Scottish Catholic Observer

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said the Catholic Church is on the front lines in the fight against AIDS.

The cardinal (right) said part of the Church’s effort was to help remove the ‘social stigma’ that is still borne by those with HIV and AIDS.

He made the comment during a Vatican conference last weekend on AIDS prevention organised by the Good Samaritan Foundation, which operates under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for Health Care.

Defence

Cardinal Bertone said the Church ‘has been deeply committed to this task (of fighting AIDS) from the beginning, and the health care facilities that are in places where the populace is most affected are proof of this.’

He also strongly defended the Church’s two-pronged strategy against the disease: education of consciences and mobilisation of Catholic health resources for patients.

He told more than 100 invited guests and experts last Friday that the Church places human dignity at the centre of its AIDS policies, which necessarily include a solid ethical dimension.

“Educating people to avoid high-risk behavior, when based on solid moral principles, fully demonstrates its effectiveness and translates into greater openness toward those already affected by the virus,” he said.

Confusion

Although the conference was prompted in part by confusion over the Church’s stance on condom use and HIV prevention, Cardinal Bertone did not specifically mention the question of condoms in AIDS prevention.

The Church’s stance on AIDS prevention came into the spotlight late last year when some reviewers interpreted Pope Benedict XVI’s analysis on the use of artificial contraception in his personal memoir incorrectly as a change in Catholic teaching on the subject. An incorrect Italian translation of the new youth Catechism this year also brought the Church’s stance on contraception into the spotlight.

In the run-up to last weekend’s conference, Fr Juan Perez-Soba, a moral theologian who teaches in Rome at the John Paul II Institute, said again that condoms could make the epidemic worse.

He said that campaigns promoting condoms provide a false sense of security, and reinforced that use of condoms within marriage ‘deforms’ the act of procreation. Abstinence would be the appropriate response in a marriage where one member is HIV positive and one is not, he said.

Conference aims

The objectives of the conference included the improvement of pastoral and health care for AIDS victims and the encouragement of the developed world  to show solidarity with poor countries.

It was also held to respond to the questions of many bishops who had asked the council for help on the subject through material assistance but above all with information on the latest advances in science in the fight against this disease.

The conference participants included a top UN official, medical experts from various parts of the world and theologians.

Church track record

The president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care said that the Catholic Church is currently running 117,000 centres to care for AIDS patients throughout the world.

Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski told L’Osservatore Romano that in the past 30 years, more than 60 million people have contracted HIV, mostly in Africa. The archbishop, speaking on the eve of a congress on the treatment and prevention of HIV and AIDS, highlighted the work by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and the late Cardinal John Joseph O’Connor of New York, ‘who promoted numerous heath care centres for AIDS victims’ and ‘many treatment and assistance programmes in the United States and in other poor countries.’