On the Square Today

In today’s On the Square feature, Christopher White explains how the Catholic Church’s helps prevent the spread of AIDS :

To a large extent, World AIDS Day has become a kind of World Condom Day. For many, it’s still hard to forget the images of the large obelisk in the center of Buenos Aires that was covered with a giant “condom” on World AIDS Day in 2005. Based on a 2004 report widely considered to be the most authoritative study on the effectiveness of condom usage in preventing HIV/AIDS, when condoms are used consistently, they provide an 80 percent risk reduction in HIV infection. This is where the finger gets pointed at the Catholic Church. If condoms are 80 percent effective, shouldn’t the Church—as her critics claim—be fully supportive of doing anything possible, including promoting condoms, as a real solution to stop the spread of HIV?

Also today, Patrick McKinley Brennan and Michael P. Moreland set Michael Kinsley straight on religious freedom :

Kinsley begins by usefully calling attention to the recent warnings by Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia that there is a drive by some to marginalize religion. Honest observers can no longer blink what Dolan, Chaput, and other religious voices have warned against for years: our law and culture are increasingly hostile to the possibility of living out one’s faith. Civil authority is finding more and more excuses to interfere in the life of believing communities.