Church officials say Catholic groups should coordinate AIDS efforts

Published: 2006-01-27

GENEVA (CNS) -- Catholics assisting people living with HIV/AIDS need to coordinate their efforts in order to improve their service and fight prejudice and suspicion about the church's response to the disease, said participants at a January meeting. Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization of Catholic charities, convened the Jan. 23-26 meeting in Geneva to promote cooperation and to bring Catholic AIDS programs into contact with scientific and funding experts from the U.N. AIDS program, the World Health Organization and other international agencies. Father Robert J. Vitillo, special adviser on HIV and AIDS for Caritas, said the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is structured to channel funding through national governments, which are supposed to work with faith-based organizations in education, prevention, treatment and the care of orphans. "But only 2 percent of Global Fund funds have gone to faith-based organizations," he told Catholic News Service Jan. 27. The figure is particularly low when "40-50 percent of all health care in the developing world is provided by faith-based organizations."

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