Papal bull

The Pope has reiterated his opposition to the use of condoms in AIDs ravaged Africa. The inhumanity of the Pope's position is self-evident. My basic comment - how can anyone take anything this man says seriously?

22 million people in Africa have HIV. In three Southern African countries the prevalence of AIDs exceeds 20% of the population. The Pope advocates abstinence as a God-driven policy stance. As is well known telling randy men and women not to have sex won't work and this failure (in the absence of condom use) can kill. The God-driven abstinence policy will inflict a horrible death on millions when the use of condoms is a cheap and effective way of avoiding this problem. 2 million people died in 2005 - 6000 people per day.

The difficulty is accentuated by the growth of Catholicism in Africa - numbers have trebled since 1978 to nearly 150 million in 2004. This is about 17% of the total population. Worldwide over this period Catholicism has its fraction of total population falling but voodoo still apparently sells in Africa.

The Pope's reason for sprouting this nonsense? Apart from his obvious expertise in matters of sex and human relationships I assume that this is because God told him what to do on his personal hotline. It is a 'deficit of morals' issue you see. Sex is something intrinsically evil unless you seek to breed and this should only occur between a heterosexual couple who remain monogamous forever. Break this law and you deserve to die. It is God's retribution for being randy and not listening to the Pope's bull.

Words can't express my contempt for these damaging, stupid views. Tolerance for callous stupidity has its limits and hopefully recognition of the stupidity here will have general equilibrium effects of denting this man's powerbase among the gullible in Africa and, indeed, around the world.

Update: The Pope's representative in the blogosophere is a cretin CL who posts anonymously under the distinguished label Currency Lad. In the past he inferred I had questionable sexual preferences because I defended some photos of Bill Hensen. I thought of suing this toad but he is anonymous and most people treat him as a joke. His comments are over at the sewerage blog LP.  The more bigotted and stupid the Pope gets the more his nitwit supporters see him as defending principle.