Gaborone — The St. Joseph's clinic in Kgale under the management of the Roman Catholic Church may be open to the general public, but enforces the polices of the church, which do not support the use of contraceptives.

At the clinic, there is virtually no human traffic, but the clinic staffers keep busy, their doors open to residents from the city and neighbouring settlements. Goitsemang Mosenene, who lives in a nearby settlement, says that he gets his supply of condoms from clinics in Gaborone. He adds that residents have never complained about the policy because they do not want to challenge an institution as big as the Catholic Church.

"It is a losing battle. But the reality is people do get infected and young girls do get pregnant," he says.

Father John Corrigan of the Roman Catholic Church in Gaborone reveals that St. Joseph's clinic is both a mission clinic and a government- aided clinic. He then states that it functions according to the Roman Catholic Holy Act, which does not treat sex lightly.

Father John says that during this era of HV/AIDS pandemic, the church encourages a new message to the youth - "practice safe sex".

"Sex is a secret and holy act that is meant to be a gift from God to husband and wife. However, with young people engaging in pre-marital sex, we encourage safe sex under two conditions. Don't get AIDS. Don't get pregnant," he says.

He maintains that the church has a moral objection to the use of condoms, and on that basis, condoms will not be tolerated. However, he adds that they are mindful of the fact that the youth engage in sexual intercourse before matrimony.

It's almost a year since Pope Benedict XVI has been elected to sit on Peter's throne and Father Corrigan says that policies of the church will never change. To date Pope Benedict continues the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II.

In 1988 a debate within the Catholic Church over the use of condoms to prevent AIDS sparked controversy. In 1968, the Church stated in Humanae Vitae that chemical and barrier methods of contraception went against Church teachings. The debate was over the issue of whether or not condoms could be used, not as contraceptives, but as a means of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

In Pope Benedict's (then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) letter to Archbishop Pio Laghi dated May 29, 1988 titled "On 'The Many Faces of AIDS'", he stated: "To seek a solution to the problem of infection by promoting the use of prophylactics would be to embark on a way not only insufficiently reliable from the technical point of view, but also and above all, unacceptable from the moral aspect. Such a proposal for 'safe' or at least 'safer' sex -- as they say - ignores the real cause of the problem, namely, the permissiveness which, in the area of sex as in that related to other abuses, corrodes the moral fibre of the people."