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Europe's "Black Death" contributed to the rise of nation states, mercantile economies, and even the Reformation. Will the AIDS epidemic have similar dramatic effects on the social and political landscape of the twenty-first century? This readable volume looks at the impact of AIDS since its emergence and suggests its effects in the next decade, when a million or more Americans will likely die of the disease. The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States addresses some of the most sensitive and controversial issues in the public debate over AIDS. This landmark book explores how AIDS has affected fundamental policies and practices in our major institutions, examining: How America's major religious organizations have dealt with sometimes conflicting values: the imperative of care for the sick versus traditional views of homosexuality and drug use. Hotly debated public health measures, such as HIV antibody testing and screening, tracing of sexual contacts, and quarantine. The potential risk of HIV infection to and from health care workers. How AIDS activists have brought about major change in the way new drugs are brought to the marketplace. The impact of AIDS on community-based organizations, from volunteers caring for individuals to the highly political ACT-UP organization. Coping with HIV infection in prisons. Two case studies shed light on HIV and the family relationship. One reports on some efforts to gain legal recognition for nonmarital relationships, and the other examines foster care programs for newborns with the HIV virus. A case study of New York City details how selected institutions interact to give what may be a picture of AIDS in the future. This clear and comprehensive presentation will be of interest to anyone concerned about AIDS and its impact on the country: health professionals, sociologists, psychologists, advocates for at-risk populations, and interested individuals.
The 1980s and 1990s, the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States, was decades ago now, and many of the stories from this time remain hidden: A Catholic nun from a small Midwestern town packs up her life to move to New York City, where she throws herself into a community under assault from HIV and AIDS. A young priest sees himself in the many gay men dying from AIDS and grapples with how best to respond, eventually coming out as gay and putting his own career on the line. A gay Catholic with HIV loses his partner to AIDS and then flees the church, focusing his energy on his own health rather than fight an institution seemingly rejecting him. Set against the backdrop of the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the late twentieth century and the Catholic Church's crackdown on gay and lesbian activists, journalist Michael O'Loughlin searches out the untold stories of those who didn't look away, who at great personal cost chose compassion--even as he seeks insight for LGBTQ people of faith struggling to find a home in religious communities today. This is one journalist's--gay and Catholic himself--compelling picture of those quiet heroes who responded to human suffering when so much of society--and so much of the church--told them to look away. These pure acts of compassion and mercy offer us hope and inspiration as we continue to confront existential questions about what it means to be Americans, Christians, and human beings responding to those most in need.
"An eye-opening demonstration of how Catholic moral theology works in the concrete...ÝKeenan shows that ̈ the Catholic tradition of moral theology is robust, timely, supple, humane and, most of all, wise enough to make vital contributions to ongoing global discussions about the current state of the Body of Christ." -National Catholic Reporter
"November 1989." Includes bibliographical references (pages 29-39).
Religious institutions shaped the ways individuals, communities and societies responded to HIV and AIDS since the 1980s. This book draws on research studies ranging in context from sites in sub-Saharan Africa to New York City in the USA to examine the complexity of responding to the epidemic both globally and locally. Religious systems of meaning, practices and institutions have been central to the articulation of projects for social change and inversely sometime strongly resistant to change in diverse institutional responses to HIV and AIDS. Sometimes, religious movements provided powerful forces for community mobilisation in response to the social vulnerability, economic exclusion and health problems associated with HIV. In other contexts, religious cultures have reproduced values and practices that have seriously impeded more effective approaches to mitigate the epidemic. By highlighting these complex and sometimes contradictory social processes, this book provides new insights about the potential for religious institutions to address the HIV epidemic more effectively. More broadly, it shows how research can be done on religion in the area of global public health, showing how civil society organizations shape opportunities for health promotion: a crucial and new area of global public health research. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Public Health.
Roman Catholic women theologians from all over the world discuss the HIV/AIDS pandemic in terms of their particular geographical and social location.
While there is a general acknowledgement within the church itself that the Church was initially slow to respond to the magnitude of the problem of HIV and AIDS, during the recent past, as the effects of HIV and AIDS within the congregations and communities of the church have become progressively more evident, the Catholic Church has emerged as an increasingly central role-player in a range of initiatives to combat the pandemic. This publication describes the work of the 'Choose to Care' initiative and the way it has been successfully scaled-up through the diocesan and parish network so that programmes are formed by local needs but work with common guidelines and can draw on central support.
Never has a Pope, in a book-length interview, dealt so directly with such wide-ranging and controversial issues as Pope Benedict XVI does in Light of the World. Taken from a recent week-long series of interviews with veteran journalist Peter Seewald, this book tackles head-on some of the greatest issues facing the world of our time. Seewald poses such forthright questions to Pope Benedict as: What caused the clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church? Was there a "cover up"? Have you considered resigning? Does affirming the goodness of the human body mean a plea for "better sex"? Can there be a genuine dialogue with Islam? Should the Church rethink Catholic teaching on priestly celibacy, women priests, contraception, and same-sex relationships? Holy Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics? Is there a schism in the Catholic Church? Should there be a Third Vatican Council? Is there any hope for Christian unity? Is Christianity the only truth? Can the Pope really speak for Jesus Christ? How can the Pope claim to be "infallible"? Is there a "dictatorship of relativism" today? Twice before these two men held wide-ranging discussions, which became the best-selling books Salt of the Earth and God and the World. Then, Seewald's discussion partner was Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's chief doctrinal office. Now, Joseph Ratzinger is Pope Benedict XVI, the spiritual leader of the world's over one billion Catholics. Though Seewald now interviews the Pope himself, the journalist "pulls no punches", posing some of the thorniest questions any Pope has had to address. Believers and unbelievers will be fascinated to hear Benedict's thoughtful, straightforward and thought-provoking replies. This is no stern preachment or ponderous theological tract, but a lively, fast-paced, challenging, even entertaining exchange.
Papal Paralysis utilizes the historical case study method to describe the moral and ethical dilemma Catholic Church officials face when asked to help fight the worldwide spread of AIDS. If popes and bishops allowed the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, conservatives would say that the Church was abandoning its teaching against the use of contraceptives. On the other hand, if the Vatican rejected the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, many Catholics would be put at risk for contracting HIV/AIDS. By the early 1980’s John Paul II made it clear that being a Catholic meant being opposed to artificial birth control. When confronted with the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, he applied his understanding of church moral theology to this new health care problem and fought HIV/AIDS through preaching abstinence and fidelity, but did not endorse the use of condoms. Despite opposition to this teaching by more than 30 high ranking bishops and cardinals, John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI, refused to change. Not until 2010 did the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith state, with papal approval, that using a condom to prevent spreading AIDS was morally superior to its opposite. The book concludes that the church’s failure to properly deal with the AIDS crisis was its greatest modern scandal, with the end result being thousands of lives lost.
This book explores the role of the Christian church, broadly and diversely defined as both institutions and communities of believers (although the focus of the analysis is on institutional behaviors), in the politics of HIV/AIDS in Africa. The author creates a typology of church AIDS actions--no response; early, narrow response; early, broad response; late, narrow response; and late, broad response--and seeks explanations for where churches fall within this typology in terms of institutional resources, organizational structures, relations with the state, and global networks.