It is an article of faith among British atheists and other rationalists (and anti-Catholics in general) that the Roman Catholic Church is single-handedly responsible for the AIDS epidemic in Africa. I have no particular reason to defend the Church (of which I am not and never have been a member), but when things just don't stand up it is worth mentioning them. Yes, the ban on the use of condoms is stupid, though it is not literally dogmatic: it is not a matter of dogma and could be changed quite easily. Especially, there seems to be no reason why they shouldn't accept the use of condoms for medical purposes as the lesser evil, and still the Church's policy unquestionably leads to deaths of people who would otherwise live. But, to what extent is it in fact the cause of AIDS in Africa?
According to a recent UN report (pp 39-41) there are 22.5 million adults and children living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa; 1.7 million became newly infected during 2007; and 1.6 million died of AIDS. These figures are shocking and I repeat that the Catholic Church has a share of responsibility; after all it has a certain presence in the region.
But hang on. That Church, with the same policy, has a far, far greater and more influential presence in Latin America, where the figures are 1.6m, 100,000, and 58,000 respectively. I am not a statistician or epidemiologist but it looks to me as if there might be other factors that lead to the spread of AIDS in Africa. Or can some British rationalist put me right on this?
Oh, one reason (and there are others) just might be that the President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki is a nutcase who refuses to accept that AIDS is caused by HIV. But it's so much easier to bash a white European Catholic than a black South African Socialist, isn't it?


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