Last weekend’s Easter celebrations at Ontario Catholic churches were a little different than those held in previous years. In a Holy Week Letter addressed to pastors, the Archdiocese of Toronto mandated a number of directives “for the time being,” including a suspension of communion from the cup and a ban on kissing the crucifix on Good Friday.

The letter goes on to say that:

“Most importantly, I ask you to be certain to ask the faithful to cooperate fully with the Public Health Authorities. This means that if any person is exposed to SARS and is asked to observe quarantine, they should do so, faithfully and without exception, as a service to all of God’s people. It is a person’s duty in conscience to observe quarantine in the service of others. This supersedes other duties; arrangements must be made to care for any dependents or to deal with other responsibilities. The preservation of life is a primary obligation.”

In a subsequent press conference held in conjunction with the daily SARS update by health officials, church officials went even further. Bishop John A. Boissonneau remarked:

“[S]ome people may feel a certain tension or stress between what they regard as their religious duty and their public health duty. They honour God by following directives for the health of the community.”

All things considered, the Church’s response to SARS is a highly responsible one. It should assist in controlling the spread of the disease in this part of the world.

But, given my headline, and what regular readers will know about my views, there has to be a catch. What is it about the Catholic response to SARS that has got under my skin to the degree that I would use the word “hypocrisy” to describe it?

It’s the contrast between their reasoned approach to SARS, and their shortsighted and dangerous response to AIDS — a much more severe and widespread health emergency.

After the emergence of AIDS in the early 1980s, it took the Pope over six years to even mention the word AIDS in a public statement. When he finally did, it was merely to express “God’s love” for those living with the disease. While health professionals quickly agreed that condoms were an essential tool in halting the spread of HIV and AIDS, the Catholic Church has insisted to this day that prevention strategies have to be aimed only at encouraging abstinence.

For example, in 1993, when the Pope spoke to Uganda’s 7.5 million Catholics (forty-four per cent of a country which, even then, faced a million and a half cases of HIV infection), he said “the sexual restraint of chastity is the only safe and virtuous way to put an end to the tragic plague of AIDS which has claimed so many young victims.” His officials later told reporters that “the Pope’s comment excluded all other forms of protection against HIV infection, including condoms.”

Frances Kissling is the president of Catholics for Free Choice, an organization that openly questions the Church’s teachings on abortion and sexuality. Kissling points out:

[A]ll 100,000 Catholic hospitals worldwide and all 200,000 Catholic schools and social service agencies are prohibited by local bishops, as well as Vatican policy, from teaching about or providing condoms to HIV/AIDS patients, clients or students. The Catholic Church claims that it shows its love and compassion for those with HIV/AIDS by treating twenty-five per cent of those infected worldwide. That means that the nearly ten million people with HIV/AIDS who are ‘treated‘ by the Catholic Church have no direct access to condom education or condoms from their caregiver. Imagine the number of newly infected wives and children who are a result of the ban. For such people to tell ordinary people in desperate circumstances that they cannot use condoms to prevent the spread of a deadly disease is to preach a culture of death.”

In Africa, these comments are echoed by people like Alosha Ray Ntsane, a Catholic and the chairperson of South Africa’s National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS. Responding to a statement by South African Bishops condemning condom use, he said: “There is nothing wrong with encouraging abstinence, but provide education on preventative measures where an individual chooses otherwise. Failure to openly discuss condom use is costing lives.”

As Daniel C. Maguire, an American Catholic theologian, argues, “The current Roman Catholic theology is one that favours death rather than life. The Vatican’s better-dead-than-‘condomed’ position has not been blessed by any of the world’s religions or by common sense. It is flat-earth embarrassing.”

The Catholic Church should take the advice of those calling on them to change their policy on AIDS prevention. If they can alter Church theology to combat the spread of SARS, they should be able to do the same to prevent the spread of AIDS.

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Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...