Washington Post Blasts Pope

As God's Rottweiler continues his tour of parts of Africa spreading idiocy and delivering an anti-condom message with apparently no thought or care whatsoever to the lives he is endangering, the Washington Post got it right and blasted Benedict XVI for his almost criminal behavior. Here are some highlight:
*

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.

*

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." . . . 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.

*

As on Nigerian blogger correctly noted, why does anyone listen to Benedict XVI:

*

What does the Pope know about condom? Scratch that! What does the Pope Know about marriage? What does the Pope know about sex? One hundred years from now, the people who will inhabit this earth will read our stories of today and laugh at our stupidity. They will wonder how millions of people with brain cells in their heads chose to listen to a man who never married and never had sex teach them about marriage and sex. They will wonder, “What the hell was wrong with our foreparents?”

*

The Pope is irresponsible, many now say in the wake of this new controversy. But I think the Pope’s stance on many social issues is criminal. . . . Since the 80s when AIDS was first diagnosed, 25 million people have died. Many more were saved due to prevention methods like the promotion of condom use. If the Pope will not keep his religion, he should be ready to have the blood of these brainwashed followers on his head.