Has anybody seen the Watoto Children's Choir recently? They're amazing. A group of young children, orphaned by the AIDS pandemic and Civil War in their country. They go around the world singing to raise money for schools, medicial clinics and houses built in Uganda.

Anyway, Uganda is an interesting case in point. Most readers of the Forum will realise what Uganda did to decrease its AIDS rates by an incredible 70%. The government began to advocate safer sex practices in the same way the Australian government advocates for road safety and against drug use.

Basically the government promoted the ABC's of sexual health:
A) Abstinence until Marriage
B) Monogamy thereafter.
C) If you can't do either of the above, use a condom.

Common sense if you ask me, after all, AIDS is sexually transmitted disease.

I think the above line of thinking (which was influenced by the country's leader's Christian wife) would work well throughout Africa. The first two appease cultural and/or religious sensitivites, the last is a back up for those who choose not to follow these rules.

I realise many people blamed the last Pope for causing so much death through his no condoms policy. As was rightly pointed out, do we honestly believe that African Catholics are disobedient enough to Christian belief that they would carry out non-monogamous sex but obedient enough to the Pope that they would make sure they didn't use any condoms?

We need a compromise. Already the Pope has said condoms between married couples where at least one partner is HIV infected might be OK. We need to push this line of thinking, and embrace the Ugandan style of AIDS prevention if we want to see any real results in Africa.

www.watoto.com for those interested in what's going on there.

Its a shame that the Catholic Church will not also look at the horrific consequences of overpopulation, largely brought about by the church's mediaeval mindset on cotraception.

Bill you also say of the Pope "a willingness to open the matter for discussion is a sign of his sophistication" . This is crap.

A sophisticated person with an ounce of morality would have made the issue a priority for discussion when it became clear that condoms could prevent AIDS, and other sexuaally transmitted diseases.

The Catholic Church is a sick joke.

YngNluvinit... that choir has been to our Church, and we are sending a team to Unganda to build a house for some orphans.. They are awesome kids.

I don't see why the position of the RC church on condoms and birth control should not be challenged.

I don't really know on what it is based, because Scripture is pretty well totally absent of anything resembling a foundation. The only reference to 'God killing' a man who spilled his semen rather than impregnating a woman, was for totally different reasons than him simply trying to avoid a pregnancy. Other than that, I know of nothing within cooee of a basis for 'no' to birth control.

The 'rythm' method advocated by the RCs is exactly the same in goal as using a condom. You have sex for the intimate pleasure, but don't want a pregnancy.

I think they have painted themselves into a corner on this one, and now it's too big a thing to back down on, as it might suggest the 'fallability' of the Pope who originated the idea.

Beats me.

YngNLuvnIt, "As was rightly pointed out, do we honestly believe that African Catholics are disobedient enough to Christian belief that they would carry out non-monogamous sex but obedient enough to the Pope that they would make sure they didn't use any condoms?"

The ban is not just on non-monogamous sex but any sex outside of marriage. I suspect that a certain well known politician was not less informed or less dedicated to his faith than many africans when he was having a sexual realtionship outside of marriage but choose not to use condoms. Humans manage to be like that. They don't have to be stupid or evil, just living with the conflicts of priority that are part of life.

Add to that the difficulties in getting access to condoms if your community generally believes them to be wrong. I'd guess that in strongly catholic communities they are not the easiest item to buy unobtrusively.

Some of the blame does lie at the feet of those who promote bans on condoms.

R0bert

A sophisticated person with an ounce of morality would understand the basic human right to have children is not a sick joke.

A sophisticated person with an ounce of morality would understand that the goal of children having a right to a stable family and communal life is not a sick joke.

A sophisticated person with an ounce of morality would realise that Westerners who disproportionally exploit the Earth's resources is a very sick joke!

A sophisticated person with an ounce of morality would do better to see the inconsistency of promoting casual sex as a solution to environmental degradation or demographic decline.

A sophisticated person with an ounce of morality would...sorry, just loved the term and intellectual basis of the argument made.

An infinite Universe + rational thought - greed = no problems.

Selfish Greed, not overpopulation, is the problem.

The Catholic Church has NEVER wanted birth control for Catholics .(look at Mexico ,South America and Phillipines ,etc ) over populated,poverty,disease,misery,living on rubbish dumps, starvation and prostitution to survive.
It does not work.
The Catholic Churches reason is only to populate the world with Catholics and More Catholics

They don't give a damn who suffers and starves as long as priests and the like can rule the illiterate ones,still do ,after all the media cover on them.
A priest prevented a strict Catholic relative from using condoms 35 years ago when she had 8 kids and was in danger of losing her life if she had more kids,which put her in a mental state .They should mind their own celibate business,single men telling marrieds what to do sexually.