Second Sight

Shock, horror! The Pope says that condoms are not the answer to Aids in Africa, and may make matters worse. It would seem that virtually every news source, together with France, Germany, the European Union and other authorities, trumpet and condemn his words. He is out of touch, biased by doctrine and potentially responsible for many future deaths.

Yes, there is a scandal. And it’s a scandal of media behaviour and sad ignorance. First, what did the Pope actually say? “This problem of Aids can’t be overcome only with publicity slogans. If there is not the soul, if the Africans are not helped, the scourge can’t be resolved with the distribution of condoms: on the contrary, there is a risk of increasing the problem. The solution can only be found in a double commitment: first, a humanisation of sexuality, that is, a spiritual and human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another; and second, a true friendship, also and above all for those who suffer, the willingness — even with sacrifice and self-denial — to be with the suffering. And these are the factors that help and that lead to visible progress.”

A rather more nuanced picture, I think you would agree. But is the Pope talking though his mitre? On the contrary, he is bang up to date, and by up to date I mean March 2009.

Many will recall the paper published by Cafod in 2004 (Ann Smith et al) whose analysis showed the interconnections between different factors and the various elements which play a part both in the spread and the control of the disease. There was no one answer. Because it was evidence-based, and not a polemic, it accepted that condoms could play some part in the mix. It caused a stir, although Cafod does not fund agencies for whom condoms are central to their programmes. But it must be emphasised, because it appears to be little known, that the Church’s teaching on contraception applies only to marriage. It has made no ruling on its use outside marriage, and I would certainly argue that unprotected sexual contact outside marriage compounds the sin. 

In 2007 I interviewed a non-Catholic journalist (Rhidian Brook) who had spent three months living in, mainly African, local communities in Aids-ridden areas. He said: “Condoms are about as important to controlling Aids as recycling your green bottles is to global warming. They are just a plaster. Poverty has far more to do with Aids than condoms.”

An important paper on the subject was published in Studies of Family Planning (March 2009) by Edward C Green et al, under the auspices of the Harvard Centre for Population and Development Studies. It is an academic paper, replete with supporting references to relevant studies. But you could almost believe that the Pope was reading it as he flew to Africa. You can study it for yourself.       

We tend to look at outbreaks of Aids through western eyes. They occur in high-risk groups, and so are limited. In sub-Saharan Africa they are national epidemics and need to be treated as such. Reviewing this paper together with an interview given to The National Review Online, I find Green firmly saying: “We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.” 

The strategy of ABC (Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms), which is consistent with Cafod’s study, has proved effective in several countries when it has been energetically promoted and supported at national level.

Green tells us that even the Demographic Health Surveys, which are funded by the US, show that greater availability and use of condoms leads to higher, rather than lower, HIV rates. This may be the result of people taking greater risks, and perhaps doing so in the light of drug treatments effective in keeping HIV at bay. We might recall here our own lamentable rates of teenage pregnancy despite the emphasis on condom education in our schools.

“The best and latest empirical evidence,” Green claims, “shows that reduction in multiple and concurrent sexual partners is the most important single behaviour change associated with reduction in HIV-infection rates (the other major factor is male circumcision).” Studies in Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe have shown that such a reduction in multiple relationships has led, shortly after, to a substantial reduction in HIV rates.

This is the “Be faithful” component in the strategy, but the “Abstinence” component is also important, although the evidence is not as complete. Nor should we forget that condoms (despite Cardinal Trujillo’s gross misinformation on the subject) are a highly effective, if not infallible, prophylactic. For instance, Green tells us, consistent use of condoms by couples, one of whom is infected, reduces the rate of transmission by 80 to 90 per cent. We are still awaiting Rome’s response on this last issue, following several senior prelates questioning the standing prohibition. The delay is doing damage. Condoms can also play a useful role in the commercial sex market.

So the Pope was right. His deep and important message is that we cannot solve the problems caused through the misuse of sexuality merely by throwing slogans, money and artificial remedies at them. It cannot be done without the proper use of the sexual faculty, that is - if I may use an unfashionable word - chastity. Nor is this pie in the sky. We now know that this works in sub-Saharan Africa, as indeed it could work within our own sick society.

But was the Pope prudent to make this response in these particular circumstances? Given the voracious and venal media which watches every phrase for a scandal, I think not. It has overshadowed many other important messages of no interest to the headline-hungry. He would have done better to have sidestepped the question at the time, and then given a measured and factual statement on the subject, if that were needed. 

Napoleon said that he wanted generals who were lucky. But Pope Benedict is unlucky. He is a holy man of the highest intelligence, yet he has shown a knack for proffering hostages to fortune. I don’t want a “street wise” pope, with a continual eye for the jackals. I am proud of what he said. But experience must teach him how to proclaim the truth so that it is the truth and not the media flak which the world comes to hear.

So what do you think? Do you agree with Pope Benedict in his statement? Do you think he could have handled the situation better? Or is he right simply to tell the truth when he is asked? You may like to look at the documents concerned.

You will find the Pope’s interview here.

My thanks to James H, who frequently contributes to this Blog, for his lead to the Edward Green Paper.

The National Review interview with Green

Cafod’s approach to HIV prevention.

At the apogee of his creative activity God “created the human in his image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them”. They are to cling to each other and to become one flesh, to be fruitful and to multiply. And, at the beginning, they were not ashamed.

So our sexuality is at the heart of our identities as human beings, a major reason why we are created as we are. But why were they not ashamed? Because before Original Sin, each was a unity of animal nature and spiritual nature - integrated, complementary and so under proper control. There was no reason to be ashamed.

It is all very different today. Shame is familiar to us. Freud taught us how deep our sexuality penetrates our beings and our motivations at both conscious and unconscious levels. We even dream sexually - a recent study has shown that around eight per cent of the dreams reported by both men and women are directly sexual in their nature.

I do not need to rehearse the prejudice against sexuality which has been apparent in the Church over the centuries; it is well known - as our opponents are happy to remind us. It is more instructive to look at the possible reasons, and perhaps derive a better basis for a more nuanced view.

Of course there is a relatively superficial but nevertheless immediately practical issue. Sexual behaviour has consequences. A few moments of pleasure have historically often led to a lifetime of disaster. Even today I suspect that parents of teenagers think first of the possible consequences, and only secondarily of the moral aspects.

But the deeper reason takes us back to Adam and Eve. In some ways I think the term “lower nature” is unfortunate because it leads to a contempt of our animal aspects. It emphasises the war between our instinct and our spiritual aspirations. And we forget that such a war was never intended. A supposition of theology used to be that the sexual drive was so strong, so intoxicating, that it stripped us of control. In arousal we became less than human beings - even within lawful marriage.

And with this came shame, and, only too often, disgust. It is no surprise that a celibate clergy - assailed, as we all may be, by a strong sexual drive, but without a lawful outlet - would convert that into a disgust which induced a negative aspect. Only that, I would speculate, can account for the vehemence with which sexual sins have traditionally been attacked. We might contrast this with the relative tolerance shown by Jesus: the man in whom the physical and spiritual elements of his nature were fully integrated.

Key events in western culture, like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, are well recognised - but the event which started round about the Sixties was far more fundamental. Any nature documentary will show that the life-cycle of different species is centred on the capacity to breed. From the Sixties, and with increasing effect, human beings in general succeeded in separating sexual activity from fertility.

The parallel is not exact because human breeding is not the sole purpose of our sexuality. Indeed the Adam and Eve story makes it clear that their sexual fruitfulness finds its source in love, companionship and unity. The marriage act rarely results in conception and the need for a stable relationship to buttress the care for human young is evident. We were made for love, unqualified commitment and fruitfulness. We remove any of these elements at our peril. I speak of fruitfulness rather than fertility because good marriages, including those which are naturally infertile, are fruitful in many ways. The ideal is to grow towards the fullest integration of all these characteristics - to restore the wholeness of body and spirit which God intended.

Meanwhile, the world is travelling in the opposite direction. The expression of the sexual instinct, separated from permanent commitment, has become an end in itself. The appeal at almost every level is the stimulus of the sexual instinct taken on its own. And because it is on its own it reverts to being no more than our lower nature: it is little concerned with morality, but highly focused on recreation and sensual pleasure. Cruelty in many forms is forgiven because “love” excuses all. Sexual love, which is a gift of God, has been appropriated by the Father of Lies.

Those who are truly called to celibacy are seen as freaks. Those who reserve their sexual expression until and unless they can express it in marriage are regarded as unnatural. Yet to be true to the deeper understanding of the meaning of sexual love is the only way to be fully natural.

We are all in danger of being contaminated by the superficial values of our society - and I by no means exclude myself. The sexual instinct is so powerful that its integration is a continual struggle for most of us. It can be very much a matter of two steps forward and three back. I do not care much for the loaded word “sin” - except in its Scriptural etymology: “missing the mark”. But we have to take a continual uphill journey, through grace, to turn that into at least three steps forward and only two back. The Church was once highly prejudiced against sex because it was so bad. But now we value it because it is so good.

But I must not be too solemn. Remember the story of the young monk who asked the oldest monk at what age his sexual temptations ceased. Back came the quavering voice: “When that happens, young man, I’ll tell you.”

Do you think I have interpreted Genesis correctly? Are we in danger of being contaminated by society’s views? And how do you react to the Pope’s remarks about condoms and HIVAIDS in sub Saharan Africa? We have all read the condemnation in the secular press. Do you agree?

I recall the remarks of a couple, who were members of a Catholic discussion group I belonged to decades ago. They had lived in Rome for a long time, and they told me about the different attitudes to law between Italians and Anglo Saxons.

The Anglo Saxon instinct, they told me, was to take the law as something of a bedrock. Our immediate response is to accept the obligation of obedience. Italians on the other hand shoot out their laws without really expecting people to take them too literally.

As I recall, this was in the context of Humanae Vitae – which came as a seismic shock in this country. For the first time the Brits found themselves disobeying the law. And the attitude towards Vatican authority has never been the same since.

I am reminded of this by a 2006 article in the American National Catholic Reporter by John L Allen – who was their Rome Correspondent for many years. He made just the same point, and suggested that many of the tensions between the Vatican and the American Bishops, arising out of different rulings, could be attributed to this cultural difference. The Vatican uses its rulings as a starting point, assuming a liberal application governed by particular circumstances and pastoral issues. Americans, who have an Anglo Saxon approach to law, would get very uptight about rulings which they assumed they were being obliged to apply down to the last comma.

If this difference in attitudes towards law really exists – and nearly 60 years separates my discussion group and Allen’s article – then perhaps we should be taking it seriously into account when the Vatican speaks. A universal Church is a wonderful and necessary thing, but it does require us to pay heed to possible misunderstandings between cultures.

Do you regard the Vatican as giving us the last word on many matters, or only the first word – which we have to apply with discrimination?

You never stop learning, do you? I have had to reach my eighth decade to encounter a Catholic who believes that Genesis stands as an historical account of how the world came into being. I had thought, in my innocence, that this was a perverse position held by some eccentric Americans Protestants of a fundamentalist temperament. Now such Catholics leap out at me – not only from the pages of this newspaper, but on Second Sight Blog and in direct correspondence.

We shall of course avoid another Galileo incident, where the refusal of the Church establishment to accept the scientific evidence long after it had been soundly established has caused great scandal and is still used as an effective brickbat today.

We avoid it because the Church has not condemned evolution. Darwin’s work was never put on the Index of Prohibited Books. And Pius XII, John Paul II and our present Pope have accepted the compatibility of scientific evolutionary theory with our beliefs, with a caveat against regarding it as an explanation for the whole of reality, and in particular, the direct creation of the soul. Science and religion, each working in their proper spheres, can do nothing but bring us closer to our understanding of the truth

It may be as well to start by saying that biological evolution is simply a matter of well-evidenced fact. Much stronger evidence than Galileo was in a position to produce for his discoveries at the time. It is not merely a question of Darwin, but confirmed by geology, palaeontology, biology (including cell biology), the fossil record, and nowadays by the great steps we have made in the study of DNA.

Of course there are numerous gaps – which is hardly surprising given that we are often talking about events which occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. And the Darwinian mechanism, important though it was and continues to be, is far from the only mechanism at work. As indeed Darwin himself suspected that it would be.

The experts argue about many important details, and will no doubt do so for generations to come. But the arguments are not about whether or not evolution is true – that is already established – it is about questions of mechanism, the pace of development, or the placing of creatures in the right position and sequence. How the first life began remains an outstanding problem. Moreover, scientists are sometimes given to triumphalism or stretching their evidence to pontificate on matters beyond the necessary limits of their discipline. This is not a fault unknown in other areas.

And so we come to the Genesis account of creation. We know that it is both inspired yet cannot be a historical account. It stands in the same position as the biblical belief that the sun goes round the earth. So its truth must lie deeper. To attempt to claim its historicity is a cause of scandal. St Augustine (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim) warned us against such ”foolish opinions” which would endanger the credibility of our true doctrines in the eyes of the world.

 It has been urged that until recently two millennia of Christian tradition has treated the Genesis account as literally true. Can we really have been wrong all that time? Moreover, Christ himself clearly shared this view, when he must certainly have known that it was erroneous. But this is a false inference from Christ’s possession of two natures. There is insoluble mystery here of course, but Christ’s knowledge through his human nature was human knowledge. Much, as he tells us, was revealed to him by his Father, but what we know of that was, by definition, transmitted in human concepts. We have no more reason to suppose that he understood evolution in his human nature than that he might have given us a quick lecture on quantum mechanics sitting up from his cradle.

I am no exegete, but I see the Genesis account as a poetic story. Pius XII speaks of “metaphorical language”. Its real truths lie behind the narrative account – which was merely the form in which such truths were communicated in the culture of the time. We have to look behind the accidental form to find the substance.

And the substance starts with God creating the world out of emptiness (tohu in Hebrew). So we learn that God is the source of existence but, in himself, standing outside what he has created. Of all created things, one is pre-eminent: humankind – the only creature given his image and likeness. The account continues (apparently derived from a different source) and speaks of God as craftsman (yatsar) rather than creator (bara’). So God is active in the construction of the world. The fuller account of the fashioning of Eve out of Adam tells us symbolically of the essential complementarity of the first couple to be expressed in their becoming one.

I could continue, but I hope I have shown that, understood in its substantial truth, we are told nothing that either confirms or conflicts with evolution. It is however just at this point that we meet the question of whether we are descended from one couple or from more. Pius XII tells us “it is in no way apparent” how polygenism can be reconciled with the doctrine of original sin. But, from a faith perspective, this is not a problem. No doubt we should return to it if science, and this seems highly unlikely, could demonstrate incontrovertibly that polygenism was necessary. Pius XII’s wise phrasing did not rule out the possibility of a reconciliation. The essential history of salvation will remain intact.