God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

11/25/2010 • 4:29 am Comments Off on Male prostitutes, “know it all’s” – and the horror of the pius brothers..

Male prostitutes, “know it all’s” – and the horror of the pius brothers..

In a startling turnaround for a man who was just recently saying that condoms exacerbate the scourge of AIDS, the Vatican clarified Pope Benedict XVI’s stance on condoms Tuesday, saying that the Holy Father believes condoms are an acceptable form of disease prevention for everyone, including men, women, and transsexuals! In an interview published Tuesday, the pope said condoms were acceptable for male prostitutes, who were already in the midst of committing a lot of sins anyway. When an Italian newspaper wrote about the story using the feminine form of the word prostitute, a Vatican spokesman checked in with the pope to see whether they’d made a big mistake. “I personally asked the pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine,” Rev. Frederico Lombardi said. “He told me no.” According to Lombardi, “the heart of the matter was of ‘taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk to the life of the person with whom you are having a relationship,’ ” whether “you’re a woman, a man, or a transsexual.” According to the Vatican, the pope’s statements don’t represent “a change in church teaching on birth control, which remains forbidden,” but many news agencies are calling the move “a significant first response to critics who have long seen the church’s ban on condoms as a moral failing in light of the AIDS crisis.”

If this extension is correct it marks a real first step in the right direction. It reflects for the first time an – inofficial – but important stance of the church leader regarding the protection of life through a condom. I am sure all Catholic activists share after this clarification the joy that our considerations are within the framework of the moral theology of the RC church. It is a blow into the faces of all those “know it all” on all levels of the hierarchy, who in a hurried ahead allegiance forgot to contemplate realities and even worse: ignored the realities of suffering of their brothers and sisters. Deflections from other topics, here Humanae Vitae, are not always permissible

While some people wonder about the frankness of this interview, the only ones really holding against it are the right wingers in the Catholic Church, whose understanding of tradition is a static one.  The German district of the Pius brothers issued according to dpa a statement in which they criticise the pope for his remarks regarding condom use. They compare the statement of the pope with the advice to a robber and murderer to do from now on only theft. Sometimes one can only wonder… – or maybe not any more…

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, Reflection, , , , , , , , ,

11/20/2010 • 8:58 pm Comments Off on 20.11.2010 Opinion of a pope

20.11.2010 Opinion of a pope

Pope Benedict condones condom use in some cases – the headlines on BBC but also the German media jumps on this news and celebrates it as a change in the stance of the official church. Well, let’s be more realistic: It is the first step in the right direction and it comes 30 years too late for the pandemic. So no celebration but rather encouragement for those ruling our church not to stand still again but to move, to take modern sciences into account and to apply ratio to this question. Our church claims to protect life under all circumstances – and she is right so. Therefore the opinion of the pope is only a consequence of this claim – long overdue.  And guess we will see in the next days from some quarters of the church the attempt to soften the words of the pope again.. and another battle field is opened between the right-wing faithful of our church and those who trying to live their faith in our world and not in the past century.
Nevertheless: A first step to be welcomed by all who are working in the field of HIV and AIDS in the RC church.

Filed under: HIV Prevention, , , , , , , ,

11/07/2010 • 10:52 am Comments Off on 07.11.2010 AIDS Gala Berlin – and where is the bishop?

07.11.2010 AIDS Gala Berlin – and where is the bishop?

Again, I am guest at the German AIDS Gala in Berlin, the 17th of its kind. And again the German Oper Berlin is booked out and masses of people are flocking to attend this prestigious event. Michaela from Dresden is accompanying me to this event and after being picked up by the Shuttle Service at the hotel, it is once again a funny feeling to take the red carpet, letting the journalists and photographers guess who the couple is.. 🙂 Being asked how I felt about the feature of myself and HOPE Cape Town in the Berliner Morgenzeitung I must admit that I even didn’t know about it – nobody told me. Quick I realise that HOPE Cape Town will feature prominently this eve as one of the projects sponsored by the German AIDS Foundation. Brief chats with Her Highness, the Begum Aga Khan, the National foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and his husband and others from the Board of Trustees follow before the programme starts. And as now expected, the chairperson of the board of trustees of the German AIDS Gala in Berlin, the Begum Aga Khan tells the audience about her visit at HOPE Cape Town last year – a film shows her and me visiting the Ithemba Ward and I wish all our HOPE Community Health Workers, senior staff and management could hear the applause as she congratulates the projects and the priest for their work down there in the Western Cape. These are moments were I would love to beam myself away for the time being – sometimes it is interesting enough for me difficult to hear public praise. But it is also the feeling of encouragement present.

The programme contains great opera – I do enjoy it and when the Opera Children’s choir sings “Laudate Domino” I suddenly realise that there is no official representative of the church. And if feels suddenly so completely wrong: National ministers, certainly all important people of the local and national business world, politicians and artists are present – showing their committment towards the battle against a pandemic which changed the world – celebrating also partly a project, which originated and is still support by a German-speaking Catholic community and no representative of my church is present. And I suddenly realise that also in Dresden the last five years there was no-show of the local bishop or his representative. The sorrows and the joy of the people are the sorrows and the joy of us Christians – I ask myself whether it is not poor judgement to be not present visible as a church at major events where people from so different walks of life unify and come together in this important cause. I suddenly feel sad a moment, but then the joy of the choir carries me away from it.

Congratulations to the German AIDS Foundation and all its helper for this great eve – and I am grateful that within one week I am able to attend to major fundraising galas bringing hope and future again to South Africa. A big part of the proceeds of Berlin are also going to HOPE Cape Town and supporting our work. Deo gratias.

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

10/18/2010 • 11:46 pm Comments Off on Sic tacuisses: AIDS = Justice – Belgian Catholic Archbishop of Brussels claims

Sic tacuisses: AIDS = Justice – Belgian Catholic Archbishop of Brussels claims

The Catholic Church in Belgium has been battered by scandals and missteps over the past year, and now its new leader, the conservative Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard of Brussels, has sparked a fresh controversy with comments declaring that people afflicted with AIDS are receiving “a sort of immanent justice” for their sexual practices.
Léonard, who Pope Benedict XVI appointed this year to replace a much-loved liberal, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, compared the suffering of AIDS victims to human-caused degradation of the environment, for which people themselves then pay the price.
“Maybe human love also responds when she is treated badly, without the need of a transcendent source,” Léonard said in a just-published book of interviews he gave to two Belgian journalists over the past few years. “Badly handling physical nature causes it to treat us badly in turn, and badly dealing with the deeper nature of human love will ultimately always lead to catastrophes on all levels.”

The reaction against Léonard’s comments has been swift and sharp.

Belgian parliamentarians have called the archbishop’s statements “disgusting” and “stupid,” and some are calling for the government to re-examine the favorable tax status of the Catholic Church, which receives hefty government subsidies.
Even conservative Christian Democratic party leaders expressed outrage. Léonard’s words “strike me speechless. For Jesus there were no justified illnesses,” said parliamentarian Mia De Schamphelaere, according to a National Catholic Reporter story.
Such official condemnation comes at a difficult time for the Belgian church, which is engaged in a tug-of-war with government investigators who have seized documents in a probe of clergy abuse of children going back decades.
Léonard’s comments are also not winning him or the institutional church many points with Catholics themselves, who are increasingly indifferent to their religion, as is the case in many European countries.
The clergy scandals have shocked Belgians, with revelations of at least 475 victims over the decades, 13 of whom committed suicide. The reports brought down the country’s longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, and even tarnished the legacy of Cardinal Danneels, whose negotiations with an abuse victim were surreptitiously recorded and released, portraying him in a harsh light.

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, , , , , , , ,

08/26/2010 • 7:52 am Comments Off on POZ Magazine: Catholic Church Fight Over Condoms Blocks NYC Clinic

POZ Magazine: Catholic Church Fight Over Condoms Blocks NYC Clinic

An argument over condoms is keeping New York City’s Greenwich Village without an urgent care clinic, the New York Daily News reports. North Shore/Long Island Jewish Medical Center, which received a $9 million state grant for a clinic in the neighborhood, is interested in opening it in the emergency room of the bankrupt and closed St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. However, officials from St. Vincent’s insist the new clinic adhere to Catholic principles, including not counseling patients about birth control.

Source: http://www.poz.com/rssredir/articles/Church_Blocks_Clinic_1_18995.shtml

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Treatment, , , , , , , ,

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