Conceiving health as a right makes a profound difference not only in how people claim individual entitlements to health and standards of care, but also highlights the role of public institutions both in service provision and as purveyors of common interests. When the right to health belongs to everyone regardless of race, class, sex and religion, confronting the issue of social inequality is inevitable. Fifteen years ago, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) brought a special focus on sexual and reproductive health which unlike other fields of health is the most implicated by socio-economic and cultural factors. Religious traditions are invoked against women’s empowerment and decision making over their reproductive well being. The same conservatism bars the education of young people on matters vital to their sexual and reproductive health. And while there are signs of progress as in the recent cases of Mexico (when the city passed an ordinance decriminalizing early term termination of pregnancy) and India (where the courts struck down the penal law against sodomy), archaic laws all over the world continue to perpetuate discrimination primarily against women and homosexuals. Indeed gender is a significant marker of social and economic vulnerability and its impact is visible from inequalities of access to health care to the gender differences that dictate people’s social positions as users and producers of health care.
Fifteen years later, many of the original opponents of the ICPD’s framework of health as human rights can be expected to voice the same antagonism against the ICPD, specifically its challenges to gender-based inequality, traditional gender roles coupled with its positive frame on sexuality. But while the opposition seems the same, the context has changed quite radically. For one, while the US debacle over its health systems is easily dismissed as a localized phenomenon, it’s also important to draw lessons from the experience given that decades ago (long before the ICPD), many developing nations embraced health sector “reforms” founded on the same faith in market principles to cure the various ills of their health systems and they show no signs of rethinking such strategies. In fact even before the ICPD, pundits were already sounding alarm bells about the free market principles behind many health sector reform initiatives. In 1994, William Hsiao called “marketization as the illusory magic pill” that developing nations were depending on to alleviate their underfunded and inefficient public sector dominated health systems. Yet as several countries’ experiences later proved, the push towards marketization did not occur outside a geo-political vacuum. From Mexico to Nigeria, the Caribbean and the Philippines, HSR traces its origins from Structural Adjustment Programs which prescribed cut-backs on government spending including social services. Budget cuts affected marginalized sectors but poor women bore the brunt as providers of health care. Majority of community-based health workers in the global south are women volunteers or minimally paid workers. In the meantime, key health professions such as nursing and care giving grew even more focused on job markets abroad. A case in point is the Philippines where remittances from overseas workers have been the single-most determining factor of continuing economic survival. Thus it may be argued (and it has been argued) that catering to the first world market in health serves the economy. As in the Philippines, qualified health professionals from Ghana, Malawi, Zambia and South Africa often seek employment abroad. In 2002 the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the trend of migration of nurses from third world countries would seriously jeopardize the ability of many health systems to function. Indeed shortages of skilled professionals such as nurses with midwifery skills, are now linked to gaps in the provision of maternal, newborn and child health. ICPD+15 is an opportunity to reflect on public health systems as core social institutions in the face of market failures and inadequacies, including corporate ineptitude in safeguarding the finances ordinary people depend upon for their health and well being. As Lynn Freedman points out, health systems are part of the very fabric of social and civic life - because they function at the interface between people and the structures of power that shape their broader society. Health as a right is premised on social justice. ]]>In the pre-framed "Pro-Choice/Pro-Life" debate, each side has the tendency to portray the other as morally wrong and this often leaves little room for any presumption of good faith. When this happens, the discussion fails and the debate comes to a grinding halt. All we are left with is empty, vitriolic rhetoric and few visions of moving forward.
As difficult as it has become in the US context to manage discussions exploring common ground in the abortion debate, in other places like the Philippines, even mustering a public discussion about contraception has become increasingly difficult in recent years.
To be clear, it's really not because Filipino Catholics (around 80 percent of the population) are different from the majority of Catholics in other countries worldwide. Countless public polls each year confirm that Filipino Catholics share similar views: Filipino Catholics, for example, respect contraceptive choice as a matter of conscience.
But abortion is a whole other issue. The number of clandestine abortions in the Philippines is over 373,000 annually, despite the age-old penal prohibition.
Until recently, even advocates for women's health usually steered clear of the topic of religion when it came to conducting discussions about abortion, and stuck to public health frameworks. This strategy has proven effective in clearing up misconceptions about contraception, abortion and women's health in general. It also provides an ideal frame for articulating state mandates around health services, but it does avoid many issues that women face.
Recognizing the conservative position of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy on most issues about women's rights and not just abortion makes "opting out" of the discussion about Catholic faith easier. Sr. Helen Graham, a theology professor and human rights advocate since the martial law period in the Philippines, assured RH advocates the feeling of "hanging by a thread" when it comes to being Catholic and supporting social change is something with which she is familiar.
Sr. Helen spoke before RH advocates including health providers and organizers from the rural and urban poor sectors in a conference organized by Linangan ng Kababaihan (LIKHAAN) and noted that it's not just the Church hierarchy's conservatism that makes things difficult, but there is also the danger of talking out of turn when it comes to challenging religion. She called on advocates engaging the issue of religion to study the history of the Catholic Church and be open to the complexity of Catholic thought. Citing the work of feminist theologians like Rosemary Rathford Ruther and Margaret Farley, Sr. Helen pointed out that despite the seeming contradiction, Catholic thought (particularly reforms introduced during the Second Vatican Council) can also provide a means to articulate issues in sexual ethics.
Professor Mary Racelis from the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila led a public statement in support of reproductive health legislation, and welcomed the voices of poor women in the discussion. She lamented how the most vociferous among those opposed to RH legislation always turn out to be the upper class women of the Catholic Women's League (CWL) and the (presumably) celibate men of the cloth. She pointed out the irony in the situation when rich women and celibate men monopolize the discussion about women's sexuality and reproductive health.
Poor women and their families who have the most to lose when there is no reproductive health care, have yet to be heard. Prof. Racelis recalled how aghast she was when a priest carelessly made a categorical statement during mass contrary to Catholic teaching, calling "contraceptive use" as a "mortal sin," instead of it being a matter of conscience. After mass, she made sure to have a conversation with him about the matter. He turned out to be one of her former students and she thinks perhaps this was why he listened to her.
In the end, both Prof. Racelis and Sr. Helen agreed that having been the teachers of those who later became priests, the need for more education, reflection and open mindedness about Catholicism is definitely not just for lay people and RH advocates. The Catholic clergy definitely needs huge doses of it.
]]>Fr. Jerome Magat, a vicar at the St. William of York parish in Stafford, Virginia, and chaplain of the Filipino Family Fund told media that "Filipinos have a tremendous opportunity to be real players in the cause for human life." Filipino-Americans were present at marches last January 23 before Capitol Hill, to oppose FOCA on the anniversary of Roe v Wade. Magat also stressed that "Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. We come from a country where abortion is taboo and we have a culture that values the family. Filipinos carry all these traits that are so ready-made to be converted to such strong players in the pro-life movement."
Magat obviously equates being pro-life/anti-choice with the position supportive of imprisonment for women who have abortions, as well as engendering a culturally imposed ban on discussing the subject.
President Barack Obama garnered a majority of the American Roman Catholic vote during elections last fall (over 53%), but some reporters have speculated about how Obama got less overall support from Filipino-Americans in the greater Washington DC region because of his "pro-choice" position. Indeed, many Filipinos in the US, like over 80 percent of us back home in the Philippines, are Roman Catholics. And while it is not surprising that many Filipino-Americans might have conservative views about women's right to choose, it is not altogether fair or accurate to depict all Filipino-Americans as rabidly anti-choice either. In a Los Angeles produced talk show on the Filipino Channel, for instance, Filipino-Americans are seen here engaged in a lively debate about abortion, where there were views expressed for and against defending women's right to decide. While the positions and arguments are familiar, the debate/talk show format is a bit different from what many of us are perhaps used to back home. In this show, the exchange gets heated but it's also quite restrained on both sides.
The problem is, however, when it comes to drawing the lines for and against women's right to decide whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, the old battle-lines of "life/choice" are inadequate to get a conversation going about the concerns over the life and health of women who are presumably the common concern of both pro-choice and pro-life. While both sides stated their positions calmly, the debate on TFC may as well have been just another debate in the Philippines where both sides seemed to talk past each other without directly addressing the other's concern.
Our best advocates for reproductive health and women's rights can dish out all the statistics on maternal ill-health and mortality, family planning preferences and even the mechanism of action of contraceptives. These arguments continue to be relevant and advocates should in no way stop dishing them out. However, those on the other side who continue to harp on the life of the unborn (some of them even claiming the sperm has "life") are not easy to dismiss as unscientific because the stance they take or the argument they pose is obviously not just being made for the sake of science but sympathy.
One young woman even announced that if she ended up getting raped and pregnant because of it, she would, as a Catholic, accept it as God's will for her. This made a lot of people uncomfortable because ironically she was not really just talking about her own hypothetical right to decide but requiring other women to meet this standard she had set for herself.
Theirs is an appeal to morality that needs to be challenged and tackled head on. By harping on "life," and "fetal rights" the anti-choice makes it appear that the other side does not want babies to be born and that all women who have abortions take their decisions lightly. At one point in the TFC discussion, one woman on the side of choice actually spelled this out and I think made the most headway in the debate arguing in essence that "being for choice we do not mean we want each and every pregnant woman to have an abortion. It's about not interfering with women who have to make that decision."
In the end packaging a "Filipino" and distinctly conservative Roman Catholic view of abortion is many steps backward. It not only negates the fact of diversity among Filipinos' views and women's choices but also of Roman Catholic, Pro-Choice and even Pro-Life views. ]]>According to Cordes, "gender mainstreaming" and "radical feminism" attack biological manhood by insisting that gender roles are learned. He claims that men are demeaned by the ideal of a "sweeter man" who is both emasculated and feminized.
Cordes lays the blame for delinquency and suicides among "fatherless children," on women. This prompted a local feminist (who considers "sweeter men" as a cause for celebration) to ask the obvious: "How is it that when men abandon their families, women get blamed?"
Cordes' lament comes in the wake of deliberations in the Philippine Senate, which is likely to result in the passage of pro-women's rights legislation called the Magna Carta for Women. The bill seeks to adopt the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) into local legislation.
While there is reason to hope that a law furthering women's rights will be passed soon, it was recently noted in the local media that the influential wife of a former Senator was "lobbying" in the Senate by threatening senators with no less than the "opprobrium of the Catholic bishops." Even as I write this post, advocates are hard at work to defend the provisions of the bill, which are being targeted for deletion by the self-appointed Catholic lobbyists.
One Senator who was approached to introduce the amendments claims that the Catholic Bishop's Conference (CBCP) denied that the so-called amendments (accompanied by a letter from the Archbishop of San Fernando Pampanga, on the official stationery of the CBCP) are the "official" position of the CBCP.
I received a copy of the proposed amendments and apart from a handful of useful grammatical suggestions the proposal, which seeks to delete virtually all references to gender and human rights, defies both logic and fairness.
Gender is a widely used term in international human rights law. As a "social category" which is commonly used as a basis for discrimination and/or subordinate treatment, gender is specified alongside race, sex, religion, language, and ethnicity in relation to the principle of non-discrimination. One UN document reflecting such usage is General Recommendation No. 19 of the CEDAW on Violence Against Women (VAW), which defines "gender-based" violence.
As an analytical or evaluative standard for inclusion on the other side of discriminatory practice and exclusion, mandating the integration of a "gender perspective" in General Recommendation No. 14 by the Committee on the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) relates to the manner of compliance by states of their obligation under the treaty to promote and protect the "right to health." As an evaluative standard, "gender" helps to highlight erstwhile "neutral" policies and programs, which usually end up adopting male biased standards.
Health has proven to be especially problematic for gender-blind policy because of the differing reproductive health needs of the sexes, as well as the varying impact of health interventions on marginalized groups which includes women and sexual minorities.
The Catholic lobbyists' proposed amendments do not really provide a full discussion of their position but it attacks the CEDAW:
The above language is bad. CEDAW opens the door for several policies that can violate constitutional rights such as marriage, life, the right of parents to educate their children, etc. Additionally, it extends to other international instruments, which includes CEDAW's protocol and other later conventions such the one (sic) on the elderly (includes euthanasia), children, etc. which could allow the authors to claim that the right to life is not a universally recognized international human right.
The Philippines has ratified all International Human Rights
Instruments to date (save for the Rome Statute establishing the
International Criminal Court) while the International Convention on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) and other instruments affirm the right to
life, though there is no "International Convention on Euthanasia." Given
its rejection of human rights, patent absurdity, and disregard for fair
play (grassroots women have been lobbying and working with Congress
through the legislative cycle over the last six years while the new
amendments came long after the period for deliberations and
interpellation) surely the proposed amendments will be impossible to
peddle in the august halls of the Philippine Senate?
I still don't understand how making women better off and in a
position to exercise their rights is an affront to men. I do, however,
in this case understand how politicians desperate for the Catholic
hierarchy's backing in the 2010 Philippine elections can dash women's
hopes.
While Barack Obama and John McCain are still getting coverage worthy of a presidential hopeful, it is getting very hard not to notice the VP candidates now that the Republicans set Sarah Palin loose upon us.
In the Philippines (as well as other countries in recent history), having a woman President (or a candidate) is nothing new. Our first President after authoritarian rule was Corazon Aquino, the widow of a popular opposition Senator who was assassinated during the reign of Ferdinand Marcos. Cory Aquino was a popular President and while many point out her eight-year term was not perfect (especially her economic policies), her rise to power was certainly memorable for many Filipinos. She led the country at an historic moment when a dictatorship which ruled for twenty years was toppled by a spontaneous and popular mass uprising -- a bloodless coup. A younger generation of Filipinos is not even aware of it anymore, but twenty-one years ago, under military rule, dissent was a very dangerous thing. Arguably, it is still dangerous today -- but so much has changed and in many ways, despite many threats, we still have democratic room for dissent.
Meanwhile, another President
who happens to be a woman is our current President, Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo. Like Cory Aquino, she rose to power when President Joseph Estrada
was ousted but the similarity ends there. Unlike Cory who challenged
the dictator in an election (which Marcos tried to rig), Macapagal was
a constitutional "successor in waiting" - then the Vice President.
On both occasions, the women's movements knew that having a woman as the President served an important if not symbolic milestone for Filipino women's political participation. On the other hand, feminists were also keenly aware of these women's ties to the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy. Both of them professed to be devout Catholics, though, to her credit, Corazon Aquino never imposed her religious beliefs on the Filipino people.
When the Catholic lobby's
attempt to insert a total ban on contraceptives and abortion in the
1987 Constitution failed, the church lobbied for the President (who
was still exercising law making powers) to issue an Executive Order
instituting such a ban. While Cory may have shared the bishop's Catholic
views on contraception, abortion and even marriage and procreation,
she apparently also respected the Philippine Constitution, which guaranteed
religious freedom and non-establishment. And while Aquino's administration
preferred a focus on maternal health, the national average spending
on health was the highest it had ever been after Marcos.
Then came Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo, daughter of a former President and classmate of Bill Clinton's at Georgetown University. Armed with a Master's degree and
a PhD. in economics, she became an academic, a cabinet member, elected Senator
and later, Vice President. By her own admission, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
used to take birth control pills but without batting an eyelash, Arroyo
has also refused to fund access to modern family planning methods for
the rest of us. During
her eight years in office, she single handedly reversed past administration's
reproductive health policies by supporting natural family planning to
the exclusion of all other methods and granting public money to a faith-based
organization to conduct the program.
She has threatened to veto pending legislation on reproductive health
numerous times, even as the bill is gaining wide support in Congress.
The point I am trying to make is this: While it is about gender, not all of it depends on the gender of the leader (or candidate) in question nor is it solely about gender in isolation. When Corazon Aquino the widow was emerging as the opposition's likely standard-bearer, President Marcos, a lawyer and bar-top-notcher, ridiculed the opposition saying, "Women only belong in the kitchen and in the bedroom."
We actually heard less of this when Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was running for the Vice Presidency, mainly because we already had Cory Aquino as President. Ironically, the most popular Presidential candidate at that time was a high-school dropout and an actor known for playing "tough guy" and "macho" roles, a former Mayor turned Senator, Joseph Estrada.
Gender matters because alongside other social markers of status and identity (like race, class and ethnicity) it is all too often also the marker of inequality and all of them overlap. This is why even when a woman's gender is usually a disadvantage; in say for instance, a male dominated profession, a poor woman of color will still be worse off.
True, Sarah Palin is just as likely as the next woman candidate to perhaps be the object of sexist remarks and biases. This needs to be addressed. On the other hand, as a candidate (and a leader), she (like our own current President) has to be held accountable for the quality of their policies and positions and this includes the issue of gender equality. How empowering have their policies been to women (specifically, poor women)? It is not even an issue of whether Sarah Palin is pro-life or pro-choice but how, as a leader she proposes to lead a country where a myriad of views on abortion (and religion) exist. How can a leader lead without respecting her constituents? (Sarah Seltzer's post provides us with the actual views of women leaders on the issue.)
In an interview with Katie Couric, Palin assures the public that while she is pro-life, she does not support penalizing abortion. In the same interview, however, she comes dangerously close to a position of denying access to abortion, when she maintained that she would seek to convince a girl to maintain her pregnancy by counseling her, without any mention of respecting the girl's possibly different views. (Couric's hypothetical example was not even one of the more difficult grey area questions but a child raped by her father.) But perhaps what is most disturbing about Sarah Palin is that her approach to the elections seems to be one based on pushing every button there is to push, to engender the deepest divisions among the American people. Particularly appalling is how racial and religious prejudices figure in her "terrorist baiting" against Barack Obama. The irony of course is, as pointed out by pundits, Palin gets away with it because all she has to do (with her spin doctors) is pull out the "gender card."
Gender ought not to be used
in this election (or any other election) as a trump card.
Gender is relevant not to silence the debate, but to push both candidates
and voters to re-examine their views towards other people. Gender matters
in elections in the same way we want to overcome racial, ethnic and
religious biases and to become better human beings.
In fact, if there is one sure thing a change in administration in the US can affect in the Philippine situation, it would have to be the area of reproductive health care. Recently, the US financial crisis has even been used as an excuse by the opposition to delay reproductive health legislation. But more than any direct or causal effect, any change in US politics which can revitalize support for bodies like the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and reorient the policy frame of the USAID, will go a long way in creating more breathing space for local reproductive health advocacy.
The Bush administration continuously withheld committed funds to the UNFPA since 2001 (which by June 2008 totalled $235 million) and its conservative policies on sex education, abortion and prostitution, have made their way into policies connected to aid, such as the prostitution pledge in the PEPFAR and the revival of the Mexico policy, or global gag rule, which prohibits grantee institutions from supporting any pro-choice position.
Meanwhile, in the halls of Philippine Congress today, proponents of the reproductive health care act are working to pass the draft bill and as usual, the influential Catholic hierarchy is putting up a stiff opposition. But supporters of reproductive health (RH) legislation are also gaining ground and there is a strong possibility that the bill might make it out of Congress this time around. Part of the package of RH care in the bill addresses the provision of universal access to family planning methods.
At its height, USAID's aggressive contraceptive donations to the Philippines reached an all time high of 100 million cycles of pills worldwide on an annual basis, beginning 1973. These donations continued for over thirty years, beginning with an end to condom donations in 2002; pills in 2003; and then finally Intra-Uterine Devices by 2008. Since the USAID phase-out, many NGOs and advocates in the local reproductive health movement have also been actively engaging local governments to step up financing family planning supplies, especially since the current national government under Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has refused to allocate a budget for contraceptives.
Arguably, this debacle over the government budget on family planning and RH care is an issue of local politics, and mainly due to Arroyo's staunchly conservative Catholic position on only supporting natural family planning to the exclusion of all other methods. Many note that her position has kept the Roman Catholic hierarchy at bay in terms of joining movements calling for her impeachment and resignation after evidence of cheating in the 2004 Presidential elections was discovered.
In the Philippine context, however, the realization of reproductive health care will take more than a policy enactment. For many years now, primary health care, including the important referral chains on which a system of quality reproductive health services depends, have been threatened. Under the auspices of a highly contested "health sector reform" agenda, public hospitals have been privatized and the cost of health care (which arguably has always been high in the Philippines), is soaring. The cost of medicine is likewise relatively high in the Philippines and while the social security package of health care for employed Filipino members (Philhealth) has been extended to include a family planning service like tubal ligation, it does not, however, mean that the service is always accessible nor available in provincial hospitals.
In recent years USAID has
also been involved in various aspects of health sector reform (HSR) in the
Philippines. Among its most recent projects is support for a "contraceptive
self reliance" (CSR) policy in which local governments are engaged
to secure contraceptive availability in their jurisdictions. This policy
direction is in line with the decentralization of health care delivery
which was officially ushered in by the Local Government Code in 1991.
While "health sector reform" is a highly contested issue, more often than not, the equity goals in the Philippine HSR have been at odds with the very market-oriented approaches that have been undertaken under the same agenda. The USAID promoted CSR for instance can address contraceptive availability at the local level but it does not really make it sustainable or affordable because prices remain high since each local government unit has to haggle for its purchases.
Furthermore, this scheme of marketization in health under the CSR positions people not as patients and system members but as mere "consumers" and "purchasers" of contraceptives and the local government as a supplier of products and not necessarily of health care. In the end, the absence of a coherent policy framework which puts contraceptive availability in the context of holistic reproductive health care as a human right makes the reform and equity goals behind HSR seem like doublespeak.
Without a doubt, the results of the 2008 US Presidential elections will have an impact on the Philippines. While it isn't likely that the effect will be anything immediate or necessarily revolutionary, any reversal of the conservative political frame reflected in the outgoing Bush administration's policies, will certainly be most welcome. It won't solve any of our problems. But a pro-women's rights position by the White House will certainly create much needed breathing room for advocates to be able to work more effectively for RH care in the country. ]]>According to Undersecretary Mario Villaverde, the opposition against condom use by the Catholic Church has had detrimental effects on the government campaign to prevent the spread of HIV AIDS. Alleging that the use of condoms in HIV/AIDS prevention was an entirely different issue from its use as contraception, Villaverde stressed that the Department of Health supports natural family planning, including abstinence.
While he did not really clarify what he meant by the difference of condom use as a contraceptive and its uses in HIV/AIDS prevention, it is tempting to infer a lot of things from Villaverde's statement. Indeed, the use of condoms to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS is not exclusive to heterosexual intercourse. In which case, he was on one level, correct to point out a difference. On the other hand, what is more probable is confusion within the DOH, of what their actual position vìs a vìs the condom is. In this context, however, it is nothing new.
In July, even the local Catholic Bishops' Conference indicated a qualified position on condom use. Edwin Corros, Executive Secretary of CBCP's Episcopal Commission for Pastoral Care for Migrants and Itinerant People announced that the use of the condom "as a last resort" by married couples, to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS. Corros claimed that the Church's position is not to endorse condom use but only to prevent deaths. He added that married couples ought to practice abstinence and faithfulness.
On the other hand, the CBCP is still aggressively blocking the passage of pending legislation on reproductive health in which both family planning and HIV/AIDS are addressed. Responding to Villaverde's pronouncements, and contradicting the qualified position issued by its own Episcopal Commission, Archbishop Aniceto insisted that: "It is the duty of the DOH never to propose for general public use any prophylactic that could increase the incidence of the disease it is supposed to prevent" and that the "idea of safe sex (by using condoms) lulls women and men into complacency."
The premise behind this of course is that "morally upright" lives can only be led through "chastity" that includes abstinence from sex outside of marriage, a part of Catholic teaching which even members of the Roman Catholic clergy find difficult to observe. Ethically, it would, however, be difficult to dismiss condom use as self-serving since the protection condoms offer, depending on the context, could be for one's partner too.
Reported HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines remains relatively low compared with its closest neighbours in the Southeast Asian region at a total of 3,061 since 1984 or less than one percent of the population. The World Health Organization, however has warned that the actual number of unreported cases could be higher and the situation in the Philippine HIV AIDs situation has been described as "hidden and growing" since 2003. In 2007, the DOH noted an increase of 29 new cases per month from an average of 20 in the past years.
Thirty-five percent of new cases come from the ranks of returning overseas Filipino workers who usually get tested prior to renewing their permits to work overseas. Noting cases where returning HIV positive overseas workers infected their wives, Senator Pia Cayetano called the DOH's attention to the possibility and dangers of mother to child transmission. Cayetano added that information on condom use will give the government's information campaign on HIV AIDs prevention a big boost.
But the mere mention of condoms in HIV/AIDs prevention modules and sexuality education materials by the Department of Education is still controversial in this part of the world when the Catholic hierarchy proclaims its opposition. In fact, even the Philippine AIDS Control and Prevention Act of 1998 contains a curious provision that reflects this apprehension vìs a vìs the condom. While the law mandates the Department of Education (DepEd) to provide HIV/AIDS prevention education, it also provides that the modules on HIV AIDS prevention and control "shall not be used as an excuse to propagate birth control or the sale or distribution of birth control devices." Advocates who pushed for the policy in the late nineties attest to the contested provision of the law as the final "compromise" to calm the Catholic opposition.
Indeed, the ideal condom given the Roman Catholic hierarchy's requirements seems to be the stuff of science fiction imagination. If such a condom existed, it would only prevent HIV transmission but not necessarily function as contraception, and would only work for heterosexual sex between married couples. If such a condom existed, would the Roman Catholic Church endorse its use? Probably but consider the irony: in same sex relations, the regular condom already gives the same amount of protection from HIV/AIDS but does not function as a contraceptive.
]]>Leading the pack by going through a history of Philippine church and state relations, Carlos Celdran (also known as the Pied Piper of Manila), opened the launch with one of his famous walking tours around Intramuros. Lisa Macuja Elizalde, the Philippines' famous Russian-trained Prima Ballerina, also joined the group as a volunteer.
Helen Orande clarified that they were not speaking out in defiance of the Catholic Church hierarchy, but their group only wants to show that there is another side to the story -- that not all Filipino Catholics are against the use of contraceptives for family planning and underscored the need for information. The group managed to get a spot on the evening news, but only one daily mentioned the group's effort.
Unfortunately, the local media is more used to featuring the reproductive health issue as a contest between supporters of the bill in Congress and the outspoken members of the Catholic hierarchy. Every now and then women's groups and NGOs supporting the bill get media coverage for an event or a rally just as church backed groups against the bill do. Occasionally, a token woman from the slums (pregnant and with her other children in tow) is interviewed but for the most part, the media sticks to its formula.
Very few in media seem to be able to pick up that the "conflict" of views over family planning and reproductive rights is so much more than the population control pundits versus Catholic Church; or pro-life and pro-choice controversy. Roman Catholics speaking out in support of reproductive health do not only break the mold, they challenge the very stereotypes and familiar conflicts the local media has come to rely on for a "sensational" angle.
In fact, even from within its broad base of supporters, not all reproductive health bill advocates necessarily agree when it comes to positions on population management. In the 10th Congress, many of the women's rights advocates now supporting RH legislation came out in opposition to previous versions of the population management bill. It even took a while before the RH bill's current supporters in Congress, came around to a "rights-based framework," and eventually agreed to drop the provision dictating the "ideal family size." Arguably, this is precisely the sort of information that can facilitate an intelligent discussion on the issue. It seems media are not interested in going beyond covering the purported "clash" of views. Indeed these are not the stuff of news that "sells" or the kind that jacks up the ratings.
This is also why, despite the amount of media coverage the issue of reproductive health has managed to garner (year in and year out), and not a lot seems to come out of it. Whether the bill actually makes it out of Congress or not, we are told that a number of things are already quite certain: some politicians originally supporting the bill will eventually back out, buckling to pressure from the Catholic hierarchy. Thus we are told by members of media itself. The cycle continues and in the end, the church's position will prevail. But when public opinion is not really considered important (by media and politicians), the public is reduced to mere spectatorship and journalism, to entertainment.
]]>"A pure and simple faith is as distinct from fanaticism as the flame from smoke or music from discords: only the fools confuse them." (Noli me Tangere, Joze Rizal: 1887, 1912 translation by Charles Derbyshire)
While it is true that the Catholic Church in the Philippines has always been at loggerheads with proponents of population control, and in recent history, clashed anew with women's rights advocates who emphasized rights, choice and the quality of life in family planning, the local debate now seems to have taken a turn to the basis of Catholic teaching itself.
In response to the anti-reproductive health rally announced by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines on July 25, 2008, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Humane Vitae, women's rights advocates and NGOs led by the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) held their own march a day earlier. While holding a mock burial march, RHAN sounded off the alarm on the soaring rate of maternal mortality in the country, an issue seemingly ignored by the Church in its insistence and emphasis on a "procreation" imperative in marital sex. Ten Filipino women die in childbirth every day. Over 473,000 pregnancies are terminated annually despite the long-standing penal prohibition on abortion.
The Reproductive Health Bill currently pending before the 14th Congress is the third version of the measure opposed by the Catholic hierarchy since the 12th Congress. While the bill continues to be stalled in Congress, however, the clamor for reproductive health care has led to the adoption of locally sponsored provincial and City ordinances introducing reproductive health services. The first RH ordinance was passed in 2006 in the province of Aurora and more recently, Lanao Del Sur province and several cities including Quezon City, Angeles and Antipolo have followed suit.
The Catholic hierarchy's most recent tirade against supporters of RH was a call to deny the sacrament of Holy Communion to Catholic law makers. After the statement was issued, one sponsor, Rep. Mark Llandro Mendoza, backed out of sponsorship. The lead sponsor of the RH Ordinance in Quezon City, Philip Juico, received similar threats from a priest in Cubao, Quezon City. Juico, who is a Catholic, was planning to get married in the City but has now arranged to be married elsewhere. He also told the media that flyers were distributed labelling him as "Satan's agent" (In Filipino: "Kampon ni Satanas") Father Aris Sison of the Cubao diocese in Quezon City, who allegedly made the threats, denied having made them and instead blamed "overzealous" people who acted in their own capacity in calling the Councilor "Satan's agent." He insisted, however, that "Catholic teaching from the Vatican was not subject to discussion."
Similarly, former Senator Kit Tatad, who is a known Catholic conservative, challenged the lead author of the RH Bill, Rep. Janette Garin, in a public forum, even went as far as to claim that moral law proscribes legislation in this area (apparently referring to contraceptive practice, choice and availability). Senator Franklin Drilon on the other hand criticized the CBCP for resorting to threats saying that while the Church is perfectly free to express its opinion on contraception, it cannot force others to agree with them.
Meanwhile, more Catholics have began challenging the hierarchy's refusal to discuss the issue more openly, if not, more honestly. Columnist John Nery clarified that the encyclical in the context of church teaching, is anything but dogma:
It is also possible to argue from "theory," that the theology behind "Humanae Vitae" is not above discussion. Indeed, the encyclical's language is lucid, and the Pope's sympathy for the plight of married couples transparent.
Citing Prof. Daniel Maguire, feminist columnist Rina Jimenez-David pointed out how "Catholic teaching on contraceptives and abortion has been anything but consistent over the years." Michael Tan drew attention to the historical events surrounding the issuance of the Humanae Viate and pointed put how Pope Paul VI's encyclical contradicted majority opinion within Vatican II, initiated by Pope John XXIII. His Pontifical Commission on Population, Family and Birth which issued a report open to the use of contraceptives by married couples:
In the end, the commission issued a majority report, supported by 30 of the 35 lay members, 15 of the 19 theologians and nine of the 12 bishops. The commission observed that "the regulation of conception appears necessary for many couples who wish to achieve a responsible, open and reasonable parenthood in today's circumstances.
Prof. Raul Pangalanan meanwhile reminded the Catholic hierarchy about the "separation of church and state," criticizing its heavy-handed attack on the sponsors of the bill, pointing out that the draft law addresses the health needs and choices of both Catholic and Non-Catholics. He also calls the allegation by the Catholic hierarchy that the bill legalizes abortion an outright lie.
Acknowledging the diversity of Catholic opinion on the matter in its editorial, the Inquirer chided Archbishop Jesus Dosado of Ozamiz for conflating contraceptives with abortion. Earlier, a Filipino Catholic priest doing missionary work in Hong Kong aired his own disagreement with the Catholic hierarchy, saying that the disproportionate emphasis on contraceptives was working against the interests of the Filipino people, specifically the poor. He accused the CBCP of practising "selective morality," in the face of more urgent problems in the country such as extra-judicial killings, poverty and the plight of those who lost loved ones in the MV Sulpicio lines tragedy.
Aptly so, Manuel L. Quezon III's column comes as a reminder that resistance to the church's authority (and abuse) is no less than integral to the formation of national identity:
"Our founding fathers, from different walks of life, were united by their opposition to "frailocracy," which was why, as our first president was sworn into office, the altar at Malolos town was hidden behind a curtain."
That the Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines is now being challenged to be more transparent about the basis of its positions in Catholic teaching, theology and Church history, lends an ironic twist to the entire issue. In seeming inability to even articulate the theory and theology behind its own encyclicals, it has chosen to invoke them as rigid law which it wishes to impose on the secular Philippine state and as a consequence, on every Filipino.
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Picture accessible primary health care services including comprehensive women’s health, maternal health care and a host of sexual and reproductive health services covering both young and old.
Anywhere else, it may sound like a perfectly good idea. In the Philippines where a segment of the conservative Catholic hierarchy insists on imposing its views on public policy, reproductive health agendas are all supposedly a smokescreen for the legalisation of abortion.
In Manila, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference Episcopal Commission on Family Life marked the 40th anniversary of the Humanae Vitae by renewing the church’s stance against a variety of pending legislation supported by women’s rights advocates labelling them as “ DEATH” bills (to stand for Divorce, Euthanasia, Abortion, Total Reproductive Health, Homosexuality). Papal Nuncio Edward Joseph Adams also reminded Catholics that sex should not be treated as a pleasurable experience but as an act of self-giving love and called for self-giving that "starts in the God of love."
The Humanae Vitae was the 1968 Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI which laid down Catholic teaching against the use of contraceptives. The document was considered controversial when it was first issued, stating that no other document undermined the church’s teaching authority. Not only did it end up splitting the hierarchy but a majority of Catholics choose to ignore the ban.
Catholics for Free Choice notes that according to R. Scott Appleby, a historian at the University of Notre Dame, "It was the first time in the history of the modern church that a papal teaching had been openly defied in such a widespread fashion."
Last week, Philippine Bishops also issued a call to deny communion to Catholic members of Congress who purportedly “push for the legalization of abortion.” The Bishops claimed that while not a sanction or a penalty, the denial of communion is a reaction to a person’s “public unworthiness” because of an “objective situation of sin.” According to the Bishops, in this case, “a person is in an objective situation of sin if he paved the way for people to commit abortion.” While Catholic teaching sanctions the rhythm method of family planning, however, its position equates all manner of contraception with abortion. In this case, the solons accused of “legalizing abortion” are the forty-eight sponsors of the reproductive health bill.
Despite this, reproductive health advocates supporting the measure insisted that the use of contraceptives can make resorting to clandestine abortions unnecessary. Abortion has been penalized in the Philippines since 1897 but in 2006, the Guttmacher Institute pegged the annual rate of abortions in the country at 473,000 or 27 out of 1,000 pregnancies, even higher than the annual rate in the United States (20:1000) where abortion is legal.
The irony is that the only mention of abortion in pending legislation is in the provision that mandates a standard of “humane treatment” in post-abortion care. The bill does not even propose legalization of abortion as the Catholic Church alleges. While the Church proclaims that Humanae Vitae in 1968 represented its reaction against population control programs and the widespread use of modern contraceptives, further conflation of contraception with abortion actually took place over a period of years, culminating during the reign of Pope John Paul II. Even as St. Augustine laid the basis for Catholic teaching condemning how abortion breaks the connection between sex and procreation, he didn’t peg the beginning of “life” at fertilisation.
In fact in the 8th century, penance for the commission of abortion took into consideration the circumstances of women who procured them, specifically in situations of difficulty (e.g. inability to support a child, or concealment of dishonour).
To date, Philippine penal law reflects this concept of “concealment of dishonour” in a provision focused on mitigating circumstances in the case of abortion. On one hand, it could be argued that the notions contained in “concealment of dishonour” are premised on archaic views about women’s capacities and status prevailing at the time. On the other hand, the Church’s current uncompromising and absolutist position on abortion and contraception allows virtually no room for understanding the specific circumstances of women who opt to have abortions (or in this case, decide to use contraception), let alone the exercise of moral deliberation or judgement.
The Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion have never been proclaimed “infallible” teaching by any Pope to date. As it stands today, however, the rigid interpretation and approach to abortion, right down to its conflation with contraception purporting to be premised on the value of “life,” tends to be a meaningless abstraction when it disregards the real lives of women.
In the Philippines where maternal mortality continues to soar at 162 per 100,000 live births, access to family planning information and services which include options in contraception, and humane treatment in post-abortion care are clearly a matter of life and death for Filipino women.
]]>The appellate court's resolution directed the petitioners to file their case before the regional trial court but counsel for the petitioners argued that the case, being one of "transcendental importance," involved pure questions of law, which the Court of Appeals had the jurisdiction to decide. In the past, the Philippine Supreme Court has ruled that the Courts in cases involving issues of transcendental importance and legal questions with serious implications on public interests may set aside procedural technicalities and consider a petition. The Petitioners are hoping that the Court will consider this case, a plea to lift the ban on comprehensive family planning methods in Manila, such an issue. The ban, which was instituted by former Mayor Atienza, has been in effect for over nine years.
Dr. Junice D. Melgar, chair of the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) Policy and Legislative Committee, confirmed that the petitioners remain very committed to the case and from early on, indicated their willingness to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. (Dr. Junice Melgar was interviewed by Al Jazeera early in March and spoke about the case.)
Elizabeth Pangalangan, legal counsel for the petitioners, also pointed out that the parties filed the case as indigents, pleading with the Court to exempt them from the payment of applicable court and docket fees. In a Motion for Reconsideration questioning the Court of Appeal's dismissal, the petitioners claimed that they would suffer "substantial injustice" following a dismissal from the court. The only recourse left for the petitioners if this were to happen is to re-file the case before the Manila Regional Trial Court.
Claire V. Luczon, executive director of Womenlead and chair of the RHAN Legal Committee, supported the call of the Petitioners to keep the fight going. She clarified that: "The case is very important not just for the resident petitioners whose rights were prejudiced by the Atienza ban but for all Manila residents who remain unable to access complete reproductive health care in the City's public health facilities simply because the ban has not been lifted."
Meanwhile, as the Petitioners await the Court of Appeal's final decision on their Motion for Reconsideration, like other Manila residents, for modern birth control options they have to rely on both private NGO sources as well as nearby cities for their family planning needs.
Atienza imposed his views on Catholic teaching adopting the ban on contraceptives in Manila but current Mayor Alfredo Lim, who is himself a devout Catholic, professes respect for the "choice" of couples in family planning. The conflicting positions on Family Planning by the former and current Mayor is nothing new in Catholic circles. A 2006 Catholics for Free Choice study reveals that Catholics' views on family planning differ almost everywhere in the world and that even Catholic theologians emphasize the importance of individual "conscience" in making a decision on contraceptive use.
Despite the pronouncements of Mayor Lim, who says that, unlike Atienza, he favors and supports free and informed consent as to family planning methods, not all of Manila's facilities have been able to reinstate modern methods in their service delivery because the City has yet to include a budget for the services. This February, Quezon City, a neighboring city, passed an ordinance providing for reproductive health care for its constituents on a vote of 25-1 and allocated a budget of 12 million pesos for the program. While the new Mayor has welcomed private organizations and donations of reproductive health care services to benefit his constituents, the remaining question is whether he will have a change of heart on lifting the policy which as it is worded, "discourages" modern family planning methods and favors only Natural Family Planning (NFP).
"The only reason the case is directed against the City and the Office of the Mayor is because obviously, he has the power to make the change and junk the policy," Luczon added. In fact, the Mayor can lift the ban sans a direct order from any Court and institute a comprehensive reproductive health program with the assistance of the City Council.
What this really means is that despite the pending case, the ball, is clearly in the Mayor's court.
]]>According to a "quick survey" of Family Planning Needs in the City of Manila conducted by the Manila Health Department in August 2007, 72.10% percent of Manilans use modern contraceptives, despite the lack of complete family planning services in the City. Indeed, the rate is unusually high given that the national average is 49%, and even in neighboring Quezon City, which provides family planning services to its residents, modern contraceptive use is at 66%.
Because of limitations of both funding and time, the quick survey's sample and methodology had clear problems. Respondents were mostly those who accessed the clinics specifically to get the service. This could explain why the rate is significantly higher than in nearby cities and the national average. Dr. Zelda Zablan of the Demographic Research and Development Foundation (DRDF) also pointed out that any study on "unmet needs" in family planning has to include currently pregnant women as well as lactating women since they also need to be asked the obvious questions: "Were they practicing family planning at the time of pregnancy? Was the pregnancy planned?"
UNFPA has also noted the gaps in the data and recommended a more detailed household survey. In coordination with the Cooperative Movement for Encouraging NSV (Non-scalpel vasectomy), UNFPA looked into the situation of the two most depressed districts in the city of Manila and confirmed that the demand for family planning services remains quite high, with women desiring family planning both for spacing births and the number of births.
According to Manila residents, there are still very few community health centers able to offer family planning and in some cases, only Depo Provera is offered. Unlike his predecessor, the incumbent Mayor, former Senator Alfredo Lim, has stated that he supports the choice of couples in family planning and has no problem including modern methods alongside natural family planning methods in the city's program.
This year, however, Manila residents can't expect a lot to change. The year's budget still does not allocate funds for universal family planning methods or any expansion of reproductive health care services. The Mayor has not revoked his predecessor's Executive Order.
Early this year, Manila residents filed a case to
nullify Atienza's Executive Order.
But because the incumbent Mayor was already former Senator Lim at the
time of filing, his office was named respondent. The current Mayor is, after
all, in the best position to make the changes the petitioners required:
the revocation of the order discouraging modern family planning, and
the provision of reproductive health care in Manila.
Through his policy, Atienza
also kept the Department of Health (DOH) from allocating available supplies
of contraceptives and conducting their programs in Manila. In 2005,
the DOH program "ligtas buntis" (safe pregnancy) was opposed by both
Atienza and the conservative members of the Catholic hierarchy. When
the program was launched by the DOH, it did not include Manila.
A study conducted by the Center for Reproductive Rights and its local partners in Manila in 2007 confirmed that women who bore the brunt of the former Mayor's policy against contraceptives were still exposed to the health risks and dire choices arising from unplanned pregnancies, long after Atienza ended his term. The CRR study also reported that women who could not access family planning in Manila were already resorting to visiting nearby cities such as Quezon City while others sought services from private clinics run by non-government organizations. The resourcefulness of Manila residents in the face of adversity is laudable -- but Manila's current administration needs to get its act together.
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The origins of the word mother are said to be the Latin mater, meaning source or substance, and mamma, meaning breast. It was only in 1863 that the use of "mother" meaning "to take care of" became common. Motherhood has many meanings across cultures and many of these meanings have changed over time.
For many, the most familiar and enduring meanings of motherhood are those commonly associated with caring, relating, intimacy and emotional needs. Particular human relations in the family, friendship as well as sympathy and concern for others have traditionally been neglected and excluded in the field of ethics and moral philosophy.
When the experience of women began to be brought into the domain of moral consciousness, feminist philosopher Virginia Held noted that what emerged as the most fundamental and central social relation was the relationship between the mother or mothering person and the child. Yet even as many cultures accord motherhood and what they consider "motherly" roles with a great deal of reverence and respect, the same roles also oftentimes overlap as a site of subordination and devaluation for both women and girls.
Feminists are credited with pointing out the way in which the acceptance of the domestic ideal is the foundation of women's oppression. While some radical feminist positions (popularized by media) did, early in the women's movements, portray the choice of motherhood as "false consciousness," it is hardly fair to say that women cannot freely choose to be mothers and take on primarily domestic roles in the family without ending up oppressed. The point about linking motherhood and women's oppression is perhaps best understood in the context of the enforced ideal, role and state of motherhood.
In many societies, to this day, becoming a wife and mother continues to be the only option for women and girls. As a matter of survival, often compounded by societies' claims of cultural and religious identity, women and young girls are pressured and become mothers. In such situations, choice is simply not an issue.
We don't even have to make a comparison from our great-grandmother's generation, to imagine how this works -- because it's still happening today.
The Texas sect practicing polygamy in violation of US laws, was also discovered to be marrying off girls aged 14-17 to much older men with several wives. Warren Jeffs, the reputed leader of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), who has been charged by the authorities in Arizona with conspiring to commit sexual conduct with a minor, himself had 70 wives.
In the sect, marriage and submission to one's husband (in a polygamous marriage) was the only future for a woman since the sect believed that men had to have at least three wives in order to "reach the highest degree of glory in heaven." One of Jeff's former wives recounted her life in the sect, as a young girl forced to marry a man with several wives, and how after running away, she faced a custody battle over her children. As alarming as the story was to the public, it was painful to witness how the children were hauled off and taken into custody by the police and now continue to be separated from their mothers. Easily, the moral hysteria around polygamy tends to focus on the "unusual" sexual arrangement without necessarily taking issue with the lack of women's agency and freedom in such arrangements. Indeed, the issue of polygamy is a complex issue, one which is usually complicated by cultural difference. But as we bore witness to the fumbling state, ill-equipped to handle the complex issues of individual women's and children's rights clashing with "religious group rights," many were left wondering about the future of the children who were placed in foster care. But how about the wives and mothers left behind? Admittedly, a case like this presents no easy solutions or answers.
On the other hand, FLDS's practices (which included controlling women's and girls' mobility and access to information) are certainly not a unique feature of one cult. All over the world, major religions led by its male religious authorities still actively work to limit women's and girl's access to information, particularly when it comes to sexuality. Conservative opposition to sexuality education in the US for instance, is not just a matter of religious preference but the very stuff of politics. Similarly, politicians in Manila in the Philippines have gone as far as banning modern family planning methods simply by virtue of their own religious beliefs on the matter.
Within many religious traditions, considering motherhood as a choice and a woman's decision remains a big challenge. According to Lynn Freedman, the threat that the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) posed for religious fundamentalists was not really fertility regulation itself but the challenge to traditional patriarchal social structures.
Their fear really isn't so much that feminism or women's human rights will suddenly lead all women to reject motherhood but rather that in the capacity for choice, women are challenging the very notions that rationalize male domination embedded in traditional meanings of motherhood.
]]>"Multilateral consensus continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few; whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action...International rules must be binding."
He received accolades for his skilled use of diplomacy as he tackled the thorny issues of the Iraq war, immigration and religious diversity, but when he met with some of the victims of clergy sexual abuse, he got mixed reviews. Some said they were impressed that he actually met with some of the victims, while others said he really didn't do much because it was all talk and no action.
Saying that he was "deeply ashamed" at the breakdown in US values, the Pontiff acknowledged at last that the situation was "sometimes very badly handled."
Peter Isely, a National Board member of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and himself a victim of clergy sexual abuse, demanded a clear course of action from the Vatican, namely the amendment of canon law to ensure that every priest who has assaulted a child anywhere in the world will be removed from ministry and disciplinary action against any bishop who has been involved in covering up an assault.
David Clohessy, another victim and member of the network added: "If the pope would clearly, publicly and severely discipline even a handful of complicit bishops, bishops who knew or suspected abuse and ignored it or concealed it, that's the easiest and most effective step."
A Pope able to talk about "human rights" on the level of global community and responsibility on one hand but only able to acknowledge the pain, harm and suffering by victims of the clergy's sexual abuse with "sense of shame," shouldn't be surprising. For years, the Catholic Church has been dealing with debates regarding social teaching and indeed, a number of the issues consistently coming to fore have been about sexuality and human rights.
When the Pope invoked "human rights" as a collective responsibility among nations, his position reflected one of many changes in the ways we now think about human rights. By no longer drawing a division between the civil and political on one hand and economic, social and cultural on the other, he went outside the traditional understanding of rights that confines it to a relationship exclusively between the state and its legal citizens. But while the Pope can speak on behalf of "the marginalized" in addressing the world's most powerful nation with ease, how is it that he is unable to take action on members of the clergy who both perpetrated sexual abuse and concealed it?
The answer isn't simple (and I don't want to oversimplify it) but neither is it rocket science. A huge part of it is sex -- that all sex (outside marriage and procreation) is sin. From a human rights perspective, what usually matters in a case like sexual abuse is the violation of the person; in this case, many victims were children when they underwent the ordeal.
He said that: "It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen. It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission."
While the Church is able to acknowledge the harm that was inflicted, it isn't always clear what it imagines that harm is. Is it pedophilia or the violation of priestly vows of celibacy? Is it the mishandling of cases by American Bishops?
For the victims, this means that their own sense of justice still plays no part in the Catholic Church's policy on sexual abuse. Anne Barrett Doyle co-director of Bishop Accountability, a Web site that documents the sexual abuse scandal, astutely pointed out that:
"Rather than shifting attention to pedophile priests, he needs to focus on the culpability of bishops. The crisis occurred because many U.S. bishops were willing to hide their priests' crimes from the police with lies."
With a very limited and negative view of sexuality, the Catholic Church's attention always seems inordinately focused on what it views as "unnatural sex acts" that it doesn't bother distinguishing between consensual acts and abuse. But Papal policy of "keeping pedophiles out of the ministry," has not meant justice for those who were abused by priests. Instead it has meant banning "homosexuals" from the church. Within the first five months of his reign, Pope Benedict made it clear that his position is based on the church's position issued in 1961 which equates homosexuality with pederasty.
Moreover, exclusion doesn't only happen on the basis of sexual orientation or non-conforming gender behaviors. Clearly, even married people can "sin" in sex when they use modern family planning methods. Rosemary Radford Ruether, a feminist theologian recalls how the 1968 affirmation of teaching against modern contraception in the Humanae Vitae was rejected by over 600 theologians when the encyclical was adopted.
Sadly the Pope's inclusive message of human rights and community in the context of geopolitical inequality gets lost when its archaic views on sexuality makes it very clear that there are groups of people who remain excluded.
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