Pope Benedict XVI represents the "old order" of Catholicism which sees the church as the sole repository of absolute, unchangeable truth about God, life and moral values. The "old order" believes that the church is here to guide the world and that it has little or nothing to gain from mundane wisdom. The Catholic's task is to tell it as it is, to proclaim the church's teaching in season and out of season. This is especially true regarding issues like abortion, stem cell research and contraception and gender issues like homosexuality.
Thus far the church has not responded to any particular needs of modern society. Therefore the Pope's comments here are open to interpretation (that wasn't what he said), and could also change at any time.

Vanna

I think the Catholic Church a wonderful institution and think that the world is a better place because of it. What is wrong with having a difference of opinion with it on an issue? How does that equate with "putting the boot in."? Just because I think that the Catholic Church takes the wrong stance on contraception does not infer that I think they have moral failings. On this question I merely think that the Church Hierarchy gives too much consideration to the intrinsic matters of procreation and promiscuity, and too little consideration to the extrinsic matter of denial of contraception as a means of oppression.

*Its simply trendy to be critical of the Catholic church.*

I should hope that its finally become trendy. The Vatican is
responsible for much misery and suffering in the third world.
They need to be held to account for that. They are a highly
political player in the third world and every political
player should be open to judgement and scrutiny.

If the Church simply preached to its flock, fair enough.
But their political interference goes right up to the UN,
where they lobby for their backward family planning policy.

When a woman has popped out 8 kids and still can't get her
tubes tied, because the Catholics own the hospital, there
is a serious problem.

Yabby,
Last century, the most suffering in the world actually came from marxist regimes, and estimates are that over 100 million died under those regimes, normally in concentration camps or through mass forced starvation.

I also haven't noticed anything similar to a fatwa being issued on an academic if they are critical of the Catholic church, and perhaps this is why they like to be critical of the Catholic church rather than other religions.

According to risk management, the Pope is 100% correct in not supporting the use of condoms, and personally I haven't seen statistics that conclusively show that the use of condoms reduces AIDS.

If anything, condoms might just give people a false sense of security.

Vanna, the popes method of crossing your legs for Jesus, has
proven to be a dismal failure globally. Not even the Catholic
clergy manage to live by it.

Its been well and truly tried and tested in the US. In some
schools that is all they teach. Result is some of the highest
rates of teen pregnancy in the Western world. Compare them
to Holland, where sex education, the pill and all the rest are
taught, with some of the lowest rates on the planet.

Australia's attack on HIV with the Grim Reaper campaign,
involving condoms, exchange needles and dealing with the
issue head on, resulted in our having one of the lowest
HIV rates on the planet. Our method was clearly a success.

Forcing people to have children that they don't want, so
they have to live in poverty, forcing young raped girls
to have the child, forcing desperate women to risk their
lives having backyard abortions, where tens of thousands
die every year, is hardly humane. If you'd like a URL
link about some of the misery going on in the third world,
due to the last pope, I have one in the archives. I'll
post it, with the full transcript link, if you are
interested. But I've posted it many times before on
OLO.

Yabby,
There is no connection between your statistics and the Cathloic church, and some of your statistics were made up by the abortion industry.

Eg Australia has the pill, and it has a high rate of abortion. There were very few women killed through backyard abortions. There are very few women raped, with estimates that it is only about 1 in 100 chance that they would become pregnant from a rape.

As mentioned, it is easy for academics to attack the Catholic church, because the Catholic church seldom fights back. But these same academics should go to some other countries and attack their religion and see how long they can stay out of jail, or out of the morgue.