A Wake-Up Call?

Last week a couple in San Diego was issued a cease and desist order from the county for holding a Bible Study in their home. The reason they were given was that they needed a costly permit to hold a religious assembly in their home. The county has since backed off saying that they do not want to "muzzle religious expression". However, I can't help but wonder if this is a harbinger of what is to come. We all hear so much about how we are now living in a "post-Christian" society, but the question is whether or not we really are.

In response to the question if we are living in a post-Christian world, I would say absolutely not. I say this not because I am in denial as to what is going on around us, but because it simply is not possible. I am with Chesterton when he summarizes the history of Western Civilization by saying that "paganism was the biggest thing in the world; and Christianity was bigger, and everything else has been comparatively small." The Second Person of the Trinity taking on flesh and dwelling among us is the hinge point on which all of history rests. This is so firmly established and known by all that even changing BC to BCE and AD to CE only serves to point this out further. It shows us that something unbelievable happened so that history ends and starts a new era at that point in time.

That being said, what I think someone means when they say that we live in a "post-Christian" world, is that our culture no longer rests upon its religious roots. This statement I do agree with, but the religious roots were not really Christian anyway. Instead, I think it was based on a sort of vague belief in God with a strong ethical code that happened to coincide with the Judeo-Christian moral code. What has happened is that the social compulsion to be a Christian has been removed and people are now "religious" because they genuinely want to know Christ.

As we have been told by the visionary John in the book of Revelation, it is hanging out in the middle ground that makes Christ sick (Rev 3:16—the literal meaning of spit is to "vomit"). That is why I think the decline is a good thing—it has effectively removed the middle ground. The time has come where we are either for Christ or against Him (Mt 12:30). Isn't this precisely what happened with President Obama's visit to Notre Dame? It did not divide the Church, it defined it. You are either Catholic and condemn the President's stance or you are not Catholic. You cannot be both. It is really that simple.

For too long because we were surrounded by other "good people" who had the same value system that we had, we were lulled into thinking that we were not at war. But the fact of the matter is that we have never ceased being the Church Militant. We simply forgot for a while. The battlefield may change over time, but the war continues on. We are now able to see the battle lines being drawn more clearly and this is a good thing. It is precisely when the awareness that we are at war and we are persecuted that the Church actually grows. This is can be shown empirically throughout time and even in our own time. When the Communists took over China in 1949, approximately 1% of the population was baptized. Now, because of the ongoing persecutions the number has grown to approximately 130 million, nearly twice the number of members in the Communist Party.

Once we recognize that we are at war, we can then see our enemies more clearly. Our enemies are not Liberals or Atheists. Our enemies are not the media or abortionists themselves. These are all the people that we are fighting for, not against. As St. Paul says in Ephesians (6:12), "our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens." We must be absolutely clear who we are engaged in battle against—Satan and his minions.

We must also be clear on who are allies are. Protestants are our allies. How much do you think Satan relishes in the fact that we are divided? The Jews are our allies too as we stand together waiting for the return of the Messiah at the end of time (CCC 840). Even the Muslims are our allies as they worship the one, merciful God with us (CCC 841).

To close, I want to say one other thing that is vitally important and that is that we, as Catholics, must be the ones leading the charge in the war. The reason is very simple—we have the Eucharist. Contained under the appearance of a simple piece of bread is the Sacramental Presence of God Himself. We must avail ourselves to Him so that in receiving His Body, we will be empowered to give our own for the fight. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church" and it is precisely with more martyrs and more saints that we will win the war.

Was Benedict XVI right?

By now we have all heard about the Holy Father’s comments regarding condom usage and AIDS in Africa. Once again, it has been an opportunity for the secular world to slam the “old celibate man in Rome” for living in an “alternate universe”. I guess it was only a matter of time, but Richard Dawkins came out yesterday and called the Pope “stupid, ignorant or wicked.” Surely, when calling someone stupid or ignorant you would offer some evidence to the contrary. Yet, I find none in his comments. In fact I find very few of the criticisms that have been launched offer any hard evidence to the contrary. Surely, a man of the intellectual prowess of Dr. Dawkins would be able to rationally argue against the Pope’s position using hard facts rather than to resort ad hominem arguments attacking the Holy Father personally rather than his position. After all, only a fool would refuse to read his mail because he doesn’t like his mailman. So the question that everyone should be asking (and very few are) is “was the Holy Father right?”

For right now, I want to leave the moral implications of contraception aside. I agree 100% with the Catholic Church’s stance on the use of contraception and can argue that another time, but I want to evaluate the Pope’s comments exactly as he made them. His claim was that you cannot resolve the problem of AIDS with condom distribution and that it actually increases the problem.
Let’s start with a few scientific facts regarding condoms and the HIV Virus itself. In 1993, the University of Texas tracked 11 different studies regarding the effectiveness of condoms in stopping the transmission of HIV and found that on average they fail 31% of the time.

You might ask, “why do they fail?” To those who would say, “well, if only we would teach them how to use them properly then this problem would go away,” I would invite them to come with me the next time I need air in my tires. We periodically need air in our tires because rubber is a naturally porous product. The tiny holes, called voids, within our tires are big enough that the air is able to escape. The rubber that makes up latex also has voids. These voids are approximately 5 microns in size—too small for sperm to pass through. Guess what can pass through these voids however —the HIV virus. It is only .1 microns in diameter. That means the HIV virus is approximately 50 times smaller than the voids. In other words, as the former surgeon general put it, “The HIV virus can go through a condom like a bullet through a tennis net.” In fact one study suggests that 33% of all condoms allow HIV-sized particles through and “spermicidal agents such as nonoxonol-9 may actually ease the passage.”

Keep in mind these numbers are ignoring the more obvious problems of slippage, breakage and incorrect usage. These numbers are obviously very hard to measure. In fact, even the most “generous” of studies claim that condoms are 90% effective in stopping the transmission of HIV. Let me put that in perspective. On average, 1 in 10 people who engage in high risk sexual activity are going to become infected with the HIV virus. Are you serious? Would you buy a car in which the seat belts were known to break in 10% of all crashes? You might say though that people will engage in riskier behavior for the thrill. OK, would you ride a roller coaster in which 1 in 10 people were going to be thrown to their deaths?

For the few nuts that did decide that this was a good idea, what kind of waivers do you think they would need to sign? My point is this; while they are promoting condom usage in Africa, are they giving them full information as to the risks involved? Or is it just touted as “safe sex”? How many people have actually heard this? I couldn’t agree more with the late Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo for saying that condoms may help spread AIDS through a false sense of security.


So then back to my original question—was the Pope right?

Let’s see what some of the empirical evidence suggests. Let’s begin with the country of Uganda. In 1991, the prevalence of HIV was 15%. In the late 1980s, the Ugandan government began a program that taught abstinence before marriage and fidelity to one's partner afterwards. They only reluctantly advised condoms for high risk groups. After 10 years, the prevalence in 2001 was 5%.

Proponents of condom usage will chalk that up to increased condom usage. Let’s compare that to three other African countries that do actively promote condom usage. Among pregnant women in Uganda in 1991, 21.2% tested positive for HIV. By 2001, the number had plummeted to 6.2%. Compare this with the 2001 numbers from Kenya (15%), Zimbabwe (32%), and Botswana (38%). Something is fundamentally different about the Ugandan plan. The difference is that they teach abstinence and fidelity within marriage. That sounds similar (although not identical) to Pope Benedict’s plan and it seems the Holy Father is in touch with one of the only working models in Africa.

What about the experts? What do they say?

In an interview with BBC online, Edward Green, an anthropologist at the Harvard University School of Public Health and one of the foremost researchers on AIDS prevention said, “We now see HIV going down in about 8 or 9 countries in Africa and in every case we see a decrease in the proportion of men and women who report having more than one sex partner in the past year. So when the Pope said that the answer really lies in monogamy and martial faithfulness, that's exactly what we found empirically.”

Now it is important to note that Dr. Green does not agree with the Pope across the board. But certainly agrees that “we have not seen that condoms have worked at the population or national levels in Africa.”

Green, while being the most outspoken recently, is not alone. James Shelton, of the US Agency for International Development, said that "(C)ondoms alone have limited impact in generalized epidemics [as in Africa]."

There is also the study that Dr. Green makes reference to in his interview done in 2004 by Hearst and Chen in Studies in Family Planning. They state that “no clear examples have emerged yet of a country that has turned back a generalized epidemic primarily by means of condom promotion". Ironically enough, the article mentions Cameroon specifically, which is the country to which the Holy Father was en route when he made his now notorious remarks. Between 1992 and 2001 condom sales increased from 6 million to 15 million - while HIV prevalence tripled, from 3 percent to 9 percent.

So basically, the Pope has come under intense criticism for promoting something that everyone knows works (abstinence and chastity) and dissuading the use of something that at best works 90% of the time and most likely is much less effective. To make the assertion that the Pope by coming out and saying that condom usage is illicit is really going to be causing the death of millions is absurd and there is no evidence to suggest that. The fact of the matter he is suggesting that people engage in less risky behavior which should save lives. The problem is that what he is suggesting is hard. We demand license to engage in whatever feels good. Man, we really need to get a proper understanding of what freedom is…that’s for another time.

One rule I ask in your posting. Don’t waste your time and everyone else's with ridiculous arguments where you say that the Pope is a pedophile or any other such name calling. The issue is not the handling of the sex abuse scandal or the Inquisition. Stick to this issue. This is meant to be an intellectual discussion in which reason and truth are discussed. We all should have grown out of calling people “poopy heads” when we were 10.