The Church is not only condemning their own adherents to risk of infection and the further spreading of infection and certain death for many of those infected, but as a global institution which provides health & education services in developing countries, they are knowingly spreading misinformation into whole communities, which may not have any other organised health care or education services as Helen, ably pointed out in another thread.

Regimes like Mugabe’s are rightly condemned for their terrible brutality and venality, and Mbeki and the South African Govt has been absolutely pilloried for their unscientific HIV-Aids response - otoh - the Catholic Church whose leader is in our country right at this moment - is not being called to account on this issue.

Yes, there are a few cases of nuns and priests and more catholic lay workers on the ground who are handing out condoms in some African communities and yes, the Church does provide some palliative care and other health services to Aid’s victims in these countries, but the Church hierarchy to the ever-lasting shame when faced with this unprecedented global pandemic chose to put “thou shall not kill” - a long, long way behind “thou shall do as the current church hierarchy states in relation to protection against sexually transmitted terminal diseases because it will weaken our already faulty anti-contraception message”.

Has the head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique who accused, only last September “western govts and western companies” of deliberately infecting people with HIV-Aids been sacked?

As with child rapists, sadists and many other criminal types, the Vatican will close ranks to protect their own from both responsibility and from justice.

There is, Paul, absolutely no evidence for this. It’s now generally accepted that HIV originated in a species viral mutation crossover from chimpanzees (who carry a very similar virus known as SIV) possibly through hunters becoming infected with chimpanzee blood. The earliest known case is in a stored plasma sample taken from an adult male in the Congo in 1959.

Sooty mangabey monkeys have also been identified as a point of species viral crossover from which the HIV-2 subtype probably developed.

A mathematical modelling study carried out by Dr Bette Korber of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2000 estimated that the first cross-over occurred around 1930 - well before Richard Nixon had any influence over the CIA…

“As the Band Played On” was an important book but Randy Shilts was wrong about a lot of stuff, including identifying a hapless Air Canada flight attendant named Gaetan Dugas as “Patient Zero - the guy who began spreading HIV among gay men in North America. In fact, poor Gaetan was but one of hundreds and then thousands of gay men unwittingly spreading HIV in the late 1970’s.

What twaddle the miasma of Cold War hatreds threw up.

* a Ghanaian told me a very impolite joke. Obviously I hesitate to re-tell it. Oh, OK, twist me arm why dontcha?? “Our country was called Gold Coast, but we had to change the name to Ghana, because the British had taken all the gold!” How very rude of him, I thought. All the chaps at the Club agreed. Horse-whips were mentioned.

BTW, what is it with the Kiwis that they have the highest birthrates in the developed world

What else is there to do?

BTW, what is it with the Kiwis that they have the highest birthrates in the developed world (on Paul’s figures)?

Perhaps they include their foals and lambs in the calculations.

The pressing issue of our time however was, and still is the Church’s stance on Catholics using condoms to protect themselves against HIV-Aids, and to stop it’s transmission by using condoms if infected, most especially in developing countries.

This is the blood which stains their frocks; who knows how many infections and deaths are now directly attributable to the Catholic Church:

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.
The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.

A senior Vatican spokesman backs the claims about permeable condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that they are untrue.

The president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, told the programme: “The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the ‘net’ that is formed by the condom.

The WHO has condemned the Vatican’s views, saying: “These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/09/aids

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.
Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected “in order to finish quickly the African people”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7014335.stm

In America I gather you can divide the country into blue states with birthrates much like Europe and Red states more like Saudia Arabia (well not quite, but a rare example of a rich country with birthrates well above replacement level). That makes sense - religious fundamentalism rather than affiliation being the cause of lots of breeding.

But what about New Zealand? Not exactly known as a hotbed of religious extreemism.

they ain’t just not listenin’ then, they’re doin’ the OPPOSITE of whut them Bishops say.

Thanks for digging up these figures. This echoes research done in Australia, early 1970s I think, showing that the birthrate amongst married Catholics was practically identical to the national birthrate. Given the vagaries of “rhythm” and “Billings” and “open slather” at the time, this was regarded as CLEAR evidence that Catholic couples were using just as much contraception as everyone else.

Your figures show very little correlation (zero?) between the proportion of Catholics and the birth rate. So even if a Pope says “don’t use condoms” or “don’t go on the pill” or “don’t have an abortion”, it seems that the Church is unable to maintain its authority in these matters.

Unless, unless…. it’s 98% abstinence and/or successful rhythm, all round Which I doubt.

So perhaps the more strident critics of the RC church might pause to consider whether even the Flock is listening to the Dinosaurs. Mebbe they ain’t listenin’?

For those who are interested in George Pell’s hypernatalist exhortations, I have compiled this table of Western developed nations, their fertility rate, and the percentage of their population which is Catholic. Figures are sourced from the CIA World Factbook unless otherwise indicated.

[NB: Unfortunately, WordPress is not all that flash on presenting tables.]

New Zealand 2.11, 12.4%
United States 2.10, 23.9%
Metropolitan France 1.98, 83-88%
Iceland 1.91 or 2.07, 2%
Ireland 1.85, 88.4%
United Kingdom 1.85, 12.5%
Luxembourg 1.70 1.78, 87%
Norway 1.78 or 1.90, 1%
Australia 1.76 or 1.81, 26.4%
Monaco 1.75, 90%
Denmark 1.74, <3%
Finland 1.73 or 1.83, <1.1%
Sweden 1.67, <13%
Netherlands 1.66 or 1.72, 31%
Belgium 1.65, 75%
Canada 1.57 or 1.53, 42.6%
Liechtenstein 1.51, 76.2%
Malta 1.51, 98%
Portugal 1.49, 84.5%
Switzerland 1.44, 41.8%
Germany 1.41, 34%
Austria 1.38, 73.6%
Greece 1.36, 98% Greek Orthodox
San Marino 1.35, 100%
Italy 1.30, 90%
Spain 1.30, 94%

Apologies all round are due to stay-at-mothers for the relentless downgrade in their status, one reason why less women want to take on that thankless task.

This suggests that Jack believes that there was a pre-Wet Golden Age when stay-at-home mothers were “upgraded”. Twas never so. Patriarchy downgrades and always did downgrade motherhood by imposing on women a loss of independent social citizenship and material security as the price of motherhood. Less and less women want to take on this “thankless task” because feminism has enabled many women to discover that working in an office with other adults and a computer, and being able to access money from an ATM without argument, is preferable to grappling with a shytty nappy with talkback radio in the background, and not being able to access money from an intoxicated sole provider husband without argument and, in not a few cases, a smack in the chops.