Pope Benedict XVI’s recent warning that condoms are ineffectual and should be avoided reminds us why the Catholic Church continues to alienate potential new acolytes as well as current members.

In making the claim that condoms are not the answer to the spread of AIDS in Africa and may in fact exacerbate the problem, the pontiff reinforced the idea that the Church is concerned with the eternal soul to the exclusion of mortal life and unleashed a firestorm of outrage among health workers and clergy.

The Pope was no doubt speaking generally when he said, “You can’t resolve [HIV] with the distribution of condoms,” since the same statement would be clearly absurd with respect to an actual person’s health concerns. Who knows how many thousands have not contracted the virus because they wore a condom, and because they had access to one.

However, in presuming to deny an individual access to that condom simply because the epidemic itself will not be eradicated completely because of their use, the Pope succeeds in confounding rational thought and making a folly of his claim to care about people and families suffering because AIDS. In adding to his rationale the unsupportable and ultimately irrelevant argument that condoms encourage people who would otherwise refrain from having sex, the Pope added an almost intolerable insult to an inexcusable injury.

More problematic even is the Pope’s insult to common logic. Does he truly believe that anyone not already deceived takes at face value his words, and does not understand that this so-called empirical rationale for not using condoms mask the true belief and motivation, that ejaculating into a condom is an act of murder and a carnal sin? Clearly, I am not a Catholic, if I were, and I still considered myself a sentient individual with a modicum of free will, I’d wonder about a Pope that thinks I am so naive that I would be deceived by such nonsense.