POPE Benedict XVI is a man of enormous authority. When he says “don’t use condoms - even to prevent the spread of Aids” it has a significant impact among tens, even hundreds of millions of people. Getting on for a fifth of Africans are Roman Catholic.

The Church has been growing more quickly in Africa than anywhere else, and this is the Pope’s first visit there in the four years he has been the spiritual leader of the world’s approximately one billion Catholics. With Africans - 22 million of whom are infected with HIV - hanging on his every word, that made his statement aboard the plane heading to Cameroon this week all the more significant.