One link to such a study.

http://www.familyplanning.net/main.php?parent_id=2&id_area=36

Condoms send the wrong message, they say that you are OK to have sex with people as long as you put that on.

Condoms don’t send the wrong message, telling people the condoms are infected with HIV is sending the wrong message.

It doesn’t address the issues that are truly causing the desease to spread

I think condoms exactly address what is causing the spread of HIV (unprotected sex). Sexual education is what is needed and any good sexual education includes information about condoms. Like it or not people will have sex no matter what you tell them. It is better to tell them the truth about sex rather than keep the ignorant about what can really happen. This is where church doctrine (”sex is bad”) is a roadblock to actually helping people.

If you look at the studies of families who practice what the Church teaches vs. the families who don’t you will notice few facts. One of them is the fact that families who follow the Church in this matter have about 2% divorce rate where as familes who don’t have 50%.

Have a link to these studies?

You are right that numbers are not everything. However numbers are used all the time to blame the Church for everything imaginable. If one out of 1000 preists abuses a child (even that its way to big of a ratio and its to be condemned) the news and everyone jumps on the Church calling its members pedophiles etc…

Numbers do however show something. 2% vs 50% that is a HUGE difference. It doesn’t just comes from using condoms or not but it shows a difference of mind set towords marrige and the human persons.

I am sorry for not articulating what I mean clearly enough. Its imposible here.

It is hard in a space of a comment to express what the Church teaches about human person, so I will just sketch is out very roughly and speak only of the sexual acts.

The body has a language and as such it expresses what we feel towards the other person. Sex is sacred as it is a total offering of onself to the other. Complete self giving. It has a purpuse, it unites the two and it also aims towords procreation. If for what ever reason you block these two purposes it is as if your body was lying to the other. In Christianity if the love is not completely self giving it is not truly love. And that is what the church is trying to protect when it wants its followers (no one is forcing anyone to be Catholic) to follow complete self givnig love.

If you remove the unitive aspect of sex than its like rape. If you remove the possibility of procreation than you are withholding a part of yourself and in your body you are saying to the other “I love you but not enough to give you myself completely”

This is as I said very rough sketch. It is very easy to judge the Church when you don’t know what the Church actualy teaches.

Matthew said,

If you look at the studies of families who practice what the Church teaches vs. the families who don’t you will notice few facts. One of them is the fact that families who follow the Church in this matter have about 2% divorce rate where as familes who don’t have 50%.

Please… Matthew. Statistics are just numbers. They are not necessarily the true picture. I personally know some of those 50% whose marriage is not really a marriage. I’m not saying that it’s good or bad. Just that the numbers are not at all indicative of whether religion works or not.

Matthew said,

Perhaps teaching them sexual morality may not work in all cases (it doesn’t work in our educated world after all) however just giving them condoms will not solve the problem. I don’t think there is much time to put on a condom when you are raping… (Ofcourse I don’t mean that rape is the only way AIDS spreads)

I totally agree with you there. If the men believe virgins will wash away their infection, they definitely would not wear a condom. You have to educate them and get them away from their false beliefs first.

(Plus the fact that the Church is a religious body with higher view of what it is to be human and human sexuality in which view condoms are immoral and rightly so)

Then you lost me there. Rightly so? How is that?

This is about condoms, not orgies. Please explain what coercing married couples to have more children than they can afford to properly care for has to do with preventing immoral sexual behavior. If I am reading you correctly you seem to be setting up an absurd straw man argument by implying that wanting to have some control over the size of their families will lead directly to a “complete lack of morality when it comes to sex.”

Your understanding of the Churches teaching on sexuality is very small if you think the Church wants every married couple to have as many kids as possible. I recomand you have a look at Humane Vite encyclical which is quite clear about the responsibilties families have to make sure that each child is properly taken care of. This goes back to the higher dignity human person is held in the view of the Church.

If you look at the studies of families who practice what the Church teaches vs. the families who don’t you will notice few facts. One of them is the fact that families who follow the Church in this matter have about 2% divorce rate where as familes who don’t have 50%.

Too many men in Africa believe that the cure for AIDS is to have sex with a virgin and every year, those infected men are raping girls to try and get rid of it. Those girls are getting younger and younger.

How is giving them condoms solve this problem?

Perhaps teaching them sexual morality may not work in all cases (it doesn’t work in our educated world after all) however just giving them condoms will not solve the problem. I don’t think there is much time to put on a condom when you are raping… (Ofcourse I don’t mean that rape is the only way AIDS spreads)

Condoms send the wrong message, they say that you are OK to have sex with people as long as you put that on. It doesn’t address the issues that are truly causing the desease to spread. They are false sence of security. It doesn’t work in the “educated” world it will not work there. (Plus the fact that the Church is a religious body with higher view of what it is to be human and human sexuality in which view condoms are immoral and rightly so)

You really outdid youself! I’m cringing as I’m laughing.. Long live the poet!