Pope urges Angolans to promote abstinence, fidelity to fight AIDS

Published: 2004-10-22

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II called on Catholic and government leaders in Angola to promote sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage to combat the alarming spread of AIDS in the country in the two years since Angola's civil war ended. "True love is a chaste love, and chastity offers a solid hope for overcoming the forces that threaten the institution of the family and, at the same time, for liberating humanity from the devastating plague of AIDS," the pope said Oct. 22 in a message to the bishops of Angola and Sao Tome and Principe, an island nation off Africa's west coast. The bishops were in Rome for their "ad limina" visits, which bishops make every five years to report on the status of their dioceses. Angola has one of the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS infection in southern Africa, with between 5 percent and 7 percent of its 14.3 million people believed to be infected. But in early October, the country's health minister said there had been "an exponential rise" in infection rates since the civil war ended in 2002; an influx of foreign visitors and greater ease of travel within Angola are cited as factors contributing to the spread of the virus.

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