Africans always give a visiting pope a hearty welcome. Thousands of finely dressed Cameroonians danced and sang at the roadside this week as Pope Benedict XVI arrived on an inaugural African tour that will also take in Angola. The Vatican is keen on the continent, home to around 135m Catholics. Pope Benedict delivered a compassionate message, recognising that Africa suffers disproportionately from food shortages, poverty, financial turmoil and a changing climate. Yet for all the mutual appreciation, he got one matter painfully wrong.
Asked about the use of condoms to help tackle the scourge of AIDS, the pope restated, in unusually explicit terms, the church’s position that these are not useful to “overcome” the epidemic, indeed their use actually makes the problem worse. He suggested the disease could be beaten through chastity, abstinence and “correct behaviour”. Speaking in a continent where more than 20m people have died from AIDS and another 22.5m are infected with HIV, his statement sounded otherworldly at best, and crass and uncaring at worst. Merely wishing away human sexual behaviour does nothing for the potential victims of AIDS, many of whom are innocent under even the most moralistic definition of that word.
My two posts to the Economist:
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Hmm, I thought the liberals were suppose to be all scientific and rational. Yet, they abandon good science to continue their assault on religious figures. We have the following from epidemiology which is ignored so the the liberals can launch their hateful and intolerant darts:
“There is a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates.”
Edward Green, Director of AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.
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and
[blockquote] Of course, my last comment applies to a population wide setting. If you are an individual who wants to engage in unsafe sexual practices, then yes, condoms help. This is why Uganda has advocated ABC – Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms, but it is not CAB!
If you look at condom importation into Uganda, the numbers swelled AFTER the incidence had fallen from 30% to single digits. What happened with the large influx of condoms? The incidence went back UP. Go to the website of a great organization, that is making great strides in Uganda and now Burundi, http://www.uceglobal.org/
The Pope is correct. His detractors are WRONG! Third world governments should tell the liberal western governments to keep their boatloads of condoms.
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The paper makes it sound like humans are incapable of changing their behavior,and chastise the Pope for suggesting otherwise! More liberal tripe, that equates humans as lower than animals.
Christianity calls us to HIGHER behavior than base human nature. The Pope reflects this teaching. Bravo!
RE:”…Merely wishing away human sexual behaviour does nothing for the potential victims of AIDS, many of whom are innocent under even the most moralistic definition of that word.”
This is exactly the kind of condescending attitude that DOES prevent education around continent behavior and about the consequences of acting upon every inclination of the flesh.
Its all smoke and mirrors and simply a chance for the secularists to pour scorn on the Pope, whose only sin is to disagree with their ‘enlightened’ thinking. I blogged a spread on it here entitled the ‘dishonest condom debate’
http://sbarnabas.com/blog/2009/03/20/the-dishonest-condom-debate/