I found a great article supporting Pope Benedict's recent statement regarding condoms. Sometimes when I hear about the Church stepping out and making bold statements that are totally counter-cultural I forget that I have to be a part of the revolution. Even within my family and friends I need to be on top of my game so I can 'defend' such statements.
So in light of the Modern Catholic Mom theme I am trying to figure out how to get involved as a mom!
Here are my thoughts:
1. Pray pray pray for the Pope and his Cardinals so they can remain faithful to the Tradition of the Church and always speak truth.
2. Educate ourselves so that we can respond to questions or misconceptions our family and friends may have. If you haven't read Pope John Paul II encyclical 'Humanae Vitae' it is an excellent source of knowledge regarding human sexuality and the Catholic Church's stance on such topics.
As most of us know the media is having a field day with the following:
The AIDS epidemic “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”
With some media sources calling this one step away from a death sentence it is refreshing to read an article from the National Review Online that entertains the reasons 'why' the church would make this statement.
Here are the highlights:
"The pope, of course, is not actually “ignorant.” The Vatican knows well what it is doing, and the church is not deaf to the suffering of those Africans living with AIDS. Indeed, Catholic Relief Services and Caritas Internationalis (the U.S. and worldwide Catholic relief agencies respectively) are leaders in distributing antiretroviral drugs, and in so doing have saved thousands of lives."
It begins with the premise that while the AIDS epidemic is the result of a virus, it is as much a social as a viral illness. It is not something one catches merely inhalation or shaking hands or other passive contact. The transmission of HIV in the vast majority of cases can be traced to an elective and deliberate act of sexual intercourse.
The goal should be to promote widespread delays in becoming sexually active among young people and, when they grow up, encourage them to form committed relationships.
The Catholic position seems naïve to the average Westerner who, thinking of himself and his own society’s inability to regulate its collective sexuality, applies this lesson on the impossibility of self-restraint to the whole globe. (I have to comment on this because it just fires me up! Those who promote the use of contraception do so because they do not feel that our society is capable of any self restraint! Rather than try and teach abstinence they would rather throw condoms at our teens and tell them well since you are going to be reckless anyway mind as well use condoms! No! They can be taught self restraint which goes hand in hand with self respect.... which is the best gift we can teach our children. Ok- hopping off the soap box!)
In fact, such Westerners, before they criticize Benedict for being unrealistic, may first want to calibrate their own sense of reality to African standards. Because where abstinence and monogamy have been most vigorously promoted, the HIV-infection rate has declined the most dramatically. Particularly, this is true of Uganda, where evangelical Christian influences have imbued the country’s AIDS policy with a moralizing outlook and an emphasis squarely on behavior change. The message was: You have the power to change your behavior and, if you do not, you may very well die.
It proved to be startlingly effective. In spite of the expectations of public-health wonks, Uganda saw a “60% reduction in casual sex . . . equivalent to a vaccine of 80% effectiveness,” according to a review of the policy published in the journal Science. In the wake of the policy’s implementation, Uganda became one of the first African countries to post a decline in the HIV-infection rate. (Yay! Yay! Yay!)
In its obsession with condoms, the Western public-health community has been every bit as dogmatic as the pope. And it has been even more blinkered to the realities of Africa, which is arguably in the grips of a huge religious and moral revival that has a huge potential to be wielded in the fight against AIDS. Church attendance is soaring, and Africans are willing to make sacrifices, of both their money and their pleasure, for moral causes. In this respect, it is not Benedict and the Catholic Church who are out of touch. It is the West and its condom myopia.
So in light of the Modern Catholic Mom theme I am trying to figure out how to get involved as a mom!
Here are my thoughts:
1. Pray pray pray for the Pope and his Cardinals so they can remain faithful to the Tradition of the Church and always speak truth.
2. Educate ourselves so that we can respond to questions or misconceptions our family and friends may have. If you haven't read Pope John Paul II encyclical 'Humanae Vitae' it is an excellent source of knowledge regarding human sexuality and the Catholic Church's stance on such topics.
As most of us know the media is having a field day with the following:
The AIDS epidemic “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”
With some media sources calling this one step away from a death sentence it is refreshing to read an article from the National Review Online that entertains the reasons 'why' the church would make this statement.
Here are the highlights:
"The pope, of course, is not actually “ignorant.” The Vatican knows well what it is doing, and the church is not deaf to the suffering of those Africans living with AIDS. Indeed, Catholic Relief Services and Caritas Internationalis (the U.S. and worldwide Catholic relief agencies respectively) are leaders in distributing antiretroviral drugs, and in so doing have saved thousands of lives."
It begins with the premise that while the AIDS epidemic is the result of a virus, it is as much a social as a viral illness. It is not something one catches merely inhalation or shaking hands or other passive contact. The transmission of HIV in the vast majority of cases can be traced to an elective and deliberate act of sexual intercourse.
The goal should be to promote widespread delays in becoming sexually active among young people and, when they grow up, encourage them to form committed relationships.
The Catholic position seems naïve to the average Westerner who, thinking of himself and his own society’s inability to regulate its collective sexuality, applies this lesson on the impossibility of self-restraint to the whole globe. (I have to comment on this because it just fires me up! Those who promote the use of contraception do so because they do not feel that our society is capable of any self restraint! Rather than try and teach abstinence they would rather throw condoms at our teens and tell them well since you are going to be reckless anyway mind as well use condoms! No! They can be taught self restraint which goes hand in hand with self respect.... which is the best gift we can teach our children. Ok- hopping off the soap box!)
In fact, such Westerners, before they criticize Benedict for being unrealistic, may first want to calibrate their own sense of reality to African standards. Because where abstinence and monogamy have been most vigorously promoted, the HIV-infection rate has declined the most dramatically. Particularly, this is true of Uganda, where evangelical Christian influences have imbued the country’s AIDS policy with a moralizing outlook and an emphasis squarely on behavior change. The message was: You have the power to change your behavior and, if you do not, you may very well die.
It proved to be startlingly effective. In spite of the expectations of public-health wonks, Uganda saw a “60% reduction in casual sex . . . equivalent to a vaccine of 80% effectiveness,” according to a review of the policy published in the journal Science. In the wake of the policy’s implementation, Uganda became one of the first African countries to post a decline in the HIV-infection rate. (Yay! Yay! Yay!)
In its obsession with condoms, the Western public-health community has been every bit as dogmatic as the pope. And it has been even more blinkered to the realities of Africa, which is arguably in the grips of a huge religious and moral revival that has a huge potential to be wielded in the fight against AIDS. Church attendance is soaring, and Africans are willing to make sacrifices, of both their money and their pleasure, for moral causes. In this respect, it is not Benedict and the Catholic Church who are out of touch. It is the West and its condom myopia.
