Pope Makes Unbelievably Offensive AIDS Trip to Africa
Are condoms actually the mysterious force that created the AIDS virus?
Today, Pope Benedict XVI began a weeklong whirlwind tour of utter offensiveness that will span the entire African continent.
When the Pope arrived at his first stop in Yaounde, Cameroon, he told reporters, "You can't resolve [the AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. . . . On the contrary, it increases the problem." He was then "greeted by a crowd of flag-waving faithful and snapping cameras," while the 22 million people infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa silently wondered who the fuck this dude thinks he is.
According to the New York Times, "The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease" and that "Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS." Meanwhile, AIDS activists speculated as to how they might harness the weapons of abstinence and fidelity—apparently some pretty potent shit—to defeat God's human spokesperson.
Rebecca Hodes with the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said if the pope was serious about preventing new HIV infections, he would focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how best to use them.
''Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans,'' said Hodes, head of policy, communication and research for the organization.
Hodes said the pope was right that condoms are not the sole solution to Africa's AIDS epidemic, but added they are one of the very few proven measures to prevent HIV infections.
Even some priests and nuns working with those living with HIV/AIDS question the church's opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging Africa. Ordinary Africans do as well.
I have to admit that it takes a lot of balls to wait until you are on a plane headed toward Africa to inform the entire continent that you hope the only thing that has been proven to effectively slow the spread of AIDS is purged from the land to make way for a ridiculous abstinence fantasy hatched by a 2,000-year-old all-powerful sky daemon. Yep, AIDS, poof, should be gone by the time I've spread my message around your dark continent in my magical glass God carriage, see you suckers later.
Photo by Paul Keller.
3:38 pm
Hopefully his stance on condoms will be as effective in combating AIDS as it has been in combating abortions. Maybe next we can ban vegetables to stop them from contributing to American obesity.
Seriously though, you've gotta give the man credit. Sure, he's staring down one of the biggest problems in the world and being brashly dismissive of its most effective solution. But there he is, rolling up his sleeves, doing the dirty work, providing creative new solutions like abstinence, which have been so effective in other parts of the world.
I also think its great that it only took him 4 years to visit the world's poorest continent, seeing as the founder of his religion devoted his whole life to preaching in the name of the sick and destitute. I'm sure that, in the week he spends there before returning to his gold-plated palace in Rome, he'll be able to really get the ball rolling.
6:08 pm
Wow. Now I'm embarrassed to call myself even a lapsed Catholic.
9:27 pm
While I think it'd be fun to write something clever and ironic to make the point, the truth is this:
If life is sacred to him and to his church, even before it comes through the birth canal, how can an impotent, discredited principle be more important?
2:15 pm
Wow! I'm surprised how many people are so hateful toward a man who says that abstinance will stop the spread of aids. Using a condom doesn't change peoples attitudes toward promiscuity. There is still a chance of cathcing an std with a condom. There is none with abstinance. Yet this man who is promoting a much safer lifestyle to prevents aids is the one who is being dismissed.
Would you tell someone to quit smoking to prevent lung cancer or would you tell them to use low tar cigarettes?
3:54 pm
Julia-
I would probably tell the smoker to chew nicotine gum, in recognition of the human body's basic inability to simply go cold turkey on something it has come to recognize as a phsycial necessity, but that's beside the point.
I'm sure your intentions are good and, on some level, so are the Pope's. The problem is the swift dogmatism of the response. Of course abstaining from sex is a much better safeguard against the spread of AIDS than is condom use. But its also a much better safeguard against sex -- and not just premarital sex. Remember, the Catholic Church doesn't even allow the use of condoms for prophylactic purposes within a marriage, meaning that the Pope's decree faces not only single people, but married couples, with a choice between refraining from sexual activity and a very high probability of contracting HIV.
But the larger issue here is the broad failure of abstinence-only teaching. It hasn't worked in the United States, where the policy did nothing to reduce teen sex (but did reduce protected teen sex), and it is unlikely to work any better in Africa, where logistical and linguistic concerns present a major barrier to broad-based sexual education.
The Pope is in a position to change minds and, if he wants to bang the drum for abstinence as the cure for Africa, it's perfectly within his rights to do so. That's why its so offensive to me that the first four years of his papacy went by without a single trip to Africa, a continent with 185 million Catholics, many of whom live in the kind of unimaginable poverty that the Catholic Church is supposed to have a mandate to fight.
But the Pope isn't making this an issue, he's spending a week there. He's not focusing his power on finding a new way of selling people on abstinence, he's simply lashing out -- almost robotically -- at a solution that, while imperfect, can at least provide a stay of execution while he or someone else comes up with a better idea. All of this while, as Brian pointed out, preaching out of the other side of his mouth about the absolute sanctity of life.
A continent is drowning and one of the world's most powerful men has chosen not to build it a boat, but to whisk away its life preserver. That is why we're angry.
4:27 pm
To Barvo-
“Of course abstaining from sex is a much better safeguard against the spread of AIDS than is condom use. But its also a much better safeguard against sex— and not just premarital sex. Remember, the Catholic Church doesn’t even allow the use of condoms for prophylactic purposes within a marriage, meaning that the Pope’s decree faces not only single people, but married couples, with a choice between refraining from sexual activity and a very high probability of contracting HIV.”
Yes. I understand that this would also require married couples to abstain. This is not an easy thing but many faithful Catholic couples to abstain during the woman’s fertile time
within marriage to avoid pregnancy. Some have to abstain for much longer periods for serious reasons. This seems extreme to people today but it can be done especially in a life-threatening situation. The longer you abstain the easier it is to abstain. This aside it would be safer for a married couple where one of the partners was HIV positive to abstain rather than using a condom. In fact I saw a study conclude that condom use is not recommended if the partner is known to be HIV positive because there is still a chance of passing the disease with a condom. I think you are saying that although abstinence would be a better safeguard against HIV the fact that people would have to give up sex dismisses it as a viable option.
“But the larger issue here is the broad failure of abstinence only teaching. It hasn’t worked in the United States, where the policy did nothing to reduce teen sex (but did reduce protected teen sex), and it is unlikely to work any better in Africa, where logistical and linguistic concerns present a major barrier to broad-based sexual education.”
Actually the study showed no difference between “unprotected” sex between the control group and the abstinence-only group. You could take the study to mean that abstinence education is a failure or that abstinence education is worth looking into but there is room for improvement. Here is one of the links I found regarding this study:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/abstinence07/factsheet.shtml
“The Pope is in a position to change minds and, if he wants to bang the drum for abstinence as the cure for Africa, it’s perfectly within his rights to do so. That’s why its so offensive to me that the first four years of his papacy went by without a single trip to Africa, a continent with 185 million Catholics, many of whom live in the kind of unimaginable poverty that the Catholic Church is supposed to have a mandate to fight.”
Actually the Catholic Church is the largest charity organization in the world. There are many Catholic charities working around the world as you probably know and I’m not inclined to believe that just because he waited four years to go to Africa that he hadn’t given them any thought or hasn’t had any contact with Africa.
“But the Pope isn’t making this an issue, he’s spending a week there. He’s not focusing his power on finding a new way of selling people on abstinence, he’s simply lashing out — almost robotically — at a solution that, while imperfect, can at least provide a stay of execution while he or someone else comes up with a better idea.”
Actually I think the press is the one who pretty much focused on the condom issue. I think there are a lot of other things that he said that weren’t quite so sensational that the press didn’t report. Also when he made this comment he was answering a question directly posed from a member of the press regarding the issue. The quote that is causing the outrage is only part of his answer.
All in all I think what the pope was saying was that perhaps condoms provide a false sense of security in that they are not 100% reliable even when used correctly. I also think he is saying that if promiscuous sex is accepted as o.k. by someone they are more likely to engage in illicit sex without a condom. If people are so lacking in self control that abstinence is so difficult what makes you think that people are going to take the time to put on a condom during the heat of the moment?