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Article: Pope Benedict XVI: condoms make Aids crisis worse

I wonder if he really belives in it or have some other motive.
If he can turn down ID there must be some rational people in the church.

Perhaps he is concerned about the growth rate of his followers.
 
This frustrates me severely, inasmuch as research in the US has already shown that our premarital sex rate is 95%. Given that our rate of declaring ourselves religious is 85%, there's a strong suggestion there that even being strongly and overtly faithful does not prevent premarital sex, and so all this talk of just teaching abstinence to curb AIDS is super-wishful thinking.
 
My mother has just told me that on the Channel 4 News tonight John Snow interviewed a screaming harpy who was attempting to put the Pope's case by shouting down everyone else who tried to talk. It sounds as if simply letting her loose was enough to demonstrate the insanity to most of the viewers.

Rolfe.
 
Now that's just the same kind of unsympathetic, needs-the-clue-by-four statement as the stuff from Mother Theresa about how suffering is good for the soul.

The only way suffering is good for the sole is quite different, you can just walk away... And I'm not sure it's good for the sole.
 
This is the kind of psychotic reaction to a genuine crisis that erodes people's faith in god(s). It would be a good thing on the surface, save for the remarkable pain the victims of this wrong-headed activity creates.

It's a reminder of the health minister in SA, I believe, who promoted vitamins and the like as a "cure" for HIV, even as people were dying from the effects of this pseudo-scientific gibberish. Scary, obviously, but tragic in that people refuse to recognize the evil that this represents, (and, no, I don't think "evil" is harsh at all.) One can only hope that in the end, common sense reasserts itself.
 
Well I do not think it is very serious really. As far as I can tell, at least in this country, roman catholics just do not take any notice of the church's teaching on contraception. They do not seem to have many more children than the rest of the population: and the lowest birth rates in Europe are Italy and Spain - predominantly catholic countries

Sometimes we take folk at their own estimation of their importance: I do not think it is warranted in this case.
 
Fiona said:
Well I do not think it is very serious really. As far as I can tell, at least in this country, roman catholics just do not take any notice of the church's teaching on contraception. They do not seem to have many more children than the rest of the population: and the lowest birth rates in Europe are Italy and Spain - predominantly catholic countries

Sometimes we take folk at their own estimation of their importance: I do not think it is warranted in this case.
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Maybe. If the target audience in this is in Africa, where literacy is relatively low in comparison to the rest of the world, it becomes a concern. Again, though, I could be wrong.
 
It may be an issue in more indirect ways, certainly. Availability is a problem and if the powers that be are influenced then it may well have an impact. For example I believe that Thabo Mbeki took the view that condoms were ineffective in preventing AIDS and that was a major problem there. I do not think he was primarily motivated by religion, though: he fancied himself as an intellectual if this is to be believed

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45471,opinion,thabo-mbeki-has-been-a-disaster-for-south-africa

No idea how reliable that source is, though

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...iliation+africa+aids&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

This is interesting too: and may lend some weight to your concerns

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3002004.html

In the multivariate analysis (Table 3), unaffiliated and Catholic men were significantly more likely than evangelicals to have had extramarital sex in the previous 12 months (odds ratios, 3.0-4.7). In addition, unaffiliated and Catholic men who had had extramarital sex reported 1.4-1.6 times as many extramarital partners as did evangelical men, and their odds of having had unprotected extramarital sex were 3.4-7.9 times as great.
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Though other factors were also important and again the situation is not simple

This is also interesting: it finds little relation between religious affiliation and HIV in a number of sub-saharan african countries. However the study does not really examine the reasons for this: it speculates that religion may affect sexual behaviour differentially and it is possible that this balances the increased risk of not using condoms. Could be that: or it could be that folk ignore the pope. Complicated
 
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Fiona said:
This is interesting too: and may lend some weight to your concerns

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3002004.html

Though other factors were also important and again the situation is not simple
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Far from simple. The passage you cited might be an indication that high religiosity reduces the affection to extramarital sex. Almost 100% of the surveyed Brazilians, evangelicals and unaffiliated the like, were born and raised catholic, and then left the church for basically two contrary kinds of reasons. Evangelicals are very religious.

In terms of individual response to the AIDS threat these two passages from the same text might be interesting

41% [of respondents] reported that they had modified their behavior because of knowledge of AIDS. The most commonly reported changes were stopping extramarital sex (27%), decreasing the number of partners (8%) or using condoms (5%).
...
We found no evidence that men who risk contracting HIV and other STIs by having extramarital partners were more likely than others to protect their wives by using condoms within marriage.
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It seems that by far the least likely behavioral change is to start using condoms.
 
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Uh huh, condowms prevet the spread of disaease, if used.

We have an area with very high rates of sexual behavior and very high rates of disease.

It is a public health crisis , not a moral crisis.

Sheesh, go buy some new shoes would you?
 
Two things necessary to allow condoms to prevent the spread of HIV: the education that condom usage can hugely reduce the chance of infection; the availability of condoms and the willingness to use them.

It's all very well citing the western examples of well educated catholics with easy access to condoms who choose to deviate from Catholic Teaching both by having sex outside of marriage and through using a condom. However in Africa Catholicism is exerting it's influence on three fronts.

Telling their followers not to use condoms is just part of it, and given that if their followers also followed cathlic doctirne in all other respects the spread of HIV would be slowed by not having pre or extra marital sex, somewhat defensible.

However catholic doctrine also effects the education about and distribution of condoms.

Educators already fighting against macho stereotypes which proscribe condom usage must also battle the anti scientific lies of Catholic Bishops who claim that the condom allows viruses to pass right through having no effect on the transmission of the HIV. AIDS charities face a choice between cooperation from the Catholic networks in Africa and Education/distribution of the proven most effective tool to prevent the transmission of HIV. That doesn't just affect Catholics but every African.
 
I wonder if he ever wore one?

I always found the damn things effective at preventing pregnancy, because by the time I got it on I had generally lost the inclination.
 
Did he really say that, or is that just the way the press is portraying what he said? I ask because you didn't provide a direct quote, and the press frequently invents controversy where none exists.
 
The current Pope's predecessor famously enjoined his Brazilian flock to have more children, as there was a shortage of priests..... This in a country where paramilitary death squads targeted "street kids" abandoned by parents.....

In a sort-of-related story from NPR, they were commenting on the difficulties faced by African women insofar as AIDS prevention. Many African men refuse to wear condoms anyway, so researchers are trying to find preventive measures that can be used by women.
Evidence of such preventive measures if felt by the husbands that their women suspect them of having HIV, and thus being unfaithful. This leads to abuse and even murder...
As a result, any preventive measure that leaves traces, such as packaging (there being no solid-waste disposal in most areas) is unacceptable.
The women want something like a pill that they can conceal around the home and not leave evidence of use.....
 
Giggywig said:
What he said was:

Seattle Times.
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Note that the quote is truncated. I found a larger quote, with a slightly different translation:

"If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem."

In the expanded quote, it appears that he is not claiming that condoms are automatically counter-productive. I don't doubt that people will still take exception to his position, but it appears that I was right to be skeptical of the initial press reports.
 
Ziggurat said:
Note that the quote is truncated. I found a larger quote, with a slightly different translation:

"If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem."

In the expanded quote, it appears that he is not claiming that condoms are automatically counter-productive. I don't doubt that people will still take exception to his position, but it appears that I was right to be skeptical of the initial press reports.
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But that still is just and opinion that this not backed up by any evidence what-so-ever. Sure we might "we risk worsening the problem" but we might also improve the situation.

Other Catholics who are closer to the problem have a different opinion.

South African Bishop Kevin Dowling, who says he is heartbroken by the sight of dying women with emaciated babies among the victims, says people at risk of spreading HIV "should use a condom in order to prevent the transmission of potential death to another."
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9o5FfAWPymsj2IxYBg-ClsILluAD971B0300
 
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