Why the Pope opposes condoms
By Robert Pigott
BBC Religious Affairs Correspondent
March 18, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI is a man of enormous authority.
When he says "don't use condoms - even to prevent the spread of Aids" it has a significant impact among tens, even hundreds of millions of people.
Getting on for a fifth of Africans are Roman Catholic.
The Church has been growing more quickly in Africa than anywhere else, and this is the Pope's first visit there in the four years he has been the spiritual leader of the world's approximately one billion Catholics.
With Africans - 22 million of whom are infected with HIV - hanging on his every word, that made his statement aboard the plane heading to Cameroon this week all the more significant.
There is something at stake that is greater even than the fight against Aids
The Pope said the "cruel epidemic" should be tackled through fidelity and abstinence rather than condoms, and that
"the traditional teaching of the Church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent
the spread of HIV/Aids".
An awareness of the Pope's huge position of strength has sharpened the criticism of his remarks, by others with a more liberal approach to preventing the transmission of HIV.
Rebecca Hodes, working in South Africa for the Treatment Action Campaign, was among the most trenchant critics.
She described Pope Benedict's remarks as
"alienating", "ignorant" and "pernicious".
