Thanks Again, Your Holiness
Let’s hear it for the pope and his public health expertise! Tuesday, on his way to Cameroon, Pope Benedict let loose with a charmer on the subject of the public health implications of condom use in connection with the AIDS crisis. “[AIDS] cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.” Is he kidding?
Look, I get why he can’t encourage condom use. It’s the Catholic Church. Contraception is a no-no for the traditional, and they don’t get any more traditional than the man in the seat of Peter. But could he perhaps keep his mouth shut about a public health issue that’s WELL outside his area of expertise? Condoms INCREASE THE PROBLEM? Given that they’re currently one of Africa’s best hopes (one of its few hopes) for keeping the spread of HIV under control, it would have been nice had he kept his statements away from epidemiology and closer to religion.
The pope’s solution? “[A] humanisation of sexuality, a human, spiritual renewal which brings with it a new way of behaving among people and, secondly, a true friendship, especially for those who are suffering, a willingness to make personal sacrifices.” He also apparently called for “correct behaviour regarding one’s body”. Mm-hm. Universal “correct behavior” is going to be coming any second now.
Maybe I’m just a cynic, but I really hope we don’t have to wait for everyone to achieve correctness before we get AIDS under control.
The whole story on Reuters.
Another fascinating example of how the Catholic Church insists on pulling itself further and further away from the realities of the 21st century. I’m not sure how the Papal leadership can still think itself relevant to the times and worthy of the respect of millions of devout, but also intelligent and self-aware, Catholics.
More to the point. He just put tens of thousands of women, men and children at even greater risk than before for getting diseases from unprotected sex – a significant chunk of which is probably not consensual.
Way to go, Pope. Talk about correct behaviour.
I’m just shaking my head! This is what you get from people that voluntarily shut themselves away from the normal interactions of the rest of the human race for their entire adult lives!
[...] may recall that the Pope made some remarks last month about condoms making the AIDS epidemic in Africa worse? The Femmeinistes were apparently not the [...]