Counrty

Calm down WIIS! You win the point that JP2 is not mainly responsible. Got it? You win. It was a cheap shot. Have you never taken a cheap shot before at…say socialists? Cause they have done damage in other domains? And let’s not forget that JP2 is up for sainthood which makes him fair game in my book.

I think if there was a theme I would like to draw out of both the discussion and my limited reading, it is that ideological bias has derailed serious analysis and prevented appropriate response to what was a preventable disaster.

FWIW, the Vatican’s absurd position on condoms has certainly been unhelpful but it’s not the major obstacle to effective AIDS prevention in sub-Saharan Africa where, for the most part, condoms have been recognised as the effective prevention agents they are. That doesn’t, of course, mean that the use of condoms has been anywhere near universal but there’s lots of other reasons for that.

Mbeki and his nutjob Health Minister have inflicted immeasurably more damage on South Africans living with HIV than did JPII and the ludicrous insistence on “abstinence-based” prevention programs as a precursor to US international AIDS assistance has been equally criminal. Bill and Melinda Gates got deserved praise for slamming the US administration on that score at the recent World AIDS Conference in Toronto. That and the fact that they’ve provided about 15 billion bucks in AIDS prevention program funding.

This is nothing but a low, nasty bigoted cheap shot. It suggests that these men are so unattractive to the opposite sex that they take a vow of chastity because it’s costing them nothing! Priests cover the full range of humanity. My experience of them is that the vast majority are sincere idealists. Your next remark will predictably be to call them all paedophiles, such is your love for unwarranted generalisations.

I don’t give a shit for the Pope. But the argument that the Church’s teaching about contraception forces promiscuous men in Africa to kill multiple thousands of others is so illogical I have to oppose it.

“My wife and kids are Catholic.”

Ah this explains so much. I’m the product of what used to be called a mixed marriage, and my mother (the protestant) also grew embittered about the Catholic Church, not so much because she opposed its teachings, but because my old man was a hard drinking Irishman with a vile temper. I never became a religious person but because I was a reasonably compliant kid I took in and learnt a bit about Catholic doctrine. I call myself a former catholic (as opposed to lapsed). I reject a lot of its teaching but I also agree with a lot of it.

There’s usually a personal experience behing most bigotry.

WIIS’s argument about promiscuous men not caring about papal views is partly correct. But they might use a condom when they get back to their wife. In any case, the church could have used their money, power and influence to raise public awareness of the combination of promiscuity AND unprotected sex (if they weren’t hung up on rubbers). There is so much good that Catholics could do if they were not so contrained by the bastards who speak for them. Such awareness programs were successful here even though few of us are practising Catholics.

BTW: My wife and kids are Catholic. Anyway, it is not bigoted to take a shot at the disgusting pyramidal governance structure of that church and the intrusive sexual restrictions imposed by a bunch of bitter old men who have never got a root. I would stand by my claim that many, many, many people would have been spared if the church had encouraged condom use as a defence against the epidemic (take any small percentage of m24.5 you like). I wish I had the power to do so much good in my life!

Wowsers – all this talk of “bigoted anti-Catholic attitudes” and I thought we were talking about your bigoted perspective on those promiscuous Africans seeking to avoid the diminishment of their pleasure by catching aids. Hell’s bells, the topics sure can get muddled at times.

Suffice to say, whether one person listens to you or a million, if you tell people not to wear condoms, knowing full well that their usage can prevent disease, then you’re most certainly a jackass.

But it’s worth pointing out that Catholics in Australia, almost universally, disregard Church teachings in respect of contraception so its hardly surprising that Catholics elsewhere might similarly adapt church teachings.

Catholic HIV aid agencies certainly operate in the region but as in PNG (where nuns wil frequently leave condoms in at risk settings, without fanfare) most of the workers I’ve come across think that Cardinal Trujillo’s detection of latex porosity in respect of HIV is laughable.

BTW, women represent the bulk of the infected population in Africa and women have much less sexual, reproductive and infection prophylaxis choice. Men generally decide when condoms will be used – not women – and men are much less likely to opt for condoms. We’re also far more efficient at transmitting HIV than women.

Actually, I can’t see too many Catholic countries below the regression line – no Latin American ones, for example – although that doesn’t mean they necessarily have a low HIV incidence.

In any case, (1) is useful advice, and (2) is patently irrational. So, since they are not logically contingent on each other, the Church doesn’t escape criticism even if its net consequence is beneficial: it could do much more good if it used its resources and general influence to preach the reverse of (2).

By the way, there’s a heap of useful data and graphs in this World Bank report, Chris.

You must have led a very sheltered life indeed if you’ve failed to notice that Catholics in Australia are just as prone to extra-marital sex. It’s a fair guess that the difference is almost entirely due to Africans failing to use condoms, which in turn flows from a combination of poverty and ignorance/lack of education, as well as the cultural factor that in many such societies heterosexual anal intercourse between husband and wife around ovulation time each month has always been a traditional method of birth control. Thus the situation doesn’t have much at all to do with being Catholic as such, I suspect (not that I’m trying to absolve JPII by any means). Nor am I sure to what extent these high HIV infection African countries are predominantly Catholic anyway, or to what extent HIV infection rates within them correlate to catholicism.

The reasons? A deadly cocktail – untreated STDs, uncircumsised men, multiple concurrent sexual partners (because transmission is relatively ineffective – viz. a 1 in 300 to 500 chance per unprotected sex, concurrent regular partnerships are a lot more likely to fuel the epidemic than countless one night stands, or serial monogamy), hardly any condom promotion on a massive scale, little access to testing or to antiretrovirals (so no reductions in viral load for those who are infected, so no ‘prevention benefit’ of the meds). In southern Africa all these elements come together in a ‘perfect storm’.

All can be addressed – but only on a massive scale which can only be led by the governments of the region. Sadly the most significant bit of news from the recent international AIDS conference in Toronto was the signs of HIV rates creeping up again in parts of Uganda – which was practically the only success story in the developing world. The perverse outcome of Uganda’s success was that it was flooded with money and US evangelists touting abstinence, which fed the most ossifying tendencies of a tired government and the real strengths of a home grown response have been lost.

I assume you’re referring to sexual intercourse without protection, Chris. Interesting people, African Catholics. I mean completely disregarding the church’s strict teaching against extra-marital sex but religiously obeying the Church’s injunctions against artificial birth control.