Vatican to weigh condoms in fighting AIDS

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The morality and effectiveness of using condoms to
prevent HIV/AIDS will be on the agenda at a Vatican conference this
weekend (May 27-28), six months after comments by Pope Benedict XVI
again touched off worldwide controversy.

The conference, which will focus on "the centrality of care" in
preventing and treating HIV/AIDS, is sponsored by the Pontifical Council
for Health Care Workers, and is scheduled to include two dozen speakers
from across the globe.

One speaker will be Edward C. Green, former director of the AIDS
Prevention Research Project at the Harvard School of Public Health, who
in March 2009 defended Benedict's statement that condoms actually
"increase the problem" of AIDS in Africa.