Bishop Eugenio Rixen of Goias, chairman of the committee which includes a mix of religious and lay social workers who advise the bishops on health issues, told the Associated Press news agency: “We are reflecting whether the use of condoms is less serious, morally speaking, than getting infected or infecting other people with the AIDS virus.” Leandro Lindner, a spokesman for the committee, said several “influential bishops” support the idea.

At the opening speech of a conference about pastoral responses to AIDS, held in the city of Ileaus, Bishop Rixen said that “the ideal is to not have sex, and to live a chaste life, but if someone does not agree or cannot assume this teaching, what medicine says is that sexual intercourse with condoms may prevent AIDS.”

“Priests will not promote condoms from the pulpit, but this is certainly the lesser evil,” Bishop Rixen added in his inauguration of the conference, held from June 12 to 14.

The following day, most of the Brazilian newspapers used headlines such as “Bishops approve the use of condoms,” and the response generated a wave of controversy.

The bishops’ conference does not currently advocate the use of condoms, in conformity with Catholic teaching against the use of contraception, but the issue has come under discussion for “high-risk” groups, including homosexuals and prostitutes.

The French bishops’ conference floated the idea in 1996, but the Vatican quickly reiterated that artificial contraception is always unacceptable. Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said recently that the remedy for AIDS “lies in chastity before matrimony and in faithfulness during marriage.”

But Bishop Rixen said condom use could be acceptable under the idea that people have the freedom to choose the lesser of two evils. “It’s like in a war,” he said. “Killing is always bad, but sometimes you have to kill to save your own life.”

On June 14, Cardinal Eugenio de Araujo Sales of Rio de Janeiro issued a strong statement, also printed by the press, that said “the Church has not changed its position” regarding the use of condoms. The cardinal recalled that “as the encyclical Humanae Vitae stated, the concept of ‘lesser evil’ cannot be applied to sexual intercourse willingly dissociated from its main objective, which is reproduction within marriage.”

“It is never moral—not even in critical circumstances—to do evil in order to achieve a good objective,” the cardinal explained. Cardinal Sales also reminded his audience that “even science has widely confirmed that condoms do not stop the propagation of AIDS, as the [Brazilian] Institute of Norms and Industrial Quality stated in 1996 regarding the condoms distributed at the Carnival.”

“What the Church teaches regarding contraception is not a matter that can be freely discussed but belongs to the core of the teachings of the Church,” Cardinal Sales concluded. Bishop Rixen told the press that he would refrain from further comment, but said that he would probably issue an statement “clearing up my point.”

On June 15, the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB) issued an official statement which confirmed the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the immorality of condom use, but also expressed solidarity with AIDS victims and the pastoral workers who care for them.

“From the point of view of Catholic morality, it is not acceptable to use condoms in order to fulfill a disordered sexual life, reducing sexuality to a mere good of consumption and implying that sexual activity, when ‘safe’ is ethically indifferent,” the document says.

Later, a Brazilian priest was warned by the bishops’ conference to stop passing out condoms as part of his own campaign to combat the spread of AIDS.

Archbishop Claudio Hummes of Sao Paulo warned Italian priest Father Valeriano Paitoni that he could face ecclesiastical sanctions for acts incompatible with the faith of the Church. “Considering the clear and reiterated affirmation of the Pope and the Church, which condemns the use of condoms, I declare . . . that the priest’s attitude is incompatible,” he said.

The archbishop added that the “letter of condemnation” would be followed by other punitive actions “to correct this regrettable situation” if he does not comply.

Father Paitoni, who has worked in Brazil for 22 years, said in a magazine interview that condoms are the lesser of two evils. “If the condom protects life, there is no reason not to view it as a lesser evil. . . . It deals with a greater good,” Father Paitoni said.