Damnable words

The pope's remarks upon arriving in Africa are going to cause people to suffer and die. Benedict XVI said that the use of condoms "increases the problem" of AIDS, an untrue and irresponsible thing to say on a continent where the disease is virtually an epidemic. An editorial in The New York Times goes easy on the pope, but one activist was more to the point: "...his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans."