This is the last post in a short series on the Pope’s visit this week.

Lets be honest, having a pop at the Pope has been pretty easy during his visit to Scotland and England this week and plenty of us have taken ample opportunity to do so. With so many open goals to aim at, who can blame us! And yet … Some of the attacks coming from the secularists have had an edge to them that needs to be addressed. I found Church Mouse’s report about the ’50 celebs’ protesting in a letter to the Guardian very interesting – most of them are supporters of the Humanist Association of the Secular Society but have failed to make that clear in their letter. Politicians regularly get accused of dishonesty when they fail to declare an interest during debates – should we not apply the same standard here?

The two most common issues used to attack the Catholic Church are the child abuse scandal and the prohibition of condoms. Again, two very easy targets to take aim at. The depth of child abuse and its alleged cover up is truly shocking. There is no doubt that the Church needs to sort out this situation – though to do so quickly is not easy for such a large organisation. With AIDS causing such devastation in many developing countries, it would appear that the ban on condoms is also something that the Church needs to look again at. While condoms are not the fail-safe solution that some believe they are in preventing the transmission of disease – they are certainly better than nothing.

So on both these issues the secularists appear to have the upper hand. But do they? Is it more the case that they have snatched two subjects out of their contexts and therefore found it much easier to attack the Church on them? I believe it is.

Let me begin with the child abuse scandal. The news that priests have been abusing children over many decades is disturbing and is to be condemned without any equivocation. The even worse news that some within the hierarchy of the Church have helped to cover up these cases is even worse. But is the Church unique in the way that it has failed to deal with these problems or is it just one section among many in society that has struggled?

A quick glance at the NSPCC website tells us how much child abuse still goes on in the UK in general. In 2003 32,700 children were on child protection registers in the UK. 16% of children will experience serious maltreatment of some kind at the hands of their parents. 1% will experience sexual abuse by a parent or carer and another 3% by another relative. These are shocking figures.

And it is clear that even professionally trained people struggle, at times, to deal with cases of abuse. It was a little ironic maybe that the second story on the BBC news yesterday morning – after the Pope’s visit – was about a report published following the Baby Peter case. It says that the NHS is still not providing the best care for children, with some GPs not even knowing how to hold a baby properly. The Baby Peter case also brought to our attention how stretched some local authorities are and how difficult it is to deal with cases when parents who are guilty of abuse are so adept at hiding their crimes. It is also the case that children who are sexually abused are very reluctant to report it – three quarters do not do so at the time of the abuse and around a third still had not done so by early adulthood. We also know that paedophiles are extremely clever in covering up their tracks.

It is horrific that such abuse has been happening in the Church – but to single it out for special criticism is surely unfair in view of the context of abuse in society in general.

Let me now turn to the second issue – the prohibition of condoms. Again context is important here, for the Church’s policy is not simply banning people from wearing condoms. Rather it is about the context of where sexual intimacy should take place – within marriage – and that outside of that context the emphasis should be on abstinence. Of course, most in our world see this policy as being wholly old fashioned nonsense. And yet abstinence does work. It does take a little self-discipline, to be sure, but is that beyond our modern age?

It is worth taking note of the wider context of sexual health in the UK in this debate. The international AIDS charity, AVERT, report that there has been a 38% increase in new sexually transmitted diseases diagnoses between 2000 and 2009. Some of that figure can be accounted by the increase in the number of people willing to be tested and better testing techniques, but AVERT themselves say that some of the increase is because of the increase in sexual activity. The UK’s Health Protection Agency say that it is young people who are most at risk of having an STI diagnosed. In their advice to the 16-24 age group they do, of course, say how important it is to use condoms when having sex, but they also put ‘having fewer sexual partners’ at the top of their advice list. It may not quite be the abstinence called for by the Church – but it’s certainly a similar message.

STIs are on the increase in the UK according to these statistics, which given we live in such an open society today is pretty amazing. General attitudes towards sex have changed a great deal; sex education is routinely given in schools; condoms are easily available – and yet we see this increase in STIs. I think the Church is wrong in it’s banning of condoms – but our secular society doesn’t seem to be doing too well with its message either.