Lying Asshole POPE BENEDICT Says Condoms Don't Prevent AIDS -- Only Abstinence Is Acceptable!
slipuvalad
in Africa on behalf of a global cult of child molesters, the
hypocritical bastard continues the "church's" nonsensical proscription
of "artificial contraception."
Seemingly indifferent to the sick and dying around him.
What a fuckin' tool!
------------------
"Pope Says Condoms Worsen HIV Problem"
"In His First Papal Trip to Africa, Benedict Brings a Message of
Sexual Morality"
By Victor L. Simpson
Associated Press
Wednesday, March 18, 2009; A09
YAOUNDE, Cameroon, March 17 -- Condoms are not the answer to Africa's
fight against HIV, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday as he began a week-
long trip to the continent. It was the pope's first explicit statement
on an issue that has divided even clergy working with AIDS patients.
Benedict arrived in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital, on Tuesday afternoon,
greeted by a crowd of flag-waving faithful and snapping cameras. The
visit is his first pilgrimage as pontiff to Africa.
In his four years as pope, Benedict had never directly addressed
condom use, although his position is not new. His predecessor, Pope
John Paul II, often said that sexual abstinence -- not condoms -- was
the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.
Benedict also said the Roman Catholic Church was at the forefront of
the battle against AIDS.
"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the pope told
reporters aboard the plane heading to Yaounde. "On the contrary, it
increases the problem."
The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help
fight the disease.
The Roman Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms as part of its
overall teaching against artificial contraception. Senior Vatican
officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from
premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS.
About 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV,
according to UNAIDS. In 2007, three-quarters of all AIDS deaths
worldwide were there, as well as two-thirds of all people living with
HIV.
Rebecca Hodes with the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said
if the pope was serious about preventing new HIV infections, he would
focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on
how best to use them.
"Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is
more important to him than the lives of Africans," said Hodes, head of
policy, communication and research for the organization.
Even some priests and nuns working with those living with HIV/AIDS
question the church's opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging
Africa. Many Africans do, as well.
"Talking about the non-use of condoms is out of place. We need condoms
to protect ourselves against diseases and AIDS," teacher Narcisse
Takou said Tuesday in Yaounde.
On his arrival in Yaounde, the pope was greeted by Cameroon's
President Paul Biya, who has ruled since 1982 and whose government has
been accused of abuses in crushing political opponents.
The pope made no specific reference to the situation in Cameroon but
said in general remarks on Africa that "a Christian can never remain
silent" in the face of violence, poverty, hunger, corruption or abuse
of power.
"The saving message of the Gospel needs to be proclaimed loud and
clear so that the light of Christ can shine into the darkness of
people's lives," Benedict said as the president and other political
leaders looked on.
Benedict's African trip this week will also take him to Angola.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR2009031703369.html
perriegh
------------
"From Bad to Worse"
"The HIV/AIDS epidemic is ravaging the District."
Wednesday, March 18, 2009; A12
WE'VE LONG known that HIV and AIDS stalk the District. But the
startling "District of Columbia HIV/AIDS Epidemiology Update 2008"
released Monday shows the breathtaking devastation that the disease
with no cure has unleashed on the District. According to the report,
in defining an HIV epidemic as "generalized and severe," the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention and the United Nations Joint
Program on HIV/AIDS have said that "the overall percentage of disease
among residents of a specific geographic area exceeds 1 percent."
It's 3 percent here.
Every ward except Ward 3 is above the 1 percent threshold. And
continuing a grim trend from the 2007 report, African Americans are
bearing the brunt of this epidemic: 4.3 percent of African Americans
in the District are living with HIV/AIDS; 6.5 percent of black men in
the city have the disease, and African Americans account for 76
percent of HIV/AIDS cases in the District. But this is no more a black
epidemic than it was a gay one when it roared to life in the 1980s.
That 1 percent epidemic threshold is crossed by just about every
racial group and age group. Three percent of Hispanic men, as well as
2.6 percent of white men and black women live with HIV/AIDS. The 40-
to-49 age group has the highest proportion of those with the disease
(7.2 percent) followed by 50- to 59-year-olds (5.2 percent) and 30- to
39-year-olds (3.4 percent). Men who have sex with men, heterosexual
transmission and intravenous drug use are the top three ways the
epidemic is spreading. Overall, the number of cases increased by 22
percent over 2006. In a separate study on heterosexual relationships
and HIV released Monday, 5 percent of the 750 District residents
surveyed tested HIV-positive. More than 70 percent of the study
participants had not used condoms.
A combination of factors allowed a bad situation to get worse. D.C.
Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who chairs the council's
health committee, told us that the District's HIV/AIDS Administration
was rendered slow and ineffective by bureaucracy, patronage and a
dearth of expertise. There have been 14 directors of that office since
it was created in 1986. Shannon L. Hader has run the office since 2007
and is the third full-time director in the past five years. In
addition, the city was prevented from spending its own funds on a
needle-exchange program until the nearly 10-year-old ban was stripped
from federal legislation authorizing the District's budget last year.
Mr. Catania calls Ms. Hader "top drawer" and praises Mayor Adrian M.
Fenty (D) for his commitment to fighting the epidemic.
As horrifying as these latest statistics are, they offer a reason for
hope. They reflect increased efforts by the District to get people
tested and into treatment (i.e. making HIV testing a routine part of
health care) and to educate them about staying uninfected (free condom
distribution). More important, the data provide the most accurate
picture to date of where and how the disease is being transmitted and
who is becoming infected. With accurate data and an agency finally
equipped with talent and resources, the District stands a chance of
driving those numbers down in a sustained and targeted way to save
lives.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR2009031703181.html
bam
"slipuvalad" <slipu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:22847280-c7fd-4847...@c9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> Like previous Popes, Benedict XVI is no friend of humankind. Speaking
> in Africa on behalf of a global cult of child molesters, the
> hypocritical bastard continues the "church's" nonsensical proscription
> of "artificial contraception."
Can't have your cake and eat it.
If you want to eliminate AIDS, do what the Pope says. Restrict sex to
marriage. The solution is simple, but if people want to be "free" (whoopee!!
free!!!), the Pope should be the last person to receive the blame.
BAM
BAM
MarvAlbert'sPanties
"Pope Benedict XVI is wrong."
Thursday, March 19, 2009; A14
THE LATE New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "Everyone
is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts." This holds true
even for the pope.
While on a flight to Cameroon on Tuesday to begin a weeklong journey
through Africa, Pope Benedict XVI said, "You can't resolve [the AIDS
epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it
increases the problem." In a perfect world, people would abstain from
having sex until they were married or would be monogamous in committed
relationships. But the world isn't perfect -- and neither is Pope
Benedict's pronouncement on the effectiveness of condoms in the battle
against HIV/AIDS. The evidence says so.
Are condoms foolproof protection against infection by HIV, which
causes AIDS? No. Sometimes they break, and sometimes people put them
on incorrectly. Still, doctors on the front lines of the fight against
the AIDS epidemic established long ago that the use of condoms greatly
diminishes the transmission of HIV, the cause of a disease that has no
cure. That the pope chose to question the value of condoms in fighting
the nearly 28-year-old scourge while heading to the continent whose
people are most affected by it is troubling. According to UNAIDS, the
Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa is the
epidemic's center, with 67 percent of the world's 32.9 million people
with HIV and with 75 percent of all AIDS deaths. Heterosexual
intercourse is the "driving force" of the epidemic.
The pope's comment was so alarming that a spokesman for the French
Foreign Ministry said, "We consider that these statements endanger
public health policies and the imperative to protect human life." What
the pontiff said was especially discordant to us coming a day after
the District's HIV/AIDS Administration released its startling survey
showing that 3 percent of this city's residents are living with HIV/
AIDS. UNAIDS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define
a "severe" epidemic in a specific area as at least 1 percent of the
population being infected. To halt the march of HIV/AIDS, those who
have the infection must be treated. Those who do not have it need all
the information and tools possible to remain HIV-negative. The pope's
denunciation of condoms is of no help.
lapMAHheinie
-----------------
"In Cameroon, Pope Deplores Violence"
By Victor L. Simpson
Associated Press
Friday, March 20, 2009; A15
YAOUNDE, Cameroon, March 19 -- Religion must reject violence, Pope
Benedict XVI told Muslim leaders Thursday before celebrating an open-
air Mass in front of thousands and delivering a message of hope for
Africa's expanding, vibrant Catholic flock.
In Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, a crowd of 40,000 welcomed Benedict to
a sports stadium -- his first occasion as pope to be among a great
crowd of faithful on the continent that is witnessing the church's
biggest growth.
In his homily, he expressed compassion for children being kidnapped
and forced to fight by rebel groups trying to carve up parts of
Africa.
"God loves you -- he has not forgotten you," he said in a message to
those children.
Earlier, the pope met with 22 representatives of Cameroon's sizable
Muslim minority and noted that religion is the basis of human
civilization. He also returned to one of the key themes of his papacy,
saying there is no incompatibility between faith and reason.
"Genuine religion . . . stands at the base of any authentically human
culture," he said. "It rejects all forms of violence and
totalitarianism, not only on principles of faith but also of right
reason."
The pope said that "religion and reason mutually reinforce one
another," and he urged Catholics and Muslims to work together "to
build a civilization of love."
Muslims make up about 22 percent of Cameroon's population, Catholics
and animists 27 percent each, and Protestants 18 percent. Christians
and Muslims largely coexist without problems in the West African
nation, unlike in neighboring Nigeria, where religious strife has
often exploded into violence.
The pope has often spoken of the need for religion to shun violence
but has refrained from pointing any finger at specific faiths since a
2006 speech in which he linked Islam to violence.
After an angry reaction from the Islamic world, Benedict expressed
regret for any offense caused by his remarks, and he has since met
several times with Muslim leaders from several countries. He is
scheduled to visit a mosque in Jordan next month.
Since Benedict stepped off the papal plane Tuesday, attention to his
pilgrimage has focused largely on the Vatican's refusal to advocate
the use of condoms as a way to help stop the spread of AIDS, which is
ravaging Africa in a pandemic that affects millions.
Benedict's declaration on the plane that distributing condoms
"increases" the AIDS problem has drawn international criticism from
governments and organizations that fight the disease.
In one of his appearances Thursday, Benedict visited a center for the
sick and infirm to express his compassion for those suffering from
AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The pope did not mention the Vatican
stance against condoms.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031903364.html
lapMAHheinie
--------------
"Vatican Official Defends Child's Abortion"
By Francis X. Rocca
Religion News Service
Saturday, March 21, 2009; B07
VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican's top bioethics official said the two
Brazilian doctors who performed an abortion on a 9-year-old rape
victim do not merit excommunication, because they acted to save her
life.
The statement, by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the
Pontifical Academy for Life, appeared as the lead article in last
Sunday's issue of the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore
Romano.
"There are others who deserve excommunication and our forgiveness,"
Fisichella wrote, addressing the unidentified rape victim, "not those
who permitted you to live and who will help you to regain hope and
faith."
The case drew international attention earlier this month after the
local Catholic archbishop excommunicated the doctors who aborted the
girl's twin fetuses, as well as the girl's mother.
The child was 15 weeks pregnant, allegedly after being raped by her
stepfather. Weighing only 80 pounds, she might have died if forced to
carry the pregnancy to term, the doctors said.
While reiterating Catholic teaching that abortion is an "intrinsically
wicked act," Fisichella suggested that under the circumstances, it
might have been the lesser evil.
"Her life was in serious danger because of the pregnancy in progress,"
Fisichella wrote. "How to act in these cases? An arduous decision for
the physician and for the moral law itself."
In contrast with church authorities' typically uncompromising
statements on abortion, Fisichella stressed the degree of moral
discretion that the doctors were forced to exercise.
"The conscience of the physician finds itself alone when forced to
decide the best thing to do," he wrote. "A choice like that of having
to save a life, knowing that one puts a second at serious risk, never
comes easily."
The article did not explicitly mention the girl's mother, who was
excommunicated for authorizing the abortion. Church officials have
said the girl is not under threat of excommunication.
Another extraordinary aspect of Fisichella's article was its frank
rebuke of José Cardoso Sobrinho, archbishop of Olinda and Recife, whom
it accused of having "rushed" to declare the excommunications -- "a
judgment as heavy as a meat cleaver" -- when his first task should
have been the pastoral care of the victim.
Cardoso Sobrinho's action harmed the "credibility of our teaching,
which appears in the eyes of so many as insensitive, incomprehensible
and lacking in mercy," Fisichella wrote.
Because church law requires the automatic excommunication of anyone
who collaborates in an abortion, Fisichella wrote, "there was no
need . . . for such urgency and publicity" in declaring the fact.
Fisichella's article also implicitly contradicted Cardinal Giovanni
Battista Re, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, who had
publicly defended Cardoso Sobrinho's action earlier this month.
Vatican officials rarely air their differences in public, let alone on
the front page of the pope's newspaper.
According to respected Vatican journalist Sandro Magister,
Fisichella's article was probably approved in advance by Cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone, who as secretary of state is considered the
Vatican's No. 2 official, after Pope Benedict XVI.
After nearly two months of international controversy over the pope's
decision to readmit a Holocaust-denying bishop to the church in late
January, Magister called this case of crossed signals the latest
indication of confusion at the highest levels of the Holy See.
"It is yet another sign of the disorder that reigns in the Curia,"
Magister said, referring to the church's international governing
bureaucracy. "It shows that Benedict XVI is paying the price for
refusing to reform the Curia."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032002415.html
jesus'sbuttboy
-------------------
Religion Briefing
The Washington Post
Saturday, March 21, 2009; B06
U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS
"Group Reports Rise in Clergy Sex Abuse Claims"
U.S. CATHOLIC LEADERS processed more than 800 allegations of clergy
sexual abuse last year, a 16 percent increase from 2007. The majority
of the allegations involved abuse that occurred decades ago.
A report issued last week by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
showed 803 allegations were filed by 706 victims last year against 518
clergy members. The church also spent more than $436 million in legal
settlements, attorneys' fees and counseling costs.
Just 13 of the 803 cases involved alleged abuse of a minor that
occurred during 2008. Nearly all of the cases involved accusations of
molestation that occurred decades ago. The church said 83 percent of
those accused were dead, defrocked or missing.
The relative lack of recent cases shows that the American church has
"turned a corner" in the abuse scandal that erupted seven years ago,
said Teresa M. Kettlekamp, director of the bishops' abuse-prevention
office.
Victims' advocates, however, raised questions about a section in the
report that said "many dioceses are conducting . . . investigations
themselves without also making a report to civil authorities," which
would be a direct violation of the bishops' 2002 reforms.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those
Abused by Priests, worried that children could be at risk while church
officials sift through allegations without first alerting law
enforcement. "To be honest, this is precisely what got us into this
mess to begin with: untrained, biased church amateurs trying to be
cops, investigators, forensic experts and prosecutors," he said.
Kettlekamp, however, said her report raised the issue only as a
cautionary warning to dioceses not to try to handle criminal behavior
on their own. She said she would not include it in a "problem
category."
"Our rule of thumb is that if it involves a current minor, you involve
the civil authorities immediately and rely on their expertise," she
said in an interview. "I'm not saying we have this problem; I'm saying
I don't want this to become a problem."
The increase from 691 allegations in 2007 to 803 in 2008 appears to be
fueled by a 93 percent spike in abuse involving members of religious
communities. Those allegations nearly doubled, from 92 to 178; 40
percent of the 2008 allegations involved one religious order.
By comparison, the number of allegations reported by the nation's 195
dioceses increased by 26, or 4 percent, from 2007.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032002981.html