My Scary Pope

OK, so I've been saying the current Pope is kind of a scary dude for a while now. Before it was just because he looked like someone out to get Harry Potter (pun intended...wait for it...). But now he's taken being scary to a whole new level, a real one.

According to MSNBC.com and CNN the channel, while in Africa the Pope had this to say about AIDS: "You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms." OK, that's true. I can see how an anti-condom kind of guy would spin it that way, maybe in his own defense, saying that his views aren't killing Africans so lay off. A little bit of a cop-out since condoms would save countless lives over there, but hey, he's not paid to care about that.

What's really frightening is that the Pope went ON to say that the distribution of condoms "increases the problem" of AIDS.

Some of you may remember previous instances of Catholic official denouncing the usage of condoms and saying that they cause AIDS. In fact, I blogged about it once. But this takes it to a whole new level.

We're talking about the most powerful religious figure in the world, head of a church representing roughly one-sixth the entire planet's population, and he's out there telling people that the distribution and use of condoms makes the AIDS epidemic WORSE.

I don't even know what to say about such an unconscionable action, a statement that will, in all likelihood, kill more people than I even know. It was one thing for him not to discipline the archbishop who said that condoms cause AIDS, but it's quite another to publicly agree that condoms are part of the problem.

Not knowing what to say, I turned to Jon Stewart for some wisdom:
"The Pope went on to say that smoking cures cancer, and if you're looking for a quick morning pick-me-up, try heroin." Sadly, the mock advice would actually have been LESS harmful (for a variety of reasons) than what the Pope actually said.

[Editor's Addendum: Barkeep, loyal Catholic, has brought up the only conceivable defense to the Pope's statement: more condoms means more casual sex means more AIDS. It's actually the first thing I thought of too. But after thinking about it, I'm 99.9% convinced it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Think of it this way:
A = Instances of Unprotected Sex Between Infected Individual and Non-Infected Individual
B = Probability of AIDS Infection From Unprotected Sex with Infected Individual
X = Instances of Protected Sex Between Infected Individual and Non-Infected Individual
Y = Probability of AIDS Infection From Protected Sex with Infected Individual

New Cases = A*B + X*Y

The argument is based on the fact that X will increase faster than A will decrease if condoms are distributed. I agree. But for the argument to work, however, the magnitude has to be such that it overcomes how much lower Y is than B. Plug any reasonable assumptions into the equation and do your own tests, it doesn't work at all. Especially in Africa, where poor education leads to VERY little hesitation to have casual sex with or without protection, and where women often have little ability to refuse to have sex with a husband who cheats on her regularly, meaning a smaller |dX/dA| than in America, where it's still surprisingly and depressingly low.]