Will the Church Ever Accept Condoms?

Author: Mirosław Rucki,
Love One Another! 17/2010 → Christian family

The question is often asked if, given the terrible epidemic of AIDS, the Church ought not to accept the use of the condom, which according to the common wisdom lowers the risk of contracting the disease by 60%. We often hear of “special situations,” in which the condom seems to be the only reasonable solution.

We hear, for example, of the case of the developmentally disabled who wish to engage in sexual relations and yet who for understandable reasons ought not to have offspring. Or we hear of married couples in Africa who wish to enjoy sexual relations even though one of them is infected with AIDS. For their own good, we hear, these people ought to be able to use condoms and thus express their conjugal love through sexual intimacy without running the risk of contracting the disease.

Such arguments lack only one thing: common sense. Plain and well-known facts flatly contradict the secular media’s insistence that condoms represent any kind of solution to the problem. Everyone knows that the highest contraceptive efficacy of the condom (5 according to the Pearl Index) is achieved only when usage technique is followed to the letter. This entails the execution of specific actions throughout the entire course of the sexual act: before (condom application), during (caution), and after (prompt withdrawal). Thus, the use of condoms requires such engagement and concentration of one’s attention on this little piece of rubber that the term “intercourse with a condom” would much better describe the reality than “intercourse with the use of a condom.” With some simplification you might say that what then takes place is intercourse interrupted by the partial mechanical separation of the partners. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? Pity the media will not call things by their names. 

We also need to remember that 60% protection from sexually transmitted disease, especially AIDS, is hardly proof of the condom’s effectiveness. It means that if a hundred people put their trust in a snippet of rubber and have intercourse with a diseased individual, forty of them will die. Who will take responsibility for their death? The pope who calls for sexual abstinence? Let’s put the case honestly: why has not a single legal action been brought against the producers, sellers, and promoters of condoms, when it is known that at least 40% of all AIDS sufferers in the United Kingdom, for example, contracted the disease from sexual contacts with the use of a condom? And why is the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, so severely chastised even though his teaching has not caused the death of a single person?

The facts bear closer inspection — facts that are so willingly ignored by those who defend the condom, promote the illusion of “safe sex,” and insist that sexual abstinence is impossible and will not solve any problems.

Scientific studies conducted on latex — the material from which condoms are made — indicate that contained within the spongy structure of the material are tiny openings called micropores. These are readily seen through a microscope. The average diameter of a pore is 5 micrometers. To date, a totally non-porous condom has not been perfected.

To give a graphic illustration of the effectiveness of a condom we have only to compare the average size of a condom micropore with that of a spermatozoon or pathological virus. As can be seen from the drawing, a spermatozoon measures about 3 micrometers across at its widest point, i.e. 2 micrometers narrower than the average condom pore. A spermatozoon can pass through such small openings. According to research conducted in the UK there are at least 14 such cases each year for every hundred couples regularly using condoms. The World Health Organization corroborates these figures.

As for AIDS, this disease is caused by the HIV virus, which is found mainly in the sperm, blood or vaginal discharge of an infected person. Thus, the most common way of contracting the disease is through sexual intercourse. As the above drawing shows, the HIV virus, which is only 0.1 micrometer across, is 50 times smaller than the average condom micropore.

The sheer dishonesty of promoting condoms as an effective measure against AIDS is thus all too plain to see. Those responsible for disseminating these lies are contributing to the spread of this terrible scourge as well as other sexually transmitted diseases.

The most incontestable success of sexual abstinence (a 60% decrease of casual sexual contacts) took place in the early 1990s in Uganda, where the number of AIDS infections dropped by 70%. Similar connections with sexual activity (with or without condoms) can also be observed in other African countries: the more promiscuity there is, the more there are instances of AIDS infection. Condom advocates have never been able to provide any numerical data indicating a drop in the number of infections resulting from an increase in condom availability. That is why, instead of engaging in objective discourse, the media raise a huge stink: See how backward the pope is! What sublime appliances he deprives Catholics of!

But the plain truth is that wherever condoms are promoted, the number of venereal infections (including AIDS) goes up. Even the British Medical Journal, which refers to the results of studies in Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland, bears this out. The mechanism is simple: the use of condoms creates a false sense of security that leads to casual sexual relations.

Anyone who thinks logically will have no difficulty in seeing that the solution to the problem lies in abstinence, which keeps sexual intercourse within the framework of marriage. Anyone needing proof of this has only to consult the numerous studies confirming the efficacy of programs promoting abstinence as a means of preventing sexually transmitted diseases. Alas, neither logic, nor reason will have any effect on those who will have their next sexual thrill come hell or high water. It is such people who are the targets of the condom-promoting campaigns which are mounted despite the overwhelming weight of evidence attesting to their inefficacy.

Ultimately, each one of us has a choice. We can examine the facts and the evidence and draw our own conclusions. We can also rely on the authority of the Church, which calls for the responsible use of our sexuality. The Church criticizes condoms not because she is biased, but because they are the means by which a colossal deception and fraud is perpetrated upon whole societies. The Church, seeing the facts and analyzing them for the point of view of the good of man, cannot agree to his being so knocked about.

Far too many people placing their trust in the condom have lost their lives as a result of being infected with AIDS. Far too many people have fallen for the illusion of security and destroyed their marriages through infidelity. Far too many children conceived despite the use of a condom have been murdered through the expedient of abortion. I for one cannot consider a device good that has wrought so much evil in the lives of so many people. That is why I personally am glad that the Holy Father along with the Church resolutely opposes the distribution and use of this appliance. To me it means that it is not merely in “pious wishes” that he stands as a defender of true human dignity and the bond of marriage, as expressed, among other things, in normal and natural intercourse. I am glad that the life of every human person is important to him and that he stands consistently on guard for the truth.

Mirosław Rucki

The above article was published with permission from "Love One Another!" in August 2016.

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