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VATICAN: which homophobic cardinal becomes monarch?

by sfbarea-owner@yahoogroups.com (SaveFreedom-owner [at] yahoogroups.com)
Which anti-sexual, male-supremacist, homophobic, anti-scientific prince will become the next autocratic ruler of the Roman Catholic Church -- a medieval institution which MAY, or may not, be able to function in the 21st century?
WHO will become the next Pope?

-- steps in transition:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/04/02/international/i142202S76.DTL


-- demographics: "No Yanquis need apply...":

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/04/03/FUTURE.TMP

..........

[biased commentary:]

JP2 did many things, some good and some not.

I applauded when he subtly but powerfully encouraged
his fellow Poles to free their nation from Soviet (Russian) control.

I winced when he promoted sexism, prudery, homophobia, over-population, etc.

Now he's gone.

Now the world must wonder which Cardinal will succeed him.

In theory, the voting Cardinals (those under age 80)
could elect any baptized male Roman Catholic,
even a layMAN
(for this job, balls are important; no eunuchs need apply).

In practice, they'll probably choose one of their peers.
Probably from Europe or Latin America.
Probably an archbishop who speaks both Italian and English.


-- IMQO
2 April 2005

by seniornude
Some of the current anti-sex policies CAN be changed, if te next Pope so chooses. For examples, celibacy -- and possibly condoms.

(1) Celibacy, as required for "secular" priests in the "Latin Rite",
is just a policy --- NOT a fundamental Catholic doctrine.
This is shown by the fact that several Eastern "rites" (branches)
of Catholicism (under patriarchs who obey the Roman Pope) DO allow married priests to serve. If the Pope can allow a married (male) priest to serve in Iraq or Syria, then he can allow such service in Kansas or Scotland.

(2) As for condoms -- the Church isn't likely to change its opposition to "artificial" contraception.
BUT condoms could be allowed "for the prevention of disease" -- like, to lessen the spread of HIV, syphilis, and many other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

(3) ( I vaguely remember a situation, back in the 1960s, when
nuns were getting raped in the Congo; and there was a proposal that nuns there be allowed to use birth-control pills, to protect them from getting pregnant. I don't remember what came of this; nor can I be sure I remember it right. Could somebody research this??
The point is that sometimes exceptions can be made
to certain church rules,
without actually changing doctrines.... )

-- TBL
by Sefarad

You can use condoms, have sexual intercouse with whom you want to(man, woman, dog...).

You are not forced to be a priest.

So what do you care? It isn't your business if the Catholic Church states this or the other or who the Pope is.

Do Catholics tell you if you can marry or not or what you have to do with your life?

by well
The spread of AIDS in many poor Catholic countries would have been much less if the Catholic church hadnt gotten in the way of condom distribution. If you disgaree with what the Pope thought about condoms you could choose to not be a Catholic but when majority Catholic countries have policies that have greatly increased human suffering by getting in the way of the best way to decrease the spread of AIDS you have to blame the Church.
by Sefarad
"The spread of AIDS in many poor Catholic countries would have been much less if the Catholic church hadnt gotten in the way of condom distribution. If you disgaree with what the Pope thought about condoms you could choose to not be a Catholic but when majority Catholic countries have policies that have greatly increased human suffering by getting in the way of the best way to decrease the spread of AIDS you have to blame the Church."


According to the Catholic Church you don't have to be promiscuous. Do you think that those people who don't follow the Church's teaching about this follow what the Church says about condoms?

Which Catholic country has policies against condoms?
by well
"According to the Catholic Church you don't have to be promiscuous. Do you think that those people who don't follow the Church's teaching about this follow what the Church says about condoms?"

The problem in third world countries is that cheap condoms are not available because of Catholic Church pressure at a high level, not those violating Catholic teaching about sex are choosing not to use condoms for religious reasons.
by Sefarad
"The problem in third world countries is that cheap condoms are not available because of Catholic Church pressure at a high level, not those violating Catholic teaching about sex are choosing not to use condoms for religious reasons."

I don't know what the Catholic Church has to do with the price of condoms. I live in a Catholic country and there is no law against them or any other problem.

If they are choosing not to use condoms for religious reasons, I cannot understand why they aren't used to not have different partners for the same reason.

And besides another group risking to get AIDs is that of the droggadicts. Here condoms can solve nothing.

Anyway, from what I read in the "Scientific American", to say the people that they can prevent AIDs by using condoms is lying, since the AIDs virus is smaller than the condoms pores.


by well
" And besides another group risking to get AIDs is that of the droggadicts. Here condoms can solve nothing. "

First off, you dont live ina third world country. The issue isnt that the Catholic church can set the price of condoms but that they prevent Catholic associated relief agencies from distributing them. This effects price in the sense that there are not free condoms so only those who can afford to go to town where condoms are available can get them. In the US and Europe IV drug use does account for a significant portion of those getting AIDS but this isnt true at all in the countries with the highest infection rates and the highest grow rates.

"Unsafe sexual practices remain the dominant mode of HIV transmission in most regions of the world. In Asia, where an estimated 7.2 million adults and children are living with HIV, low condom use among sex workers and their clients accounts for a substantial proportion of new HIV infections.3 Widespread and consistent condom use has been shown to reduce the number of people infected with HIV enough to slow the spread of AIDS.4 Multilateral organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) recommend condoms as an essential intervention against HIV.
"
"In 2002, United Nations Population Fund Executive Director Thoraya Obaid warned that “[i]n all of the [HIV/AIDS]-affected countries, the supply of condoms is far short of what is needed.”9 Such supply gaps are accompanied by an equally dire scarcity of information. In its 2002 global AIDS report, UNAIDS stated that “[a]lmost everywhere, sexually active young people (especially young women) are denied information about condoms.”10

Condom shortages stem not only from resource constraints, but also from deliberate government policies that restrict condom manufacture, procurement, distribution, and information on their use. Such policies may limit distribution of condoms in public places, censor information about condoms in schools, regulate import of condoms manufactured abroad, or invest public funds"
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/philippines0504/5.htm#_Toc70225346

by well
Condoms have long been a flashpoint for controversy in the Philippines, a country that is nearly 85 percent Catholic and is heavily influenced in its AIDS policy by the Vatican. Since the early 1990s, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has issued official statements vilifying condoms, campaigned against legislation that would expand condom access, and levied personal attacks against government officials who favor inclusion of condoms in HIV prevention programs.14 The secretary of health under former President Fidel Ramos, now Senator Juan Flavier, was denounced as an agent of Satan by the former archbishop of Manila, Jamie Cardinal Sin, for pursuing a bold strategy of condom promotion in the 1990s.15 At a public rally in 1994, the pro-life cardinal reportedly threatened to “tie a millstone around [Flavier’s] neck and drop him in the middle of Manila Bay.”16 When Flavier distributed condoms to journalists covering President Ramos’ 1992 trip to Thailand, conservative Senator Francisco Tatad accused him of promoting “promiscuity, lechery, adultery, and sexual immorality” and called for his resignation.17 As recently as 2001, Cardinal Sin issued a pastoral exhortation entitled “Subtle Attacks Against Family and Life,” in which he referred to “the naturally occurring minute pores present in all latex materials” and stated that “the condom corrupts and weakens people . . . destroys families and individuals . . . and spreads promiscuity.”18

A combination of widespread high-risk behaviors, low HIV/AIDS knowledge, and the presence of STDs that increase HIV vulnerability has led health experts to fear an HIV/AIDS “explosion” in the Philippines. In June 2002, the U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia, Dr. Nafis Sadik, warned that the Philippines had “huge explosion potential” given the presence of many known routes of HIV transmission such as low condom use among sex workers and increasing rates of adolescent sexual activity.19 This observation was echoed in September 2003 by Philippines Secretary of Health Manuel Dayrit, who noted that the presence of STDs such as chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis among Filipinos signaled that HIV could spread throughout the population unless swift measures were taken to prevent it.
...
It is a dangerous irony that the same health minister who warns of a possible HIV/AIDS outbreak in the Philippines refuses to support the public sector purchase of condoms for HIV prevention, even in the face of an unprecedented condom supply crisis. The Philippines Department of Health recommends that local government units “have ample supply of condoms” as part of an intensified HIV/AIDS education and information campaign.28 However, this same department relies almost exclusively for its condoms supplies on the United States, which announced in 2002 that it would be phasing out its shipments of free condoms to the Philippines.29

U.S.-funded condom programs are largely the product of previous administrations and pre-date the expansion of “abstinence until marriage” programs under President George W. Bush. Experts told Human Rights Watch that the combined influence of the Bush administration and the Vatican and the intransigence of the Philippine government could result in the introduction of U.S.-funded “abstinence until marriage” programs in the Philippines. Dr. Maria Elena F. Borromeo, country coordinator for UNAIDS in the Philippines, told Human Rights Watch, “There is a potential for abstinence-only education here. This is what the church is advocating, and if the church advocates for it, the government will follow. And the United States and the Philippines? They are of a feather.”30 Dr. Rhoderick Poblete, officer in charge of the Philippines National AIDS Council (PNAC), added that “abstinence-only fits the current Philippine policy, but I’m very scared of the impact.”31 He said that the country was experiencing a “downward trend in safe behaviors,” and that USAID resources were needed to leverage local governments to enact condom promotion ordinances. The fact that USAID was ending its contraceptive shipments without any national budget for condoms, he said, was a sign that abstinence-only “is happening, and it’s what the current leadership would like.”

The cornerstone of HIV prevention efforts in the Philippines is the 1998 AIDS Prevention and Control Act (the “AIDS Act”), hailed by the UNAIDS as a “best practice” in HIV prevention. Article 1 of the AIDS Act guarantees access to complete HIV/AIDS information in Philippine schools, health facilities, work places, pre-departure seminars for overseas workers, tourist destinations, and local communities.32 However, the AIDS Act contains other provisions that have the potential to restrict information about condoms. Section 4 of article 1 of the Act provides that HIV/AIDS education in schools “not be used as an excuse to propagate birth control or the sale or distribution of birth control devices” and “not utilize sexually explicit materials.”33 Although the Act mentions the use of “prophylactics” to prevent HIV, it does so only in the context of a provision requiring that all prophylactic sales include “literature on

Opposition to condoms in the Philippines, as in other countries, is by no means absolute among all Roman Catholics or even among church leaders. AIDS experts are quick to credit some religious leaders with supporting comprehensive HIV prevention efforts, and surveys show that a majority of Filipino Catholics do not consider religion in their family planning choices. However, the government’s receptiveness to the anti-condom animus of powerful bishops has fostered a policy environment that is both hostile to effective HIV prevention and conducive to misinformation about HIV/AIDS.

http://hrw.org/reports/2004/philippines0504/5.htm#_Toc70225346
by Sefarad

It is true that in some poor countries AIDs is a very serious problem. But I don't believe the blame has to be put on the Catholic Church. As you say, Catholics think by themselves and do what they consider they have to do.

There are ONGs which aren't against the condom. So why don't those organizations distribute them?

As for the Philipino government, if they put obstacles, they are to blame, not the Church.

And I think that in many cases the people are responsible too. If you know you have AIDs, why do you have sexual intercourse? It isn't compulsory.

Another problem is prostitution. I suppose it can be solved through development.

And do you know that the Catholic Church is working in poor countries to help development?
by well
"And do you know that the Catholic Church is working in poor countries to help development? "

The catholic church does some good work helping the poor but if you consider that population growth isa prime cause of the extereme poverty you see in the poorest countries you really have to wonder about the overall effect they have. Getting in the way of condom distribution (even if only by putting pressure on governments), they not only get in the way of those fighting AIDS but make reduction of population growth more difficult as well. Its easy to say its people's personal problem if they find a desire to have sex more than once every 4-5 years but its not exactly a realistic goal (even for priests who dont seen to hold very well to their vows). I guess the Catholic Church does except the rythm method as a form of birth control but promoting such an ineffective method of familly planning is probably worse than giving no alternative.

The Catholic Church has been consistent in its opposition to the deatah penalty, wars and even Israel's occupation of the West Bank. The church has also been consistent in opposing equal rights for women within the Church (restricting most positions to men only). The Church's stands on gay rights, divorse and abortion also adds to human misery. But while support for bogotry against women and gays can be regarded as the Church's largest moral failure, their stand on condoms is probably the root of the most suffering caused by any of their policies. Even if one looks at their moral opposition to the death penalty, one has to woinder how heartfelt this view is when teh Church take a lot stronger stand on abortion and divorse than it does on the death penalty; while Church leaders speak out on all issues, the Chruch directly intervened in the US election for Bush by making statements about Kerry's support for abortion while ignoring the death penalty as an issue. One also saw the Church making a huge deal about 1995 Irish referendum on divorce (see http://struggle.ws/ws/div47.html ). When you look at the Church's actions they dont live up to its words. Policies that add to human suffering (views on divorse laws, views on abortion laws, and the Chruch's anti-gay marriage stand) are backed up with organizing by the Church's hierarchy while one sees almost no effective organizing when it comes to the Church's Stands on the death penalty or their opposition to wars (like the Iraq war).
by Mary Hale
popejp.jpg
by lb
Freehold, Iowa - Satan's minion here on Earth, the Pope, head of the largest cult in the world (Catholicism) is finally dead and back home with his father, Lucifer, in Hell. It is cause for great celebration among Baptists each time a Pope passes and descends into the Lake of Fire. At Landover Baptist, celebrations are already underway and will last all the way up until another skirt wearing old demon is elected as King of Pedophilia by an unsavory lot of the world's most elite homosexual Cardinals wearing demon red dresses.

More
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0405/popedeath.html
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