Most Italians reject the Pope's dismissive view of condoms

A majority of Italians disagreed with the Pope's stand against using condoms to prevent AIDS, revealed a poll published in the newspaper La Repubblica:

The poll said that 52.3 per cent were "absolutely against" the Pope's view - which overshadowed his trip to Africa last week - that condoms are not the answer to the Aids epidemic and on the contrary only "aggravate" it by encouraging sexual promiscuity. A further 21.2 per cent in the poll, conducted by Demos & Pi, said they were "fairly" opposed to the Pope's position, making a total of 73.5 per cent.

News of this poll of nearly 1,700 Italians questioned in the six days immediately following the pope's airborne remarks comes on the heels of two polls finding that the French are losing confidence in the Pope, possibly for similar reasons.

Neither post-facto revision of the Pope's remarks nor any Italian equivalent of conservative pushback against scientific and medical criticism of the Pope's stand were enough to turn the tide of public opinion in his favor. Italians have no trouble balancing such practical concerns with their religion, according to the London Times:

Ilvo Diamanti, a leading sociologist, said that Italians generally looked to the Catholic Church as a "moral compass", especially in "difficult times." This was not the case however when positions taken by the Church or the Vatican were seen as "different from the common consensus or the practical experiences of daily life"

The Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire criticized the French government for "presuming" to lecture Pope Benedict XVI on AIDS and condoms, and the Archbishop of Genoa railed that the pontiff had been unjustly "mocked and insulted" on the same issue by critics. All without distracting most of the Italian people from applying sound, practical judgment to a life and death issue of daily life.