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the humanization of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another
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this seems to me the central sentence...in a way, it's code because the logic informing his position follows directly from his opposition to birth control, which violates two ultra-conservative catholic (ratzinger is ultra-conservative/reactionary, as was jp2) tenants: sex is about procreation and nothing else (whence the notion of "humanization" which i don't think means what you imagine it does--making new humans more like) and that birth control tampers with god's will within the procreative act. sex abstracted from procreation falls under the category of the "bestial" or "animal"---so "humanization" loops back onto it that way as well.
so this sentence basically means: if everyone would follow the teachings of the far right of the catholic church, everything would be closer to hunky dory.
but there's a twist to it: if you accept that the logic which informs opposition to birth control also informs this position, it follows that the subtext here is that aids is god's will...punishment for sin probably...whence the second main sentence concerning "true friendship".
i find this position to be utterly repellent.
at the same time, though, if you don't try to decode it, the message is vague enough to appear reasonable---kinda---until you try to figure out what he's referring to as missing in africa--at which point you have to wonder what the hell he's talking about.
either way, this is classical ratzinger, wrapping a pronouncement which, were it taken seriously, would result in brutal consequences except for those who functionally submitted to the "moral authority" of the catholic church. inside you're cool--outside you burn. classic.
thing with ratzinger is agree with him or disagree with him, the guy's not a fool by any means.
one of the interesting things about that is that you have to take what he says seriously if you're going to disagree with it, by which i mean you have to read what he says. he's internally consistent, very logical in a theologian kinda way. it doesn't typically do to rely on factoid versions.
were that more conservatives were worth the effort.
and i detest the guy.
as for the "witty" one-liners above about catholicism--and this despite my own non-relation to the church---i find them objectionable both in their deep ignorance of the subject they purport to address and in their repetition of some of the stupidest american elementary school memes that substitute for history. so for example--smeth is right above about the splits within catholicism between and often quite reactionary official hierarchy that typically supports WHATEVER the status quo is because they benefit materially from that status quo, and more grassroots oriented activity, which is often quite radical politically and which has repeatedly set "the church" against itself because the official hierarchy sees itself threatened as it sees the status quo threatened.
this is more the case in southern hemisphere churches than it is in the united states, for example---the oppositions are more open, the conflicts sharper, the actions on both sides more extreme.
the most recent expression of this kind of split was liberation theology, which jp2 and his ideological hatchetman ratzinger "silenced" and which was violently suppressed in places like nicaragua (those lovely fellows the reagan administration called "the contras" murdered alot of priests and nuns associated with liberation theology by throwing them out of helicopters--usa! usa!)..but which was among the most important left social movements of the past 40 years and which is still well ahead of most progressive secular politics, particularly in the states.
but this sort of thing is not new.
get a clue.
i gotta go.