Ratzinger condemns condoms

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

If people ignore the Pope's teaching on sex, why would they suddenly accept his ruling against condoms with open arms?

Anti-Catholics here, you need to use a bit of the logic I know that you all [usually] have on other topics. If they're not using condoms, it is because they don't want to use them anyway, not because the Pope said so. Besides, try to find a correlation between Catholic African countries and the worst AIDS rates/worst increases in AIDS rates. Good luck!

The Vatican's position is stupid, but mostly ineffectual.

The former is only true if you follow the one piece of advice and not the other. If you take both pieces of advice together, it makes perfect sense and is completely logical.

[Meneldil]

While I think the catholic church is stupid and the pope a reactionary idiot, I can't understand the outrage here.

Any pope is against contraception and extramarital sex. This is not news.
And Africa would be plagued by AIDS even without the pope, because to be honest, nobody gives a damn about him anyway.

Even if he threatened any catholic of excommunication if they didn't use condoms, the situation would be the same.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

While I think the catholic church is stupid and the pope a reactionary idiot, I can't understand the outrage here.

I don't recall him saying anything mean about you..... Obviously we differ in our assessments, but we'll set that aside.

Any pope is against contraception and extramarital sex. This is not news.
And Africa would be plagued by AIDS even without the pope, because to be honest, nobody gives a damn about him anyway.

There are those who do "give a damn," and in Africa that is a growing number. However, you are VERY much on target that the Holy Father's stance is hardly surprising or new, and the most in Africa are not making their decision (or lack of decision) on that basis.

Again, I think folks get a little overly out of focus on this issue. It is not as though The Church is sending Franciscan Spec Ops teams to destroy condom shipments to Africa or terminate sex educators.

The Church, and the Holy Father, are articulated a moral stance that has been part of the Churchs view of things for centuries. Posters in this thread are almost casting The Church as the instigator of things, and one post by Rasoforos didn't label them the instigators but very definitely asserted that the Church was seeking to exploit the issue so as to enhance human suffering.

So, for those of you taking that line, is The Church a unique coterie of heartless ******** from your point of view or are all religious organizations equally wrong?

Yes, the last question does have a "snide" component. The scorn is for such attitudes, not against any particular forum patron.

[Meneldil]

I don't recall him saying anything mean about you..... Obviously we differ in our assessments, but we'll set that aside.

I could go on and rant on why I think the Church is the most corrupted institution ever created by man and how Popes have been slowing down humanity's progress for centuries, but
1 - I don't feel confident enough in my english for that
2 - That's not really the point of the topic

There are those who do "give a damn," and in Africa that is a growing number. However, you are VERY much on target that the Holy Father's stance is hardly surprising or new, and the most in Africa are not making their decision (or lack of decision) on that basis.

Actually, I think the number of catholics in Africa isn't growing that much. Most new christians there are Protestants and not Catholics. They might still form the majority of the christian population, but I'm pretty sure catholicism is having a hard time rivaling Islam and protestantism. Someone with fancy statistics might be able to prove me wrong though. I couldn't find anything about that on wikipedia.

Furthermore, apparently, a lot of them (catholics) obviously don't give a damn about the Pope and his ideas. I mean, Popes have been preaching against non-marital mariage for centuries. If anybody listened to them, you'd guess the AIDS issue wouldn't be as bad as it is now.

[Samurai Waki]

Wow. This discussion got really OT.

I think both sides of the argument have been rehashed to the point that its become skull numbing.

There's a saying I picked up somewhere that goes something like "We can talk about anything you like, except Religion, and Politics; you never know who you're going to offend."

Of course in the proper context it can be used, offensive or no, especially since this is the place where we discuss such things. However, I fail to see how this has any relevance to Ratzinger's condemnation of condoms.

[Askthepizzaguy]

People really want to express their opinions, Wakizashi, in an open forum... and when they finally blurt out their opinions, one discussion leads to another. I sometimes want to tolerate off-topic discussions. I recently had one in my own Discussions of Faith thread with Reenk Roink regarding epistemology, because I could not resist the temptation to respond to Reenk's points.

That said, there should be a limit to off-topic discussion, and I agree we may have reached that here.

[JAG]

This topic shows exactly how Chrsitianity kills more and will kill more people than Islam could ever aspire for. Disgusting.