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Priests and Pills: Catholic Family Planning in Peru, 1967–1976

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Raúl Necochea López
Raúl Necochea López*
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Abstract

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The Catholic Church of Peru supported the use of oral contraceptives between 1967 and 1976, believing that doctrine was compatible with controlling one's fertility. Yet the church did not treat fertility control only as a means to limit births or as an individual prerogative. Rather, it framed distribution of the pill within an education plan to promote the duties of responsible parenting. Joseph Kerrins, a U.S. Catholic physician, began the program in a poor area of Lima. By the late 1970s, the program operated in nineteen parishes. The program thrived even after the 1968 encyclical De Humanae Vitae, thanks to the support of priests, Peruvian and U.S. government agencies, physicians, and users of the program's services. Catholic family planning has been a more pragmatic and creative enterprise than hitherto believed. This article explores these developments within the context of the cold war and the transformations of the Catholic Church in 1960s Latin America.

Resumo

Resumo

La Iglesia Católica del Perú apoyó el uso de contraceptivos orales entre 1967 y 1976, pensando que la doctrina era compatible con el control de la propia fertilidad. Sin embargo, la iglesia no trataba el control de la fertilidad solamente como un medio para limitar los nacimientos o como una prerrogativa individual. En cambio, concebía la distribución de pastillas contraceptivas en el marco de un plan de educación que promoviera los deberes de padres responsables. Joseph Kerrins, un médico estadounidense católico, inició el programa en una zona pobre de Lima. Para fines de los años setenta, el programa existía en diecinueve parroquias. El programa prosperó incluso después de la encíclica De Humanae Vitae de 1968, gracias al apoyo de los sacerdotes, de las agencias peruanas y estadounidenses, de los médicos y de los usuarios de los servicios del programa. La planeación familiar católica ha sido una empresa más pragmática y creativa de lo que se ha pensado hasta ahora. Este artículo explora estos eventos en el contexto de la Guerra Fría y de las transformaciones de la Iglesia Católica en los años sesenta en Latinoamérica.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , 2008 , pp. 34 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

A Hannah Senior General Scholarship from Associated Medical Services Inc. funded this project. I presented versions of this paper at the 2005 conference of the American Association for the History of Medicine in Birmingham, Alabama, and at the 2007 Berlin Round-table on Transnationality. I thank the participants in both meetings and LAR's editors and reviewers for their questions and suggestions. Andrea Tone, Catherine LeGrand, Vinh-Kim Nguyen, Erica Wood, Joe Kerrins, and Fr. John Coss have been especially generous sources of intellectual inspiration and support.

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