AS THE first Catholic bishop in Africa to openly challenge the Vatican’s ban on contraception in combating the spread of HIV, Bishop Kevin Dowling has drawn praise from staunch critics of the Church.
But, speaking in Dublin this week, he warned against reducing the fight against Aids to the “one issue” of condoms.
A prominent campaigner on social justice issues in southern Africa, Dowling has admitted to advising his parishioners on condom use in the northern mining town of Rustenburg, where prostitution is widespread.
He has described condoms as “very successful” in stopping infections, and now travels worldwide to raise funds for HIV treatment and hospice care.
Nonetheless, he sympathises with Pope Benedict over the pontiff’s recent, controversial remarks about how to stop the spread of Aids in Africa.
“The single line that he [the Pope] used was taken in isolation from a much broader perspective that he was trying to bring about the church’s mission and programmes in Africa that are absolutely crucial, including behaviour modification, which is the only way we are going to turn around this pandemic in the end,” Bishop Dowling said.
“Unfortunately, the polemic always comes around to the one issue and takes out the whole context of what we are trying to do as a whole in Africa.”
During his trip to Africa last March, the Pope said condoms would not solve the crisis, and could make it worse. Asked whether he felt the Vatican would ever change its position on this, Bishop Dowling replied: “The problem is the church, the official church, if it brings in a slight nuance that is going to be open to misunderstanding.”
In the absence of a “consistently pro-life stance”, he said the church would continue to be “challenged to give full complete non-judgmental information”, as he was doing in his diocese.
Bishop Dowling has also become an outspoken figure on Zimbabwe, an issue on which many in the church continue to tread carefully. The bishop was scathing about South African Development Community’s role in the crisis, noting dryly that South African president Jacob Zuma has “apparently put pressure” on President Robert Mugabe to reform.
But, he said, “all the years I have been engaged I have seen Mugabe manipulate everything to his advantage, and he is still doing it, and until he goes there is not going to be a coming together of this nation, or a reconstruction of this society. Either he has got to die, or he must be gracefully removed”.
The bishop was invited to Ireland to launch a book on the late archbishop Denis Hurley, who led a liberal wing in the church against apartheid in South Africa. He said the archbishop was “ahead of his time” and “a prophet in the church and in the country”.
Sr Margaret Kelly, a Dominican who worked with the archbishop in South Africa, described Bishop Dowling in similar terms. "Probably like archbishop Hurley he will never be made a cardinal" as he too was "always in trouble" with his superiors. She was speaking at the launch of Guardian of the Light: Denis Hurleyby Paddy Kearney, at a function in Dublin, hosted by Trócaire.
