Makes me hope Jack Chick is right about Catholics.

I mean, really. As a bleeding heart liberal hippie relativist type, I am uncomfortable with loaded words like "evil," but what else can you possibly SAY? Fuck the fucking Catholic Church. Sure, there are plenty of individual Catholics who are good people, but it's beyond me how they can stand to be associated with an entity that is always always ALWAYS incredibly regressive wherever it counts.

Rather than leaving it at that, though, I'd like to highlight a fallacy that this article elides.

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, ran an article Friday summarizing reports in mainstream Western newspapers quoting experts who have questioned the efficacy of condoms alone in fighting AIDS.

That's as may be, but this is bullshit. You know it, I know it, we all know it: the church doesn't care what "experts" think, except insofar as they can use it as a convenient self-justification. They don't oppose condom use because they're worried about its efficacy--they oppose condom use because they're opposed to fucking, and they think that condoms encourage fucking. They would take exactly the same position even if AIDS was suddenly, miraculously eradicated. But, of course, AIDS hasn't been miraculously eradicated, so what the hell--a few million extra corpses here and there, whatevs--if they can prevent one couple from getting it on, it'll all have been worth it!

You know, I find professional atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins generally insufferable, but goddamned if this doesn't make me moderate my views a little--sure, they're intemperate, but at least they aren't giant, malignant, death machines.

In conclusion, and to reiterate: Fuck the Catholic Church. Fuck them. And not in a fun way.