YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Pope Benedict XVI said on his way to Africa today that condoms were not the answer in the continent’s fight against HIV, his first explicit statement on an issue that has divided even clergy working with AIDS patients.
Benedict arrived in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, this afternoon to a crowd of flag-waving faithful and snapping cameras. The visit is his first pilgrimage as pontiff to the African continent.
Benedict had never directly addressed condom use, though his position is not new. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often said that sexual abstinence — not condoms — was the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.
Benedict said that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS.
“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
The pope said that a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease.
About 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV, according to UNAIDS. In 2007, three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide were there, as well as two-thirds of all people living with HIV.
Rebecca Hodes with the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said if the pope is serious about preventing new HIV infections, he will focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how best to use them.
“Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans,” said Hodes, director of policy, communication and research for the action campaign.
While she said the pope is correct that condoms are not the sole solution to Africa’s AIDS epidemic, she said they are one of the very few HIV prevention mechanisms proven to work.
Even some priests and nuns working with those living with HIV/AIDS question the church’s opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging Africa.
The Roman Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against artificial contraception.
Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS.
The late Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo made headlines in 2003 for saying that condoms may help spread AIDS through a false sense of security, claiming they weren’t effective in blocking transmission of the virus. The cardinal, who died last year, headed the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family.
Benedict’s African trip this week also will take him to Angola.
Benedict was met by a crowd of photographers as he stepped off the plane after ground crews struggled to place the aircraft’s mobile staircase. Temperatures on the ground were 88 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity.
The pope was greeted at the airport by Cameroon’s President Paul Biya who has ruled since 1982, and whose government was accused in a recent Amnesty International report of a long list of abuses to crush political opponents.
The pope made no specific reference to the situation in Cameroon, but he did say in general remarks on Africa that “a Christian can never remain silent” in the face of violence, poverty, hunger, corruption or abuse of power.
“The saving message of the Gospel needs to be proclaimed loud and clear so that the light of Christ can shine into the darkness of people’s lives,” he said in arrival remarks as the president and other political leaders looked on.
Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Roman Catholic Church, though it competes with Islam and evangelical churches.
The pope also said today that he intends to make an appeal for “international solidarity” for Africa in the face of the global economic downturn.
He said that while the church does not propose specific economic solutions, it can give “spiritual and moral” suggestions.
Describing the current crisis as the consequence of “a deficit of ethics in economic structures,” the pope said: “It is here that the church can make a contribution.”
On the plane, Benedict also dismissed the notion that he was facing increasing opposition and isolation within the church, particularly after an outreach to ultraconservatives that led to his lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop.
“The myth of my solitude makes me laugh,” the pope said, adding that he can count on a network of friends and aides whom he sees every day.
In a letter to Catholic bishops released last week, the pope made an unusual public acknowledgment of Vatican mistakes and turmoil in his church over the rehabilitation of Bishop Richard Williamson.
While acknowledging mistakes were made in handling the affair, Benedict said he was saddened that he was criticized “with open hostility” even by those who should have known better.
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