1.5 million deaths from AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Pope goes there and says, don’t use condoms.
Nice.
Well done pope, always one to help out. Sometimes religion confuses me… :o
(will someone moan about this post?)
Hay!! don’t diss the Pope.
Huh tell me about it! It is pretty insane.
Um, source?
Perhaps he means “Don’t use condoms…to carry your shopping in.”?
um, multiple reputable news sources–BBC, CNN, New York Times, UK Telegraph, AP…
Geez, it’s a major story, it’s really not hard to find.
I don’t wish to offend Catholics unnecessarily.
The pope, among a handful of people, has the power to do great good or great harm. I don’t believe this latest pronouncement to be among the former acts.
On a general note, though, it is stunning to me to think of how, on a planet of over 6,000,000,000 people, one person can make such a huge difference either way.
that is part of the reason why religion confuses me.
Well, the threat of eternal damnation is sure to sway a few percent of the population…
…and a few percent of 6 billion is a substantial figure.
There it is–he’s really Emperor Palpatine!
just because he is against birth control doesn’t mean he is stupid. the freakin africans should stop having sex like that all together. problem solved.
Sex like what?
I’m sorry but telling people not to do the easiest thing possible to prevent a terrible devastating epidemic disease IS stupid.
Don’t let religion fog your reality.
Abstinence only works until it does.
ummmmmmmmm…
first of all, telling people to stop having sex will never work…
and also the Pope HAS shown signs of ignorance in the past… like saying the Nazis were athiests and such.
He’s just very single minded. He’s a traditional Catholic so he’s very anti-birth control, but he should consider that bashing birth control will do more bad then good. It doesn’t do much good anyway…
Uh, like the people here should stop posting really stupid stuff? Problem NOT solved. They should but they don’t. In spite of constant instruction to the contrary, stupid just doesn’t go away.
Same with telling people to not have sex. Does abstinence work? Sure, it works great. Until you have sex. Teaching abstinence is not a substitute for birth control, as has been shown over and over.
I think the Pope would rather have lots of babies die of AIDS than not be conceived at all. Not sure why, though. Don’t we have enough people on this planet by now?
I miss JPII. Too bad Benedict is undoing so much of the good that he did. 
I’m totally embarrased and saddened by him and I’m not even a Catholic…
I miss JPII as well…
Benny is just way too narrow minded and self-absorbed.
I thought for a sec that you were talking about me…
The pope does not have authority to say such things. Fine if he make some suggestions, but no authoritative statements like that. please!
Telling Africa to abstain from sex does not work either. It just doesn’t.
And condoms haven’t brought the epidemic to a standstill. If anything, they might just make the guys have sex more. Maybe condoms would work better if these African dudes stopped re-using the things…
if everyone waited till marriage to have sex there would be no more stds. here’s a sad fact, 1/3 of all sexually active people get an std by the age of 25.
Phil, while that might be true, it’s just not gonna happen. There’s no point in arguing that not having sex is an effective way to prevent STDs, we all know that, but it’s completely idealistic.