The Pope Strikes Again

Pope Benedict the Evil decided to kick off his first papal tour of Africa by spouting more impractical nonsense and potentially lethal advice appropriately in the name of religion. On a continent under siege of an HIV epidemic, he thought it’d be helpful to discourage condom usage to prevent further outbreak. He even proved his deranged mental state when he detrimentally asserted that the distribution of condoms worsens, not lessens, the AIDS crisis. In this case, I’d give Pope Isadick more credit for worsening the crisis than anyone or anything else. So his godly advice boils down to: ‘Don’t use condoms; just don’t have sex.’ Yeah because that's going to work. Leave it to the church to come up with rules that don't have a snowball's chance in hell of working in the real world in which the rest of us live.  

Ok, even if we're to give him the benefit of the doubt and entertain his hairbrained idea if we're to acknowledge that condoms aren’t 100% effective, there are still gaping holes in his logic or lack thereof - as is typical of the religious establishment. Even IF he miraculously convinces all Africans and for that matter, all humans, to abstain from having sex rather than use a condom, he’s forgotten something that'll blow his whole plan to pieces: humans mess up. Humans tend to give in to their animal instincts despite what their brains may rule as the wiser choice. Human urges often completely bypass any input spewed forth by the brain(think unwanted pregnancies as a prime example). Just because someone promises they won’t do something, it doesn’t mean they won’t do it. It doesn’t even take a deep examination of human behavior to come up with a few examples of humans failing to act as they promised or intended. Reason does not always prevail.

Off the top of my head, just a few examples to prove a point: cheating spouses who'd vowed fidelity to each other for life, people who buy annual gym memberships because they plan to workout at least 3 times weekly yet may have gone 3 times all year, any number of those broken New Years' resolutions. Need I go on? How many of you are still exercising daily and eating better as you promised yourself on 12/31/08 you'd do in 2009? Hmm. A quick look around would tell any rational human being that humans give in more often than not to the easiest or most pleasurable route available to them therefore, I think it most realistic to account for that prevalent human trait and have a contingency plan or two in place to deal with the fallout.  No one needs to die if we accept the fact that people act like people and make plans to prevent injury, suffering and death when we can. That is the humane, reasonable course of action unless you're the Catholic Church. 

Getting back to Pope Isadick’s argument, I have to ask: So now what happens when one day, one of the imperfect people of your flock messes up, gives into an animal urge despite vowing abstinence, has some unprotected sex, and contracts HIV or spreads the HIV he/she already has to yet another person? Ok, now what? Can you wave your magic wand and cure them? No, despite your holiness and your big hat, you don’t have that superpower. Again, I can’t help but wonder how anyone can believe in a God that would allow such an epidemic to exist but that’s another story for another day. 

I am puzzled. How much faith can the pope have in mere laypeople when he couldn’t even count on several of his very own clergymen to keep it in their pants in report after report of Catholic priests sexually abusing little boys. These are priests that allegedly took a vow of celibacy yet violated that holy vow when they couldn’t resist the urge to stick their penis somewhere. For fak's sake, it’s so widespread, there's a support group for victims and surely that's not the only one.

If those considered as close to God as humanly possible screw up and the Catholic Church knows and has openly admitted it(when arranging to pay off the families to keep their mouths shut or to compensate them for the abuse suffered at the fly of a horny priest), how do you expect 'regular people' to stick to the no-sex diet? How realistic is that expectation? But, then again, I wouldn't expect a realistic solution from a guy whose claim to fame is that of quite the fairy tale(ie doctrine). 

And to make matters worse - the Grand Poobah of Vatican Village isn't yapping his nonsense in a place where people mostly know better thanks to commonly available  education on the subject. Instead, he delivers his oh-so-practical message to Africa where there's a huge population waiting to be condemned to death when they contract HIV simply because they weren’t lucky enough to be taught how to protect themselves in a practical, realistic way by rational individuals working to prevent further spread of the disease in ways that take into account HUMAN NATURE. I'll go as far as say the church engages in exploitation of the ignorant on this matter. I don't accuse the church of ignorance because they know damn well what they’re doing: they’re pushing their sick, inexcusable agenda at any cost – even that of human life it otherwise claims to be so precious. They're taking advantage of the fact they can peddle their nonsense to those who don't know any better, and if that's not wrong, I don't know what is. 

When I hear such things, I can't help but wonder if the Catholic Church feels people who engage in sex outside the confines of marriage have sinned and therefore deserve to contract HIV and die so why encourage them to use a condom and be able to have sex safely and live? It's their own damn fault for having sex in the first place so to hell with them. Is that the thinking here? If that's the philosophy, I guess we should let drunks drive too since people know they shouldn’t drink to a drunken stupor and then try to drive a car but they do anyway so if they kill themselves or others, then so be it. What about people who get sick because they ignore their doctor’s advice? Shall we treat them or make them suffer because they didn’t listen and follow the doctor’s orders. 

What about the partners of the HIV-infected person who will contract the virus unknowingly if a condom isn’t there to prevent it? Don't they deserve the same right to life the church demands for all of those unborn fetuses? Oh, wait, no they don't because they broke the church's big rule and had sex so to hell with that sinner too. 

The Catholic Church is SO quick to jump on the pro-life band wagon regardless of circumstances and common sense. Recently, it excommunicated all involved with the abortion carried out on a 9-year old Brazilian girl who was carrying twins after being sexually assaulted by her step-father. Brazilian law makes abortion legal in such situations but the Catholic Church felt the 9 year old should’ve been forced to carry and deliver the twins even if doctors said her life was at risk since she was ONLY 9 and her body not equip to carry and deliver one baby let alone twins. I just love how the Catholic Church, especially, will repeatedly claim there's nothing more precious than life and will pull the most insane, irrational stunts based on that cornerstone tenet so why the fak isn't the church backing life in this case and encouraging the people of Africa to protect themselves in whichever way is necessary to protect and save their lives? I often wonder if they listen to themselves in the same way you wonder if people who go out in public looking hideous have mirrors. Isn't it more pro-life to maybe encourage people towards abstinence since you are the church and have your behavioral preferences but also be realistic and promote safe sex when and if a human engages in such? The position makes no sense yet they insist surely to promote their own interests on multiple levels. 

I also feel it may be the Catholic Church’s way of taking advantage of the situation to gain more following in places like Africa where they can prey on the uneducated. It reminds me of the scene in Jesus Camp in which the whackjob preacher Becker Fisher openly admits how easy it is to market her brainwashing to children because of their impressionable minds. No doubt that’s a similar brand of exploitation the Catholic Church is using to its advantage in Africa. It’s running out of options with the rest of the developed world catching on and moving away from the church. People in the western world don't look too kindly on an organization whose heads rape little boys I guess. There's a trend amongst educated, thinking people to veer away from religion or at least question the hell out of it especially when it refuses to acknowledge it makes no sense to a logical, educated mind.

What scares me more than the rampant spread of HIV in Africa is the increased following of Catholicism in Africa when the last thing Africa needs is more disease.