.- Speaking
on Vatican Radio, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the
Pontifical Council for Health Care, announced that his dicastery is
preparing a document on ministry to persons with AIDS.
While an
international conference on AIDS is currently taking place in Cabo
City, South Africa, with over a thousand experts meeting to discuss the
AIDS pandemic in Africa, the Mexican cardinal noted that
“unfortunately, the illness is spreading: we’re talking about now some
42 million people affected by AIDS.”
“And according
to doctors,” he said, “for every person who has AIDS another three are
infected with HIV, thus making it 169 million the number of persons
affected around the world by this terrible pandemic.”
The cardinal
said that while the task is difficult, the dicastery is preparing a
document on pastoral ministry for persons with AIDS. “It’s
possible it will be ready this year,” he stated.
Cardinal Lozano
said he was disappointed that most agencies involved in preventing the
spread of the disease understand prevention “as the condom…Certainly
the Catholic Church believes that the most important form of prevention
is abstinence and marital fidelity: in this way absolutely
nothing can happen.”
The cardinal said the question of the use of condoms in marriages in which one partner is HIV positive poses a “problem.”
“Precisely in
this sense we are preparing a profound study that will be both
scientific and moral. This study will certainly be presented to the
Holy Father through the necessary channels and the Holy Father,
according to his wisdom and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit,
will make the decision and will tell us which way to go. What he
says will be the position of the Church,” the cardinal said.
Cardinal Lozano announces Vatican document on AIDS prevention
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