MOCK ON, MOCK ON, VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU...

The Wisdom We Need to Fight AIDS (David Brooks, New York Times, June 12th, 2005)

There's a church in southern Mozambique that is about 10 yards long, with a tin roof and walls made of sticks. Women gather there to sing and pray and look after the orphans of AIDS victims. When you ask those women and their pastor what they tell people to prevent the spread of AIDS, the first thing they say is that it's important to use condoms.

They also talk about the consequences of unsafe sex. But after a while they slip out of the language of safety and into a different language. They say, "It is easier for those who have been touched by God to accept when a woman says no."[...]

The AIDS crisis is about evil. It's about the small gangs of predatory men who knowingly infect women by the score without a second thought in the world.

The AIDS crisis is about the sanctity of life. It's about people who have come to so undervalue their own life that ruinous behavior seems unimportant and death is accepted fatalistically.

It's about disproportionate suffering. It's about people who commit minor transgressions, or even no transgressions, and suffer consequences too horrible to contemplate. In America we read in the Book of Job; in sub-Saharan Africa they have 10 Jobs per acre.[...]

This week in Africa, I've been impressed by the level of medical expertise and depressed by the lack of moral, sociological, psychological and cultural expertise. The most subtle analysis of human nature I heard came in that church made of sticks.

If Pope Benedict is looking for a popular slogan to help convey his message, surely Mr. Brooks has just given it to him.