The National HIV/AIDS coordinator of the Sierra Leone Bible Society, Catharine Harding, has disclosed that the church can use condom.
In an interview with Awoko during a three-day Good Samaritan workshop on HIV/AIDS for the blind and the visually impaired at the Bible Society’s Congo Cross office in Freetown, Ms Harding said, “it is not immoral to use condom, it depends on how you use it. This is an aspect we are making clear to them [religious leaders] and as far as I’m concerned we are doing our best to clear the air, there are pastors now who are actually comfortable in talking about condom use in their respective churches and even encouraging people to use it through the counseling unit they have set up in their churches.”
“HIV/AIDS has gone beyond immorality. It is a social problem that touches everyone in our society. It concerns each and everyone of us regardless of race, position, religious beliefs or whatever you are either infected or affected. It is not even a disease it is an epidemic…Promoting the use of condoms is a biggest challenge for us, some religious leaders have refused to attend HIV/AIDS workshop because some of them think that it promote condom use”.
She explained that, “we come to realize that there are souls perishing in churches and people need to be saved having realized that the solution to HIV/AIDS is in the hands of the churches… they only preach about prosperity and they think with that they will be able to increase the number of their congregation, not considering the fact that the size of the congregation doesn’t matter.”