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Cairo +
10
Press Release #4
June
28, 2004. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Team Prensa Mujer/RIF-FIRE (María Suárez
Toro)
Translated by Claudia Anfossi.
The results of the survey carried out recently in three countries by the
non-governmental organization Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir
(Catholics for Free Choice) reveal that the Latin American Catholic
population rejects the
positions of the Vatican and the Bush administration in critical topics.
The investigation was presented by the Catholics in a press conference
today at 10:00 a-m. at the Caribe Hilton Hotel, parallel to the
inaugural session of the Meeting of the Economic Commission for Latin
America (CEPAL). They affirmed that there
is ' a silent revolution ' between the Catholics that want their church
to help to poor but reject the interference of the clergy in politics,
as well as in prohibitions related to contraception and the use of
condoms.
Teresa
Lanza Monje of Bolivia, Silvia Traslosheros
and Dr. Roberto J.Blancarte, both from Mexico, made public
a series of surveys carried out in Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico that
demonstrate the discrepancies between the policies of the Vatican and
the Bush Administration on one hand and the Latin-American
Catholic population on the
other. The majority of the Latin-American population is catholic: 85 %
in Puerto Rico and Central America and 87 % in South America. In
previous regional meetings that took place in Santiago, Chile and Mexico
City, the United States tried to prevent, uselessly, the Cairo Consensus
from being reaffirmed.
The comparative analysis titled, “Actitudes de los católicos sobre
derechos reproductivos, iglesia-estado y temas relacionados: tres
encuestas nacionales en Bolivia, Colombia y México”( Attitudes of
Catholics about reproductive rights, church-state and related topics:
three national surveys in Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico), demonstrate
that catholics in those countries agree with the humanitarian and
spiritual role of the Church, but wish to liberalize it and accept, in
the most part, the use of contraception and emergency contraception. A
great part of the polled ones in the three countries opposes to the
Church having a starting role in the development of public policies.
·
The majority of the Latin American catholic population wants to
have the freedom to use artificial contraceptives, and relieves that the
public health institutions should provide them at no cost.
· The great majority of the
catholic population in Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico (76%, 83% and 82%,
respectively) relieves that teenagers should have ample access to a
variety of contraception methods, including those that the Church
refuses. They do not believe that being a “good” catholic depends on
the use or not of contraceptives.
· The catholic population of
Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico wants access to emergency contraception for
women who have had consented sexual contact without using contraceptives
and do not want to become pregnant. (58%, 65% and 77%, respectively).
· The Bolivian, Colombian and
Mexican catholic populations wants the Church to allow its community to
use condoms for the prevention of HIV/AIDS. (88%, 93% and 85%).
“These results demonstrate that the Vatican and the Bush
Administration do not want to take into consideration the reality that
not all Latin American Catholics accept or follow these official
positions in what refers to the formulation of policies about
reproductive health”, affirmed Teresa Lanza Monje, director of Católicas
por el Derecho a Decidir, Bolivia, who also spoke in representation of Catholics
for a Free Choice, Washington, D.C. “In the Cairo conference and when
the Program of Action has been revised, the Vatican affirms talking in
the name of 1 billion Catholics world-wide. This is not really that
way”.
Silvia Traslosheros, director of Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir, México,
added: "Millions of Catholics respect the Church and want it to
change and allow contraception, the use of condoms, sexual education and
the access to abortion. The Bush Administration should not use out of
date ideas without credibility, which supposedly come from the catholic
population, to impose their agenda in Latin America.”
“We are in presence of a quiet revolution between the catholic
community in Mexico and Latin America”, pointed out Dr. Roberto J.
Blancarte, a prominent sociologist of the Mexican religion and ex
counselor of the Mexican Embassy before the Holy See. “This is the
first survey about what Catholics really think and about health, sexual
and reproductive rights, which puts in evidence the great gap between
the catholic parish and its bishops in matters of values and sexual and
reproductive health. It seems that Catholics were more fearful before
about what the bishops and their Church would say. Now they decide for
themselves. What we see is a more mature and democratic society, where
the central guide for decision making is the individual conscience, not
the ecclesiastic institution. We also observe up to what point the
bishops are isolated from society and their religious community".
They
called out to the Vatican and the Bush Administration to respect the
criteria of the Latin American and Caribbean Catholics and reaffirm the
Cairo consensus. In Cairo, the Vatican was the main obstacle. Currently,
the Bush Administration allied to the Vatican has tried to prevent,
without success, the Latin American consensus about the Program of
Action of Cairo of 1994.
Catholics for a Free Choice and its associates, Católicas por el
Derecho a Decidir, ordered the realization of the three surveys by
investigative companies in Mexico, Bolivia and Colombia at the end of
2003. Belden Russonello & Stewart, a Washington, DC investigative
and communications company, assessed the pollsters in the design of the
survey sheets and the comparative methods.
Governments of forty countries will meet in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from
June 29 to 30, summoned by the Special Committee about Population and
Development of the Economic Commission of Latin America and the
Caribbean. The meeting marks the 10th anniversary of the
International Conference about Population and Development (Cairo, 1994),
in which 179 countries reached a consensus and adopted a plan to better
health and reproductive rights of women around the world, even health
education, family
planification services and the use of condoms.
Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) in a non-governmental organization
that has the status of counselor in the Social and Economic Council of
the UN. Catholics for a Free Choice promotes principles of sexual and
reproductive ethics based on justice; it reflects and declares its
commitment in the well-being of women; and respects and affirms the
moral capacity of women and men to make sensible decisions about their
life. With the elaboration of a speech, the diffusion of educational
materials and activism, CFFC Works in the US and internationally
to introduce these values in public policies, community life,
feminist analysis and thought, and the social teachings of Catholics.
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