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Lucerne Catholic Churches Aids Awareness Campaign
Topic Started: Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 00:48 (251 Views)
Rose of York
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http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=16990

Independent Catholic News
 
Switzerland: Church distributes condoms in AIDS awareness campaign

Catholic churches in the central Swiss city of Lucerne have sparked controversy this week with an AIDS awareness campaign that involves giving teenagers condoms bearing the slogan "protect thy neighbour as thyself." The churches started handing out the condoms on Monday as part of an effort to engage young people.

Florian Flohr who is a marketing and advertising consultant for Catholic church projects and activities in Lucerne, told Associated Press: "We needed something to appeal to people who wouldn't dream of talking to the church about that kind of issue."

He explained that the campaign is targeted at teenagers as young as 14 and includes talks to school classes about the devastating effect that AIDS is having in Africa.

"It's not about promoting promiscuous activity at all. We're using the condoms to prompt people to think about HIV and AIDS."

Flohr said the campaign has so far drawn mostly positive reactions, but some Catholics have expressed concern.

Officials from Basel diocese were unavailable for comment on Monday. A spokesman in the neighbouring diocese of Chur told Swiss television news that the condom campaign was "a mistake."

"It sends the wrong signal," Christoph Casetti told SF1 television. "From a medical point of view, I also think it's wrong because we know that condoms don't provide certain protection."

Vatican spokesman said he hadn't heard about the campaign he said the Church was opposed to artificial contraception.

Although the Vatican has no specific policy concerning condoms and AIDS, the Catholic Church opposes their use as part of its overall teaching against artificial contraception. Pope Benedict XVI came out strongly against condom distribution last year, saying that a moral attitude toward sex, with sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, would help fight the spread of HIV.


Article reproduced in full, by permission
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Rose of York
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Marketing and advertising consultant for Catholic church projects and activities in Lucerne[/b
 
]It's not about promoting promiscuous activity at all. We're using the condoms to prompt people to think about HIV and AIDS."

I'll bet my bottom dollar that if the nuns at my convent school had used condoms to prompt the girls to think about sexually transmitted diseases, Sister Monica Mary would have cut holes in them before the lesson.
Quote:
 
Officials from Basel diocese were unavailable for comment on Monday.
Associated Press should know Monday is priests' day off.


Results for google news for words Switzerland + Catholic + condoms:

Swiss Catholic Church Launches Condom Giveaway
................

The Catholic Church in Lucerne, Switzerland is distributing condoms as part of an HIV/Aids awareness campaign.
................
The Catholic Church, condoms and AIDS awareness‎
................
Lucerne church launches condom campaign‎
................
Swiss Catholic church backs condom giveaway
................
Swiss Catholics split over condom distribution


I just cannot believe a marketing and advertising officer could not have anticipated such headlines.
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Rose of York
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No reactions?

I am quite shaken by this news. If my 14 year old had been given a condom, at school or church as part of an AIDS awareness week I would have been very angry.
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Gerard

I heard this outfit interviewed on radio the other day. They said they were promoting the ABC approach:

1. Abstain
2. Be faithful
3. Use a condom.

If thats what they are doing I have no problem with it.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Rose of York
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Gerard
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 19:32
I heard this outfit interviewed on radio the other day. They said they were promoting the ABC approach:

1. Abstain
2. Be faithful
3. Use a condom.

If thats what they are doing I have no problem with it.

Gerry
Girls used to say

1 Be good.
2 If you can't be good be careful.
3 If you can't be careful buy a pram.

My objection to the pupils being given condoms is that as a mother who knew her teenage son's school friends, I have some idea how schoolboys would behave if they were each given a condom to take home, and I do not mean they would be taking the girls to bed. The message of AIDS awareness would be lost, while they joked around with their new toys.
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Clare
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Rose of York
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 19:56
My objection to the pupils being given condoms is that as a mother who knew her teenage son's school friends, I have some idea how schoolboys would behave if they were each given a condom to take home, and I do not mean they would be taking the girls to bed. The message of AIDS awareness would be lost, while they joked around with their new toys.
Erm. So you're more worried that boys would be using them to make waterbombs or whatever, rather than for the purpose for which they are intended...?

Of course, they should not be given them in the first place, but the thought of young boys treating condoms with the respect they deserve is heartwarming.

The adults who are attempting to corrupt children like this, have millstones with their names on.
Edited by Clare, Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 20:32.
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Rose of York
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Clare
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 20:31
Rose of York
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 19:56
My objection to the pupils being given condoms is that as a mother who knew her teenage son's school friends, I have some idea how schoolboys would behave if they were each given a condom to take home, and I do not mean they would be taking the girls to bed. The message of AIDS awareness would be lost, while they joked around with their new toys.
Erm. So you're more worried that boys would be using them to make waterbombs or whatever, rather than for the purpose for which they are intended...?
Clare my comment was about one group of boys, known to me throughout their secondary school days, who would not have used condoms for the purpose for which they were manufactured, while they were schoolboys.

Gerry said the programme includes abstinence. My point was boys given condoms would forget the religious instruction, precisely because they would most likely have a lark on the way home, playing games and joking about them.
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Clare
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Rose of York
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 20:43
Clare my comment was about one group of boys, known to me throughout their secondary school days, who would not have used condoms for the purpose for which they were manufactured, while they were schoolboys.

Gerry said the programme includes abstinence. My point was boys given condoms would forget the religious instruction, precisely because they would most likely have a lark on the way home, playing games and joking about them.
As long as they're not using them "properly", why worry?

I'd be more concerned if they were.

And any religious instruction given by a teacher who would hand out condoms to school kids is worth forgetting.
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Gerard

I got the impression this was a bus parked in a town square - could be wrong, of course, might have been parked outside a church. The interviewee said they put abstinance first. But, to be honest, I think they are taking a pop at the rather extreme teaching coming from the Vatican - no condoms for any reason. This doesnt fit with traditional catholic teaching about purpose and effect as I understand it. i.e. If you are using it to prevent transmission of a deadly disease thats different from using it for contraception. And I think that was really the point this outfit was making.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Clare
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Gerard
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 21:18
This doesnt fit with traditional catholic teaching about purpose and effect as I understand it. i.e. If you are using it to prevent transmission of a deadly disease thats different from using it for contraception. And I think that was really the point this outfit was making.
Double effect doesn't apply here, Gerry.

It might if a man had a condition which necessitated him wearing a condom at all times, and therefore he would be allowed to keep it on even while engaging in marital relations, but I am not aware that any such condition exists!

Besides, it is still an enormous risk, since condoms are not failsafe. They provide a false sense of security.
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Clare
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Gerard
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 21:18
And I think that was really the point this outfit was making.
And that's why they were giving condoms to presumably unmarried school children??

Sex outside of marriage is wrong, and a condom doesn't make it right.
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Gerard

Clare,

Agreed.
See Rose's post #5

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Rose of York
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Gerard
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 21:18
I got the impression this was a bus parked in a town square - could be wrong, of course, might have been parked outside a church. The interviewee said they put abstinance first. But, to be honest, I think they are taking a pop at the rather extreme teaching coming from the Vatican - no condoms for any reason.
Gerry this was nothing to do with a bus parked in a town square. It happened in the Catholic parishes in Lucerene, Switzerland.

From the opening post:

Quote:
 
Catholic churches in the central Swiss city of Lucerne have sparked controversy this week with an AIDS awareness campaign that involves giving teenagers condoms bearing the slogan "protect thy neighbour as thyself." The churches started handing out the condoms on Monday as part of an effort to engage young people.


Quote:
 
He explained that the campaign is targeted at teenagers as young as 14 and includes talks to school classes about the devastating effect that AIDS is having in Africa.
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Clare
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Now, here is a good article which explains why Double Effect is not applicable in the AIDS/condom issue:
Quote:
 
...
The Christian opponents to the abstinence and marital fidelity position will often cite the moral principle of Double Effect as a justification for their pro-condom position – Double Effect allows for the use of an act with an evil secondary effect, as long as that act’s primary and intended effect is good.

For example, the principle of Double Effect would allow a pregnant woman, with a deadly cancer, to use a lifesaving treatment, even though that treatment might also have an unintended secondary effect of risking the health of her unborn baby.

The intended and primary effect is good (the saving of a human life), while the secondary effect (the risk to the baby) is unintended, and not the means used to achieve the good effect.

In the case of the HIV issue, proponents of the condom based approach will say that Double Effect justifies their position because the primary intention and effect of condom use, in this case, is the good of saving/protecting a human life, and the unintended secondary effect is the contracepting of the sexual act.
...
You see, Double Effect actually focuses on more than just the intentions behind an action, or its primary and secondary effects.

Double Effect also requires there to be an urgent need for the use of the particular action being proposed, it requires that the action being proposed is likely to actually succeed in achieving the desired good effect, and it requires that it be the most effective means available to remedy the problem at hand.

If we return to the earlier scenario of the pregnant woman who is ill, Double Effect couldn’t be invoked to justify the use a treatment that would risk the life of the baby if such a treatment was not proven to be reliable.

Neither could Double Effect be invoked if the treatment being proposed was not urgently needed, or if such treatment could wait to commence until after an emergency delivery had removed the baby to a place of safety outside the mother’s womb.

And you couldn’t use Double Effect to justify a treatment that would risk the life of the baby if a different treatment was available which was just as effective, or more effective, and which wouldn’t pose any risk to the life of the unborn baby at all.

These important qualifications associated with the principle of Double Effect, when applied to the topic of condoms and HIV, require that there must be a reasonable degree of certainty that condoms will provide a lifesaving/protective effect.

And it must be shown that other, more effective and less problematic means of protection against HIV are NOT available.

And finally, it must also be shown that there is an absolute necessity for the use of condoms as a lifesaving/protective device against HIV.

While I am not a moral theologian, it seems patently clear to me that condoms fail to meet all of these important Double Effect requirements.

a) The efficacy of condoms to protect against HIV transmission is not at all guaranteed, and the likelihood of protection only gets less over time for an individual user.

b) Condoms are not the most effective means available to protect against HIV, abstinence is, and unlike condoms, abstinence can actually provide an almost foolproof guarantee of protection against HIV.

c) The sexual act is an important good within a marriage, but there is no moral imperative for married couples to maintain ongoing sexual relations; and, while sexual intercourse does provide certain benefits to the human physiology, it is not a necessity of life, and its cessation will never result in death or physical harm (remember, without the sexual act taking place, there is no threat of HIV that requires a defensive response).
...


So, basically condoms are not the safest way of preventing the spread of AIDS; nor are they the only way; and there is no pressing, life or death need for a couple to have sex anyway.

Therefore, the principle of Double Effect is not applicable.
Edited by Clare, Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 21:58.
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Mairtin
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Clare
Wednesday, 27. October 2010, 21:58


Quote:
 
...
c) The sexual act is an important good within a marriage, but there is no moral imperative for married couples to maintain ongoing sexual relations; and, while sexual intercourse does provide certain benefits to the human physiology, it is not a necessity of life, and its cessation will never result in death or physical harm (remember, without the sexual act taking place, there is no threat of HIV that requires a defensive response).
...

He was doing well until he came out with that trite nonsense.
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