Wednesday June 18, 2008
Bishop of Saltillo Denounces Contraception, Says Condoms Are Not Effective against Venereal Diseases
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
MEXICO, June 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The bishop of Saltillo, Mexico, has publicly denounced a local condom distribution program in his state, calling condoms "palliatives" and noting that they encourage sexual irresponsibility and superficiality, according to local and national media reports.
Contraceptive use, says Bishop Raśl Vera Lopez, "makes human beings irresponsible". "(Condoms) separate the relationship from its personal dimension, leaving a superficial, purely sensual relationship that is producing very irresponsible people."
Lopez denies the oft-repeated claim that condom promotion is an effective way to fight AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), which have continued to spread despite many years of such programs.
"The key is education, the key is in improving the (social) environment, with much more quality regarding the dignity of the human person," he said. "There has been a social dislocation that none of these measures take into account. We should invest in other things, this is what the Church says, just as Paul VI said."
Lopez is apparently referring to Pope Paul VI's final encyclical, "Humane Vitae", which unequivocally denounced the use of contraceptives as unnatural and intrinsically evil. Humane Vitae was a repetition of Catholic teaching that extends to the earliest days of the Church and is repeated in the current Catechism of the Catholic Church.
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