condemned as confusing the laity and compromising to false religions. Likewise criticised was his kissing of the Qur'an in Damascus, Syria, on one of his travels on 6 May 2001. His call for religious freedom was not always supported; bishops like Antônio de Castro Mayer promoted religious tolerance but at the same time rejected the Vatican II principle of religious liberty as being liberalist and already condemned by Pope Pius IX in his Syllabus errorum (1864) and at the First Vatican Council. Religion and AIDS John Paul II continued the tradition of advocating for the culture of life. In solidarity with Pope Paul VI's Humanae vitae, he rejected artificial birth control, even in the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS. Critics have said that large families are caused by lack of contraception and exacerbate Third World poverty and problems, such as street children in South America. John Paul II argued that the proper way to prevent the spread of AIDS was not condoms but rather "correct practice of sexuality, which presupposes chastity and fidelity." The focus of John Paul II's point is that the need for artificial birth control is itself artificial, and that principle of respecting the sacredness of life ought not be rent asunder in order to achieve the good of preventing AIDS. Social programmes There was strong criticism of the pope for the controversy surrounding the alleged use of charitable social programmes as a means of converting people in the Third World to Catholicism. The pope created an uproar in the Indian subcontinent when he suggested that a great harvest of faith would be witnessed on the subcontinent in the third Christian millennium. Dictatorships in Latin America John Paul II visited General Augusto Pinochet, Chile's military ruler. According to the United Press International, "Pope John Paul II preached the need for peaceful change and greater participation up and down Chile ... but stayed away from direct confrontation with Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military regime ... disappointing Pinochet's opponents who had hoped the pope would publicly condemn the regime and bless their campaign for a return to democracy." John Paul II endorsed Cardinal Pio Laghi, who critics say supported the Dirty War in Argentina and was on friendly terms with the Argentine generals of the military dictatorship, playing regular tennis matches with the Navy's representative in the junta, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera. Ian Paisley In 1988,