Holy Father! Brighton Needs You!

While various 'quality' newspapers continue to pour over the words of the Holy Father, who has been heroically preaching the Good News to Cameroonians, and while they continue to lambast him for re-iterating Church teaching and for expanding upon man's spiritual hunger, issuing a challenging call for the humanization of sexuality, rather than its increasing commodification, HIV rates, ironically, continue to rise here in Brighton.

What? HIV rates and sexually transmitted diseases are soaring here? In the UK? In Brighton, the 'Gay Capital of the UK'? Here in the UK? The enlightened nation, in which getting a condom is easier than getting a cup of tea? How can this be?

The press are hammering the Holy Father for suggesting that condoms are not the solution to halting the alarming rates of HIV infection in the World. Has anyone ever considered that the evidence that condoms can halt the alarming rates of HIV infection in Brighton is not that impressive? Heck, maybe the Holy Father has had a look at parts of the West and seen that if the invention and the promotion of the sheath hasn't put an end to staggering rates of infection here, putting aside for a moment the profound theological reasons why contraception is immoral, why on earth would they put an end to staggering rates of infection in Africa?

Gay bars, gay clubs and the whole of gay culture promotes 'safe sex' and raises the rubber johnny to the high altar of HIV salvation, yet the rates of HIV infection are very, very high in Brighton. So, let's look at the possible reasons for how this could be...

Either
a) Gay men in Brighton are not using condoms.
Or
b) Gay men in Brighton are using condoms but they are not a guaranteed safeguard against HIV infection.

Is it possible that the truth of the matter is that some gay men are not using condoms, but some are and they have proven ineffective in stopping the transmition of HIV because they have split during intercourse or have allowed the disease to pass through some other way, because they are not 100% effective, every time? When I was at university a woman I knew got pregnant because during intercourse the condom split. Courageously, because she was Catholic, she had the child. Therefore the Church and in particular, the Holy Father, is absolutely correct when he says that condoms are not the 100% safeguard against HIV infection that many people, and of course, the contraception industry, claim. Furthermore, gay Brighton provides us with ample evidence that the condom most certainly does promote and encourage promiscuity, multiple partners and the risk of exposure to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The simple truth of the matter is that the more people you sleep with, the higher the risk grows of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Keep your todger in your trousers and you won't get HIV or any other STI. This may sound rich coming from a Catholic with a bizarre sexual history but it is true. Every time a man, gay or straight, who is HIV positive has sex with someone, condom or not, he is putting that person at risk of contracting the disease because there is always a risk the barrier could fail.

So then, what is the solution to the high rates of HIV infection in Brighton, especially among the gay community which has put so much trust in the power of the condom to protect individuals against the threat of HIV? Well, perhaps the His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is onto something...
"I think that the reality that is most effective, the most present and the strongest in the fight against AIDS, is precisely that of the Catholic Church, with its programs and its diversity. I think of the Sant'Egidio Community, which does so much visibly and invisibly in the fight against AIDS ... and of all the sisters at the service of the sick.

I would say that one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS only with money - which is important, but if there is no soul, no people who know how to use it, money doesn't help. One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem."The solution can only be a double one: first, a humanization of sexuality, that is, a spiritual human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another; second, a true friendship even and especially with those who suffer, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices and to be with the suffering. And these are factors that help and that result in real and visible progress.

Therefore I would say this is our double strength - to renew the human being from the inside, to give him spiritual human strength for proper behavior regarding one's own body and toward the other person, and the capacity to suffer with the suffering. ... I think this is the proper response and the church is doing this, and so it offers a great and important contribution. I thank all those who are doing this."