[Buddha-l] unwed couples are like Krishna and Radha

[Katherine Masis]

Don't worry, Curt.  Most Catholics in the world are in Latin America and don't listen to the Vatican too much when it comes to sex and/or family planning.  These days, poor families with lots of children are more the result of *machismo* and lack of educational opportunities for women than community priests opposing condoms and the pill. Ironically, the only confessional state left in this hemisphere is Costa Rica, where divorce, family planning under the public health system, and other religions other than Catholicism have flourished for decades.  There are dozens of traditional and newer Protestant sects, a Hare Krishna farm since the 1970s, a Brahma Kumari community since the 1980s, a Zen center since 1974, a Tibetan Buddhist center since since 1989, a Pure Land temple, a recently established Goenka Vipassana meditation group, a synagogue since 1932 and a recently estabished small Muslim community.  No priests inveigh against any of this. 
 Catholicism doesn't have the power in the minds and hearts of people that it had in the nineteenth century.  
 
Katherine Masis
San José, Costa Rica
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The "Backward India versus the Enlightened West" dichotomy is deeply 
flawed when it comes to religion and sexual mores. The largest religion 
in the West, by far, is Roman Catholicism, which prohibits its members 
from using condoms even if they are married and HIV positive. The 
Catholic Church also campaigns very hard against all forms of sex 
education, gay rights, and even divorce. Outside of Catholicism, 
"Liberal" Christian denominations in the West are in decline, while 
Pentecostals and other "evangelicals" are on the rise.

Curt