God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

05/10/2010 • 8:26 am Comments Off on 10.05.2010 Ignorance or …

10.05.2010 Ignorance or …

Brazilian Archbishop Says Homosexuality Not ‘Human’ and links it to Acceptance of Pedophilia
Brazilian Archbishop Dadeus Grings made excuses for the church’s sexual clergy scandal on Wednesday, the AP reports, appearing to blame it on society at large: Said Grings: “Society today is pedophile, that is the problem. So, people easily fall into it. And the fact it is denounced is a good sign.” But then of course, Grings had to bring gays into it:
“The archbishop also said it was important to help children avoid homosexuality. ‘We know that the adolescent is spontaneously homosexual. Boys play with boys, girls play with girls,’ he said. ‘If there is no proper guidance, this sticks. The question is — how are we going to educate our children to use a sexuality that is human and suitable?'”

And then, he goes on to link the two:

“Grings also said the acceptance of homosexuality in society could pave the way for the acceptance of pedophilia. ‘When sexuality is trivialized, it’s clear that this is going to affect all cases. Homosexuality is such a case. Before, the homosexual wasn’t spoken of. He was discriminated against. When we begin to say they have rights, rights to demonstrate publicly, pretty soon, we’ll find the rights of pedophiles,’ he said.”

According to AP, “Grings is the archbishop of the Porto Alegre diocese, one of the largest in Brazil, which has more Catholics than any other nation. He also serves as the chancellor of the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul. Grings denounced the abuse within the church, but he said internal punishment of priests guilty of abuse was sufficient and that police should not be involved. ‘For the church to go and accuse its own sons would be a little strange,’ he said.”

Filed under: Uncategorized

05/09/2010 • 9:11 am Comments Off on 09.05.2010 On the way…

09.05.2010 On the way…

Cape Town – Johannesburg – Frankfurt – Hannover… the first leg of the trip, Fr. Wim Lindeque of Manneberg and I are flying to meet a lot of interesting people and to hopefully push forward our common agenda regarding the pastoral work for HIV positive priests and religious. While the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference considers our proposal, we are heading also to Rome to introduce our concept to two papal councils. After that to Munich where I am invited to join a podium about South African children and HIV. Lots of talks with politicians and church people are also on the agenda. Finally to Muenster Sarmsheim to join for a fundraising evening in lieu of HOPE Cape Town and the next day discussion with some students of a local school.

But first to Hannover and Wolfsburg to meet “brother” Joachim and Sandra and their team to prepare for some challenging events next year.

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

05/08/2010 • 8:23 am Comments Off on 08.05.2010 Is it murder?

08.05.2010 Is it murder?

I just read: Since 500 years the people of the South, 4.9 billion people are dominated by the Caucasians of Europe and later North America, which are 24.6% of the world population. Those quarter defines our world trade system. The consequences: Every 5 seconds a child under the age of 10 is dying of hunger. Every day we can add 47 000 people dying of hunger in the world. More than 1 billion are suffering of malnutrition. And the numbers are rising.

According to the UNO, we can produce worldwide food for 12 billion people, far more than we have in the moment.. Lets face it: If we don’t do,what we can do, if we accept a world trade system and a finance system producing such numbers of dying and death people: this is murder, as we are all able to know the consequences of our system.The dignity of every human person is untouchable…  who is really believing in this statement?

Filed under: Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , ,

05/06/2010 • 10:10 am Comments Off on 06.05.2010 50 years…

06.05.2010 50 years…

Since half a century in existence – and most probably most time of my life gone. A day to celebrate? A day to panic? A day to reflect? A day to ignore? Not sure actually. It is a day I could take time to count my blessings but also my scars, my triumphs and my biggest losses in the last 50 years. It is an artificial caesura, but for most people surely an important one.

For me, this day is another opportunity to live, to be alive, to breathe, to act, to try to achieve whatever this day will put onto my way. And I take this opportunity to live while being grateful for all my family, friends, all those who have accompanied me for a while before we departed again, for all those, who have been called to higher service, not knowing, when I will join them.

Is there any regret? Not really – maybe that I have sometimes not lived life to the fullest, that I listened to much right and left and tried to be “conventional” instead of chosing my unique way as everybody should do in his or her life. I know and I believe strongly that we are all originals and that everybody has to find his/her pattern of life – unique, surrounded by the unconditional love of what we Christians call God.

And that, yes that is certainly a reason to celebrate and to hope for as many such from love surrounded days as possible. And maybe a little bit less hectic once in a while.. Age should make somebody more quiet and mature… well.. I will try hard…  🙂

Filed under: Uncategorized,

04/30/2010 • 11:05 am Comments Off on 30.04.2010 Human mankind

30.04.2010 Human mankind

Does human mankind ever learn? Most people will answer with a clear “no”… We see it already in our small little world how difficult it is to keep peace with the neighbours or to avoid prejudice. In the finance sector of our days we see that the circle of failures already and those who have spoken about changing the system to avoid another crash of the markets are continuing their same old path.. some minor corrections are allowed to please the public.

In Bangkok people take a whole city hostage – stand-offs, shootings, killings, endangering of innocent people seems to be “normal” – nobody wants violence but everybody is captured so much in his own world and thinking that without “wanting it” one just jumps on every opportunity to gain and to damage those considered to be “the others”.

In our church, the “hype” about sexual abuse creates interesting reactions: the right wingers within our church try to equalise sexual abuse = homosexuality, the left-wing in the church proclaims the conjunction between celibacy and abuse – and instead of investigating the real reasons behind all these, one uses the opportunity for each convictions own gain. This is an abuse in itself and insults the victims. This times can be times of an honest review how church performs – as HIV and AIDS can be a subject to trigger an honest review of parts of our moral theology. Are we able to stand the test of times – or do we fail – again, as many would say.

Difficult times… indeed..

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

Blog Categories

Follow God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE on WordPress.com

You can share this blog in many ways..

Bookmark and Share

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,711 other subscribers

Translation – Deutsch? Française? Espanol? …

The translation button is located on each single blog page, Copy the text, click the button and paste it for instant translation:
Website Translation Widget

or for the translation of the front page:

* Click for Translation

Copyright

© Rev Fr Stefan Hippler and HIV, AIDS and HOPE.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rev Fr Stefan Hippler and HIV, AIDS and HOPE with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

This not withstanding the following applies:
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.