Catholics for Choice's Condoms4Life campaign is spearheading an effort to ask Pope Benedict XVI to lift the ban on condoms.

In April of this year, sources close to the new pope indicated he had requested that senior theologians and scientists prepare a document on condom use as a means of preventing HIV transmission. Although some Vatican insiders—including Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council on the Family, who claims condoms have minute holes through which the virus is transmitted (“Sex and the Holy City,” BBC/Panorama, October 12, 2003)—have insisted there will be no relaxing of the ban, Catholics and non-Catholics around the world remain hopeful that the church will change this policy.

Recent data from the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS indicate that since Benedict XVI became pope on April 19, 2005,

• 5.5 million people have acquired HIV, and
• 3.7 million people have died of AIDS-related causes.

What You Can Do

• Sign on to the Condoms4Life letter calling on Pope Benedict XVI to lift the ban on condoms and join others in the active prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world.  Click here to read and sign the letter.

• Ask your friends to sign on to the letter today.
• Read the press statement.
• Visit the Condoms4Life campaign's website.
• See a history of bishops' support for and opposition to condoms.
• Read articles from the Toronto Sun and Ottawa Sun about the Condoms4Life campaign at the 2006 International AIDS Conference.