Nice Universal Commitment to Human Dignity Ya Got There
When I first criticized Michael Gerson for trying to hold up the Catholic Church’s spiritual, absolutist approach to human dignity as better than his strawman of relativistic, secularist materialism, I focused mostly on the logical and philosophical problems with his comparison. I made a passing reference to the Church’s not-exactly-fantastic-history when it comes to actually promoting human dignity universally, but I made no reference to the Church’s current policies. But as Dana Goldstein points out, the Church exercises a whole lot of influence over its adherents in the developing world, so that means it’s strictures against condom use and generally reactionary approach to family and reproductive health is doing real damage to the lives of its parishioners:
In practice, the Vatican’s rejection of both contraception and divorce can act as a death sentence for young women in the developing world. Writing in Commonweal magazine, an opinion journal edited by lay American Catholics, Dr. Marcella Alsan described her experience tending to AIDS patients in Swaziland:
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This is the reality: A married woman living in Southern Africa is at higher risk of becoming infected with HIV than an unmarried woman. Extolling abstinence and fidelity, as the Catholic Church does, will not protect her; in all likelihood she is already monogamous. It is her husband who is likely to have HIV. Yet refusing a husband’s sexual overtures risks ostracism, violence, and destitution for herself and her children.
In poverty-stricken societies where prostitution is commonplace, women have few recourses to protect themselves sexually. By clinging to a contraception ban at odds with the realities of modern life, the Catholic Church bolsters misogynistic cultural norms that say women don’t have the right to refuse sex or insist upon having it safely…
Catholic organizations provide about 25 percent of the HIV/AIDS relief available worldwide. For that, the Church should be commended. But until Pope Benedict XVI and the entire Catholic hierarchy embrace the role of condoms in fighting AIDS, Catholic compassion will be limited by ideology. Faith leaders working on the ground have accepted that contraception saves lives. Isn’t it time for a brave American politician to ask the pope why he won’t do the same? To do so would not be disrespectful to either Benedict or American Catholics. Rather, it would recognize the Vatican’s unique power to influence the lives of its followers around the world.
So yeah, nice universal commitment to human dignity ya got going there Benedict XVI…
