thanks for the thought provoking post.......your last paragraph nails it

Suppose, just suppose, that you were the world's foremost authority on what sort of behaviour would and would not leave you - leave anybody - roasting in Hell for all eternity. You have been declared such by Almighty God, speaking through the considered opinion of the most learned and holy men. Then suppose that you saw a practice that would obviously lead to that behaviour. Would it not be your duty to say, with great clarity, and in any way that would prevent that behaviour, that the dangerous practice should be avoided?

Should you refrain from action, then you would be in breach of your clear duty. You do not have to say to yourself, "Ah, but what does the Cochrane Review say?" After all, the Cochrane Collaboration does not, as far as I know, ask itself what the impact of their judgement will be on the immortal souls of those who read, or follow, their reviews.

The Pope's mistake was to make his appeal about the use of condoms sound as if he were worried about the spread of AIDS. He may, of course, be worried about the spread of AIDS, but his real reason for speaking out was that he is much more worried about the use of contraceptives than he is about AIDS. This is a very big issue, and one where the Catholic Church keeps on losing ground to people in westernised countries (including Latin America), and which is fundamental, it seems, to the Church's view of itself. In Africa, the issue of condoms is one where the Church's own physicians and social workers are saying that condoms are the only answer to HIV, and the Pope has, he believes, to stamp on this idea at all costs. And if the costs include all those who get AIDS as a result, then that is the result of human wickedness, not the Catholic Church.

This is one of the reasons why I am such a foe of the Catholic Church, and have a deep distrust of most religion - especially organised religion (and they don't come more organised than the Catholic Church). We should, however, remember that the Pope is carrying out God's will - and that he has almost the last say on God's will (he can't contradict his predecessors, so they trump any ideas on his!). You notice I haven't added the words, "he thinks" to that sentence, because it's not a matter of "thinking" - he has more centuries of certainty behind him, than the entire enterprise of modern science, and more people who believe in him than believe in modern science. Frightening, but true.

Your piece would have made sense if, say, Tony Blair, had produced the words which were actually spoken by the Pope. But the Pope is not one individual setting his judgement against the assembled certainties of the Cochrane crowd (who have their own delusions of infallibility). He is voicing the collective wisdom of centuries of Catholic certainty, and is, consequently a much much bigger problem.

For many millions, HE is the judge.