(ANSA) - Vatican City, March 17 - Condoms are not the solution to the problem of AIDS in African countries but make it worse, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday, reportedly using the word 'condom' in public for the first time.
Speaking to journalists on a plane taking him to Africa for an seven-day visit to Cameroon and Angola, Benedict reiterated Vatican policy that the AIDS epidemic ''cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms which, in fact, increase problems''. The pope said the only way to tackle the issue was through ''correct and moral human behavior'' and greater attention to those who are sick. ''We must suffer with those who suffer,'' he said. Aside from opposing the use of condoms because they are a contraceptive device, the Catholic Church has also said in the past that they are ineffective against AIDS because the HIV virus which causes it can permeate condoms. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that that ''consistent and correct'' condom use reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90%.
Of the 33 million people afflicted by AIDS worldwide, 22 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to WHO.
Although Catholics firmly deny that their opposition to the use of condoms has contributed to the spread of AIDS, there is a debate within the Church on easing restrictions on their use in certain cases, including for people who are at risk of contracting the virus.
Benedict commissioned a 200-page study on condoms in 2006 after several top prelates suggested it might by ethically permissible for them to be used in limited circumstances to combat AIDS.
Progressive Italian cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said that it might be acceptable for condoms to be used inside a marriage if one of the partners was HIV positive.
But the official Catholic line remains that sexual abstinence is the only real way of preventing HIV spreading.
The pope's March 17-23 pastoral visit is his 11th abroad and the first to Africa since his election to the papacy in 2005. Cameroon is the first stop on his visit and Benedict is set to give bishops there a preparatory document - the Instrumentum Laboris - dealing with issues to be discussed at next autumn's Vatican synod on Africa. Benedict will travel to Angola on Friday to celebrate the 500 years of evangelisation there. Vatican sources said both countries symbolise the potentials of the continent as well as its plights - hunger, ongoing conflicts and the spread of AIDS.
Photo: Pope Benedict boards his flight to Africa Tuesday.
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2009-03-17_117334196.html
You don't solve the AIDS problem with condoms.
You just have to prey god before and after every sexual act, expecially when you fuck a prostitute, and you won't get anything.


