Quote of the (other) week #33 – Michael J. Bayly on Pope Benedict XVI’s anti-condom dishonesty

I don’t have much time for Ratzinger and the associated choir of conservative Catholicism that sings praise to barbarism and anti-humanism. I couldn’t think of anything new to say when they chided those who supported an abortion for a child victim of rape, going as far as excommunication. I couldn’t think of anything new to say when the same church didn’t excommunicate the rapist.

I’ve refrained for commenting on the obvious crime against humanity that is the deliberate, accessory-after-the-fact policy of assisting paedophile priests escape justice. A policy written up by Ratzinger himself. Instead of telling us to respect the man, Rudd should have been making moves to drag this evil sack of bones before The Hague. Vatican City does have statehood after all and Rudd was willing to do it for that other anti-Semite, Ahmadinejad.

For that matter, if Steve Conroy is so big on tackling the political friends of paedophiles and expects to be taken seriously, I expect him to publish a rejection of the Pope.

There, I’ve said it.

Of course, there is that ongoing bit of business going on in Africa. The rubbish that Christopher Hitchens described as ‘genocidally stupid.’

I’m talking about that silly myth that condoms aren’t a preventative against the HIV virus, instrumental in manipulating vulnerable Africans into complying with Catholic sexual theology.

It used to be the rank and file that peddled this ignorance, but recently the Pope was out and about repeating it himself.

I’ll let Michael J. Bayly speak on this one. He seems a little less pissed off than me.

“Kochivar-Baker calls the Pope’s assertion that the use of condoms only aggravates the AIDS crisis an “outright lie,” as there are “reams and reams of evidence to the contrary.”

My sense is that it’s a “lie” that’s quite popular among many of those who uncritically support the sexual theology of the Vatican. Just last October, for instance, the visiting “scholar in residence” at the St. Paul Seminary, Janet Smith, stated that condoms don’t prevent the spread of the AIDS-causing HIV virus. She made this statement during a public presentation given at the University of St. Thomas. Can you imagine it: a statement like that being made at a university of the caliber of St. Thomas? I recall how my friend Mary Lynn objected from the audience to Smith’s comment. She was dismissed and belittled by Smith – a cowardly response that, I’m sorry to report, elicited cheers and applause from many in the audience. “

(Michael J. Bayly, 2009)

~ Bruce

P.S. Hat-tip to Neil for pointing us in Mr Bayly’s direction.

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