Crimes against humanity.

On December 22, 1995, 75-year-old Pope John Paul Il and his Pontifical Commission for the Family handed down the latest instructions from God. Millions of the faithful worldwide hung on every divinely inspired word. Just in time for the Christian commemoration of the virgin birth, the 60-page edict, entitled Human Sexuality: Truth and Significance, expands and elaborates on the 1968 Humanae Vitae encyclical banning birth control. (Both were written by celibate men.) Among other things, this new document states that:

* Catholic parents have the "right and obligation" to protect children against sexually explicit and other harmful media (consistent with the pope's past denunciations of trends in "rich Westernized societies," which he has often condemned for "exalting pagan hedonism").

* Homosexuality must be explained to children in line with church teaching that it is "against God's natural law."

* Catholic parents must avoid exposing their children to "secular and antibirth" ideas.

* The Catholic family is the exclusive center of education about sexuality and morality.

* Sex education, the fundamental right and obligation of parents, must always be under their guidance, both in the home and in centers of education chosen and controlled by them.

* Teachers "need to respect the right of the child and young person to take themselves out of any form of sex education" that goes against teachings at home.

* Specifically, Catholic parents have "a duty to pull their children from sex-education programs" in schools that "promote condoms to avoid pregnancy or AIDS"

(Incidentally, this document acknowledges that sex-related issues often overlap in studies such as health and sociology. Assumedly, Catholic parents must now examine any curriculum which might mention forbidden subjects --but instructions for correcting this problem are not provided.)

Conflicts between parents, public-school administrators, and teachers over sex and health education programs have been intensifying nationwide for several years. Alliances between anti-sex-ed fundamentalists and Catholics have begun to form in many states and school districts. Now, thanks to the Vatican, these conflicts are sure to escalate.

How can any parent purposefully put their child's very life in jeopardy by withholding the most basic life-saving information? Personally, I can't imagine. Should parents have the right to with, hold such information from their children? Personally, I don't think they should. Society doesn't permit parents to withhold reading skills from their children--or the ability to perform basic math functions. In our system of public education, parents may not remove their children from these classes (or from many others, for that matter). These are vexing questions with which we must grapple directly. But, more immediately, how are we to respond when Catholic parents quote directly from the pope in support of removing the from required AIDS-prevention classes?

The Catholic church's adamant refusal to revise the edicts of Humanae Vitae is comprehensible only when we realize and accept that the church's dogma of infallibility must be preserved at any cost to preserve the institution of the papacy. It's clear that the church has no qualms about engaging in what, ever brutal power-mongering and exploitation are necessary to achieve this goal. In fact, many of the church's long succession of popes have openly boasted of their God-given license to employ all manner of inhumanities to maintain absolute power over their subjects. Pope Leo XIII, responsible for many deaths, was direct: "The death sentence is a necessary and efficacious means for the church to attain its ends when rebels against it disturb the ecclesiastical unity, especially obstinate heretics who can, not be restrained by any other penalty from continuing to disturb ecclesiastical order."

The price of this lust for power is paid every day in massive amounts of human suffering, illness, and death so incalculable that it amounts to crimes against all humanity greater than those committed during the Holocaust.

World population has increased by one billion since Humanae Vitae was released 27 years ago. It should be bluntly stated that the Catholic church has been the major contributor to this crisis in Third World countries. Bertrand Russell (and Robert Ingersoll before him) had much to say on the subject. "That the dogmas of religion do little harm is not true," wrote Russell. "Opposition to birth control makes it impossible to solve the population problem and, therefore, postpones indefinitely all chances of true world peace."

The church's opposition to modern methods of family limitation has been a major cause of the spread of hunger and malnutrition, as well as the depletion of our planet's natural resources. As if the church's influence over millions of its followers isn't enough, papal power continues to harass and intimidate governments at all levels around the world as they seek to provide family-planning services to their citizens.

Rationalizing this gross callousness in the face of so much misery depends heavily on the obscene religious doctrine that suffering ennobles and humbles the unworthy soul before God. Equally pernicious is the teaching that earthly existence is only a preparation for the soul's real and everlasting life on a higher plane beyond this veil of tears. Under this doctrine, the most extreme human suffering can be accepted and the planet, along with all nonhuman life on it, can be destroyed without conscience.

On December 31, 1995, as an appropriate follow-up to the Human Sexuality edict, Pope John Paul II warned Christians against excessive year-end celebrations, saying such behavior belonged to pagans. "For Christians," he said, "the end of the solar year should not be marked by senseless euphoria typical of pagans throughout history."

Senseless euphoria--a phrase that speaks of another pernicious doctrine: that human happiness and pleasure are inherently sinful. When applied to sex and reproduction, this doctrine spawns the anti-human prohibition of sex for pleasure and the requirement that sex must be "justified" by making sure that the possibility of reproduction accompanies every sexual act. (This also means that the only permissible sex anywhere on earth is penile/vaginal penetration between married, heterosexual couples using no contraception.)

Owning and controlling one's own body--one's reproductive and sexual autonomy in particular--is a basic human right. Popes and priests have long known that only so long as they maintain control over these most intimate aspects of their subjects' lives will they keep those subjects enslaved.

And so it is that the richest and most powerful church in the world depends for ks survival on the wretched concept of sanctified suffering and the promise, of a better life after death. Freed from the imprisonment of these cruel shackles, humankind just might oust the whole ghoulish lot of them. Surely it is imperative that we aid and encourage this process. As humanists, it is our inherent responsibility to denounce atrocities perpetrated in the name of a cruel nonexistent God who takes pleasure in torturing and enslaving humanity

In the more eloquent words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favorable to tyranny that it always profits by such a regime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not mind; this short life counts for too little in their eyes.

Barbara Dority is president of Humanists of Washington, executive director of the Washington Coalition Against Censorship, and cochair of the Northwest Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce.