Barry Professors’ Book on HIV/AIDS Breaks New Ground

Calling for Justice throughout the World:  Catholic Women Theologians Considering the Moral Ramifications of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic has recently been released by publisher, Continuum International. Professor of Moral Theology and Director of Graduate Programs in Theology and Ministry at Barry University, Dr. Mary Jo Iozzio, contributed to and edited this work with assistance from Barry’s Dr. Elsie Miranda and the College of the Holy Cross’ Dr. Mary Doyle Roche.

To date no singularly focused text on the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been both developed and written by Catholic women moral theologians. Calling for Justice both continues the seminal work of Catholic Ethicists on HIV/AIDS Prevention (James F. Keenan, SJ with Jon D. Fuller, SJ, MD, Lisa Sowle Cahill, and Kevin Kelly, eds., Continuum, 2002) and breaks new ground by bringing to the fore some concerns previously overlooked, especially in regard to the female face of AIDS.

Essays in Calling for Justice, are decidedly praxis-oriented and written from the social locations of women theologians in solidarity with those infected with and affected by the pandemic. Scholars from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin/Central America, Caribbean and South America, North America, and Oceania bring the pandemic proportions to greater consciousness and activism for prevention and care programs. This collection examines issues crucial to both local and global realities by considering the moral ramifications of the pandemic as it relates to poverty, gender, education, stigma and discrimination, and access to healthcare.

As in the 2002 Catholic Ethicists on HIV/AIDS Prevention, essays in this companion are organized by their principal thematic concerns rather than according to the geographic regions under consideration. Each author in Calling for Justice considers how the Church, either through its teachings or its local response to the pandemic, promotes or obstructs the Gospel of liberation and restorative justice for the people in its care and those beyond its reach. Not surprisingly, the five substantive themes raised in the 2002 collection are found here too:  a lack of women’s empowerment; religious scrupulosity on the use of condoms as a critically important preventive; a failure to recognize non-western and/or developing nations’ cultural traditions; the co-morbid stigma of AIDS and homo- and bi-sexuality; and the vulnerability of children. In addition to these themes, authors recognize problems associated with the invisibility of marginalized people and of immigrant/migrant populations, the sadness of the loss of loved ones and of their futures, and the persistent interpretative assignment of culpability as deserved punishment for presumed wrong-doing.

Part of the impetus for this work developed from a panel presentation at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics entitled, “When God’s People Have HIV/AIDS: Ethical Approaches.” The project was furthered by opportunities presented for collaboration with scholars who met at the First International Cross-cultural Conference for Catholic Theological Ethicists in July 2006 (Padua Conference). That Conference, which drew more than 400 ethicists from 60 nations, proved a watershed of talent and common vision as it cleared the way for dialogue and provided the means to continue discussions begun there among Catholic colleagues separated by distance and culture. Moreover, the Padua Conference confirmed –in plenary and applied ethics sessions –that women worldwide disproportionately bear the weight of infection, care, and stigma that surround the pandemic. In fact, considerable talk over the course of the conference raised concern for women as key for the relief of many contemporary social, political, and ecclesial ills.

The pandemic proportions of HIV/AIDS cry out for responses from our academies, churches and communities. Calling for Justice reminds the Church and those who serve God’s people how to wrestle with a crisis of global proportions and to relieve human suffering, especially of those who are outcast and oppressed, in accordance with the justice mandate of the Gospel and the Church’s Social Teachings on solidarity and the common good.

Calling for Justice throughout the World: Catholic Women Theologians on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic is available online from amazon.com.