Benedict XVI made his first comments as pope regarding condom use at a — HIV/AIDS

"… condoms are about as effective against AIDS as a twenty-four-chamber gun instead of a six-chamber gun when playing Russian roulette."

"The most authoritative recent report is by the US National Institute of Health which concluded: "Intact condoms are essentially impermeable to the smallest sexually transmitted virus, and that the consistent use of male condoms protects against HIV/AIDS transmission." The World Health Organisation insists it is imperative to continue promoting condoms for HIV prevention."

"Mr. Reagan resisted the suggestion that more money was needed. He said that AIDS had been one of the top priorities with us and that the Administration had provided or appropriated some half a billion dollars for research on AIDS since he took office in 1981. He included in that figure the $126 million that the Administration is seeking for the next budget year. So this is a top priority with us, he said. Yes, theres no question about the seriousness of this, and the need to find an answer. When told that the top AIDS scientist had said the Administrations budgets were not nearly enough at this stage to go forward and really attack the problem, Mr. Reagan replied: I think with our budgetary restraints and all it seems to me that $126 million in a single year for research has got to be something of a vital contribution. Albert R. Brashear, a White House spokesman, said that Mr. Reagan intended to suggest that current spending levels, which have been increasing steadily, were enough."

"Whats really heartbreaking is that the sisters here seem kind, they seem intelligent, theyre hard working and they could be the front line in the war against AIDS, and yet what theyre doing is peddling rumour and superstition, and the question is really, who has made them believe it? Weve come across what the WHO calls "The dangerous allegation that condoms let HIV through before." The Archbishop of Nairobi had put his name to a pamphlet making the claim, and wed heard the story from Catholics in two other continents, from the Head of the Pro Life Clinics in Manila City."

"As individual and unpredictable as this illness seems to be, the one thing I found I could say with certainty was this: AIDS makes things more intensely what they already are."

"A tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems."

"In the life of the mass-order, the culture of the generality tends to conform to the demands of the average human being. Spirituality decays through being diffused among the masses when knowledge is impoverished in every possible way by rationalisation until it becomes accessible to the crude understanding of all."

"The first thing I remember about the world — and I pray that it may be the last — is that I was a stranger in it. This feeling, which everyone has in some degree, and which is, at once, the glory and desolation of homo sapiens, provides the only thread of consistency that I can detect in my life."

"Jewish custom, which traces descent solely from the mother, is more sensible and more discreet. Our own lawgivers cant accept the fact that there are many things in family life that are best kept shrouded in mystery."

"One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved."

"If it fulfills our hopes, this center will be, at once, a symbol and a reflection and a hope. It will symbolize our belief that the world of creation and thought are at the core of all civilization. Only recently in the White House we helped commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare. The political conflicts and ambitions of his England are known to the scholar and to the specialist. But his plays will forever move men in every corner of the world. The leaders that he wrote about live far more vividly in his words than in the almost forgotten facts of their own rule. Our civilization, too, will largely survive in the works of our creation. There is a quality in art which speaks across the gulf dividing man from man and nation from nation, and century from century. That quality confirms the faith that our common hopes may be more enduring than our conflicting hostilities. Even now men of affairs are struggling to catch up with the insights of great art. The stakes may well be the survival of civilization. The personal preferences of men in government are not important--except to themselves. However, it is important to know that the opportunity we give to the arts is a measure of the quality of our civilization. It is important to be aware that artistic activity can enrich the life of our people, which really is the central object of Government. It is important that our material prosperity liberate and not confine the creative spirit."

"I did not go to join Kurtz there and then. I did not. I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My destiny! Droll thing life is — that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself — that comes too late — a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. I was within a hairs-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up — he had judged. The horror! He was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief; it had candor, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth — the strange commingling of desire and hate."