Taliban in the Vatican?

The pope, on the papal plane while flying to Africa, repeated to reporters the old official stance of the Catholic church on the usage of condoms, which I am sure I don't need to repeat here. He also stressed that using condoms, in fact, increases the risk of spreading HIV. I suppose he must know a lot about these things, seeing as he has sex daily with all the nuns in the Vatican. Or is it with the choirboys? I forget, I made it a point to miss mass. Mr pope, just because you consider something incongruous with your interpretation of your religion does not make it a fact, much as you may tout the supposedly obvious link between faith and religion.

He has also been meeting Muslim leaders during his trip, a habitual practice I suppose he has inculcated ever since his gaffe in Germany a couple of years ago. Now, he says a lot about how all 'true' religions (he is leaving out things like Scientology I suspect, while I would say that religions are false and fake by definition... well, to each their own and all that) are essentially all the same, preaching the same message, blah blah.

I saw on the news today (though I freely admit, I don't trust most of the news on these Hindi language news channels which are beginning to get even worse than Fox but as entertaining as many Bollywood films) that terrorists from Taliban - who have taken over huge swathes of Afghanistan and Pakistan - have declared condoms un-Islamic. They say that Islam asks its followers to produce ever-more Muslim children. Do they actually say that? I don't know, and perhaps neither does the journalist who would like us to believe so.

But the edict, except the bit about producing more Muslim children, is similar to that of the pope, and eerily enough, comes around exactly the same time. Is that what the pope meant by 'true' religions preaching the same message? Of course, it is entirely possible that the news reports about the Taliban have only come around because the pope said what he did and then came along an enterprising journalist. Easy to accuse the demon of any atrocity, isn't it?

Either way, the next time a devout Christian falls victim to AIDS, I hope he goes ahead and sues the pope, saying "he told me not to use a condom..."