Harvard Academic: Pope is Right about Condoms

While major media characterize Pope Benedict XVI’s prescription for combating HIV infection as “unrealistic and ineffective” and unscientific, an authority on the disease has a different message: “More and more AIDS experts are coming to accept . . .” that “the Pope is correct.”

By Selwyn Duke

“We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.” If not for this statement’s academic style, you might think it was rendered by a Pope or prelate. Yet its author is actually Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, who was quoted by Kathryn Jean Lopez writing at National Review Online.

Read the rest here.

Comments

[Walt]

Mr. Duke,

Again! How insensitive! Don't you realize you might hurt someone’s feelings? Surely you can not suggest that the practice of heterosexual monogamy, as endorsed by ancient documents like the Bible might actually have, some sort of seemingly mystical relation to physical and mental health. Surely it is a coincidence. Surely the Bible is just a vast document of coincidences, for we know mankind is much smarter now than he was 2000-3000 years ago.

It is too bad common sense was not spread as easily as HIV. Actually it is... but you must engage in the wholesome to catch it...get in the Word.

[Robert Berger]

No offense meant to the Pope, but his attitudes toward sex are pathetically unrealistic. No, condoms do not always prevent the transmission of STDs, but they they can do this to some extent, and also prevent many,many unwanted pregnancies, thus preventing abortions and the birth of poor,unwanted children.
Saying that people shouldn't use condoms because they don't always work is as inane as saying that people shouldn't drive with seatbelts because they don't always work.
It's totally unrealistic for any one to expect all people to confine sex to heterosexual marriage and not to engage in any kind of sexual behavior outside of marriage; this is an absolute impossibility.
When will the Catholic church and other conservatives get in touch with reality?

[John]

Robert, I guess your reply is a good example of why it helps to actually READ THE ARTICLE. Duke cited an aids expert who said that SCIENCE is proving the Pope right. The expert doesn't just say that it's that condoms don't work in every situation. He said that they don't work AT THE LEVEL OF POPULATION. No wonder people like you don't learn. You don't actually read anything that disagrees with you. You just assume that it must be wrong because it's not the same as what's in your little head.

[Walt]

Robert,

I think the Catholic Church is in touch with reality, it is the bending of the perception of "reality" to suit ones desire for perversion that is the problem. I am not Catholic but the advice they offer is sure fire. Countries that have had their population decimated with AIDS, can keep listening to guys like you and the Trojan man; let their libido rule their life being assured they have only a 1 in 100 chance of getting AIDS while protected. Of course that is until the Peace Corps rubber express gets held up in customs for a day or two. Surely you do not expect them to display restraint in absence of condoms. For the "natural instinct" of "animal sex" is only to be expected when one behaves as an animal (I do not reserve the term "Animal sex" for homosexuals). How many millions of people have the leftist killed via HIV? They encourage perverse behavior and peddle prophylactics as a remedy for the potential ills. More will die by the hands of leftist ideals in the 21 century than Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung combined. Crimes against humanity? You want to get a handle on the Aids problem in Africa? Get behind the Pope! We are not animals; we are Man, made in the image of God. Moral living is not inconceivable. Is it inconceivable for the Africans? Are they too inferior to grasp the concept of restraint and monogamy? I think not, but I think the leftists believe it in their heart to be true just like the foundation of the Democrat party post civil war…racist to the core. The Pope has this one right.

[Philip France]

Our dear friend Mr. Berger reappears to offer more infantile observations. I do not wish to pick on you, Robert. Your opinions are held by far too many and at least you have the temerity to express them here.

Like my friend Walt, I am also not a Roman Catholic. However, the Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, is the spiritual leader of our time. This does not mean, as the Roman Catholics claim (if he is speaking 'Ex Cathedra') that his pronouncements are infallible and transcend even Holy Writ, but it does mean that his pronouncements deserve our most sober contemplation.

After such contemplation, it turns out that Pope Benedict is correct based empirical evidence. My friend, you CANNOT argue facts. At best you may debate their relevence but, in the end, the facts remain unscathed.

Robert, I take it that you are a young man. God help us all if you are not. The term "liberal" once meant that such an individual was a champion of liberty. The exercise of one's liberty ends when it encroaches on the liberty of another that is not of similar comportment. As such, true liberty holds essential that one govern their own lives by a system of values and mores. Since men and women are not infallible, we must consult a source outside of and above ourselves to derive right doctrine. Who better to prescribe such doctrine than our Creator? He has given us such doctrine in his written Word. The pronouncements of Pope Benedict XVI, supported by scientific evidence, as well as the commentary on this subject by Selwyn Duke, are in complete harmony with this.

I will grant you this point: To think that abstinence is a realistic solution is far-fetched. But that does not make this assertion any less correct. It is the goal that we should strive for and should be the primary educational tool of eradicating this misery. We should support the Pope's proclamation with our thoughts, our prayers and our wallets.

Robert,

It is fashionable for young people to be "liberal". But modern libralism is not liberal at all. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Modern liberal ideologies emanate from statists that want absolute control. Its adherents are what V.I. Lenin described (accurately) as "useful idiots". Liberals have not been correct on ONE issue; not a single ONE since the Civil Rights movement of the early 60's. Even then, the liberals hijacked that issue after Evangelical Christians did the heavy lifting.

Someone once said (I'm paraphrasing), "if you are on the side of law, argue law. If you are on the side of facts, argue facts, but if if you are on the side of neither, just holler". THAT is the modern liberal/progressive.

In the most recent edition of The Washington Times, brilliant columnist Jeffrey T. Kuhner wrote passionately on this very subject. It is a worthwhile read.

[Robert Berger]

I happen to be in my 50s,and am more of a libertarian than a doctrinaire leftist. You have completely misconstrued what I was trying to say. I didn't say that it's alright for people to be sexually licentious and that they should have sex with whomever they want whenever they want with no regard for the consequences.
But what the Pope advocates is as ridiculous as when Nancy Reagan started that stupid"Just say no to drugs" publicity campaign.
Did this work? of course not. When the Pope and the Catholic church tell people not to have sex unless they are married,and not to be promiscuous if they are married,it's absolutely futile. It just doesn't work. There are better ways to educate people in Africa and teach them to be responsible sexually.
Don't get me wrong.I'm not opposed to Christianity per se or any other religion,and I'm not an atheist,just not conventionally religious,and a non-observant secular Jew. What I'm opposed to,as well as many other non-conservatives, is religions getting political power in America or any other country. This guarantees tyranny.
This is why the founding fathers were so opposed to the kind of Christianity the religious right in America represents. People should just keep their religious beliefs to themselves,and not try to impose their social agendas on me or the rest of this country. Is this too much to ask?
I'm no godless,commie who thinks that there is no such thing as right or wrong and who wants to undermine young people's morality. Nor am I a hedonistic, promiscuous baby-killer. American Christians and conservatives have no monopoly on morality or being patriotic and virtuous. And I repeat.The REAL American left wing does not even consider Obama one of theirs. He's too conservative for them!
Telling people not to have sex doesn't work;nor does telling women not to have abortions. And you CAN'T legislate morality.

[Walt]

First of all ALL laws are some sort of morality legislation.

Second you don't have to be religious to realize promoting self control, in this case sexual, is the best and most effective way of prevention of AIDs, other STDs and pregnancy. This is a fact you can not argue. I know if one was to go to the red light district in Frisco and tell the deviants to be restrained you would not get very far; their perversion is now fully mature. Such as it is, it did not happen over night, it took years of rebellion. Encouraging such behavior is wrong in the US and wrong in Africa. Handing out rubbers and telling them to carry on is a terrible message; especially to the next generation, that will see a degraded morality as the norm. Sadly enough weather you call it natural selection or the Laws of Nature as ordained by natures God, these perverse cultures will find a way to implode and vanish; by decadence or disease they will die out, it always happens that way.

That is certainly not intolerant, just an observation on history and human nature.

[Philip France]

Robert, my friend.

How on earth did you get the notion that our Founding Fathers were "opposed to the kind of Christianity that the religious right represents"?

These men were among the most devout Christians in all of history. Yes, I know of the argument that Jefferson and Franklin were "Deists". In truth, they did not subscribe to the notion of the Trinity (and frankly, neither do I) but they were were indeed devout Christians. What the Fathers wished to prevent was a single "state reigion", meaning that we would all be Roman Catholic or Church of England or Methodist, etc. We are to accept and respect all of the various and sundry denominations without an official proclamation of a single one. But make no mistake, their emphasis on piety and submission to moral order as defined by our Creator was unmistakable.

The history of England that led up to this point began in earnest with King Henry VIII. He procalimed that all of England, at this point predominantly Roman Catholic, to be forced into the Church of England. After his demise, his sister and future monarchs yo-yo'd this great nation back and forth from COE to the Roman Church and back again, leaving its citizenry in doubt and despair about their most heartfelt convictions. Look at England (and nearly all of Western Europe) now. They are about to be devoured by the scourge of radical Islam and this is likely to happen without a single shot being fired and with nary a drop of blood being shed.

Furthermore, that you think that the Pope's proclamation is "ridiculous" makes it no less correct. The point of Selwyn's article was to demonstrate that it has been proven so. The same is true with Nancy Reagan's proclamation. That many have chosen to defy this advice does not make her assertion any less correct. Not one iota.

Mr. O'Bummer (I refuse to call him our President until he furnishes evidence that he is Constitutionally eligible for that office) recently declared that we are not a Christian nation. This is yet another in his many lies.

Do me a favor: Can you prognosticate what this nation might be like if all of its Christians were to disappear tomorrow? What shape would it be in without its prayers, its charity?

I'll save you the trouble. It is written. In II Thessaloinians, beginning in chapter 2, verse 8. For more documentary, read the first 19 chapters of the Book of Revelation. It's not pretty.

In the end, the good guys win. Allahu Akbar!

[Dan]

I love the argument that Robert Berger presents. That its "unrealistic" to "expect people to confine sex to heterosexual marriage and not to engage in any kind of sexual behavior outside of marriage"

Well with that logic we shouldn't try to stop anything that's bad.
Lets just stop fighting crime cause you know what, its unrealistic to expect people to stop committing theft or murder. Cause you know what, no matter how many laws we pass, or how big the police force gets...people will still commit crimes. So why bother?

Maybe you think its unrealistic cause you cant/couldn't keep your junk in your pants? Maybe if society didn't teach that sex out of wedlock was ok......people wouldn't be so prone to it?

And you may call it unrealistic but monogamous sex could more than likely be the cure for AIDS. AIDS most common way, by far, of transmition is by sex. If people would stop having sex out of wedlock, AIDS could be eradicated in a few generations. The other means that AIDS gets transmitted make up such a small % that its practically a non factor. And is the only reason it would take a few generations to eradicate AIDS instead of only 2.

[Daniel]

Lemmie ask you this. If "Just say no to drugs" just doesn't work. Then what makes you think that "Just use a condom" will? And you over simplified the "just say no to drugs" issue. They didn't just say "just say no" and left it at that when someone questioned why. They told people why they should "just say no" drugs are bad for your health, they could ruin your life, etc etc. So, the argument that all they need is education is a flawed one. Cause someone else with a answer that the other person WANTS to hear will just dispel good advice or logic. The drug dealer will say "pffft, drugs are fine, there is no scientific proof that they can hurt you"

Oh, and you cant legislate morality? Again, your logic is beyond flawed. All laws are legislating morality or else they are meaningless. Example: You shouldn't murder someone.

From a non moral perspective: "Its against the law." So? What makes obligated to follow the law? Cause if morality cant come into play with the law, then there is nothing to say its "wrong" to break the law. The only thing that prevents someone from breaking the law is if they feel like it.

"Its a violation of their rights!" Says who? A bunch of dead white dudes wearing wigs? Then a persons "rights" are only as valid as the people in power to enforce those rights. And therefore are nothing more than social constructs and cultural beliefs. No different then in Asian countries its rude to look someone in the eyes, where as in America its a sign of respect that you are paying attention. Both meaningless and irrelevant in a culture that doesn't share those standards.

"If you do it, then you will face societal retribution." So all I have to worry about is getting caught. There is nothing outside my own personal desires to follow that law. The only thing I should ever feel sorry or bad about when murdering someone is when and if I get caught.

From a moral perspective: Its wrong to do so. Case closed.

The moral perspective is clearly superior.

[Walt]

Daniel,

Good argument. However, the leftists message to drug addicts is not "just say no" as much as it is "use clean needles" or "make sure you get your drugs from a trusted source." Pretty much the same thing as "use condoms," it will eventualy get you.

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