Stephen Fry on the Catholic Church

[Aiza]

The statement is still incorrect, despite the "if" clause, unless you or the catholic church can show that condom use directly can cause an increase in the instances of HIV.

I don't know about "directly" since that certainly is not what the Pope said, but again,see the final link I gave on risk compensation.

No-one is saying that just throwing condoms at them will suddenly cause a decrease in HIV, everyone knows that you need to teach people how to use them properly and safely. The Catholic "Abstinence and Fidelity" stuff will decrease HIV, but that only applies to people in a exclusive, committed relationship.

Which is the only sort of relationship even allowable in Catholicism. The entire myth of "Catholics spreading HIV" is based on the bizarrest sort of cafeteria Catholic who has casual sex but doesn't believe in condoms, and it's positively silly in light of the fact that Protestant-dominated nations in Africa have higher rates of HIV (though any Christian nation is put to shame by the Muslim nations)

So the Catholic church doesn't care if condoms help stop the spread of aids or not?

It's not that they "don't care", its that its irrelevant to Catholic doctrine. Like...vaccines for example. There is no official "Catholic Church position" on whether or not vaccines prevent disease--they do prevent disease of course. Even the Pope's statement earlier wasn't any sort of "official position", but it was just his own encouraging to focus primarily on the humanist aspect as opposed to just distributing more condoms. He also later noted that the use of condoms in prostitution can be seen as being motivated by good.

The Catholic Church is interested in sexual purity, and any type of ABC is seen as disordering of that.

You can educate people on healthy, safe relationships, without having God anywhere in the conversation.

Sure you can. There's nothing stopping you, and for irreligious people that may be your best bet, as they'd most likely get upset at anything else (or uncomfortable at best). But to religious people, and to devout Catholics in specific, God is in the center of healthy+safe+LOVING relationships, because God is love.

I don't have any stats for any given African nation in particular, but the devoutly religious do have better health and better quality relationships, if you are interested in reading some papers.

When every position hinges on what is permitted by doctrine, then you have no place telling people how to tackle problems that are material in nature.

The Pope has every place in telling Catholics how to tackle various problems. You don't have to listen to him if you are an atheist. The Catholic Church, again, currently provides some 25% of healthcare to those with HIV worldwide.