.- As a result of a new study by the United Nations Population Fund, the BBC is staging a new phase of assaults against the Catholic Church’s teachings that chastity is the only effective way of combating AIDS and other STDs, reports LifeSiteNews.
The BBC story also ignores the unprecedented success of the abstinence program in Uganda, sponsored by the African country’s conference of Catholic bishops.
According to a study on the Ugandan program by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), HIV prevalence had peaked at 15 per cent in 1991, and had fallen to 5 per cent in 2001. USAID credited the significant drop to a decrease in multiple sexual partners.
In comparison to other African nations, "Ugandan males in 1995 were less likely to have ever had sex, more likely to be married and keep sex within the marriage, and less likely to have multiple partners," said the American aid agency.
USAID concludes: “A comprehensive behavior change-based strategy…may be the most effective prevention approach."
The Catholic position is that abstinence is the only safe, reliable solution and the solution that also respects the dignity of the person and marriage and maintains the family and, ultimately, the social order.
"It is not the use or non-use of condoms that is the problem, it is having sexual relations with someone who is infected with the virus,” Hilary White of Campaign Life Catholic told LifeSiteNews. “Condom or no condom, it is playing Russian Roulette. If you don't stop, you are eventually going to get the bullet.”
