The pope sees the problem

True it's not "merely" a physical problem. But the Pope suggested using condoms would increase the risk of contracting AIDS. That's not only untrue - it totally undermines his broader message. Of course they should also do more than merely protect themselves with condoms - like, hmm, not rape women, for starters. And deal with the complex sociological issues, including promiscuity. But let's not whitewash the Pope's mistake -and even though it was intentional, it was, most definitely, a mistake, one many people will die for, and probably already are.

Thank you! It is about time an article was written in the media representing the real cause of the problem.
Sex has one purpose to new create life between to loving people committed to one another.
Sex without the intent for new life, has no purpose, no love, no respect toward the man or woman, it is a disrespecful and immature mind set that treats people as objects.
With that said, if two people do not engage in sex in the first place then HIV cannot be spread, and therefore condoms serve no purpose in the prevention of HIV. Condoms become a mute point. Very logical and to the point. No sex = no HIV transmission! Can't argue against that one!
Availability of Condoms just beg the temptation for two people to engage in the act of sex. Once they have sex using condoms, what is stopping the bodily fluids of a HIV infected woman or man from contacting a either partner? Condoms do not cover the whole area in contact. Whats stopping the chance of the condom from failing? Who says condoms will actually be used?
But you can guarrantee that by not having sex, HIV will not be transmitted 100% of the time! How's that for a success rate!? Sounds better than condoms to me!

Frankly, your read on the criticism directed at the Pope is so off-base that it seems dishonest. I encourage anyone to read these news stories again, checking their straw-man hat at the door. Nothing I have read anywhere in the media has criticized him for saying condoms were not the only solution. Every story I have read has AGREED that they are not the only solution. The problem comes in when the Holy Father says, offering no evidence at all, and contrary to existing evidence, that condoms make the AIDS crisis worse.

If everyone were as chaste as the Pope, the mere presence of condoms would not CAUSE anyone to have sex. Furthermore, in a culture of promiscuity and infidelity, if the choice is between condom and no condom, it is obvious which is more likely to prevent the spread of AIDS. Your example is weak because it can't tell us what what the AIDS rate would look like in a world without condoms, besides, according to you, you're citing incidence of AIDS not the rate of growth.

When the Pope claims condoms make the spread of AIDS worse, he is going beyond encouraging abstinence (good idea) and begins spreading misinformation (dangerous idea, deserving criticism).

The Pope is being irresponsible, and people will die as a result. Why does he think he knows anything about sex, and where did he learn it? And why does he let pedophiles hide in the Vatican? He'd have just a wee little bit more credibility if he'd send Archbishop Bernard Law back to Boston. We should be using all means possible to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. Any one thing is only part of the solution, and there's abundant research to show that condoms help. The Pope has no shame. But he does have a really cool hat. Oh, and I just *love* those red shoes!

Chsistianity and, indeed, popes have, for years propogated the thought of, well, propogation. Mulltiplication without afterthought of responsibility. To what end his "message" served is, completely, beyond me. Do not try to turn this man's words into something beyond the simple idiocy they were. If, indeed, you think or suggest his words had some goal of implying "no sex or less sex", then you must, first, consider the audience he was addressing, those who are of the intelligence level only of absorbing what is put in front of them, in simple terms. To suggest the words were intended to put forth some deep meaning, in an opposite sense as to how they were mouthed, as I've seen suggested by posters, is BS. To further suggest that an African audience could actually discern some deeper or alternate meaning is, in and of itself, absurd. Being in a position of helping, in a huge sense, to lessen our problems of over population and AIDS, this moron blew it, big time. Way to go, oh gilded one in gold... you just subtracted some years in man's existence on earth. Religion...the anti-intelligence.

Wow, Bill500 - I agree with you completely that the Pope is shamefully and tragically wrong, but your comment about the "intelligence level" of the "African audience" is some of the most overtly racist stuff I've heard in a long time.

It would be nice for a change if all the atheists and Catholic haters could check their hatred for the pope at the door before commenting on an article like this. Thanks TimFromChicago for correcting both the author of this article and the misinformed. To suggest that the pope would rather people not use condoms when they have sex for any reason is lunacy. He is simply taking a strong stand on delivering God's message. LogicalThinker does Catholics no favors here by suggesting that sex is only for procreation. Sex is a gift from God that yes, is intended only for married committed couples. Sex asisde from being for procreation brings pleasure and helps to secure the bond between husband and wife.

And before all the "literate" pagans start jumping on the verses from the Old Testament to try to prove this point or that about what marriage was like, remember Jesus Christ delivered a new and everlasting covenant with his people that included love, marriage and fidelity.

All you who think the Pope is wrong don them condoms and jump in the HIV/AIDS pool.

He is a dinosaur and so out of touch with the real world. But religion does what it does best and retarding progress has always been its forte. If anybody needs a reason to question a belief in talking snakes and living inside a whale just take a look at who represents this scam. The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike to me.

E. Elsea
Leesburg, VA

Personally, I like AIDS. It puts rump wranglers, junkies, and those who associate with them at risk of being cured...the old fashioned way. I say , "pound away" and let the condoms be damned.

PT...tisk tisk tisk!! Your credibility is going away faster and faster every time your fingers touch the keyboard.

Lord, please, let me never sink to a level where ONLY THE TRUTH finds me credible.

Kirograbuile, although I agree with your castigation of Bill500 for his racist attitude, I am also saddened that you apparently share his disdain for not only the pope, but also what we in Western Civilization currently refer to as traditional Family Values and morality. It is well known that not only the Catholic Church, but also most other conservative Christian denominations strongly discourage promiscuous, irresponsible, adulterous and "alternative" sexual practices in favor of the responsibility, dedication and fidelity required in a lifelong monogamous commitment to spouse and family. Yet Bill500 has the audacity to maliciously label these values as "Mulltiplication without afterthought of responsibility." Frankly, this deliberate mischaracterization of traditional Christian values is just as ignorant and bigotted as his comments regarding the "intelligence level" of the "African audience". Granted, we live in a free society where we are not required to abide by these traditional values. But it is intellectually dishonest to misrepresent them with such disparaging bigotry.

Pope aint GOD I give a f**ck what he see. Where were POPE when or why did'nt he forseen sick white priest in these catholic churches who are molesting kids?

message, if I decipher you post properly, you're suggesting this pope was responsible for the continuation of the molesting priests or for taking action to correct the problem. One of those would be good, wouldn't it?

"Sex without the intent for new life, has no purpose, no love, no respect toward the man or woman, " You are free to believe that, but very few people will agree with you. Sex for procreation purposes only is what animals do, not humans. That's one of the things that sets us apart from animals. LogicalThinker, you are anything but logical.

The Pope is a Christian. Christians believe in abstinence. He is preaching to the ones who go to these areas to help these people wanting them to do so as Christians. Most of the areas where aids is widespread do not have TV, radios or newspapers so they do not follow the Pope's teaching as we do. The media needs to lighten up on the Pope.

The key sentence of the editorial, if you take the time to read it again before posting, is "Condoms are a purely physical response to a multifaceted problem of the human soul and society". It's all well and good for the AC editor, sitting in his ivory tower to sum up the problem, self righteously, without admitting the actual condition of the spirit, or souls of humans living in societies of sub-Saharan Africa. The fact that these people live with abject poverty, political repression, poor health and nutrition, and the absence of just about anything in our society that we take for granted, seeems never to enter the mind of the writer. The "human soul and society" for these people exists in a state of misery, and AIDS alone is not the crux of the problem. Poverty and obscenely unequal distribution of the earth's resources is.

People have sex. And a whole lot of people in the world aren't Christians, and a whole lot of people in the world aren't Catholics, and a whole lot of people don't live in Western civilizations. And a whole lot of people, even when they profess those beliefs, don't practice those beliefs. To start invoking religious beliefs or cultural beliefs on other people is not appropriate and is not helpful.

"The real problems are promiscuity, infidelity, and cultures that reduce women to sexual vessels."

Believe it or not, women enjoy sex. Just because women have sex doesn't mean they are being abused. That idea is classic anti-male feminist baloney.

"In some areas of Africa, for instance, refusing sex is not an option for a woman."

Which area is that? Even if such an area exists, it does not mean "rape is the norm" in Africa, it means rape is the norm in a particular place in Africa. In some parts of the Americas, you can't walk the streets without a body guard. That doesn't mean I can't walk the streets of Boise without a body guard.

For the most part, the media express so much outrage and dismay at what the Pope says for the same reasons people on this forum do: They don't have a clue what he is talking about and why he says what he does. You have to have a much larger reverence and awe for sex than most Americans have, and that includes a lot who profess Catholicism. What he says can't be understood, much less evaluated, outside an understanding & belief that each person created by the sex act is an eternal being, a soul who will finally be either an eternal splendor or an everlasting horror. If you don't believe people are going to live eternally, well, how can you possibly appreciate what a simple act of sex might mean? It carries the possibility of creating an eternal being, even when artificial contraception makes that possibility rather remote. The people who participated (intimately) in that person's creation have some eternal accountability for the person's eventual destination, believe it or not. (continued)

(from above comment) And the Catholic Church clearly teaches that procreation is not, IS NOT, the only reason for having sex. The intimacy and growing unity, even pleasure, of the couple MUST be part of it as well, every time. If either element is absent from a sex act-- the unhindered possibility (except through natural means, like restraint during fertile days) of creating life, and the goal of increased closeness and affection for the couple-- then it is not a valid act of marriage. It is not a fully human act but is essentially the same act that animals perform. And many species such as porpoises appear to have sex purely for the fun of it, quite apart from procreation. But maybe that's about power, like rape or sex where the wo/man is just an object for another's personal gratification. Not truely human acts, though, even if humans are doing them.

I submit that Jedex has not actually been to Africa. He would have seen something quite different than simply abject misery. AIDS is not the only thing going on in African. While I agree that there is an uneven distribution of the world's goods, leaving millions of Africans in crushing poverty, it's not because individuals, religions and other nations haven't tried to give Africans the tools to take advantage of the resources they do have to improve their lot and the general standard of living for their nations. Christians of virtually every stripe and thousands of adherents to other faiths, as well as international efforts such as the Peace Corps, have been sent for hundreds of years now. Many, perhaps thousands, were slaughtered as their reward. Giving out condoms as a solution to AIDS is like putting a bandaid on a kid and sending him back out to play on the freeway. It's their way of thinking and living that needs to be changed, not just how they have sex.

bobbyb007 wrote: "To suggest that the pope would rather people not use condoms when they have sex for any reason is lunacy. " bobby, that's exactly what the Pope is saying: that it's wrong to use condoms, any time, any place, any reason, even to prevent disease. He thinks that condoms interfere with God's will,as if the designs of the Omnipotent can be thwarted with a condom. WillieGreen thinks I'm against "family values." Willie, I said nothing about family values. All I said was that it's reckless and irresponsible to tell people that God wants them --not-- to use all means possible to stop the spread of a horrible disease. Babies get AIDS from their mothers. People get AIDS from their cheating spouses. And there's --nothing-- that anyone could do that would make them deserve this awful disease. Have you seen what it does? This isn't about "Catholic hating." I was raised Catholic. Many Catholics -- lay people, nuns, and priests -- are decent, brave people who work hard for the good of others. But not this Pope.

So Worried, where does the male Catholic priests molesting children, fit into your picture?

to WorriedAboutOurFuture - Most fertilized human eggs do not implant successfully in the uterine wall. Often it's because they have serious genetic flaws. Do they have souls, and what happens to those souls? An embryo early in development can split, yielding identical twins. Does the soul also split, or do the twins share one soul? Conversely, within the first couple of weeks after fertilization, it's possible for two embryos (that were produced by the independent fertilization of two eggs) to fuse, producing a single individual that is a genetic mosaic of two cell lines. Do these people have two souls? Aquinas thought that "ensoulment" of a conceptus occurred 45 days after fertilization for a male, and 90 days after fertilization for a female. When and why did the Church determine that an egg becomes a distinct human individual at the instant of fertilization?

Don't be stupid (again), Corgi. I know it's hard, but try.

Kirograb... Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before. I don't know the answers to those questions about 'ensoulment' any better than Aquinas did. Nobody does. And the Church never said an egg was a distinct individual at any particular point. After fertiliization you're dealing with an embryo or two, or three, etc, and it is human life, whatever it's condition or arrangement. But that wasn't really the point I was making, was it?

Resorting to personal attacks? Because you don't have an answer? Believe me, I think it is more than ok that you think I am stupid.