“Tell me where I can find the Condom!” Catholic AIDS Discoursesin South Africa during the 1990s

Stephen Muoki Joshua1

University of KwaZulu-Natal

AbstractImagine a male celibate priest trying to talk about sex and AIDSto a church congregation whose majority is women! It is naturallyembarrassing and challenging. This is the situation that mostCatholic lay, religious, and the hierarchy had to deal with inSouth Africa during the 1990s.The article is an attempt to usearchival and oral history materials collected between 2007 and2010 to analyse how the Catholic Church spoke about HIV and AIDSand how that discourse influenced South African society duringthe 1990s. Here I argue that although the church’s statements onAIDS, condoms, sex and sexuality during this period were openlydefensive, often ambivalent, and characteristically passive, itwas what the church said and how it said it that createdcontroversies, more than anything else.

IntroductionDuring the 1990s, the Catholic Church in South Africa waslearning new ways on just how to speak about HIV and AIDS. It isworth noting, however, that the Catholic voice on HIV and AIDSwas only one among several other religious discourses in thecountry. During the mid-1990s, the South African Council ofChurches (SACC) convened several national and regional workshopsto get churches to begin to work together in programmes onHIV/AIDS.2 The Salvation Army was probably the church with themost developed programme in the area of training and care with

1Dr Stephen Muoki Joshua did PhD history of Christianity in University ofKwaZulu-Natal (2011). He is a Senior lecturer at Pwani University in Kenya andis currently undertaking research with Dr Raymond SimangaKumalo of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

2 Doctor JHO Pretorius’ report in a workshop on AIDS held by Religious Bodies and the Department of Health on 29 May 1995 at Cavitas Building, Pretoria, South Africa.

services such as the “Drop in Centre OASIS in Mayfair and theFred Clarke Home in Soweto for abandoned children whose parentshad AIDS.3 The Scripture Union also had training materials whichwere used for youths in schools. Besides having a Total HealthCare Committee in Johannesburg and a central coordinator for HIVand AIDS ministry, the Methodist Church was running an AIDSCentre at Hillcrest in Natal which was opened in 1991 by ReverendNeil Oosthuizen.4The Rhema Church, the Baptist Church, and theInternational Fellowship of Christian Churches collaborated in asystematic programme of training trainers in HIV and AIDSeducation and counselling under the auspices of the Churches AIDSProgramme (CAP).5 Therefore, the South Africa Catholic BishopsConference (SACBC), CAP, and the SACC were familiar voices toSouth Africans and the government as far as churches’ discourseson HIV and AIDS were concerned.

In this article, I attempt to analyse how the Catholic Churchspoke about HIV and AIDS and how that discourse influenced SouthAfrican society during the 1990s. I rely on interviews conductedbetween 2007 and 2010 as well as archival materials collected inCatholic archives such as that of the SACBC in Khanya House,Pretoria, that of St Joseph Theological Institute inPietermaritzburg, as well as that of Archdiocese of Durban. TheSouthern Cross, a Catholic popular magazine published twice a year,was particularly helpful.

3 Report on a workshop on AIDS held by Religious Bodies and the Department of Health on 29 May 1995 at Cavitas Building, Pretoria, South Africa.

4 See www.hillHIV/AIDS.org.za (accessed on 23 August 2008).5 Churches AIDS Programme (CAP) is an organization that was officially

formed in August 1991 when a group of 15 evangelical churches joined to explore cooperative response to HIV and AIDS. After hiring Ms Corrine Hendry as the national coordinator, the organization set it out to address and equip the body of Christ to deal with the very real and serious epidemic and immediate problem of AIDS by seeking to reach every Church member with a view to their becoming aware, educated and trained in HIV/AIDS information and care. See Rev. D. Palos, Response of Churches to AIDS, unpublished paper delivered at the workshop of the Ministry of Health with Church Leaders, 29 May 1995, Civitas Building, Struben Street, Pretoria.

Prevention Discourses - Condoms as an OptionDuring the 1990s, there was a thriving condom debate thatpermeated all levels of the Catholic Church such as the hierarchy(SACBC, the bishops and parish priests), the religious(communities, convents, monks and nuns), and the lay (Catholicprojects, commissions). The debate was about the use of condomsas an option in preventing the spread of HI virus. A sanction onthe use of condoms posed a major threat to the church’s long helddoctrine against the use of contraceptives, a naturalistic viewof the conjugal act. The church’s official position remainedunchanged in the 1990s. The Pastoral Letter released in January1990 set the pace. It read as follows:

Certain medical authorities and governments advocateusing the condom as a preventive against the spread ofAIDS. However, condoms are not always reliable, and if aperson persists in sexual promiscuity, he or she willstill be at great risk of contracting HIV/AIDS even whenusing a condom. Furthermore, if an attitude of acceptingthat sex is now safe prevails, then the condom messagecan increase rather than decrease the incidence ofAIDS.6

In 1995, the Associate Secretary General of the SACBC, Fr EmilBlaser, explained that the Catholic Church was opposed to allusages of the condom. He made it clear to the Sowetan newspaperin writing:

Condoms are usually used as contraceptives and as apreventive measure to the possible passing on of AIDS.In both cases the Catholic Church is against the use ofcondoms. It teaches that sexual intercourse may takeplace only within marriage. Efforts should rather bemade to encourage a change in lifestyle. The promotionof condoms encourages promiscuity and this heightens therisk of contracting AIDS.7

6 SACBC, A Pastoral Letter on AIDS, 4. 7 SACBC correspondence, a letter written by Emil Blaser (Associate

Secretary General) to LulamaLuki (Sowetan) on 13 February 1995.

On 28 February 1999 the bishops reiterated the same positionfollowing a distribution of free condoms by the government in its‘safe sex campaign’.8 In spite of the heated public debate onthis Catholic official position, there was a general reluctanceon the side of the hierarchy, bishops and priests alike, toengage publicly on the issue of condoms. This mode of silence wasa common denominator to all the churches especially in mattersrelating to sexuality. Reverend D. Palos of CAP told the AIDSworkshop that met in Pretoria on 29 May 1995 as a joint venturebetween the Department of Health and Church leaders that “certainChurches have avoided addressing directly issues such as sexeducation and prevention of pregnancy and, most notably, theCatholic Church’s position on birth control represents only oneelement in a general resistance to proposals of limiting risk bythe wide scale and free provision of condoms”.9 This workshop wasthe second attempt by the government of South Africa, certainlythe first by the democratically-elected government, to draw inreligious organizations and formulate with them a concerted HIVand AIDS response. An attempt by the Department of NationalHealth and Population Development in 1991 to bring religiousorganizations and different faiths together under an umbrellaprogramme called Religious AIDS Programme (RAP) had faltered.10

Evidence is overwhelming that the condoms controversy became acentral factor in the demise of the RAP.11 According to ReverendPalos, the RAP member churches categorically distanced themselvesfrom the Catholic’s position during the May 1995 workshop: “Thespecific problems, as alluded to before, regarding the promotionof safer sex through the use of condoms will have to be faced bythis [Catholic] Church”.12 Both mainline churches and theevangelical churches seemed to settle for a compromised position

8 SACBC Statement on Condom, 12 February 1999. See also Southern Cross, “Restraint not condoms will beat AIDS: bishops,” 28 February 1999.

9 Reverend D. Palos, Response of Churches to AIDS, unpublished paper delivered at the workshop of the Ministry of Health with Church Leaders, 29 May 1995, Civitas Building, Struben Street, Pretoria.

10 SACBC correspondence, a fax letter send by Emil Blasser (Associate Secretary General) to SandileSwana (Hallmark) on 24 May 1996 under the subject, Interfaith Groups on Religious AIDS Project (RAP).

11 SACBC correspondence, a fax letter send by Emil Blasser (Associate Secretary General) to SandileSwana (Hallmark) on 24 May 1996 under the subject, Interfaith Groups on Religious AIDS Project (RAP).

“whereby condoms could be seen as an option in HIV prevention”.13

They went ahead to urge the Catholic Church in South Africa toconsider an East African Catholic’s parallel position – “Probablythe formula adopted by the Catholic Church in East Africa that‘anything used to preserve life is legitimate; anything used toprevent life is not,’ will prevail”.14

The RAP had expected that the SACBC would consider a compromiseposition with regard to the use of condoms. Episcopal conferencesaround the world had taken different positions in this regard.Philippe Denis has described two positions adopted by Catholicbishops in Sub-Saharan Africa: hard line condemnation and tacitcondoning.15 In view of the global spectrum, three distinctpositions emerged. Firstly, various national bishops’ conferencessuch as those of Germany,16Burundi17Ireland and England18alignedthemselves with the Holy See19 in publicly condemning the use ofcondoms. Secondly, a few other conferences publicly condoned theuse of condoms under what some have called ‘the principle oftoleration’.20 For instance, the United States Catholic

12 Report on a workshop on AIDS held by Religious Bodies and the Department of Health on 29 May 1995 at Cavitas Building, Pretoria, South Africa.

13 Report on a workshop on AIDS held by Religious Bodies and the Department of Health on 29 May 1995 at Cavitas Building, Pretoria, South Africa.

14 Report on a workshop on AIDS held by Religious Bodies and the Department of Health on 29 May 1995 at Cavitas Building, Pretoria, South Africa.

15 Philippe Denis and C. Becker, eds.,L’épidémie du sida en Afrique subsaharienne. Regards historiens (Paris, Karthala, 2006), ff. It is also available in English online under the title, The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa: a Historical Perspective.SeeSinomlandoCenter for Oral History and Memory Work - www.sorat.ukzn.ac.za/sinomlando/publications.html accessed on March 30, 2007.

16 Southern Cross, “Germany anti-AIDS campaign faulted,” 22 February 1987.17 Paul Kocheleff, “Le sida au Burundi et en Afrique du Sud: le vécu au

quotidien”, in Denis and Becker, L’épidémie du sida en Afrique subsaharienne, 199. For an online English translation see www.refer.sn/rds/IMG/pdf/14KOCHELEFF.pdf accessed on 29 August 2008.

18 Southern Cross, “Germany anti-AIDS campaign faulted,” 22 February 1987.19 Natal Witness, “Pope rejects condoms as AIDS prevention,” 11 March 1988.20 Jon D. Fuller and James F. Keenan, “Introduction: at the end of the

first generation of HIV prevention”, in Keenan, Catholic Ethicists on HIV Prevention, 21-38.

Conference (USCC) in 1987 tolerated the use of condoms in HIVprevention in its famous The Many Faces of AIDS: a Gospel Response.21

Cardinal Lustiger of Paris said openly in December 1988 that “onecannot ever pass on death and so anyone who cannot abstain fromsex should use a condom”.22 His view contrasted sharply with thatof Carlo Caffara who spoke on ‘AIDS: General Ethical Aspects’ at the AIDSconference held at the Vatican in December 1989.23 Father MichaelKelly of Zambia challenged the SACBC to consider this positionduring an Interdiocesan AIDS Conference held at Johannesburgbetween 16 and 18 July 1993.24 Citing the Zambian model, hecontested that “in fact the Church should teach that it is agreater evil to fornicate without a condom as one risks passingon HIV”.25 He equated the church’s fear of being seen to condonesex outside marriage to “the Pilate’s awkward washing of hands”over the trial of Jesus! Arguing that “there is probably more sextaking place outside marriage than in marriage any one singlenight” and that the Church’s teachings about conjugal love andits openness to new life cannot be applied to sexual intercourseoutside marriage, he concluded that “to get people to use condomsin a context such as Lusaka where sero-prevalence rates of 36.8percent have been found among pregnant women is surely alegitimate goal for the state and other NGO’s concerned with theAIDS epidemic and the AIDS prevention”.26

Lastly, certain conferences chose to remain utterly silent on thematter. A typical example is the Congolese bishops’ Message aux

21 USCC Administrative Board, “The Many Faces of AIDS: A Gospel Response,” Origins 17.28 (1987): 482-89.

22 Southern Cross, “AIDS: Church under fire,” 15 December 1988. 23 Carlo Caffara, “AIDS: General Ethical Aspects,” unpublished paper

presented at the AIDS conference held at the Vatican in December 1989.24 Father Michael Kelly, The Dilemma of the Church in Responding to

HIV/AIDS Epidemic, unpublished paper presented at the InterdiocesanAIDS Conference held on the 16-18 July 1993 at Koinonia Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa.

25 Father Michael Kelly, The Dilemma of the Church in Responding to HIV/AIDS Epidemic, unpublished paper presented at the InterdiocesanAIDS Conference held on the 16-18 July 1993 at Koinonia Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa.

26 Kelly, The Dilemma of the Church in Responding to HIV/AIDS Epidemic, 12 and 13.

fidèles, which in April 1996 outlined the church’s position on AIDSand conveniently avoided mentioning the word ‘condom’.27

Therefore, although the official Catholic position was to condemnthe use of condoms, there were variations in the bishops’utterances on condoms in HIV prevention.

If the SACBC hierarchy publicly opposed the use of condoms duringthe 1990s, other levels of the institutional church were moreopen to it as an alternative option to abstinence to preventfurther HIV spread. Several Catholic nurses, for instance,supported the use of condoms in HIV prevention. Liz Towell28 andSabbath Mlambo29 of Durban’s Sinosizo project admitted to havingrecommended the use of condoms in the 1990s. In no uncertainterms, Towell indicated that they were not the only onesdistributing condoms. She observed further that other Catholicnurses in Johannesburg were doing exactly the same. They knewthat they were going against the official position of the SACBC.She narrated what follows:

Well, the condom was not accepted by the church, nomatter what time it was. However, when you work in thefield … I used to distribute the condoms without anybother at all. Archbishop Hurley knew I did. He alsounderstood why I did it. And so … It became moredifficult with Cardinal Napier. But yeah, we promotedthat. All our staff used to have condoms. We would getthem from the government and distribute them to theareas. And so that was the main prevention because therewas no other prevention method that was available. Theywere not going to abstain. That was like asking toomuch. So yeah that was all we did. Rightly or wrongly,it was up to us. I could not have lived with myconscience knowing that I did not give some kind of

27 Gruénais, “La religion préserve-t-elle du sida”, 672 ; cited by PhilippeDenis, See Denis, AIDS and religion in sub-Saharan Africa, 14.

28 Liz Towel, Interview by author, digital recording, interview conducted at her home in Amanzimtoti, 10 July 2008..

29 Mlambo, interview by author, digital recording, interview conducted at her home in Graytown, 11 July 2008.

protection to somebody to save a life. Because that iswhat it was all about.30

According to Towell, although Sinosizo was a Catholic project, itdid nothing to promote the official Catholic position on HIVprevention.at least not during the chairmanship of ArchbishopHurley who, unlike his successor, Cardinal Napier, condoned theuse and distribution of condoms 31

Social workers in Mariannhill also did not follow the SACBC’s‘zero tolerance’ policy on condom use. Jennifer Boysen, apioneering social worker in AIDS care and treatment atMariannhill was very candid on this: “I never felt I was heldback by the church policies. I knew the policies were out therebut when it came to saving lives we had options, the programmeswere very real”.32 She maintained that although “the [Catholic]church was consistent in abstinence as a prevention method” andthat “sometimes we used to invite a priest to speak from histheological position,” “we knew there was access to these things[condoms]”.33 A similar position was advocated by Dr Douglas Rossat St. Mary’s Hospital. Their position on prevention as aCatholic hospital has always been clear to patients: “Here is theCatholic preference; here are other options too”.34 According toSister Bikina, although the key prevention message at the iThembaClinic was “don’t sleep around,” they would often recommend theuse of condoms.35

The interplay between the hierarchy and the lay leaders becameclearer in the case of Eshowe diocese where the two church levelswere equally involved in responding to the AIDS disease. Father

30 Towell, interview by author, 9 July 2008.31 Towell, interview by author, 9 July 2008.32 JenifferBoysen, interview by author, digital recording, interview

conducted at St Mary’s hospital in Mariannhill, 23 November 2007.33 Boysen, interview by author, 23 November 2007.34 BikinaNeil and Douglas Ross, interview by author, digital recording,

interview conducted at their offices at St Mary’s hospital in Mariannhill, 15 October 2007.

35 Neil and Ross, interview by author, 15 October 2007.

Gérard T. Lagleder had a lot to say on why in the 1990s he “urgedAIDS patients to use a condom if they had no choice to abstainfrom sex” and why he as a Catholic priest still did not considerthis to be a contradiction to the teaching of the CatholicChurch.36 He observed that, “As a Catholic scholar and leader itis my position to fully and totally subscribe to the teaching ofthe Catholic Church”.37 Undoubtedly, Father Lagleder struggledwith this prevention dilemma where, on the one hand, he was askedto obey his bishop and to follow the official position of theSACBC whereas, on the other hand, he felt compelled by theenormous realities to recommend the use of condoms.

By and large, there was a disconnection between ‘the ideal’ asexpounded by the hierarchy and ‘the reality’ as experienced bythe practitioners who were in most cases the lay leaders and, insome cases, the religious. That dilemma was most felt by the layleaders who worked for the SACBC AIDS Office. In May 1995, forinstance, Chris Matubatuba, the SACBC Aids Office Coordinator,lamented – “They [bishops] said use your discretion: then theyfired me!”38 A year later, his successor Linda Maepa indicated inher annual report on the use of condoms that the “bothersomething is that all questions eventually find their way to theSACBC AIDS co-ordinator”.39 She complained that queries aboutcondoms “come even from priests who are themselves bombarded withquestions”.40 Similar sentiments were echoed by CeciliaMoloantoa, the secretary of the Health Care and EducationDepartment of the SACBC,41 as well as Beauty Malete of CATHCA.42

Evidently, a debate over the use of condoms as an alternativeoption in HIV prevention was thriving apart from the churchhierarchy. Indeed, Catholic lay leaders such as nurses, doctors

36 Gerard Lagleder, interview by author, telephonic interview, 10 October 2007.

37 Lagleder, interview by author, 10 October 2007.38 The Star, “AIDS worker learns about Catholics and condoms,” 20 May 1995.39 SACBC AIDS Office, Annual Report 1996, prepared by Linda Maepa, 23.40 SACBC AIDS Office, Annual Report 1996, prepared by Linda Maepa, 23.41 SACBC, AIDS Awareness Programme, Report to CAFOD 1993/94, prepared by

ChrysMatubatuba, the interdiocesanAIDS Coordinator.42 SACBC Minutes of the plenary meeting held at St Peter’s Seminary,

Pretoria between 20 and 27 January 1999.

and social workers were silently defiant of the hierarchy’sposition vis-à-vis condom use. Pressure was mounting from the lowerlevels of the church for the hierarchy to reconsider its positionon the use of condoms. This would translate into a categoricaland publicly stated departure from the SACBC’s position bycertain bishops such as Kevin Dowling at the turn of the century.This would be followed by the controversial bishops’ Message ofHope which totally shattered the highly anticipated sanction ofthe use of condoms in HIV prevention. Nevertheless, by 1999 thebishops were succumbing to the demands from within and withoutthe church and plans were underway towards the release of a newpastoral letter on HIV and AIDS.43

Sex Education DiscoursesSeveral scholars have rightly observed that the Catholic Churchhas been influenced by HIV and AIDS to a great deal even as itattempted to respond to the epidemic.44 This is especially so inthe area of sexuality and sex education. It would appear thatduring the 1990s, HIV and AIDSconfronted the church’s officialteachings more than it was actually confronted by the church. Itis in this area, more than any other, that the Catholic Churchfelt most embarrassed, exposed and criticised. AIDS activists hadaccused the Catholic Church of being a hindrance in HIVprevention campaigns on account of its sex education policy. Itmakes sense therefore that the church’s statements on sex andsexuality during this period were openly defensive, oftenambivalent, and characteristically very passive. Let us examinethese statements more closely.

43 SACBC, Minutes of the plenary session held between 19 and 26 January 2000 at St Peter’s Seminary, Pretoria.

44 Most notably Charles Ryan, see Ryan, AIDS and Responsibility: the Catholic Tradition, 4 and 5; Alison Munro, see Alison Munro, “Stigma and Discrimination,” a paper written for an email forum ahead of the UNAIDS Consultation “Advocacy for Action on Stigma and HIV/AIDS in Africa,” Tanzania 2001; and Philippe Denis, personal notes out of his public lecture, “Faith Based Responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa,” University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermatitzburg, 4 October 2008.

The News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban45 is a monthlypublication that is freely availed to parishioners within theArchdiocese of Durban parishes. It relays local messages andinformation relevant to the archdiocese within the one monthperiod. The contents of its eight pages customarily include thearchbishops keynote message for the month ahead, advertisementson various programmes, activities and employment vacancies. It istherefore a reliable communication channel between the leadershipand the parishioners. It is a fair reflection of the state of thearchdiocese in various orientations such as devotions, catechism,and social activities as well as vocational and leadershiptraining. Between 1990 and 1999, there were only five AIDS-related notices or articles. These are summarised in Table 1below:

Table 1 - News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban: AIDS articlesbetween 1991-9946

Date Title SummaryJune1992

Catholic AIDS Care programme: Youth Trainers Programme

The Catholic AIDS Care Committee ofthe Archdiocese of Durban, chairedby Archbishop Denis Hurley, has beenactively developing a trainingprogramme aimed at preventing thespread of AIDS among youth.Objectives include bringing in

45 In 1989, the magazine changed its name from the ‘Bulletin of the Archdiocese of Durban’ to the ‘News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban’.

46 The information on the table was gleaned from the following articles: News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, “Catholic AIDS Care programme: Youth Trainers Programme,”280 (June 1992), 48-49; News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, “AIDS Care Committee – Youth Programmes 1992,” 284 (October 1992), 86;News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, “AIDS Care Committee ,” 330 (December1996), 98; News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, “Anti AIDS Campaign ,” 337 (August 1997), 45; News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, “Christmas, a timeof hope,” 352 (December 1998), 73.

representatives from the parishesand exploring various issuesrelating to HIV/AIDS within thecontext of the church’s teaching inSouth Africa. The training coverstopics such as AIDS the disease,human sexuality and attitudes, AIDSprevention, how to give thisinformation back to the youth.

October1992

AIDS Care Committee –Youth Programmes 1992

The AIDS Care Committee for theArchdiocese of Durban has puttogether a programme for 1992. Thisyear we will be focusing on theyouth. Rather than go around andprovide repetitive programmes wehave developed a training course foryouth educators (i.e. all people inparish involved in some form ofeducation,- catechism teachers,confirmation class teachers, etc.)This programme is being provided atDeanery level.

December1996

AIDS Care Committee

The AIDS Care Committee of theArchdiocese of Durban calls forapplications for two nursing postsin its Home Care Programme.

August1997

Anti AIDS Campaign

In the past few years the KwaZulu-Natal Church Leaders Group (KNCLG)has been networking with otherconcerned groups to address thealarmingly rapid and consistentspread of AIDS. Together with theleadership in the political,business and academic sectors, theKNCLG held a number of informationgathering and sharing meetings onthe situation of AIDS in theprovince. It held a Bosberaad atMooi River from 25-27 June 1997. As

a result of that conference, areport-back and forward planningmeeting is scheduled at MusgraveRoad Methodist Church on 3rd Sept.1997. Each church is to bring 15-20representatives who are committed totackling the AIDS issue withdetermination. It was therefore aGodsend to have ‘True Love Waits’organise a special action onSaturday 9 August at the City Hall.

December1998

Christmas, a time of hope

As the year draws to a close onecannot help noting that 1988 was notthe best of years. Among otherthings the moral decay in public andsocial life, but particularly theHIV/AIDS crisis has brought down onus a cloud of disillusionment andhopelessness. So much so that manypeople are asking “what is there tocelebrate at Christmas?”

According to the News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durbanarticles, the archdiocese of Durban was actively training itsleaders on the subject of HIV and AIDS during the early 1990s.These leaders were expected to teach in the catechism and amongthe youth forums what they had learned. The trainings were doneby members of the AIDS Care Committee such as Liz Towell andSabbath Mlambo upon invitation by the archbishop and thedeaneries. The emphasis during the early years, similar to thatof the SACBC, was on awareness. The trainings did not reach theparish level in the 1990s; there were efforts to train at dioceseand deanery levels. These trainings flourished up until 199247

and are unheard of during the rest of the 1990s.

Evidently, the Catholic Church collaborated with other faith-based organisations in the province to organize a concertedreligious response in 1997. For instance, the KwaZulu-Natal

47 Southern Cross, “Durban AIDS course enthusiasm,” 13 September 1992.

Church Leaders Group (KNCLG) held “a number of informationgathering and sharing meetings on the situation of AIDS in theprovince” in 1997.48 It held a conference at Mooi River from 25to 27 June 1997 and “a report-back and forward planning meeting”at Musgrave Road Methodist Church in Durban on 3 September1997.49 The Durban-based Diakonia Fellowship,50 of whichArchbishop Hurley was an executive member, was also running someAIDS exposure meetings in the late 1990s.51 These para-churchinitiatives did not translate into programmes during the 1990s;they however mushroomed into projects during the 2000s.

That only five of the 108 News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban(1991-99) publications mentioned AIDS is indicative of thearchdiocese’s hesitance in talking about the disease. Liz Towelltestified to this hesitation too.52 She had memories of difficultexperiences in her talks to priests about HIV and AIDS. As thecoordinator of the archdiocese’s AIDS programme, she was ofteninvited by Archbishop Hurley to speak to groups of priests inDurban and at the deaneries. To her amazement, the priests werevery hesitant to discuss, or even engage, with the subject. Inone such workshop held in Durban in 1996, Hurley intervened andasked the priests to feel free and ask any kind of questions andcomment on anything. Astonishingly, even then the priestsremained numb and removed. According to Towell, the workshop wasa failure. Apparently, the 1990 move by the top leadership of thechurch at the SACBC level to respond to HIV and AIDS was notimmediately reciprocated by the lower levels such as thedeaneries and the parishes. The AIDS debates that flourished inthe 1990s among bishops, seminary principals, and religioussuperiors did not become popular among ordinary parish priests.

48 News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, “Anti AIDSCampaign ,” 337 (August 1997), 45.

49 News and Bulletin of Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, “Anti AIDSCampaign ,” 337 (August 1997), 45.

50 Diakonia Fellowship is a council of churches within the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

51 Kearney, Interview by author, 14 August 2008.52 Towell, Interview by author, 9 July 2008.

Catholic discourses on prevention characteristically targetedyoung people. There was the underlying assumption that the olderpersons were ‘immune,’ or even, safer than the youths. Maritalrelationship was seen to be a ‘safe haven’ where AIDS would noteasily penetrate. This explains why in the few times the churchspoke about AIDS it did so in the context of warning young peopleagainst sexual sinfulness. Catholic AIDS programmes wereexclusively targeted to the youths. This was well depicted inthe True Love Waits programme. Supported by the SACBC, theprogramme spread through the dioceses with the primary aim ofconvincing the young people to abstain from sexual intercourseuntil they got married. There were no such programmes for marriedwomen and men. In the 2000s the pendulum would swing fromoveremphasis on youths to people in abusive relationships such aswomen and children.

Catholic prevention discourses in the 1990s continued to bemorally judgemental. Religious leaders, bishops, priests, andcatechists openly condemned technical interventions such as theuse of condoms. They championed moral measures in HIV prevention.Meanwhile, Catholic doctors, nurses, and social workersdiscreetly promoted the use of condoms. In Mariannhill, theCatholic social workers running the AIDS programme for thedepartment of Home and Family Life started using the analogy of‘three boats and a drowning village’ in 1996.53 This analogy hadbecome very popular in East Africa by 1995.54 It was part of thefamous prevention campaign known as ABC – Abstain, Be faithful,and Condomise. The analogy was first used in 1994 by BernardJoinet, a Catholic priest serving in Tanzania.55 In the analogy,individual members of the drowning village had to decide which of

53 Boysen, Interview by author, 23 November 2007.54 Caroline Baylies and Janet Bujra eds., AIDS, Sexuality and Gender in Africa:

Collective Strategies and Struggles in Tanzania and Zambia (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), ff.

55 Marjorie Mbilinyi and Naomi Kaihula, “Sinners and ousiders: the drama of AIDS in Rungwe”, in Caroline Baylies and Janet Bujra eds., AIDS, Sexuality and Gender in Africa. Collective Strategies and Struggles in Tanzania and Zambia (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 76-95. Seealso Bernard Joinet, Survivre face au SIDA en Afrique (Paris, Karthala, 1994). See also Philippe Denis, “AIDS and religion insub-Saharan Africa in a historical perspective,” a paper delivered at an International AIDS Symposium in Copenhagen on 21 April 2008.

the three boats they would use in order to survive thecatastrophe. According to Boysen, they insisted in theirworkshops that “people can change from one boat to another. Thereare times to cross from one boat condition to another, fromabstinence to condom use, for instance”.56 Apparently, Boysen andher colleagues in the Mariannhill diocese had learned to livewith the two extremes, the moral ideal advocated by the CatholicChurch hierarchy and the technical intervention popularized bythe government. The analogy helped them resolve thiscontradiction. “Sometimes we used a priest – to speak from histheological position”, Boysen explained, “however, aspractitioners we knew there was access to these things[condoms]”.57

Similarly, Catholic nurses in Durban distributed and encouragedthe use of condoms. Liz Towell and Sabbath Mlambo attested tothis. It must have been an awkward position for the priests to beasked by their archbishop to engage in a workshop on sex with thenurses. The priests knew that the nurses had contravened thechurch’s official teachings. Archbishop Denis Hurley was askingthem to “ask any question” to the nurses. It is in Durban,therefore, that this contradiction on the part of the churchorgans became most pronounced. The retirement of Hurley, whocondoned the use of condoms, and the subsequent installation ofNapier, who sternly condemned the use of condoms, led to majorpower and policy shifts in relation to AIDS ministry within thediocese, especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The discourse was somewhat different in the Eshowe diocese.Contrary to many other KwaZulu-Natal dioceses, in Eshowe the AIDSministry was spearheaded by religious and not lay persons. TheBlessed Gérard Care Centre, the Franciscan Nardini Sisters andthe Benedictine Sisters of Twasana were the key pioneers in AIDSeducation. FatherGérard Lagleder, the president of the BlessedGérard Care Centre and Hospice, married the two extremes - as ahealth practitioner, he openly advocated the use of condoms, andas a parish priest, he upheld the moral teachings of the Catholic

56 Boysen, Interview by author, 23 November 2007.57 Boysen, Interview by author, 23 November 2007.

Church. He not only urged his patients to use condoms in caseswhere they admitted that they could not abstain but also madethem sign a treatment contract with a promise to do so.58 FatherLagleder had found a theological motivation for juxtaposing thetwo extremes. Similar sentiments were expressed by SisterPriscilla Dlamini, the sister in-charge at the BenedictineSisters’ Holy Cross AIDS Hospice.59

In Dundee, sex education discourses drew mixed reactions amongparishioners. The conflicting messages between the church and thegovernment position created much pandemonium and confusion.Sister ImmaculataNdlovu spoke of a lady who thought that thecondom was a cure-all kind of an intervention which, like a magicbullet, could fix all her family sexual disorders. She stormedinto the convent one evening with two young lads, her 12 year oldson and her younger daughter, and exclaimed – “tell me where Ican find the condom!” She went ahead to explain that the boy wassexually assaulting his younger sister in the absence of themother. The mother wanted access to the condom so as to preventthe boy from doing so. According to Sister Immaculata,60 thegovernment was to blame for the confusion this young mother foundherself in. Arguably, the standoff between the government and theCatholic Church as far as HIV prevention methods are concernedmay not be solely to blame for the conflicting messages on HIVprevention. The above story illustrates that the government’sapproach of ‘all-condom’ was not good enough; a multi-levelapproach to HIV prevention might have been more fruitful. Thegovernment’s revision of its position from safe sex campaign(condoms only) to the safer sex campaign (the ABC methods) in1999 was a necessary step in this direction.61 The CatholicChurch was, however, equally quilty in that it spoke with ‘twodifferent tongues’ when it came to HIV prevention. On the onehand, the religious and the hierarchy condemned condoms and

58 Lagleder, interview by author, 10 October 2007.59 Priscilla Dlamini, telephone interview conducted by author on 10

December 2008.60 Sister Immaculata, digital recording, interview conducted by author at

the bishop’s offices in Dundee, on 15 September 2007.61 Southern Cross, “Restraint not condoms will beat AIDS: bishops,” 28

February 1999.

upheld abstinence as the only safe method of HIV prevention. Onthe other hand, the lay leaders, nurses, doctors and care givers,encouraged and even promoted the use of condoms. This ambivalencedid more damage than good in the churches response to theepidemic.

Probably, much more harm, particularly on the public trust in theinterests of the Catholic Church, resulted from the church’sdefensive statements. Most of the sex education statements made byCatholic clerics in the 1990s concerning HIV or AIDS were notspecifically aimed at checking the escalating spread of theepidemic but rather on exonerating the church from a perceivedpublic attack. The church became more concerned with defendingits teachings rather than in engaging the public in an openanswer-searching dialogue. Charles Ryan has called thisphenomenon the “we told you so attitude”62whereas Kenneth Kearondescribed it as “a strong undercurrent of ‘we warned you’, ‘wewere right all along’”.63

A good example is the attempt by the church to discredit theeffectiveness of condom use in HIV prevention against a cloud ofscientific witness. Its position could be summarised into threestatements which were repeatedly made by clerics, not always inthe exact words. The first was that the use of condoms promotespromiscuous behaviour. The SACBC’s Pastoral Statement on AIDS statedcategorically that “the condom message can increase rather thandecrease the incidence of AIDS”.64 Zambian bishops candidlystated that “the condom is immoral and destructive of the dignityof a person”.65 Vatican officials maintained “that condom-based‘safe sex’ campaigns end up promoting sexual immorality withouteliminating the risk”.66 Archbishop ButiTlhagale of Bloemfonteincontested that “the acceptance of condom use would simply turnthe church’s traditional teaching on sexual ethics on its

62 Ryan, AIDS and Responsibility: the Catholic Tradition, 4 and 5.63 Kearon, Medical Ethics, 117. 64 SACBC, Pastoral Letter on AIDS (Pretoria: SACBC, 1990), 8.65 Zambian Catholic Bishops, December 2002, posted by afAIDS@healthdev.net,

19 December 2002.66 Southern Cross, “Just how safe is ‘safe sex’?” 26 October 1997.

head”.67 In a 1999 pastoral letter, Archbishop Lawrence Henry ofCape Town said that condom use did not guarantee protection fromAIDS but was equivalent to entering into a deadly game of Russianroulette.68 Meanwhile, Father Francois Dufour, the Johannesburgepiscopal vicar for the youth, denounced the ‘safer sex’ messagepromoted by the government. In an article that appeared in themonthly diocesan youth newsletter, the Catholic Y Link, Dufour warnedagainst the Department of Education’s decision to distributecondoms at schools saying that it amounted to funding sexualpromiscuity.69 In a brief SACBC statement released in February1999, the bishops reiterated that providing more condoms wouldnot prevent the spread of AIDS as it would encouragepromiscuity.70 The evidence is overwhelming that clericscontinued to condemn the use of condoms, both as a contraceptiveand as a prevention method, and regarded it as a sign of sexualpromiscuity in the society.

Part of the problem for the church as far as sex education wasconcerned was that all too often artificial means of birthcontrol and a means of preventing the spread of infection weretalked about as if they were the same thing. Alison Munro, thecoordinator of the SACBC AIDS Office, concurs that a lot ofemotion and negative energy was “so often expended by everyonetrying to explain and justify a position, and instead proclaimpositively our message”.71 She told Catholic theologians and AIDSactivists that “the AIDS public is often outraged when thechurch, or some people in it at least, appears to believe thatcondom use promotes promiscuous behaviour”.72 The church’sunabated condemnation of the use of condoms stirred confusion,anger, and guilt among the public. It blurred the obvious message

67 ButiTlhagale, Condoms and the Church’s Moral Teachings, personal notes, no dates, the citations referred to in the paper are up to 2000.

68 Southern Cross, “AIDS support must grow,” 25 January 1998.69 Francois Dufour, “Condom strategy a failure,” Catholic Y Link no. 67

(September 1999), 4-7.70 Southern Cross, “Restraint not condoms will beat AIDS: bishops,” 28

February 1999.71 Munro, Responsibility: the Prevention of HIV/AIDS, 22-51.72 See Munro, Responsibility: the Prevention of HIV/AIDS, 38. The paper

was first presented in the third Catholic Theological Conference on HIV/AIDS held at St Augustine College between 5th and 7th February 2003.

that condoms had a place in the prevention of the spread of HIVinfection, as opposed to contraception, especially in cases wherepeople engaged in risky sexual practices.

The second statement was that condoms have holes bigger than thesize of an HI virus and therefore do not offer the desiredprotection. In an effort to problematise the use of condoms, thechurch officials fantasised far too long with ‘the scientificmyth’ that the latex had micropores large enough to let in the HIvirus. It was not the scientific incorrectness of this claim thatdid much harm; it was rather the uncritical broadcast of it bythe church in the name of sex education that dealt a deadly blowin its response to HIV and AIDS. Scientific findings were oftenand very unhappily played off against values promoted by thechurch teachings.73 Indeed, AIDS related articles that filled thepages of the Southern Cross during the 1990s are a vividdemonstration of how the church officials (bishops) tried to dragscientific evidence into supporting its moral disapproval of thecondom use. A case in point is a 37 page article by FatherJacques Suaudeau, a medical doctor and a member of the PontificalCouncil for the Family, which was first published in the RomeCatholic Journal, Medicina e Morale, in June 1997 and later in theSouthern Cross.74 Titled ‘Safe Sex’ and the Condom, Faced with the Challenge AIDS,it argued that in 10-15 percent of sexual acts, condoms do notprevent transmission of HIV. The priest’s article raisedobjections when it spoke about condoms ‘breaking easily’ andhaving ‘micropores’ which he said are big enough to allow passageof the HIV. Fernando Aiuti, an Italian immunologist, responded byasserting that “it is scientifically proven that pores present incondoms do not allow HIV to pass through”. Vittorio Agnoletto,president of the Italian Anti-AIDS League, dismissed FatherSuaudeau’s assertions as “scientific ignorance used forideological and moralistic purposes”.75 Worse still, the sourcesused by Father Suaudeau in his argument publicly distancedthemselves from his conclusions citing misrepresentation in thedebate.

73 See Munro, Responsibility: the Prevention of HIV/AIDS, 38.74 Southern Cross, “Just how safe is ‘safe sex’?” 26 October 1997.75 Southern Cross, “Just how safe is ‘safe sex’?” 26 October 1997.

That the validity of condom use was more than 98 percent whenused properly and that condoms had been useful in saving liveswas not debatable. The irony in the debate was that the Catholicbishops capitalized on the insignificant failure rate of thecondoms to make the point that only abstinence was 100 percentsafe and thereby vindicate the church’s teachings. As JenniferSlater, a Catholic theologian, put it, the question is why moraltheologians were so tardy in formulating a responsible responseto HIV and AIDS? Why did they keep on harping on the futilearguments around the use and non-use of condoms?76 This is not tosay that the church should have abdicated its role in teachingand witnessing to an authentic ethic of human sexuality inaccordance with mankind’s dignity and God’s vocation. However, asRyan lamented, “the situation ‘in the field,’ to which any pastorwill testify, dramatically illustrates the failure of the Churchin South Africa in conveying to its members,” much less tosociety at large, “a sexual morality that is both human anddignified”.77 Ryan called upon the Catholic Church to correct itsmotivation for responding to HIV and AIDS, to engage in anorchestrated, authentic, and sustained campaign of sex educationthat is born out of a realization of failures in the past.78

The third statement was that the use of condoms is actually thekey cause of the increased HIV spread. As early as 1992, articlesin the Southern Cross by clerics were blaming the increase of theHIV spread on the government’s distribution of condoms.79 Thiscontinued throughout the 1990s. During my interview with him,Cardinal Napier credited the Ugandan success story in slowing theHIV spread to the country’s consolidated ‘Abstinence’ message.80

In all SACBC statements on AIDS, the bishops have associated theSouth Africa government’s indiscriminate distribution of condomsto the escalation of the HIV and AIDS epidemic.81

76 Jennifer Slater, “AIDS and Responsibility: The Catholic Tradition, Response to Charles Ryan,” in Bate, Responsibility in a Time of AIDS, 19-30.

77 Ryan, AIDS and Responsibility: the Catholic Tradition, 14. 78 Ryan, AIDS and Responsibility: the Catholic Tradition, 14. 79 Southern Cross, “AIDS fight methods seen as ‘a lie,’” 9 August 1992.80 Napier, follow-up interview by author, 14 August 2008.

ConclusionFor the hierarchy to consistently say that the use of condoms was‘part of the problem’ when multiple and credible evidence82

suggested that condom-use campaign had drastically reduced therate of HIV infection in other African countries only taintedfurther the image of the church, let alone the negativeconsequences this had on the prevention campaign itself. It isthis statement, most especially, that was used by critiques ofthe Catholic Church to argue that either the church is so unawareof the appalling conditions on the ground or it just does notcare enough.83 Given the magnitude of the AIDS crisis, especiallyin the late 1990s, it was possible for one to interpret such astatement in that all the church cared for was chastity andobedience to a set of moral directives and not the vulnerablemultitude at the margins of the church who were, in one way oranother, not in a position to live-out those directives.

However, as demonstrated in this article, it was not the entirechurch that kept the official position on the use of condoms. Thelay leaders, especially, were tactfully deviant. By the end of1999, there was an enormous amount of pressure on the bishops toreconsider the church’s official position on the use of condoms.Bishops such as Kevin Dowling and his retired cousin, ArchbishopHurley, as well as theologians such as Alison Munro and CharlesRyan played a significant role in calling the church into someself-searching expedition vis-à-vis sex education and HIVprevention. However, the most significant pressure came from laypractitioners on ground. This was not unique both to Catholicismand the region as the research work of Jenny Trinitapoli andAlexander Weinreb on East Africa and Pentecostalism has clearlyshown.84

81 I have in mind four SACBC pastoral statements and letters on AIDS. These were released in 1988, 1990, 1999, and 2002.

82 See Byamugisa, Journeys of Faith, 13. On statistics see Liz Clarke’s article, Sunday Tribute, “AIDS: A new helping hand,” 1 December 1999.

83 See K. T. Kelly, New Directions in Sexual Ethics – Moral Theology and the Challenge of AIDS (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1998), 10-23. 84 Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb, Religion and AIDS in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 16-18.

It was what the church said and how it said it that createdcontroversy, more than anything else. More often than not, thechurch did not know what to say about HIV and Aids, especially inregard to prevention and the role of condoms, sex and sexeducation. The church seemed to speak with two juxtaposingvoices. Whereas a debate was raging among the laity thatconsidered ‘condoms as an option’ in HIV prevention, the clergyremained adamant on the church’s official position that condemnedthe use of condoms both as a contraceptive measure and as atechnical intervention in HIV prevention. A cloud of ambiguitycanvassed the entire subject of sex and sexuality. Apparently,the clergy was embarrassed to speak about sexuality. Whenever itdid, it was unnecessarily defensive, sometimes passive, andgenerally ambivalent. This was depicted in the uneasiness of theclerics in engaging the laity on the subject of HIV prevention,their fruitless attempts to problematise the use of condoms inHIV prevention, and their deadening silence on the church’sconcern over the fate of the people, whether inside or outsidethe zone of church influence, who could neither abstain fromsexual intercourse nor remain faithful to one partner.

The position of the Catholic Church in South Africa on condomsduring the 1990s as well as the discourse thereof need not beseen in isolation of the entire historical development of theAIDS debate in the country during the 1980s, 1990s and especiallythe 2000s. The reestablishment of the Southern Africa CatholicBishops’ Conference (SACBC) Aids Office in August 199985 and thesubsequent signing of a 5 Million USD collaboration contractbetween the SACBC, the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) andthe Bristol Myers Squibb company (BMS)86 set the scene for a newchapter in the Catholic Church’s response to HIV and Aids inSouth Africa. Whereas it had been envisaged that thecollaboration between the three bodies during the 5 yearscontract period would encompass various aspects of the Catholic85 SACBC, Minutes of the plenary session held between 5 and 11 August 1999 at Mariannhill.86 Terms of Agreement between the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) based in New York, USA, and the Southern Africa Catholic Bishop’s Conference, SACBC,Para 17, revised edition, 11 January 2000.

Church’s response to the epidemic, the use of condoms in HIVprevention took the centre stage. The condom debate, whichescalated immediately after the signing of this contract andcontinued unabated throughout the 2000s, was not entirelyunrelated to the contract. These were immediately followed by the‘Dowling controversy’ and the ‘Message of Hope’ which I havediscussed at length elsewhere.87 Therefore, during the 2000s, theSouth African Catholic Church’s way of talking about the diseasechanged considerably as compared to the 1990s. Although the‘Message of Hope’ dashed hopes of many in bishops’ sanctioning ofthe use of condoms, Catholic moral theologians conferences heldat St Augustine College in 2003 (Johannesburg) and at St JosephTheological Institute (Pietermaritzburg) in 2013 continued toguide the discourse in a more proactive manner. Indeed, as bothRyan and Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator argued, the trajectory ofCatholic responses stretches from denial and resistance toconversion and engagement via moments of stigmatization andmarginalization, compassion and care for people living withAIDS.88

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