Proving the Catholic church is led by schmucks who have their heads stuck up their asses, the Vatican is sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong once again.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Vatican: condoms don’t stop Aids

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which the HIV virus can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.

The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to the HIV virus.

A senior Vatican spokesman backs the claims about permeable condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that they are untrue.

The church’s claims are revealed in a BBC1 Panorama programme, Sex and the Holy City, to be broadcast on Sunday. The president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, told the programme: “The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the ‘net’ that is formed by the condom.

“These margins of uncertainty… should represent an obligation on the part of the health ministries and all these campaigns to act in the same way as they do with regard to cigarettes, which they state to be a danger.”

The WHO has condemned the Vatican’s views, saying: “These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million.”

The organisation says “consistent and correct” condom use reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90%. There may be breakage or slippage of condoms - but not, the WHO says, holes through which the virus can pass .

Scientific research by a group including the US National Institutes of Health and the WHO found “intact condoms… are essentially impermeable to particles the size of STD pathogens including the smallest sexually transmitted virus… condoms provide a highly effective barrier to transmission of particles of similar size to those of the smallest STD viruses”.

The Vatican’s Cardinal Trujillo said: “They are wrong about that… this is an easily recognisable fact.”

I’ve quoted too much of the article already, but it goes on to say how the archbishop of Nairobi is making comments like “Aids… has grown so fast because of the availability of condoms.” As well as how the director of an AIDS clinic in Lwak is saying he can’t distribute condoms because of church opposition. Best of all is the comment related by Gordon Wambi:

“Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/Aids.”

Can you fucking believe that?! This is all because of the Catholic church’s opposition to contraception as a violation of their doctrines. A tenant that the Pope has fought hard to maintain and one of the outmoded lines of thinking that is partially why so many Catholics feel their church is stuck in the dark ages. Better you should have unprotected sex and die of AIDS than use a condom and end up in Hell!

We’ll let priests molest kids for decades before we do anything about it, but don’t you dare think we’re going to tolerate these condom thingies! Talk about screwed up priorities!