Ok, there's a new pope in town. He's a German dude by the name of Ratzinger who used to be a Nazi soldier. In all fairness, it's not really Ratzinger's fault that he was stuck in a hellish situation in his childhood. It wasn't exactly a situation of freedom of choice--more like goose-step or die. I mean, I don't blame underprivileged American men who had no options but the army and ended up on the frontlines for Haliburton's (err, I mean the US's) illegal war of terror against Iraq. But still, this whole situation is a bit of a public relations nightmare isn't it?

However, I guess you can understand the position the Catholic Church was in. I mean, their only other option would have been to elect some dark-skinned pagan from the third world with progressive ideas that might have actually helped millions of people. Think of what a disaster that would have caused!

Not that the church really cares about PR. Child molestation was enough to sink Michael Jackson, but the church is still marching along, or maybe I should say goose-stepping. It isn't exactly like the hierarchy of the church is a republic. It's more like a fascist dictatorship. What one guy says goes, and if you don't comply you risk the damnation of your immortal soul.

Err...whatever.

But I wonder if Americans, or people from any other country in the world for that matter, really comprehend the enormity of the election of a new pope. All of a sudden, an authority is chosen in a foreign land that has tremendous power on your home soil. Whether or not you respect the church, you have to acknowledge that it has a far reaching influence and the election of the new pope is something that could seriously affect your life.

I'm not sure I like the fact that the way I chose to live my life is going to be influenced by some dude thousands of miles away who has not the slightest concept of my background or life experience.

How do the decisions of the Pope affect you? Well, lucky that you should ask, I have an example worked out.

One of the main issues that has confronted humanity over the last twenty or so years, is the rise of the AIDS virus. For a while, people thought AIDS meant the destruction of the human race, and in moments of universal fear such as these, it is the responsibility of strong, public organizations (like the Catholic Church) to provide leadership to confront the problem.

It became commonly known early in the AIDS epidemic that the use of condoms could greatly reduce the threat of the disease. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church was of the opinion that any and all use of contraception is evil and will result in the eternal damnation of the soul. Did the church change their outdated ideal for the sake of giving proper information to people and the hope of saving thousands of lives? Did the Church use its tremendous influences to spread the true word of how to fight AIDS to the darkest, deepest corners of the world that only the Church can reach? Of course not! What then was the Catholic Church's answer to AIDS? Abstinence from sex.

Yeah...like people are going to stop having sex.

AIDS is just one factor in the larger topic of human sexuality and, more specifically, youth sexuality. How to deal with youth sexuality has long been a incendiary topic in the United States. Some people claim that young people should be treated with dignity and respect, and told the truth about sexuality, contraception, and other facets of this topic. Other people (religious fanatics) claim that if you give young people the facts they will only feel encouraged to go and have sex. To that end, these people insist that the only way to approach youth sexuality is by pushing abstinence until marriage.

What viewpoint has won out in the reasonable, intelligent, American intellectual forum? The idiotic abstinence until marriage approach of course.

In a study done by Sue Alford and Ammie Feijoo entitled, "Adolescent Sexual health in Europe and the U.S.--Why the Difference?," the proof of the ineffectiveness of the abstinence approach is scientifically exposed. The study examines the sexuality of the youths in Holland. Holland is a country that adopted a responsible, fact-first program for teaching young people about sexuality. A program that was actually designed for the US and rejected by the religious fanatics as being dangerous. What the study found was that Holland's youth is more sexually responsible than American youth in every measurable category:

Age at First Intercourse:
US: 16.3 Holland: 17.7

Teen Births per 1000 Women:
US: 52 Holland: 4

Teen Abortion Rate per 1000 Women:
US: 26.8 Holland: 4.2

AIDS per 100,000 People:
US: 21.7 Holland: 2.2

This is a SCIENTIFIC STUDY! Look at those numbers! I mean, abortion is a major issue in the US, why can't the religious fanatics recognize that their outdated thoughts on abstinence lead directly to 7 times as many abortions as a fact-first philosophy! Therefore, religious anti-abortion groups are actually responsible for 80% of American abortions because they are blocking young people from a strategy of handling youth sexuality that actually works!

Shouldn't that be considered, to use the terms of the Church, some kind of sin?

But what about the AIDS statistics? The rate of AIDS is ten times as high in the US as it is in Holland. Ten times! Why the discrepancy? Because of knowledge about the disease and the prevalence of the use of condoms! So here we have proof that a fact-first philosophy could disable the spread of the most terrifying disease since the bubonic plague by 90%.

There are currently about 40 million people in the world who are infected with AIDS. Had the Catholic Church gotten over its stupid, outdated ideas about sexuality and used its grand influence to promote condom use, there is the chance they could have reduced the number of AIDS sufferers today to as few as 4 million! Because the church took the idiotic, holier-than-thou attitude, 36 million people were needlessly infected.

Now, the argument could be made that even with the support of the Church, many people in third world nations (where AIDS is a huge problem) would not have been able to afford, or simply would not have used condoms. Certainly, that argument is definitely true. But even if the fact-first approach to fighting AIDS only had a quarter of the positive results that were produced in Holland, you could still have saved 9 million people from needless death. That's still more than the holocaust and I'm only dealing with the numbers of people that are currently infected, not the ones that have already died.

I think it is obvious that the Catholic Church has committed itself to a course of action that is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the deaths of more people than the most horrific act of genocide in the history of the human race. When are people going to start being pissed off about this? Your chances for getting AIDS from a partner are 10 times higher because of the idiotic decision of a pope that you had no say in electing.

But it isn't just the pope that should be held responsible, all Christians are accountable. In America, we are fond of portraying not just Hitler, but everyone who had the misfortune of being born in Germany during the time of his reign as a ruthless monster. My friends from Germany, who were born thirty years after Hitler fell from power, are constantly bombarded with idiotic, unfair attacks on their morality because of their descendance from a heritage they had nothing to do with and which they rejected in their infancy. In certain circles, I have to make apologies for the US and its unprovoked aggression against various countries in the world. If me, my friends, and other good people that I respect are held accountable for evils that they are not at all connected to, surly it is only fair that Christians be held accountable for an evil they actually had a say in.

Now, I realize that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is a dictatorship and not a republic, but aren't Christians responsible for that? They're an organization of people, and despite what they claim, there is no force other than that of power of majority that gives their institution its social influence. Where are the strong leaders? They could demand a walk out. They could stop the money flow into the Vatican. They could make it hurt until the conservative assholes who run the show finally relented and made some decisions that were actually statistically likely to help a good portion of the people of the world.

Since I have chosen to live my life outside the edicts of the Catholic Church, I have no direct way of influencing their decisions. But I can apply pressure from the outside. It's my responsibility. And perhaps if I do enough, somebody on the inside will start applying pressure. And the pressure will build, and move further and further up the chain until finally the idiotic new pope has to stop and take notice. We have to get going, one step at a time.

Hurry, because the lives of tens of millions of people hang in the balance.

The End