Contraception already a ritual

Pope Benedict

Catholics are using contraception at the same rate as all other New Zealanders, despite the Pope's official position that it is sinful.

Some local agencies supporting people with HIV-Aids are rejoicing at news from Rome this week that Pope Benedict XVI may be about to let married couples use condoms where one spouse has Aids.

But Bruce Kilmister of the HIV support group Body Positive said the move was "far too little and far too late".

And researchers said New Zealand Catholics were already using condoms and other contraception anyway.

Waikato University demographer Ian Pool said research showed that religion made no difference to the likelihood of using contraception.

Catholic Church spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer said the New Zealand Church could not comment until the draft Vatican statement on condoms was signed by the Pope - expected to be "very soon".

But the head of the New Zealand branch of the Catholic aid agency Caritas, Michael Smith, welcomed the expected change for couples with HIV.

"The reality is that where one marriage partner becomes infected, abstinence from sexual relations is not always possible, resulting in a huge risk of transfer to the other.

"Clarifying that the use of condoms may be acceptable in these circumstances is a very sensible approach. It also means that the impact this terrible disease has on families and communities may be lessened."

Positive Women spokeswoman Jane Bruning, who contracted HIV in Africa, said the Pope's expected move was "brilliant - quite a landmark".

"I was in Tanzania in 1990 when the [former] Pope visited there and saw the huge following he has there, and something like this could be really quite life-changing for places like Africa, and also here in New Zealand."

She said there was a 33 per cent chance that a mother with HIV would pass on the virus to her baby. The virus did not penetrate the placenta connecting mother to baby in the womb, but babies often became infected during the birth process or through breastfeeding.

Aids Foundation acting chief executive Te Herekiekie Herewini said condoms were the best means of defence against HIV.

"We would hope that, in the interests of saving lives, the Church will sanction the use of condoms as protection against HIV for all people who are sexually active, not just those who are married."

However, conservative Catholics are not convinced that even the limited change being discussed can be justified.

Titirangi priest Denzil Mueli, who takes Latin Masses, said the only moral course for an HIV-positive husband was to abstain from sex with his wife because he could not use sex for its proper purpose - producing children.

"He shouldn't take the initiative of seeking sexual satisfaction that in this case is going to destroy his wife as it is destroying him already.

"Clearly then, to multiply the errors by using a condom would only exacerbate the situation altogether, because then they intend not to have children anyway."

Although in general Catholics use contraceptives at the same rate as others, a study in 2000 found that 21-year-olds who attended church regularly were three times more likely to abstain from sex than their non-churchgoing contemporaries.

Another study a year later found that Catholic men were only half as likely as other men to have a vasectomy.


Birth control

* The last study of all contraceptive methods which reported religious differences, in 1979, found contraception was being used by 71 per cent of Catholics, 65 per cent of Anglicans, 61 per cent of Presbyterians and 73 per cent of those with no religion.

* Abortion Supervisory Committee reports point to a possible downward trend in recent years. The proportion of women having abortions who were using contraception dropped from 58 per cent in 1997 to 49 per cent in 2004.