March 18, 2009
As Director of Public Information for the World Health Organization, at their headquarters in Geneva, in the 1980's, I sat with our Director General, Halfdan Mahler, a Danish physician with 30 years of experience ministering to the poor in India, as he debated a Catholic theologian on the use of contraceptives to combat sexually-transmitted disease. to Rome's demand for abstinence and monogamy, he asked why poor, uneducated workers, often separated for months from their families, should be expected to observe rules of moral behavior difficult for those of us to attain! The Pope's transfer of the burden of abstinence to the world's poorest citizens is at best foolish. Why should the poor be denied the least gratification?
Charles Morrow
Director of Public Information (retired)
World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
(from Ottawa Citizen web comments)