Aids campaigners welcome Pope's condom endorsement

Aids campaigners in France and around the world have welcomed Pope Benedict XVI’s statement that condoms could be used to prevent the spread of the virus “in certain cases”. But many say that he needs to go further.

AFP/Alberto Pizzoli

The Pope takes a step back from the church’s blanket ban on condoms in interviews to appear in a book which will be published this week but are reported in a Vatican newspaper.

While saying that the use of condoms should not be seen as a “moral solution”, he says they could be used “in certain cases, where the intention is to reduce ths risk of infection”.

The statement is “a small step forward compared to what he said before”, Pierre Bergé of Aids campaign, Sidaction, told RFI. Last year Benedict caused and outcry on a trip to Africa when he said that the use of condoms could encourage the spread of Aids.

But the Pope’s message remains that sexuality must be controlled, exclusively between married couples, Bergé says.

“I think that the Pope is living in another age […] We’re no longer in tune with that sexuality – far from it – and that trying to codify it as was done in previous centuries seems ridiculous to me. So it’s small step forward but there are many, many big steps to take.”

The statement seems “both historic and positive”, according to Gérad Guérin of France’s Christians and Aids association.

"The breach is now open and I totally accept what he has said," he says. "Condoms must be allowed to halt the virus. They are not simply useful, they must be used."

The Pope’s new position is “more enlightened and less scandalous” than his earlier statements on the issue, according to Christian Terras, the editor of dissident Catholic website Golias.

The review hopes that there will be further changes after this “real advance … on a particularly sensitive and delicate subject”.

“It’s amazing that a supposedly conservative Pope should be so open on sexual matters,” religious historian Odon Vallet told RFI. “But bearing in mind the gravity of the accusations against paedophile priests maybe he said to himself – or perhaps his advisers said to him – that using a condom to prevent Aids is less serious than having sex with a child.”

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party hailed “a wise and sensible pronouncement”.

Campaigners in South Africa, where an estimated 5.7 million of the 48 million positive are HIV positive, welcomed “a step in the right direction”. But they “still fall below what we expect”, Treatment Action Campaign leader Vuyiseka Dubula.