Toil and Trouble

The HIV AIDS epidemic. That is the theme this week at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. It is for awareness. Which is terrific, yet leaves me in some unrest and uproar. The mosquitoes were horrendous today, and the heat was awful. I estimate that I only understood about 85% of what she was saying because of this. She is the former prime minister of Norway and former director of the World Health Organization. She seemed to be a good speaker and a strong woman. But she brought up an issue of some anger for me. She spoke on many things. Very eye-opening statistics. And with some (what I interpreted to be) subtle anger she did say that the living standards in this country have increased 40% while the living standards in Africa have decreased 20% since 1980. I agree that this is wrong. She did continue to rather mention Pope John Paul, and the Church's opposition to condoms. She seemed rather anti-catholic...this way, and I can understand her frustration from a noncatholic perspective. But nobody sees it from a catholic one.
In my mind, as a catholic, sex is a gift from God to do two things: to show the ultimate physical love for one other person, and to concieve a child. But it must be for both of those things. How can she say that the Catholic Church is wrong in not handing-out condoms. She says that the Catholic Church has "prohibited" the use of condoms. But the Catholic Church has no authority to prohibit anything. Not everyone is Catholic. Therefore not everyone has to listen to the Catholic Church. Yet she seemed to be blaming the late Pope John Paul for the AIDS problem when, from my perspective, it isn't his fault. It is nobody's fault. The Catholic Church holds no legal authority. The Catholic Church will not put you to death if you use a condom, or if you have premarital sex, or if you have AIDS. In fact, the Church will not judge at all. True Catholics reserve that right for the Lord, and no other.

I will not attempt to further defend the Catholic Church. But I will say this: the media has never liked us, and people so blindly believe the media, even very intelligent and wonderful people. I've been a Catholic all my life and I grew up being taught that the use of a condom isn't a sin.

And also, for all the people who talk, for all the people who say things about the AIDS problem and place the blame on one group or another, they're still just talking.

We'll see who does the work in the end. We'll see. Perhaps it will be me.