Not everyone's a fan of "Il Papa"...

... and, given all the stuff he's been saying recently, it's not unsurprising.

The Catholic church has such a stubborn policy in Africa when it comes to dealing with HIV/AIDS, and it's one of the many things that just made me realise I couldn't be part of this organisation anymore.

The Pope says, roughly, "Don't use condoms. At all. Instead, stay faithful to your spouse, and/or practise abstinence. Condoms are sinful, and on top of that, they don't work anyway. Condoms also promote family breakdown, and... it's bad. So, just don't use them."

Let's bring some facts in here.

I think that everyone could agree that abstinence, complete and total abstinence, is the most effective way of stopping a sexually transmitted disease. Sadly, not many people will go for that one. And, as for the fidelity issue, people can't stay faithful! People are jerks. We cheat on our spouses. It's just human nature. So, given that people are going to be having sex, and they probably will be doing it with more than one person, we need to make sure there's a way of making sure that, if you decide to pot the pickle with someone who's not your spouse, you won't end up dying.

This is where condoms come in. They're one of the very few things that both stop babies and STDs. (Well, there are femidoms but they're much more expensive to produce, and much harder to use. ) Condoms are quite cheap to produce. Cheap, but not free. Note that there's not a lot of money around HIV/AIDS-ravaged parts of Africa. So, one of the only way they're going to get supplies to stop like condoms is through charity work. Catholic charities like Cafod like to go over and help... and they're not exactly going to be preaching against the Pope's infallible word. And other charities can't help, given they're in largely Catholic areas, where a condom message would either fall on deaf ears or be rebutted with the falsehoods the Church has been telling people.

Condoms are the most effective barrier method. They are not 100%, but that doesn't mean they're not effective. A lot of anti-condom people like to say that they're not completely guaranteed to work. So what? NOTHING is 100% guaranteed.

As for family breakdown? Please. We're just offering people who can't quite control themselves a way not to ruin lives.

At this point, I have to admit that condoms are not the perfect solution either. In places where health education is minimal and inadequate at best, sending over solutions that work in the West has to be thought through. Using condoms can be tricky! Even with all the lessons, and reading the packet carefully, I've still managed to break two. On top of this, basic things have to be told. Such as: don't use it twice; dispose of it in a bin, not a toilet; don't put it on inside-out; blah blah blah. There's a lot of information that needs to be transmitted in order for condom use to be an effective tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Information transfer is education. And, health education isn't brilliant in these parts.

So, what do we do? Uganda has managed to curb their problems with a three-pronged attack: promoting fidelity, teaching abstinence, and having condoms as the last defence.

That's what we should do everywhere. Sadly, sticking to Catholic dogma seems more important than the lives of these people.