Or at least not as important as say, the lack of societal organisation and support in Africa for a concerted and organised aids prevention programme.

The truckers who drive the long haul between the differing countries have done more for the spread of aids in the continent than any priest. 

Not to mention the lack of information about how the disease is spread or how it can be cured, one folk remedy is sex with a virgin...

Yes the pope is noob, we can all sit here, in nice comfy chairs and berate him for taking a really numb position on birth control.

But before we take the burning cross and shove it on the vatican lawn we should take a moment to consider, consider the facts about how we as an international community are not intervening nearly enough in Africa.  About how, even with all the criticism we can levy at the catholic church they raise funds and operate support structures in africa that do some good. 

And how just getting angry at an old bloke who wears a dress and believes he has a direct phone line to the almighty may not be the best way forward to solving this particular problem.

But he is a noob, definitely.  With the eyes of a killer that shine like gimlets on a dark night, and he's german too and they bombed our chippy. 

But does he get in the popemobile and fly over Rwanda beaming down evil thought rays getting the local government to commit genocide?  Does he campaign for Africa not to recieve debt relief? 

Blame DeBeer's(The joy of Diamonds ), blame the cold war, blame international exploitation of an under-developed economy.  Even blame the the twin evils of the Common market food policy and cash crops for wrecking the emergent African rural economy in the 70's. 

But dont regard the Roman Catholic churchs position on contraception as being a primary factor here.

But if you really *want* to bug Me and are still trying because I didnt put the damm contact field in properly....

Thegamefinisher@yahoo.co.uk

Just to clarify- you think the girl should have risked death to give birth to her rapists baby, and the Pope was right to excommunicate them all for putting their daughters life before that of the rapists foetus? Please tell me I misunderstood that bit!

Fair enough - just wanted to check that you knew what you were talking about!  That's utterly horrendous, do you know if it was Vatican approved, if so that's a serious moral crime.

You're half right.  I feel that the girl should have had an abortion if she was unwilling to risk her own death (I'd choose an abortion over my death any day!)  However, I also hold that if you profess to believe that abortion is a sin against God (which I don't), which is irreconcilable with your religious organisation, and the person involved does not repent, then you have no choice but to excommunicate.

IE I believe his opinion on abortion is wrong, but if the church holds that view, then they shouldn't allow people who commit that sin in their church (if they don't repent).  Just as they shouldn't allow unrepentant rapists, murderers, criminals etc (I'm not for one moment comparing abortion and murder - but I know that the Catholic Church does.)

That may be an uninformed conclusion, but its certainly a logical one.

Now, the Catholic Church has things to say about using condoms... but it has worse things to say about rape, child molestation and even sex outside marriage. What part of the Christian portfolio of monogamy and no-nookie-before-bookie would lead anyone to assume that the result of telling people that virgins don't have AIDS would be for men to go out and rape teenagers? And, frankly, how would the raping of those teenagers have been better if the man had worn a condom?

It easy to blame a reluctance to use condoms on the Pope, but how do we blame him for the Tribal violence, genocidal rape squads and UN peace-keeping operations*? How do we blame a profoundly anti-nookie religion for rape and people having rampant sex outside of marriage?

I'm not denying that the condom thing is counter-productive, but I have to put it in perspective. 

* Stationing African troops as part of UN peace-keeping forces in other parts of Africa has contributed greately to the spread of HIV. It may well be that as many as 75% of the Zimbabwe armed forces are HIV positive.