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Apparently finding a way to bend church rules to allow divorced Catholics to receive communion is a more pressing concern for Pope Francis than the life-and-death issue of AIDS. The pope who has bent over backwards to find a “pastoral” solution to the problem of divorced Catholics showed no such compassion for those living with HIV/AIDS when asked on his return flight from his African visit if the church should change its prohibition on condom use given the continued spread of the virus.
Francis replied with an obtuse mixture of parable and exegesis that made it clear he saw little flexibility in the teaching. . . . While no one would argue that HIV/AIDS isn’t entangled in larger problems like poverty and exploitation, it seems astounding that the pope won’t acknowledge either the severity of the crisis or the role of condoms in saving lives right now, not in some mythological future when justice reigns and “all are healed.”
. . . According to the World Health Organization, there are currently 37 million people living with HIV/AIDS and some two million people were newly infected in 2014. Sub-Saharan African remains the global hot spot, with 26 million infected people and 70 percent of new infections.
Even the considerably more theologically hardline Pope Benedict said that condom use could be the lesser of two evils when it came to a person who is HIV positive thwarting the spread of the disease as a “the first step of responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk to the life of the person with whom there are relations.” Despite Benedict’s comments, Catholic bishops in African have continued to take a hard line against condoms and actively discourage their use.
Related Off-site Links:
On World AIDS Day, What Message of Good News Do Catholic Leaders Have for People Affected by HIV – William D. Lindsey (Bilgrimage, December 2, 2015).
World AIDS Day 2015: Time to Write the Last Chapter on HIV – Chris Beyrer and Anthony Fauci (CNN, November 30, 2015).
Seven Incredible Artists Who Lost Their Lives to HIV – James Michael Nichols (HuffPost Gay Voices, December 1, 2015).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Pope Benedict's Latest Condom Remarks
• Pope Embraces an Acceptable Form of Relativism
• Pope Accused of "Distorting Scientific Evidence" on Condom Use
• Daniel Helminiak on the Vatican's Natural Law Mistake
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Pope Francis confounds me. How can a man who is so eloquent and obviously heartfelt when he talks about global poverty and injustice and income inequality start spouting such a collection of reheated papal clichés and utter nonsense when he starts talking about women and sex?
Related Off-site Links:
Pope Amuses and Insults with Remark on Parenting – Elisabetta Povoledo (The New York Times, January 20, 2015).
Pope: Catholics Need Not Breed Like ‘Rabbits’ – Really? – Jerry Slevin (Christian Catholicism, January 21, 2015).
The Catholic Church's Complicity in Glyzelle Palomar's Suffering – Jamie Manson (National Catholic Reporter, January 21, 2015).
Pope Francis Might Not Be As Awesome As We Thought He Was – Asher Bayot (Inquisitr.com, January 18, 2015).
Pope Francis Calls Marriage Equality "Ideological Colonization" to Destroy Family – Ross Murray (GLAAD, January 16, 2015).
What to Make of Pope Francis’ Latest Comments on Marriage? – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, January 17, 2015).
Pope Francis Slams Capitalism and Those Who Criticize Him For It in His Best Interview Yet – Ryan Denson (Addicting Info, January 11, 2015).
The Trouble with Francis: Three Things That Worry Me – Mary E. Hunt (Religion Dispatches, January 6, 2014).
Pope Francis’ Stinging Critique of Capitalism – James Downie (The Washington Post, November 26, 2013).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• How the Pope's Recent Remarks Highlight a Major Discrepancy in Church Teaching
• On the Issue of Contraception, the Catholic Clerical Caste Does Not Speak for "the Church," Let Alone "Religion"
• Robert McClory on Humanae Vitae
• One Couple's "Evolving View of Natural Family Planning"
• Quote of the Day – November 29, 2010
• Stop in the Name of Discriminatory Ideology
• Italian Cardinal Calls for a “New Vision” for Sexuality
• Quote of the Day – January 14, 2012
The [hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church] can’t retreat from its fight on gay marriage because to do so would take it back nearly 50 years to when it was on the brink of approving the use of contraception but backed down because it would codify the idea, which it had already tacitly accepted, that the purpose of marriage wasn’t limited to reproduction.
This, in turn, would negate much of the church’s biological determinism around the role of women. Many of the doctrinal developments on issues related to sex and women since then have been ever-more elaborate constructions to shore up this theologically weak underpinning. But like any structure built on a shaky foundation, you can’t start moving pieces around without the whole thing tumbling down. To give up the fight on same-sex marriage would be to cast doubt on the entire Pope John Paul II-Benedict moral framework around sexuality and that’s a house of cards the [hierarchy] can’t mess with.
– Patricia Miller
Related Off-site Links:
Catholic Bishops Vote to Double Down on Culture War – Patricia Miller (Religion Dispatches, June 12, 2014).
Catholic Bishops Keep Focus on Abortion, Marriage – Rachel Zoll (Associated Press via Yahoo! News, June 11, 2013).
U.S. Bishops Open Assembly by Voting to Stay the Course – Brian Roewe and Joshua J. McElwee (National Catholic Reporter, June 11, 2014).
Bishops Talk Sex Abuse Complacency, Not Accountability at Annual Meeting – Brian Roewe and Joshua J. McElwee (National Catholic Reporter, June 12, 2013).
The Catholic Church Isn't Anti-Gay, But Are the Bishops? – Michael O'Loughlin (The Huffington Post, December 10, 2013).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
What Part of Jesus' Invitation to "Be Not Afraid" Don't the Bishops Get?
Quote of the Day – May 31, 2014
Why the Bishops Are Being Ignored
Doug Mataconis on the Bishops, Religious Freedom, and Living in a Civil Society
Three Excellent Responses to Cardinal Dolan
Robert McClory on Humanae Vitae
The Standard for Sexual Ethics: Human Flourishing, Not Openness to Procreation
Relationship: The Crucial Factor in Sexual Morality
Quote of the Day – May 9, 2014
Responding to Bishop Tobin's Remarks on Gay Marriage
Stop in the Name of Discriminatory Ideology!
Catholic Church Can Overcome Fear of LGBT People
Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality
Image: Kristen Solberg.
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On the . . . issue of same-sex marriage, Catholic opinion [in the U.S.] has tended to be slightly more favorable than the population as a whole and way more favorable than Evangelical opinion. The 2007 Pew Poll found that 42% of Catholics expressed support for same-sex marriage versus 36% of the population as a whole. In terms of trends, 40% of Catholics supported same-sex marriage in 2001 with that number increasing to nearly 60% by 2014. By contrast, only 13% of Evangelicals favored same-sex marriage in 2001 and just 23% approve of it today.
. . . The real Catholic-Evangelical convergence is between the Republican leadership, the Catholic bishops, right-wing Catholics, and rank-and-file Evangelicals, a coalition that was cemented by Karl Rove with his aggressive outreach to 'conservative' Catholics during the Bush administration. But the fact that a big chunk of moderate and progressive Catholics are missing from this coalition continues to be lost on many in the media. It’s as if as long as the bishops are vocal in their objections to progressive polices and someone in the public is making noise, there’s a tendency to attribute it to “Catholics.” How else to explain the PPRI number that only 37% of Catholics oppose the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, when the widespread perception that Catholics were broadly disapproving of it helped gin up early and critical opposition?
Related Off-site Link:
Catholic Bishops and U.S. Evangelicals Make Strange Bedfellows – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, May 25, 2014).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Catholic Attitudes on Gay and Lesbian Issues: An Overview
A Hopeful Trend
Jonathan Capehart: "Catholics Lead the Way on Same-Sex Marriage"
Patrick Hornbeck on Why Good Catholics Are Challenging Church Line on Homosexuality
Media Matters
First They Take Manhattan
Naming and Confronting Bigotry
American Catholics and Obama
On the First Anniversary of Marriage Equality in Minnesota, a Celebratory Look Back at the Important Role Played by Catholics
