Please provide chapter and verse on the Pope's clear declaration that the use of condoms is acceptable for preventing the transmission of HIV. I've searched for this in vain.

I have not referred to a Catholic rule book. I've linked to the Catechism, and a weird website that, in spite of its strangely absolutist stance, doesn't seem to contradict the Catechism, and referred to Humanae Vitae. The Catholic church has been an authoritarian organisation for hundreds of years. Even in my childhood and teenage years, and I'm not that old, teachings about sex and contraception (not to speak of eating meat on Friday and the mortal sinfulness of non-attendance at Sunday mass) were effectively dictats. A softening of the approach is welcome, but, in the substantive, the Church has moved very little. So give me the link. I've been rattling on about this for days but all you seem to do is issue snide contradictions to what I say without providing hard evidence that I'm wrong. I was a fervent Catholic for 35 years, over half my lifetime, so I'm not particularly open to being bullshitted about the ways of the Church. So demonstrate to me that the Pope has said to his flock, in plain and simple terms, avoiding the usual encyclical-style circumlocutions, that he promotes the use of condoms in order to prevent HIV. If you can convince me, and I am an honest man, I promise to eat shit.