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April 11, 2005
Did the Pope Spread AIDS in Africa?
Brendan O'Neil, not a JPII fan, says get a grip
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Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Finally, somebody points out the bone-in-the-nose ooga booga childish African who haunts the racist liberal imagination of the "The Church is killing millions!" agitprop brigade.
Okay. So let's get this straight. The Pope says, "Sex is for marriage and don't contracept." Africans, in cringing childlike fear and obedience, nod blankly, say "Ooga booga", and superstitiously avert their eyes as they pass the little hut with the Peace Corps medic. "Condom Bad!" they say in their barbaric tongue. "Great White Pope say condom bad! Me obey Pope!"
And then, in slavish obedience to the White Father, they stop in at the brothel next door and proceed to fornicate like rabbits? And that's the Church's doing?
Uh huh.
Posted by: Mark Shea at Apr 11, 2005 10:22:53 AM
I think the real argument is that
1. Pressure from the Holy See has successfully stifled various condom distribution campaigns by NGO's and Government agenicies, but
2. The Church has not by and large been successful in curtailng risky and immoral sexual behavior.
Unless we get a change in #1 or #2, its hard to see how the AIDS situation in Africa will improve.
Posted by: Rick at Apr 11, 2005 10:36:42 AM
I think the author of the article made some good points - one that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is the desire for children. There's another possible factor, as well. I've never been to Africa, so can't speak to what the mentality is like there, but I have been in Eastern Europe for a good amount of time and while condoms were heavily promoted they were very seldom used - and they didn't even want more than one child, very much. However, it is a very male-oriented culture (as a lot of African ones seem to be) and the fact was that the guys simply. did. not. like. them. They're obnoxious, inconvenient, take away from the moment, and (so I've heard, not being a guy myself) "make you less of a man." These people knew about AIDS risks, they knew what could happen, but they just didn't want to use condoms, or at least not consistently enough to make any difference. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this was a factor in African non-condom-use, no matter how good or bad the supply.
Posted by: Sonetka at Apr 11, 2005 11:21:03 AM
Some actual sanity in the non-RC media- albeit that in cyberspace- on the matter. O'Neil even deals with the fact that lots of Catholics do stuff that the Catholic Church states is wrong. Ah, but that matter of individual responsibility creeps into the matter. Makes one wonder if those people willing to rip Our Departed Holy Father on AIDS are all that eager to eliminate it from Africa- or Manhattan, or Center City Phila., or anywhere else. Or if the impulse to complain is simply stronger. Might even want to ignore a nagging suspicion that....maybe that elderly Polish prelate had the best interests of the African peoples in mind....Naaaaahhhhh.....Too easy.....
Posted by: Gerard E. at Apr 11, 2005 1:49:13 PM
Mark - thanks for being racist and oblvious all at the same time. Next time you might want to look into some sociology, some geopolitics, and some awareness of the dynamics of the local cultural situations which result in women being nothing more than objects. No the church doesn't cause aids, but it doesn't help the situation either. And as for your analysis, it adds nothing to the discussion but the sound of air sucking out of the vast hole in your head.
Posted by: pw at Apr 11, 2005 11:44:29 PM
Sonetka hit on something interesting. Some men won't use condoms not out of fear of the church - but out of fear for their masculinity. AKA real men don't use condoms. They have sex at will. To change this behavior (not make them use condoms, but to promote them being faithful will require a cultural shift that cannot be imposed by the west or by the church. For any cultural change to work, the members of the culture have to own the change themselves. Therefore, for the church to be effective in this cultural shift it has to work with local communities and within local custom.
Posted by: pw at Apr 11, 2005 11:49:33 PM
Nevertheless.
If sexual promiscuity is happening - a regrettable situation, but let us be realistic here - and condoms are not used, either because of masculine anxieties or Church teaching (and the Church has done everything it possibly could to block the use of condoms) people, many of them monogamous women and innocent children, will die.
So someone explain to me why this is OK.
Posted by: Nancy at Apr 12, 2005 3:51:44 AM
The Pope helped spread AIDS in Africa. See previous post. This is OK why?
Posted by: Nancy at Apr 12, 2005 4:11:23 AM
I've lived in two African countries for over a year. I've seen a friend die of AIDS there, too, so I know a bit about the subject.
At least in central Africa, men often refuse to wear condoms despite a wide range of information put out by NGOs, government agencies, and grassroots organizations. To my knowledge, these men aren't avoiding condoms because of church doctrine - they are doing it for other reasons.
Considering the wealth of pro-condom publicity campaigns and the numerous condoms around in cities, I think it is a bit much to claim the Pope or the Church is somehow holding back access to condoms. They are all over the place.
What really irks me about the "pope hates condoms=pope kills" line of reasoning is how it entirely ignores the charity that the Church provides. Countries in Central Africa have extremely limited health and relief resources. Missions run schools, clinics, and support centers for AIDS victims and survivors of rape. I'd be happy to post addresses of just a few of places in Congo-Kinshasa (ex-Zaire, Belgian Congo) alone if readers want to help them.
How many people in the crowds trying to get cheap shots on the Holy Father are giving money or aid to Africans dealing with the AIDS crisis?
Posted by: Jeremy Rich at Apr 12, 2005 6:07:51 AM
Of course the vast majority of the commentators in the mainstream press care little about Africans and Aids. This is simply another front in their on-going culture war against the Church. The Church is the main opponent of the sexual revolution and all the havoc it has wreaked. Sexual license is the high holy of the aging boomers currently at the helm of the mainstream press. They will keep lashing out at the Church on this issue until they totter off to their nursing homes. Our record levels of STDs in the West attest that this argument is a fraud. Only a return to some semblance of sexual morality will effectively combat this epedemic, and that is precisely the prescription that is anathema to the libertine critics of Mother Church.
Posted by: Donald R. McClarey at Apr 12, 2005 6:35:04 AM
Oh OK I get it. I think.
The Church's efforts to restrict access to condoms have been ineffective. IF those efforts had been successful, many more people would have died, but since they weren't effective, the attempt is OK.
Do I have this right?
Oh and yes, don't forget that I don't care about Africans or AIDS, according to Donald, so anything I say is irrelevant anyhow.
Posted by: Nancy at Apr 12, 2005 6:58:38 AM
"The Church's efforts to restrict access to condoms have been ineffective. IF those efforts had been successful, many more people would have died, but since they weren't effective, the attempt is OK."
If the Church's teachings on sexual morality are followed, no one dies. In a culture that views the death of millions of innocents each year through abortion as an acceptable cost of sexual freedom, this message, although true, is considered to be absurd.
Posted by: Donald R. McClarey at Apr 12, 2005 7:46:34 AM
Jeremy,
Interesting post. Of course the Church has done much to care for African AIDS victims and the millions of children orphaned in Africa due to AIDS.
As Rev. Martin Rhonheimer points out "Campaigns to promote abstinence and fidelity are certainly and ultimately the only effective long-term remedy to combat Aids." Still, condoms indisputably reduce AIDS transmission rates when they are used by infective groups like prostitutes and homosexuals.
Is it licit for public health officials to work to increase condom usage among such infective groups?
Can Catholic doctors and officials cooperate in such campaigns?
Is urging those who are determined to live promiscuously formal cooperation in their sin, or licit material cooperation?
This is a complex issue. (In fact, it is one of Germain Grisez's "Difficult Moral Questions.") And the stakes are high — not only for the promiscuous themselves, but for the millions of innocent children that are being orphaned.
Posted by: Rick at Apr 12, 2005 8:37:45 AM
pw:
Part of the problem is that our culture has infantilized certain groups - and then uses it as a club against those challenge all to act responsibly.
Posted by: Fr Phil Bloom at Apr 12, 2005 10:53:46 AM
If the Church's teachings on sexual morality are followed, no one dies.
Sure. But what if they aren't followed, and nevertheless we can cut the death rate - among many innocent people, like the wives and children of the bad bad promiscuous people - by promoting the distribution of condoms?
So we won't. Because. For some reason or other. To be better or something.
What deaths by abortion have to do with this mystifies me, Donald. Except to distract everyone from the main question.
This position on condoms is OK why? (Please, someone answer the question, and don't hare off about abortion or Terri Schiavo or how I supposedly hate Africans or something.)
Posted by: Nancy at Apr 12, 2005 1:36:09 PM
I'd look to the dictum that "one may never do evil that good may come of it" myself.
Posted by: Sonetka at Apr 12, 2005 3:06:18 PM
dont know many dictums myself but have heard of of the commandment "Thou shall not kill". we're not talking about the unborn here - there are thousands of ADULT faithfull who will contract AIDS through Catholic teachings. By condemming condom use as "Evil" the church is condemming people to death. plain and simple.
Posted by: Luke at Apr 18, 2005 10:36:07 AM
Guys hate condoms. Also, they might want to have many kids so they don't use codoms even though there are many std risks they still have unprotected sex. This is not because of the church but because of free will.
Posted by: Ooga Booga at Apr 19, 2005 7:05:41 PM
Ooga Booga is totally right. He is the man and he should be given some kind of reward.
Posted by: African at Apr 19, 2005 7:08:00 PM
