Catholic Church Should Continue To Debate Condom Use for HIV Prevention, Editorial Says

"The use of condoms [for] HIV prevention is a difficult one for the doctrine-bound Catholic Church ... but it is something its hierarchy will have to continue to debate" because "there are so many millions of lives at stake," a Chicago Sun-Times editorial says. Although the late Pope John Paul II opposed condom use as a means of preventing the spread of HIV, some "dissenting clergy" are "beginning to view the use of condoms as a way to save lives, even if they do have the secondary effect of birth control," the editorial says. Promoting condom use, along with abstinence and monogamy, "can dramatically lower" HIV prevalence, as has been shown in some countries, including Thailand and Uganda, the Sun-Times says. "That is why, on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI's accession, the re-emerging debate among Catholic clergy about the use of condoms to prevent AIDS is so welcome," the editorial says (Chicago Sun-Times, 4/24).