Sue Doughty and Norman Lamb.
However, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Glasgow said the archbishop, the successor to the late Cardinal Thomas Winning who had a reputation for the rigour of his moral and doctrinal orthodoxy, had never endorsed the use of condoms for any purpose.
He said: "The MPs tabling this motion have taken a remark from a wide ranging interview with the Scotsman newspaper and used it, without permission, and despite being urged to desist from doing so, for polemical purposes.
"The archbishop, far from calling into question the principles at the heart of Hurnanae Vitae was attempting to point out that they are so rooted in the teaching of the Church as to be irreformable.
"In citing the question of HIV and condom-use he was illustrating the difficulty some people encounter in applying the principles to new situations. This kind of question is regularly asked by people working on the front line in the struggle against HIV and AIDS.
"Any suggestion in the motion that the archbishop would approve of the mass distribution of condoms as the central strategy of the fight against AIDS is wholly untrue, since such a course of action would be likely to encourage promiscuity and may even worsen the situation."
Some Catholics put forward a "secondary effect" argument for the use Of condoms in the war against AIDS, but loyal theologians reject this because the "primary act" which gives rise to the "secondary effect" is intrinsically disordered in case of condoms, rather than good or morally neutral.