From In These Times: http://inthesetimes.com/article/14800/the_vaticans_risky_sexism/
The archaic politics of the Catholic Church threaten both women’s lives and the church’s own survival.
BY Rev. Harry Knox and Jessica González-Rojas
March 30, 2013
This year the March celebration of Women’s History Month ends with a bang, in Passover, Easter, and the birthday of longtime women’s rights ally and social justice champion Cesar Chavez. This month also brought a new pope whose approach to women’s rights, in contrast with Chavez’s advocacy and the continuing shift within America’s Catholic laity, is less than enlightened on the equality and health concerns of women.
Regressive stands by the Vatican have far-reaching policy impact in the United States and worldwide. Their fallout is especially hazardous for Latinas, who face disproportionate barriers to accessing reproductive and other basic healthcare.
Much has been made of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s commitment to social justice and humility in ascending to his role of Pope Francis. Yet the failure by faithful observers and the press to connect these important concepts to the realities of women’s lives threatens to reduce them to empty pious rhetoric, like more white smoke from a chimney.
While the lofty and admirable principles of solidarity with the poor and aversion to the trappings of privilege that Francis has demonstrated in Argentina have been widely covered, we’ve heard less about the reality of his intense opposition to condom availability and women’s access to reproductive healthcare. That disjunction in Francis’ principles, and the gender bias it reflects, deserves scrutiny because it marks the fundamental challenge facing the institution the pope now heads, which has more than 1 billion adherents and inroads to government around the globe.
For Catholic Latinas in the United States and Latin America, the opposition to contraceptive use voiced by Catholic bishops is wildly out of step with what women are actually doing. In the U.S., 96 percent of sexually active Catholic Latinas have used a contraceptive banned by the Vatican, including 90 percent of married Catholic Latinas. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 72 percent of women and couples use contraception, and about 11 percent would like to but lack access.
Continue reading at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/14800/the_vaticans_risky_sexism/
