Prayers for the Holy Father's trip to Africa
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Pope Benedict asks Catholics to pray for his first visit to AfricaBenedict announced that he will visit Yaoundé, Cameroon and Luanda, Angola and asked for prayers from all to his patron saint, St. Joseph. During his visit to Africa from March 17-23, Benedict XVI will celebrate his name day on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19.
“St. Joseph,” Pope Benedict said, “warned by an angel in a dream, had to flee with Mary to Egypt, in northeast Africa, in order to protect the newborn Jesus, whom Herod wanted to kill. This fulfilled the Scriptures: Jesus trod in the footsteps of the ancient patriarchs, and, like the people of Israel, he returned to the Promised Land after being in exile in Egypt.”
Edited by Diana Holberg on 03/15/2009 13:23:52
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Memore to St. Joseph
Remember, O most chaste Spouse of the Virgin Mary,
that never was it known
that anyone who implored your help
and sought your intercession
was left unassisted.
Full of confidence in your power,
I fly unto you,
and beg your protection.
Despise not,
O foster-father of the Redeemer,
my humble supplication,
but in your bounty,
hear and answer me.
Amen.
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He will need even more prayers when he gets back. The condom nutballs are out to get him. They just had a clash outside of Notre Dame Cathedral in France. Would that these idiots who threw condoms outside Our Lady's Cathedral read Humanae Vitae from 1968 and see just how much of Pope Paul VI's predictions came true.
No Mary, No Jesus. Know Mary, know Jesus.
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It seems that there is a pathological drive towards evil. Common sense should show that condoms cannot solve the problem, and can make it worse. If people spent more time focusing on the cause of HIV, we might have eliminated it a long time ago.
A reading of Humanae Vitae would help, but only with those who are still open minded. Today too many have closed their minds.
Lack of condoms does not cause AIDS.
Pax et Bonum,
Faith_at_Large
"There are some in the Church, who not only do not do what is good, but even persecute it, and hate in others what they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these men is not that of infirmity or ignorance, but deliberate willful sin." — Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540-604)
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Fifth Member
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I can see both sides of the story. I support that Pope Benedict wants to do something to help those in Africa.
However, i can also see the side of those that propose condoms for two reasons.
1) In Africa often the women do not have a choice as to when they have sex, and thus preaching faithful abstinence to a culture that supports rape is sort of fruitless. There is much more a chance that said person will be convinced to use a condom and thus save lives.
2) Abstinence has not been proven to work in general.
“Don’t talk like one of them, you’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak–like me. They need you right now. When they don’t…they’ll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their code: it’s a bad joke. They’re dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see, when the chips are down these civilized people will eat each other.”
The Joker
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The only problem with that notion is that rapists do not generally wear condoms unless they are interested in preventing the leak of DNA evidence.
We could drop enough condoms on the entire continent of Africa so that everyone was hip deep in it, and the rapists and incestous men would just use them as a mattress and not wear them.
In Africa, there are regions where rape is used as a weapon against a group and not just the woman. Condoms would take away from the message being sent.
The better path is to encourage men to refrain from illicit sex.
And in places where abstinance is being taught in Africa, the successes have been amazing. So do not dismiss abstinance as a solution.
And one more thing to consider. Rape, incest, adultery, fornication are all mortal sins. Any one of them can send a person to Hell (except for Evanglist who does not believe in mortal sins). So for the Pope to suggest condoms as a solution would be a damnable action for a religious leader. It is more important to save souls.
Pax et Bonum,
Faith_at_Large
"There are some in the Church, who not only do not do what is good, but even persecute it, and hate in others what they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these men is not that of infirmity or ignorance, but deliberate willful sin." — Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540-604)
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I know, i'm not saying that the Pope can say it, hes not in a position to offer such in the face, real world solutions.
“Don’t talk like one of them, you’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak–like me. They need you right now. When they don’t…they’ll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their code: it’s a bad joke. They’re dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see, when the chips are down these civilized people will eat each other.”
The Joker
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How is a condom a real world solution to preventing rape? The evil at the heart of problems like these is what the Pope is speaking about, but people think it's some sort of mythology. What real world types don't understand is that the Church works to cure the disease, while the world only addresses the symptoms. When one speaks of abstinence "working" one must be clear on the goal. We don't have the resolve to make it work thanks to the sexual revolution. We don't want to go back to regarding sex as a blessed marital gift created by God; we want to view sex as casual pleasure or experimentation. But since we now violate the sacred purpose of sex, we have bad consequences that only seem to compound when we pursue remedies that don't address the fundamental problem. It's not just AIDS and STDs that come from the devaluing of sex, we've seen an overall breakdown of marriage and society as well.
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The Catholic Church preaches that sex is between a man and a wife only and has a pleasurable AND a procreative component to it. Condoms encourage non - marital sex and eliminate, for the most part, any procreation. The Pope is never going to change the teaching of the church.
And for the record, condoms do break, so they give a false sense of security to whoever is using them.
No Mary, No Jesus. Know Mary, know Jesus.
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Something that is very important to understanding why I and others support the Pope and his position on condoms in Africa is understanding the propaganda that is out there.
In areas where condoms are promoted as the "real world" solution, at best there has been a slow down in the increases in HIV infections that have been occurring. This is always decribed as a huge success and celebrated around the globe as proof of its effectiveness.
In areas where abstainance and fidelity are used as methods, there have been recorded drops in the HIV infection rates, not just slowdowns in the increase, but drops. But inspite of what should logically be considered a step in the right direction, real world folks prefer to spread dire predictions of what may happen in the future if these groups do not change their ways and adopt the less successful condom approach.
In Uganda, the ABC (Abstain, Be faithful, Condoms) did experience a drop. More recently, the drop in HIV cases slowed down. It may level off, or it may increase. The reason is not that abstainance did not work, but rather that the youth got creative. This problem could easily be solved with better education and Uganda would still be better off than those countries relying on condoms.
Because Uganda showed a change in its successful campaign, others jumped on this to say it was a failure. But not when looked at objectively.
Another example is the tale of two countries - Philippeans and Thailand. Both countries experienced their first AIDS outbreak and the same initial levels of spread at about the same time. The Philippeans chose to adopt the behavior approach, and Thailand chose to flood their country with condoms.
Ten years later, HIV cases in Thailand dwarfed the numbers in the Philippeans (I think that it may have been about 10 to 1, its been a while). In any case it is not even close, no contest. The Philippeans has had a remarkable success rate, and yet Thailand is hailed as the flagship success story for the condom campaign around the world.
The Philippeans has been barely mentioned except for the occassional scare story warning of an impending explosion of AIDS cases if the Philippean government does not change its approach.
Please understand, it is not that the Philippeans have zero cases, or that there are not any risks of a looming crisis (if they adopt Thailand's methods they will experience Thailand's results). It is also not the case that the Philippeans do not use condomns - they have a sex tourism trade just like Thailand.
But because the emphasis is put on personal responsibility and their own behavior, I believe it is likely that the people in the Philippeans are using condoms as part of being responsible.
In Thailand, condoms. are being shoved down people's throats and for many young people the fact that the government says that you should, is reason enough not to.
There are a lot of problems in Africa, but instead of throwing condoms at it, the people would benefit more from proper education and the acceptance of human rights for all.
Pax et Bonum,
Faith_at_Large
"There are some in the Church, who not only do not do what is good, but even persecute it, and hate in others what they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these men is not that of infirmity or ignorance, but deliberate willful sin." — Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540-604)
Edited by Faith_at_Large on 03/24/2009 11:45:08
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Faith at Large.
I say this not in a way to bait you or to start an argument but because what you said has me genuinly intrigued as to the effectiveness.
I would like to see some figures from which you drew your conclusions because if you are right and i can verify what your saying perhaps i can reconsider my stance. If not then we'll see ...
“Don’t talk like one of them, you’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak–like me. They need you right now. When they don’t…they’ll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their code: it’s a bad joke. They’re dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see, when the chips are down these civilized people will eat each other.”
The Joker
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Sounds fair. You can do a general search yourself for the information Thailand and the Philippeans, and Uganda as well.
I will see if I can find the original articles that I used to draw my conclusions. The information for the first two countries mentioned is older, I was looking at this back in the 1990's, but I do not believe that much has changed. I have checked on it from time to time.
World Health Organization might have some information on AIDS in various countries, and I saw a recent article on Uganda - actually lots of them, but one that was actually useful.
It is not difficult to find biased articles, it takes a little more digging to find truthful ones - and no, you do not have to go to Catholic or Christian websites to find the truth (some of them can be a little biased in the other direction) - although they can be a start.
Pax et Bonum,
Faith_at_Large
"There are some in the Church, who not only do not do what is good, but even persecute it, and hate in others what they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these men is not that of infirmity or ignorance, but deliberate willful sin." — Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540-604)
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Fifth Member
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i will definitely continue to look at this topic and get back to you when i have more concrete statistics.
“Don’t talk like one of them, you’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak–like me. They need you right now. When they don’t…they’ll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their code: it’s a bad joke. They’re dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see, when the chips are down these civilized people will eat each other.”
The Joker
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I will give you a leg up. I am still looking for the stats from 1984 to 1994 (which is what I was initially referring to). However, I have the updated stats from the World Health Organization Website.
WHO - Countries
Thailand
Note that they have shown a drop in recent years, my earlier reference was to data that had only shown a slow in the increase. But if you think this drop is a sign that anything is working, bear in mind that this is after 20 years of agressive condom education and distribution campaigns, and the drop is minimal when you look at the numbers.
Philippines
Note the numbers on the sides of the graphs. The Philippines appears to show an increase in recent years, which is not surprising given the enormous pressure that this country has been under to abandon its approach and adopt condoms as their solution to the impending AIDS crisis.
But of particular interest is that the numbers are low overall - even the increase is minimal compared to Thailand.
What is not apparent on these updated graphs is that the Philippines did have an initial spike, just like Thailand. They peaked at just under ten thousand during the first ten years from 1984 to 1994. They are just over that now. But that is a far cry from the insane numbers shown in Thailand even with their drop.
In some of the AIDS and HIV sites, the Philippines is not even mentioned. Instead the great medical breakthroughs in Thailand are highlighted. They have made some breakthroughs in HIV maternal transmission to newborns.
Both countries are similar in size and had their same initiation into the AIDS crisis in about 1984 (if my memory serves) and showed the same initial increases - both countries have a sizable sex trade.
And, yes, I do not doubt for a moment that people are using condoms in the Philippines, but what works is the emphasis on behaviour.
Uganda
Africa has bigger problems than anywhere else and Uganda is no exception. Uganda uses the ABC approach - Abstainance, Be Faithful, Condoms. Their numbers are showing a definite drop, but it would be premature to attribute this entirely to the condom component of their campaign. There are a number of factors involved including the deaths of many with HIV/AIDS.
Google "Uganda HIV ABC Success" for a bunch of articles on the subject. I am looking for a particular one involving some of the personal responses to the ABC program where youth had expressed their gratitude over the education they had received as part of this program and the change in had on their lives overall. I read it a long time ago, but I suspect that it is still out there.
Pax et Bonum,
Faith_at_Large
"There are some in the Church, who not only do not do what is good, but even persecute it, and hate in others what they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these men is not that of infirmity or ignorance, but deliberate willful sin." — Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540-604)
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Some additional information.
Uganda, the Condom Controversy
quote:
According to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau and UNAIDS, 15 percent of Uganda's adult population was infected with HIV in the early 1990s, but that number dropped to 6.5 percent by 2004. Unlike most African leaders, Museveni quickly recognized the devastating affects of the virus and responded in 1986 by creating the AIDS Control Program.
quote:
The ABCs of AIDS Prevention
Observers credited Uganda's success, in part, to the use of different messages to different groups. Young people were encouraged to wait for marriage before sex or to return to abstinence if they were not virgins. For sexually active people, the message of "zero grazing" meant staying with one partner and avoiding casual sex. The use of condoms was also promoted to anyone engaging in casual sex. In trying to highlight successful approaches to the AIDS epidemic in Africa, the United States began referring to the Ugandan approach as the "ABC strategy"(abstinence, being faithful and condom use). The phrase originated in Botswana in the late 1990s, with the slogan "Avoiding AIDS is as easy as ABC" and was rarely used elsewhere until the United States latched onto it in 2002.
Africa has big problems that need to be dealt with and it is behavior that is at the heart of the matter.
Throwing condoms at the problem without any consideration of the culture or regional situation, is ignorant and fruitless. But worse than that, it is risky beyond measure.
HIV is similar to the Herpes Simplex Type 2 virus. Herpes is not curable and is a gateway STD in that it can create opportunities for other viruses (including HIV) through lesions in the skin. Herpes is also spread skin to skin so wearing condoms does not prevent it (though it is better than nothing). HIV is constantly mutating and may evolve the same way that Herpes has, and when that happens, no condoms will stop it.
Even now, condoms are not 100% effective even against pregnancy. Valerius, you spoke of "real world" solutions - the the lab, a condom does offer protection against STDs, at least in theory. In a control group that is monitored on site, men and women will likely wear a condom 100% of the time and acheive at least 85% effectiveness. A group participating in a clinical trial from home, will wear condoms most of the time, but not 100%. If not in a clinical trial but surveyed about sexual practices, respondents will acknowledge using condoms only some of the time.
Real world usage for condoms in areas where condoms are readily available and promoted as a defence against STDs are only about 33% to 66%. I am looking for the studies for this, but my work computer is somewhat restricted. I am pretty certain that the real world number is closer to 33%.
In Uganda, over time there has been an slight increase in the number of people engaging in sex with more than one partner, but condom use by these people has risen to only 40% (and they still have a huge number of people living with HIV so it is on people's minds). It is a big improvement from only 20%, but far short of where it needs to be if it is going to accomplish anything.
The Philippines only reported for one year to the WHO, and they were good with their condom use, even though behevior was the method of choice for keeping the disease at bay - using condoms is also a behaviour.
Thailand has not reported at all, but the numbers show that they have not been using condoms as effectively as the Philippines, despite the agressive condom campaigns. Or perhaps condoms are just not that effective.
Of course, the low numbers in the Philippines and the clear downward trend seen in Uganda would indicate the condoms are not entirely responsible for protecting against HIV in these countries. Responsible behaviour is playing a big part.
Pax et Bonum,
Faith_at_Large
"There are some in the Church, who not only do not do what is good, but even persecute it, and hate in others what they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these men is not that of infirmity or ignorance, but deliberate willful sin." — Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540-604)
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Fifth Member
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Thanks for all this information. I will definitely look through it all as soon as i can and get back to you, i want to make sure i digest it all. It has been really busy with me, thats why i haven't been replying as quickly.
“Don’t talk like one of them, you’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak–like me. They need you right now. When they don’t…they’ll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their code: it’s a bad joke. They’re dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see, when the chips are down these civilized people will eat each other.”
The Joker
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