Nor is he an expert on AIDS or its spread across southern Africa.Today Pope Benedict was on his way to Africa and said that condoms is not the answer to Africa's fight against HIV/AIDS. The health issue has divided even clergy working with AIDS patients, with Catholics in the region openly questioning whether the Catholic Church is making a fatal mistake promoting the idea of condom use as a sin.
Pope Benedict had never before directly addressed condom use. He claims that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS and the Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease.
But what the Pope says and does contradicts with what the Church does, which actively tells people that condom use is a sin. However some priests and nuns working with HIV/AIDS patients question the church's opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging Africa."You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," Pope Benedict said to reporters this morning, aboard the Alitalia plane heading to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he will begin a seven-day pilgrimage on the continent, in an effort to convince Catholics that condom use is still a sin, even if it does prevent the spread of AIDS. "On the contrary, it increases the problem," says Benedict, claiming that condoms break too easily and help spread AIDS by creating a false sense of security.
The use of condoms in North America and Europe has proven effective in curbing HIV transfer rates, and decreasing the percentage of people with AIDS over the long term.
Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Roman Catholic Church, though it competes with Islam and evangelical churches. At the same time however, AIDS is spreading through Africa quickly and is hitting countries like Zimbabwe the hardest.On the plane, Benedict also dismissed the notion that he was facing increasing opposition and isolation within the church, particularly after an outreach to ultraconservatives that led to his lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop. See Catholic Bishop denies the Holocaust.
In a letter to Catholic bishops released last week, the pope made an unusual public acknowledgment of Vatican mistakes and turmoil in his church over the rehabilitation of Bishop Richard Williamson.
See Also:
AIDS Spreading across Africa like Wildfire
How America Aids and Abets AIDS/HIV Worldwide
Africa's Best Hope: Anti-Retrovials
Birth Control Vs. Overpopulation
Christian Aid Organizations
Balabanto... contraception is already legal in America. The issue is Africa, not America.
ReplyDeletePlease don't post ridiculous comments.