He’s at it again. By ‘he’ I mean the Pope Benny (late of The Jets) and by ‘it’ I mean ‘the usual batshit’.

Get this kiddies, condoms are part of the problem of AIDS. 

This thread of ‘thought’ is long held in the wilder quarters of that Kerazy Kult, The Catholic Church. A priest pal of mine told me once how one of his instructors at the seminary, now a prominent bishop in Ireland, told his students that condoms did not stop AIDS because, get this, the virus escapes through the microscopic pores of the rubber johnny. An ology?! My Bishop’s got an Ology?!?!

Anyhoo, I’ll leave the humorous, yet pointed, put down to London-based wit, It Was Ever Thus (whose blog, while infrequent, is a Must Read).

Now Benny, love, I know your solution to the Aids crisis is for everyone to sit in their caves under the mountain, under the sea, with their hands on their demurely crossed knees sipping a campari and bromide but honestly man get a grip. If you can make pragmatic decisions to lift the excommunication on a nazi fellow traveller (oh sue me) in order to re-absorb some latin spouting, smells and bells high camp girls sorority into the mother church then surely you can make the intellectual leap and recognise that while condoms may not be the perfect solution (on the grounds they lessen sensation and smell funny) they are a better interim solution to a present problem while you continue to get buy in on your sit-on-hands evangelising.

From It Was Ever Thus