U.N. Tells Vatican to Change it's Ways

The head of the United Nations Population Fund has admonished the Vatican to change its teachings on the use of condoms. Urging the need to adopt "a morally correct decision" on how to stop HIV-AIDS, Thoraya Obaid of the UNFPA said her office hopes the Catholic Church will endorse condom use and that the new pope will spread the message further, because "it makes no sense sending people to their death." William Donohue of the Catholic League responded to the issue, noting that it is "indisputably true that as condom use has increased, so have sexually transmitted diseases." Although he acknowledges that this does not mean condom use causes STDs, it does suggest that condom use has not prevented the explosion of sexually transmitted infection because "the same culture that prizes sexual license -- in all its expressions -- is morally incapable of sending a message of restraint." Donohue says if Obaid is truly concerned about containing the spread of HIV, she should get the U.N. to endorse the teachings of the church on sexual matters. Even in Uganda, where government policy that included promoting abstinence has kept HIV infection rates declining up to now, the Catholic spokesman says the progress that has been made is now in jeopardy because the emphasis on abstinence is being dropped in exchange for a more condom-centered approach. Donohue says Obaid is wrong about the cause of death due to AIDS, remarking that "it is behavioral recklessness," not Catholic teachings, that is causing most of these fatalities.