Dynamics between Catholicism and AIDS: reproduction, transformation and (in) formation

Abstract

This article presents some interpretations on the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a dynamics of meanings in the social field. It departs from the empirical observation of the social work for people who live with HIV/AIDS, developed at Fonte Colombo House by Franciscan friars and volunteers. From the daily life at Fonte Colombo House, it tries to understand how this pastoral and assistance practice affects the traditional conceptions of the catholic orthodoxy on sexuality and human reproduction. The reflection we make points to a local process that tends to redefine the doctrinal position of the Catholic Church as to the normatization of the sexual act as fundamentally an act of human reproduction. The ethnographic method adopted in the research highlights the specificity of a Catholic and Franciscan style in the greeting rituals, in the experiences and information that are socialized and the forms of confrontation that are used in relation to the common problem of the House users.