Polly, Pope, and Prophylactics

Light blogging due to work : so take a gander at Ian Murray on the slow but sure separation of the working class and Labour (todays events at Longbridge just reinforce this), James Hamilton with another fine post on the same subject, and Non-Trivial Solutions and Squander Two on the Pope, Aids and condoms. A perfect antidote to Poll Pot, who has discovered Africa and condoms a week later than everyone else.

NTS :

I'm not a religious person, so I tend to look upon religions as like private members clubs. Stick to the rules, and you're more than welcome. That's why JP2 was good for Catholicism - because he upheld the Catholic tradition. If you don't like the rules, go join the C of E. They don't really have any worth mentioning. The ones you don't like, they can change. Hey, it's a broad church. And indescribably shallow.

SQ2 :

Not being a Catholic myself, it's possible that I've missed some recent doctrinal development, but, last I checked, the Catholic Church was preaching that each person should have a maximum of one sexual partner per lifetime. Follow that advice, and your chances of getting any STD are virtually nil. The African AIDS epidemic has not, therefore, been caused or exacerbated by Catholics doing what the Pope tells them to. In fact, if everyone in the world had followed the Pope's advice, AIDS would be an unknown disease.

Ah, say the idiots, but you can't really expect people to have enough willpower to stick to that rule, can you? Perhaps not, but if people can break one rule, they can break two. If you don't expect people to follow one of the Pope's instructions, why are you convinced that they have no option but to follow one of his others?