Seen through Western media eyes, the Catholic Church's main contribution to the battle against HIV-Aids in Africa and elsewhere has been its opposition to the use of condoms as a protection against infection. That perception was made worse by the way certain churchmen, most notably the late Cardinal López Trujillo, offered flawed scientific arguments in support of the condoms ban. The reality is rather different. The Catholic Church, through its agencies and particularly through its religious orders, is at the forefront of caring for the victims of Aids, including dependants. The Union of Superiors General of Men and Women Religious has just held a meeting in Rome to review progress, at which it heard that Church agencies of various kinds were responsible for a quarter of the total effort throughout the world. But awareness of this remarkable  record has been eclipsed by the controversy over condoms.

Cardinal López Trujillo, as head of the Vatican's Council for the Family, argued forcibly that particles of the Aids-causing virus were so small they could easily penetrate the material from which condoms were made. This turned the issue into one of effectiveness rather than morality, implying that more impermeable condoms would be acceptable. And given the overwhelming consensus among scientists that he was wrong, the argument gave the impression the Church was clutching at straws. The cardinal, who was a ferocious opponent of liberation theology when he was in Latin America, brought the same combative style to his defence of Catholic doctrine, or what he thought Catholic doctrine ought to be, when he went to the Vatican.

In any event, the López Trujillo line on condoms has been contested at the very top, with a number of prominent cardinals arguing that unprotected sex between husband and wife when one of them is infected is not about the transmission of life but the transmission of death. Others have suggested that the distribution of condoms ...

Trust cannot be taken for granted just because it is on the letterhead. The BBC Trust's handling of a complaint against the "Panorama" television programme "Sex Crimes and the Vatican", transmitted in 2006, will dismay those who had hoped the recently revised arrangements for dealing with complaints would quickly rebuild confidence in the BBC's integrity. The Trust's newly published ...

Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Pope Benedict went further than expected in the way he dealt with the issue of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests in America, and earned much praise for it. Not only did he condemn it in the strongest terms several times, but he met victims of the abuse in person, an occasion of high emotion which appeared to have been cathartic. And when Cardinal Francis George of Chicago admitted ...

Benedict XVI, who has just celebrated the third anniversary of his election as Pope, has surprised those who expected his papacy to be a seamless continuation of his role as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. There has been no witch-hunt of those who do not subscribe to a narrow conservative orthodoxy. Instead, his personal humility and conviction have endeared him to the millions who have seen ...

There are two messages the American Catholic Church is likely to hear from Pope Benedict XVI during his visit next week to Washington and New York. The first is to remain true to itself, to its distinct traditions, beliefs and values, in the face of the temptations of secularisation, materialism and relativism. The second is not to be afraid to claim its proper place in the mainstream of American life and thought, ...