THE POPE AND AIDS
 
The pope can go to Africa and as soon as he touches African soil, he can try to make the naive and the superstitious believe that condoms do not protect against AIDS. He lies for he knows fine well that condoms have protected porn stars who are having loads of sex with different partners every week from AIDS.
 
But even if they did protect from AIDS he would still ask people not to use them. Some say it is his job to say this. Is it?
 
a What if another popes teaching that condoms should be used? Which pope then is doing his job?
 
b Catholicism has far more teachings than just that using condoms is immoral. It can't and doesn't relay these teachings to everybody so why can't it keep away from such controversial stuff? If you really believe your religion is right, that does not mean you should obsess about teaching doctrines that most people say are harmful and irresponsible.
 
c Is the pope acting in good faith? Why demean people by praising that good faith that orders them to prefer sex without condoms? Why demean people by praising that good faith that says they sin far more by using condoms when they have pre-marital sex? The pope should be repelled by the doctrine even if he has to teach it and he isn't so the good faith defence fails.
 
d If the pope can declare that it is better for people who have AIDS to have sex without using condoms if they are going to have sex whether they have condoms or not and still be considered a good and well-meaning man then why stop with him? Why not say the "sweet" person who refuses to ring the police as her son batters his wife to a pulp is well-meaning? Why not say the local gossip monger means well and is just trying to use the tongue to deter wrongdoers?
 
e The pope knows his doctrine is unreasonable but he may say that this is because it is one of God's laws that cannot be understood and we would understand if we had God's eyes. So it is unreasonable to us even if it is not unreasonable in itself. A man then who teaches such a doctrine needs to admit that this gives him awesome responsibility. If you teach hard doctrine, you should work even harder for those who the doctrine hurts. The Vatican art should be sold for them. The pope should give away his salary. And we must remember that his view that the doctrine makes sense in itself is just the same excuse that religion has made all the years for declaring wars and persecuting people and so on. Until the pope sells St Peter's for the sake of those who are naive enough to listen to him he has no business claiming to be well-meaning. The Church teaches that sin taints all that we do. Sin taints then what the pope teaches. When the pope avails of the sin in his teaching and the teaching is so severe he should atone that sin by making tremendous sacrifices for those who will get AIDS in obedience to his teaching.
 
f The pope speaks as if the matter is final. There is going to be no negotiation. His arrogance means more to him than the people he will kill by his teaching. They are nothing to him.
 
Those who accuse the pope of being a force for evil and of inciting to hatred against abortionists and gays and whoever are right though he pretends he does not condemn them personally. He knows what he is. He is like a racist who covers it up by saying foreign people should stay in their own country and better it.
 
An immoral Church urging people to resist using contraception even in the face of rape and in the danger of AIDS is doing something extremely vile.
 
Protestants who want to see the Church as the mother of abominations should find justification for doing that in the doctrine of attrition being acceptable to God but in confession.
 
The pope could go to a nightclub. He knows that most of the boys and girls there will be having sex at the end of the night. Yet he would go and ask the sex health activist giving out condoms to them not to do it even if the area was a hotbed for AIDS. Even if he doesn't he would see it as his obligation to do so.
 
The pope condemns safer sex. Safe sex is possible if the man uses condoms properly but still ejaculates outside the body. The pope will not advise those who use condoms to try this strategy. He would rather bury his head in the sand and be reckless. He follows John Paul II's ridiculous theology of the body. This theology says that the language of sex is, "I take you as mine for ever for I give you my whole self and I give you myself to the exclusion of all others," resulting in the laughable and judgemental idea that divorce and contraception and sex outside marriage make sex a lie. The pope believes divorce happens at death though the husband or wife survives death. So much for one giving ones whole self! He permits separation under certain circumstances though it can express greater discord between husband and wife than a divorce ever could. A divorcing couple could be in greater union than a separated husband and wife! It is madness to hold that having sex should imply that if you can't live with your partner you should still give your whole self to her or him by leaving her or him but marrying no other. How can not marrying another be more important than living together in a real marriage?