A US-BASED FOUNDATION has critcised Pope Benedict's recent claim that condoms are partially responsible for fueling the global AIDS epidemic.
"Governments are obligated to follow scientific evidence in order to set up effective public health policies to fight AIDS and not rely on religious beliefs like the one Pope Benedict is promoting," explained Dr. Jorge Saavedra, chief of global affairs for AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). "One day, maybe one hundred years from now, the Catholic Church is going to apologise for these kinds of statements the same way they did several hundred years after the Inquisition and half a century after the Holocaust."
Terri Ford, senior director of global policy for AHF, expressed similar sentiments.
 "Some governments, as well as families, will follow the Pope's directive and literally people will die, leaving more orphans. Surely that is not God's plan," said Ford. "As the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict certainly has the right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, but when he deliberately distorts widely-recogniaed and respected scientific findings about the efficacy of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus, he creates unnecessary impediments in the global fight against the epidemic, and people will die. The Pope must be reminded that those kinds of statements cost lives."
Whitney Engeran-Cordova, director of AHF's public health division, noted that the Pope should be offering "constructive, real world solutions" to the global AIDS epidemic, rather than "distracting attention" away from condoms.
"The single greatest risk factor for a woman in Africa for HIV infection today is for her to simply be married. Condoms can cost as little as three cents a piece. If the Vatican truly wants to contribute in the global fight against AIDS, it should offer more constructive input and solutions. For those of us in the fight against AIDS every day, we simply cannot rely on such old world thinking in managing this 21st century epidemic," added Engeran-Cordova.
Pope Benedict XVI made his controversial remarks to reporters earlier this week en-route to Africa.
"(AIDS) is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems," claimed the Pope.
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