Note the obvious and highly objectionable - if not downright despicable bias - in both wire-service stories below. While they mention the objections made to the Pope's March 17 statement on condoms and AIDS, neither one bothered to mention that experts on AIDS in Africa, including the director of Haravard's AIDS prevention program, generally supported the Pope's position, citing statistics from more than a decade to prove it.
Pope to African envoys:
Abstinence, marital fidelity
still work best to fight AIDS
Vatican City, May 29 (dpa) - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday reiterated Catholic church teachings to several new African envoys to the Vatican, maintaining that AIDS must be fought through marital fidelity and sexual abstinence.
Benedict's remarks came just over two months after a furore arose over comments he made on the disease during his first visit to Africa.
On the papal plane taking him to Cameroon, Benedict on March 17 appeared to suggest that the use of condoms, which the Catholic Church considers sinful, may actually contribute to the spread of AIDS.
France's Foreign Ministry responded at the time by saying that the comments by the spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics threatened public health policies.
On Friday, the Pontiff told South Africa's new ambassador to the Holy See, George Johannes, that the Church "takes seriously her part in the campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS by emphasizing fidelity within marriage and abstinence outside of it."
Similarly, Benedict told Namibia's new Vatican ambassador, Neville Melvin Gertze, that he was aware that one of the priorities of the southern African nation's government is put more of a focus on the health of the population, especially people afflicted with HIV/AIDS.
"In this area, the Church will continue to offer its assistance willingly. She is convinced that
only a strategy based on education to individual responsibility in the framework of a moral view of human sexuality, especially through conjugal fidelity, can have a real impact on the prevention of this disease," Benedict said.
Some 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV, according to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
In 2007 three-quarters of the world's AIDS deaths were in sub- Saharan Africa, as were two-thirds of all people living with HIV.
Pope: Morality, fidelity can stop AIDS
Vatican City. May 29 (AP) - Marital fidelity and a “moral view” of sexuality are the best strategies to stop the spread of AIDS, Pope Benedict said Friday, addressing the issue for the first time since his comments on condoms during a trip to Africa caused a stir.
Benedict did not mention condoms in speeches welcoming Namibia’s and South Africa’s new ambassadors to the Vatican, but reiterated the Catholic Church’s position on the disease, which is pandemic in Africa.
“Only a strategy based on education to individual responsibility in the framework of a moral view of human sexuality, especially through conjugal fidelity, can have a real impact on the prevention of this disease,” the Pope said.
Addressing the South African ambassador, Benedict said the Church would continue to campaign against the spread of AIDS “by emphasizing fidelity within marriage and abstinence outside of it.”
Benedict drew unprecedented criticism from European governments, international organizations and scientists in March when he said that distributing condoms was not the answer to Africa’s AIDS problem and could make it worse. He said a moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease.
Though the position was not new, the questioning of the usefulness of condoms and the fact that the Pope made the comments on the plane carrying him to AIDS-plagued Africa sparked a storm of criticism.
France, Germany, the United Nations’ AIDS-fighting agency and the British medical journal
The Lancet called the remarks irresponsible and dangerous.
[With Lancet shamelessly contradicting what it puclished in a report the year before!]
The Vatican countered that critics were trying to intimidate Benedict and dissuade him from expressing himself on moral issues.
But saving the best for last....
The new envoy from Burkina Faso
thanks the Pope for
his courageous words on condoms
Translated from
May 29, 2009
Burkina Faso is the former French colony once known as Upper Volta (current population 14 million) in west central Africa, which is surrounded by six countries (Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast).
The African state of Burkina Faso stands by the Pope for his statements about fighting AIDS last March which drew severe ccriticisms from some European politicians and Parliaments.
"Some have criticzed the positions of the Church on fighting AIDS, pretending to defend the Africans", said its new ambassador to the Vatican today, addressing Pope Benedict XVI after presenting his credentials, "but Burkino Faso pays homage to the Pope for his teaching on how to fight the AIDS pandemic".
"In our country," said Ambassador Beyon Luc Adolphe Tiao, "the imam, the priest and the tribal chief work together with the common objective of fighting the same evil - and
they know that to focus only on the use of condums does not indicate a serious attention to the problem."
Tiao said he had experienced in person, during the Pope's visit to Africa, "how religious intolerance can have devastating effects".
"The international scene has been dominated for some time," he told the Pope, "by interpretations which we may call 'improper', against some of your decisions and statements. The polarization and undue attention on condom use have obscured the essence of your thinking on that terrible pandemic that is AIDS".
"I am happy to assure you," the ambassador told the Pope, "that in Africa, where this affliction has struck the worst, the essence of your thinking is well understood by millions of faithful and even by political authorities."
"Beyond any controversies," he said, "we render homage to the courage with which you address each man and woman intimately about an evil whose eradication calls first of all for a responsible and moral concept of sexuality."
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/05/2009 08:37]