Papal comments continuing to stir things up

Pope Benedict XVI is no stranger to controversy. Since becoming pontiff four years ago, he has drawn criticism from Muslims and the gay community. He angered many by lifting the excommunication of Richard Williamson, a bishop who denied the Holocaust.

While his stance against the use of condoms is widely known, the Pope sparked international criticism last month when he said, “The problem (Aids) cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics (condoms). On the contrary, they increase it.”

Since then, the Vatican has attempted to dismiss this latest controversy, saying that “hasty commentators” had misunderstood his comments.

This outcry came at a particularly bad time for the Vatican. He made the comments during a visit to Africa, the continent worst affected by Aids, where 22 million people have contracted the disease.

An editorial in The Lancet, a London-based medical journal, said that the comments were “outrageous and wildly inaccurate”, and that scientific evidence had been distorted to promote Catholic doctrine.

Aids activists worldwide expressed their disapproval, while the governments of France and Belgium said the Pope’s statement could be detrimental to health campaigns. Not everyone has been fully critical of the Pope’s comments, however.

Dr Edward Green, a director of a HIV Prevention research project at Harvard University, told BBC Radio Ulster that condoms haven’t reduced HIV in Africa, and that “the people using condoms are the people who are having risky sex.”

The World Health Organisation however denies that condom use can lead people to take more risks

In an article in The Korea Times, writer Jon Huer dismissed the Pope’s point that condoms exacerbate Aids, but argued that because condoms make sex “less dangerous”, people may be inclined to have sex more often.

In the Irish Independent, Kevin Myers said that condoms cannot stop Aids “amongst a general population of sexually promiscuous individuals.” Myers says that as condoms have failure rates of around 5%, if you have protected sex with enough infected people, you’ll probably contract the virus regardless.

Myers’ argument isn’t helped by the fact that he condemns the media’s reaction to the Pope’s comments.

Myers neglects to acknowledge the main issue critics have with the Pope’s comments – the idea that condoms cause Aids.

Since the comments, the Vatican has defended the Pope, saying he was “maintaining the position of his predecessors.”

But that’s unlikely to quell the ongoing opposition to traditional Catholic doctrine. As Joseph Ratzinger nears his 82nd birthday, this opposition is hardly the present he is looking for.