Vatican reiterates position on condoms; Catholics and medical experts respond.

DESPITE INTERNAtional outrage over its continued opposition to the use of condoms, the Vatican marked World AIDS Day with a five-page defense of its scientifically incorrect position. The statement, issued by Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, stated that the best way to stop the spread of the AIDS virus in a "pan-sexualist society" is by "respecting the religious and moral values of sexuality and matrimony, namely fidelity, chastity, and abstinence." The cardinal defended the Vatican's decision "to present this as the main way for the effective prevention of infection and spread of HIV/AIDS, since the phenomenon of AIDS is a pathology of the spirit."

The Vatican document comes in the wake of a statement by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo's on a recent edition of the British Broadcasting Corporation news program Panorama. In an interview broadcast on the program be said, "the AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom." Representatives from UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, Christian Aid and the United Nations Population Fund immediately rejected this assertion. The WHO declared, "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million." The WHO maintains "consistent and correct" use of condoms reduces transmission by 90 percent.

Representatives of more than 20 Catholic organizations, including DignityUSA, Women-Church Convergence, the National Coalition of American Nuns and Catholics for a Free Choice, signed a letter to Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. It said, "We believe that the Catholic church should lift the ban on condoms as a moral and humanitarian matter. But, if not, the church should at the very least be clear that its objections to condoms as a means of HIV/AIDS prevention are ecclesiastical, not scientific. Accordingly, we call upon you and your fellow bishops ... to repudiate the incorrect information that has been circulated by officials of the Catholic church, and we strongly urge you to be scrupulously honest in describing the effectiveness of condoms in the future.

Members of the gay rights organization ACT UP protested outside the Vatican's office at the United Nations in New York. Dressed up in massive condoms, the protesters carried signs stating, "Condoms Prevent AIDS, Cardinals Don't."