At an interfaith press conference held just steps from the White House today, Catholic Relief Services (CR’S) issued a statement calling on President Bush to ensure full funding for the fight against global poverty and HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Organized by Bread for the World, the conference brought together prominent Christian leaders, as well as Irish rock singer Bono, to advocate on behalf of the millions of poor around the world who would benefit from the Global AIDS Initiative, the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) and ongoing U.S. development and humanitarian assistance programs.
�People�s lives depend on presidential action now,� said Bill O�Keefe, Sr. Director of Policy and Advocacy for CRS.
[Full Story]
This news release put out by Catholic Relief Services makes it look like President Bush is purposely stopping the funding in some uncaring fashion. No mention is made of the fact that the funding would have directly been used for contraception and abortion and that and that alone is the reason for withholding the funding.
Organization associated with this funding complain about the fact that they can not separate abortion and family planning (contraceptive) services from the treatment of those who suffer with HIV/AIDS. They call this an integrated approach, more buzzwords of death. CRS should be lambasting these organizations instead of blaming Bush for the problem and working to ensure that truly Catholic Relief services are available.
10 comments
I wonder if Bono, as a good Irish Catholic, showed any public compassion for the victims of IRA terrorism? If not, why not?
This HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Something’s got to give in order to save lives. All I have definitively concluded in my heart on this dilemma is that the worldwide Catholic community CANNOT just stand idly by while hundreds of thousands die, and widows and orphans are left to fend for themselves against starvation and violence. Some sort of concrete action must happen on a large scale now, and our prayers should be with all those involved: victims and relief workers.
When President Bush tried to highlight this crisis and his plan for combatting it his trip to Africa earlier this year, it was drowned out in the media by the much “sexier” issue of his alleged lie in the State of the Union speech.
Somewhere in some Catholic article I read recently (I truly don’t remember where), the question was posed to the reader: “If you reached Heaven and God asked you what you were doing while multitudes suffered from the effects of the HIV/AIDS in Africa, how would you reply?”
To my knowledge, Bono has never spoken out in favor of the IRA or its terrorist activities. I’m sure that he, like many Irish-Catholics (myself included) probably sympathizes with the cause but condemns the IRA’s former means of achieving it. He has written many, many songs with peace at the central theme. See the lyrics to “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”, “In the Name of Love”, or “Peace on Earth” for examples.
Bono’s primary cause outside of music has been on using his celebrity to try to improve the living conditions of the poor in third-world nations. Can we reasonably expect a social-activist celebrity to make comments on every injustice or cause that’s out there? To follow that line of logic, one could ask why he didn’t appear on the Jerry Lewis telethon this year or why he hasn’t spoken out against renewed whale hunting.
For the record, I’m a right-of-center, registered Republican, but I think Bono’s heart is in the right place in his social activism.
Chris,
“what were doing while multitudes suffered from the effects of the HIV/AIDS in Africa, how would you reply?”
So far the answer the world is giving is that we gave them rubbers, pills, and abortion machines. Millions of condoms have been passed out and stockpiled in African counties while the most basic medicine is missing.
The only answer to prevention in the HIV/AIDS pandemic is truth about human sexuality. The only African country to have reduced this problem is Uganda which has mainly focused on chastity and Fidelity in marriage. Doing what we can to provide medicine and care to those who have already come down with AIDS is the second tier.
This HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa is NOT a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. We can never do evil to effect some perceived good. If we supposedly save some lives and lose some souls what have we really done. Once we put a stamp of approval on a behavior to protect bodily harm we have totally ignored the consequence of sin.
As far a Bono goes I applaud him for the work that he does, but I can’t applaud activism that endorses sin. I have listened to U2 since their first album October and I hope that one day the Bono sees the value of both the starving child and the child starved to death in the womb through contraceptives.
Jeff, you are correct in the original premise in your post – an “integrated approach” to solving the world’s problems provides “them” with a means by to force us to accept untenable baggage along with the acceptable proposed solution, and that’s unacceptable to us (and, thank God, to Pres. Bush).
Birth control will solve the problem? Um, sorry, no.
The question that guides my conscience is not God asking me “What was the world doing while multitudes suffered from the effects of the HIV/AIDS in Africa, how would you reply?” The question is God asking me “What were YOU doing while multitudes suffered from the effects of the HIV/AIDS in Africa, how would you reply?” My prayers are with all providing assistance, but my money (when I have some again) will go to pro-life Catholic charities that are providing health care, food, clothing and shelter to the afflicted and those orphaned and widowed in this crisis.
I understand your views on “sin”…… have any of you ever been raped????? Where is the “sin” in that??? The VICTIM has sinned???? She was going to get water, that’s all. Males that are infected with HIV/AIDS have been misinformed to believe if you have intercourse with a virgin,… it will cure your aids obviously resulting in rapes, pregnancies and wide spread disease. EDUCATING people on the disease itself, providing AFFORDABLE HIV/AIDS MEDICATIONS EMPOWERING people with CORRECT INFORMATION is where the answers are. If I am not mistaken that is exactly what Bono is promoting!(not to mention now Oprah has joined the cause with the same philosophies) If you haven’t personally seen the condoms or machines being loaded on to a plane destined for Africa I would have to say, you are listening to “urban folklore” and possibly a wild imagination.
I just wanted to address the statement,”Bono, as a good Irish Catholic,” mentioned above. To my knowledge, Irish is the only correct descriptor of U2’s Bono. Numerous websites show the liberal tendancies of Bono, opposite those of a “good Catholic.” If only he were.
Bono actually isnt Catholic. “Because he came from a mixed religion background (Father being a Roman Catholic and Mother a Protestant), this had a major effect and influence on him. Although he followed his mother�s religion, he never classified himself as being a Catholic or Protestant.”
To address the first question about Bono showing compassion for victims of IRA terrorism, this was addressed rather convincingly in the Rattle and Hum film, which captured U2 performing the day of the IRA bombing of Eniskillen in 1988. Here’s Bono’s take on the matter, as he ranted during the performance of “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”:
“Let me tell you something, I’ve had enough of Irish-Americans who haven’t been back to their country in 20 or 30 years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home, and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution. F— the revolution!! They don�t talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What�s the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children, where�s the glory in that? Where�s the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day, where�s the glory in that? To leave them dying or crippled for life or dead under the rubble, of the revolution, that the majority of the people in my country don�t want. We want no more.”