Latin American church leaders say they lag in responding to AIDS

Published: 2004-07-30

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNS) -- Latin American Catholics lag behind their counterparts in other parts of the world in responding to the challenges of the AIDS pandemic, said church officials who attended an international gathering on the disease. "We still haven't realized how huge this problem is and how fast it's growing," Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini Imeri of San Marcos, Guatemala, told Catholic News Service. "We don't want to see it as a disease that's killing people, but instead keep associating it with moral themes. That's not right. It's true that there's often a moral aspect, but the bottom line is that people are dying." Bishop Ramazzini's diocese and the neighboring Archdiocese of Los Altos, Quetzaltenango-Totonicapan have teamed up to provide low-cost HIV testing in rural communities; at times the dioceses provide medicines to people living with the disease. The two dioceses also sponsor educational and pastoral work with prostitutes and celebrate AIDS Day every year to raise public awareness. "Yet we bishops have to do more. We can't close our eyes to this," Bishop Ramazzini said during a recent AIDS conference in Bangkok.

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