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May 02, 2006

Pope Asks, "Are Raincoats OK?"

The mind (well, ok, my mind) reels that, in the twenty-first century,this kind of debate is actually taking place:

Now, behind the quiet Vatican walls, a clash is shaping up between two poles of near certainty: the church's long- held ban on condom use and its more recently focused advocacy for human life from the womb to old age.

The dilemma, as it has been for years, is AIDS. And in recent days, church officials confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI had requested a report on whether it might be acceptable for Catholics to use condoms in one narrow circumstance: to protect life inside a marriage when one partner is infected with the HIV virus or is sick with AIDS.

A religion that favors the "rights" of a hundred million little wiggly woos to swim in someone's hoohah over the happiness and fulfillment of a living human being is, well, sicker than any AIDS patient.