News/International

PHOENIX - The executive director of the Arizona Catholic Conference praised U.S. District Court Judge James Teilborg for upholding Arizona's recently enacted ban on abortions after 20 weeks except in cases of medical emergency.

Ron Johnson said he was "absolutely thrilled with the decision from the federal court." Johnson, who worked with Arizona legislators to help get the measure passed, said that "it's been frustrating at times" when courts overturn hard-won legislation.

"It's extremely rewarding when we get the legislation passed and the court upholds (it)," Johnson said, calling the new law "sensible and very positive legislation."

In his July 30 ruling, Teilborg wrote that the Arizona Legislature had written the law — known as H.B. 2036 — based on "the substantial and well-documented evidence that an unborn child has the capacity to feel pain during an abortion by at least 20 weeks gestational age."

Supporters of the law said that it also protects women from increased risks incurred in late-term abortions.

Three doctors who provide abortions, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New-York based Centre for Reproductive Freedom, had asked the court for a temporary restraining order or an injunction to prevent the law from going into effect Aug. 2. Teilborg's ruling denied both and declared Arizona's law constitutional.

The decision sent shock waves through the abortion industry, and opponents of the law said they would immediately appeal the ruling, calling the restrictions "extreme."

Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma have similar laws restricting late-term abortions based on the scientific finding that fetuses experience pain.

Pro-life organizations throughout the country praised the ruling. Dorinda Bordlee and Nikolas Nikas, attorneys with the Bioethics Defense Fund, advised Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who was named as a lead defendant in the emergency injunction action filed by the abortion providers, the ACLU and the New York centre.

"This ruling should be studied by everyone in the pro-life movement," Bordlee said, "because it foreshadows the day that the Supreme Court will return the abortion issue back to the state legislatures to act on their legitimate interests in protecting women and unborn children from the unspeakable violence of abortion."

Steve Aden, senior counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, agreed.

"Every innocent life deserves to be protected. That certainly includes the most vulnerable of all: children in the womb who experience horrific pain when being torn apart in the womb during a late-term abortion like those this law prohibits," Aden said. "The ACLU and the Centre for Reproductive Rights, who filed this lawsuit, apparently don't care about any of that, preferring to pursue their own agenda. The court was right to thwart their attempts to stop this law."

Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life in the United States, similarly welcomed the court's decision and called for an end to "dismemberment abortions" known as "dilation and extraction."

"The abortion debate should not be so abstract that we forget we're talking about pulling the arms and legs off of babies," Pavone said. "To those asking for our vote in November, I ask, do you or do you not think dismemberment should be legal? Every voter should ask the same."

WASHINGTON - Catholic health care workers are offering enthusiastic support to an ambitious global plan to stop the transmission of the virus that causes AIDS from pregnant mothers to their children.

Discussed during the XIX International AIDS Conference July 22-27 in Washington, the plan involves increasing the availability of the drugs that reduce HIV levels in the body so that transmission does not occur. In wealthy countries, the availability of such drugs has lowered transmission rates to virtually zero, but that's not the case in countries most heavily affected by the HIV epidemic.

"We really do have hope that we can stop AIDS in children," said Msgr. Robert Vitillo, a special adviser on HIV and AIDS to Caritas Internationalis who sits on the 15-member international steering committee that is supervising the program.

In 2010, 390,000 children were born with HIV and more than 700 children died each day, almost all of them in India and 21 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations.

As a result, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS — known as UNAIDS — in 2011 announced a plan to prevent transmission of the disease to children by assuring that pregnant women get the testing, treatment and counselling they need to stop the virus from spreading. With funding from the UN and the U.S. government, The Global Plan towards the Elimination of New Infections among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive takes aim at the 22 hardest hit nations.

Vitillo said an important key to the program's success is testing women early, so that any who are found to carry the virus can be put on antiretroviral medications. The women then continue the medication through birth and breast-feeding. While initial programs had discontinued women once the child stopped nursing, Vitillo said that approach has been largely discarded in favour of keeping the woman on antiretroviral drugs indefinitely.

"We don't want to save the children and then have them lose their mothers," Vitillo told Catholic News Service.

Another part of the program involves early testing of children so that if any are infected, they can receive prompt medical treatment.

Vitillo said the program faces challenges that bedevil the entire response to HIV.

"To make this work, we have to figure out what obstacles women face, why they cannot access testing or if they do get tested why they may not come back for the results. It's often a problem of stigma and discrimination, and we need to combat that by involving the entire community in the HIV response," he said.

Health planners say the program can succeed only by becoming "male friendly" in order to prevent male partners from discouraging women of getting involved or from continuing treatment. Men have been a focus of voluntary circumcision programs in several African countries since studies revealed that the procedure drops their susceptibility to infection by more than 50 per cent.

Catholic participation in the program was detailed in a report by the Catholic HIV/AIDS Network, released during the conference.

According to researcher Becky Johnson, the survey included 40 Catholic programs in the target countries. While 95 per cent of the programs were involved in the national AIDS programs within their respective country and thus follow national guidelines for treating the virus, only 17 per cent of the programs had been previously involved in planning or implementing the global plan.

Vitillo, one of four civil society representatives on the global steering committee, said that while the Church's role was well respected both internationally and in local communities, there often was resistance in the middle — national governments — where officials, "concerned about losing funding or losing control of the programs, have a mixed record of including civil society in designing their response."

Catholic agencies face several challenges in implementing the program. The survey found a need for resources beyond just what is needed for testing and treatment. Johnson said many of the agencies also need funding to help women travel to testing and treatment. Nutritional support also was identified as a critical need.

Maryknoll Father Richard Bauer, who until this year ran a wide-ranging HIV education and treatment program in Namibia, said that country's experience proves that combining the Church's reach with an emphasis on mothers will yield significant results.

"With more than 2,500 Catholic AIDS Action volunteers, every time one of them saw a pregnant woman on the street they would grab her and say, 'Do you know where the clinic is? Do you know there's a medicine that can help your baby be born HIV-negative?' It has become a joke of sorts that if you're pregnant you have to watch out for the AIDS volunteers," Bauer said. "But that enthusiasm has made Namibia a success story in combating AIDS."

The priest explained that the Church is well-suited to carry out such a program.

"In order to inform women of the choices they can make to have their baby be HIV-negative, we need the community's involvement," Bauer said. "We especially need the churches, and we need to preach about this on Sunday. This is the work that the Church has always done well, and its involvement makes me hopeful it will really happen."

VATICAN CITY - Under the headline "birth control and disinformation," the Vatican newspaper took to task Melinda Gates, wife of the Microsoft founder, who announced in early July that the couple's foundation would give $560 million during the next eight years to increase women's access to artificial contraception.

Written by Giulia Galeotti, a frequent contributor on abortion and other life issues, the article on the front page of the July 29 edition of L'Osservatore Romano said Gates is free to make charitable donations to whomever she wants, but not to spread incorrect information.

In an interview July 10 with The Guardian, a British newspaper, Gates identified herself as a practising Catholic who "struggled" with the idea of publicly opposing Church teaching to promote a project aimed at giving 120 million women in developing countries access to contraceptives by 2020. Gates said she felt compelled to act to "keep women alive. I believe in not letting women die, I believe in not letting babies die."

In the Vatican newspaper piece, Galeotti wrote, "The American philanthropist is off the mark," the victim of "bad information and persistent stereotypes on this theme. To still believe that by opposing the use of condoms, the Catholic Church leaves women and children to die because of misogynist intransigence is a baseless and shoddy reading" of reality.

Gates told The Guardian that the Catholic Church allows natural family planning, but "for our foundation, well, we promote modern tools because these have the most impact." At the same time the Church can and should continue to teach women how to space births naturally, she said. "Let a woman choose what it is she would like to use."

Galeotti said the comment reflected the widespread, but mistaken notion of the ineffectiveness of natural family planning methods that involve teaching couples to recognize the natural signs of a woman's fertility and act accordingly.

The "smile of condescension" and descriptions of NFP as unscientific or primitive probably are not completely accidental, Galeotti wrote.

No one is getting rich off NFP methods that "do not cost anything, do not damage a woman's health and are considered 98 per cent effective," she said.

WESTPORT, Ireland - Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam has said he hopes the lasting legacy of June's International Eucharistic Congress will be to bring "the gift of peace, forgiveness and understanding" to the Catholic Church and to wider society.

Speaking atop Ireland's holiest mountain, Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, Neary was joined by an estimated 12,000 pilgrims including Archbishop Charles Brown, papal nuncio, for the traditional ascent of the 800-metre mountain where St. Patrick fasted for 40 days in the fifth century. Brown, the first papal nuncio to Ireland to complete the grueling climb, spent about five hours on the mountain chatting to pilgrims and hearing confessions.

Referring to the clerical abuse scandals that have rocked the Irish Church, Neary said "on this mountain of St. Patrick in the year of the eucharistic congress in Ireland perhaps we might see the beauty in the rich inheritance of our faith despite the shadow of recent darker days."

Underlining the devotion of Irish Catholics during centuries of persecution when the celebration of the Eucharist was illegal, Neary said "our ancestors were not gullible people who risked their lives as they made their way to some hidden glen to gather around the Mass rock. They felt deeply the need to celebrate the Eucharist. Their strength lay in their closeness to God and to each other.

"They learned their prayers around the fire and turned to God in those same words in days of joy and nights of pain, sorrow and loneliness," he said.

He urged Irish Catholics to be more upbeat, insisting "there is so much good here that has been swallowed up in criticism."

"There is still a vibrant faith expressed in the many people who trek to daily Mass, those who go out to care for the poor and all those who direct their energies to deprived children and the forgotten elderly.

Neary also said the Church had to be present to reach out to Catholics who no longer practise the faith.

"Looking down from the summit of Croagh Patrick today we can see again a beautiful country and a revitalized Church stretching her arms out to all who want to come home," he said.

"Some, sadly, in these days do not find any attraction in their faith. They may have abandoned the Mass because they find it repetitive, structured or as many people describe it as boring. Maybe this is because we have emphasised too often the ritual and rubrics or the notion of celebration without drawing attention to the task or mission of the Mass," Neary said.

The climb, which has been carried out uninterrupted for more than 1,500 years, saw many pilgrims walk barefoot. However, organizers and local clergy discourage the practice on health and safety grounds.

MANCHESTER, England - The peal of church bells across London for three minutes beginning at 8:12 a.m., July 27 signified that after seven years of intense preparation the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games had at last reached England's capital.

The mass bell-ringing was an initiative in which all of the city's churches were invited to take part. Even "Edward," the massive bell of the Catholic Westminster Cathedral, was among those that rang out to herald the arrival of the games.

Big Ben, the bell of St. Stephen's Tower at the Houses of Parliament, rang for three minutes for the first time since the funeral of King George VI in 1952.

But as the bell tolling ended and the focus switched with anticipation to the opening ceremony later that day, three Catholic churches in particular understood that the chimes signaled the start of a very busy time.

The churches are serving as hospitality centres for visitors to the games, which run until Aug. 12.

One parish, St. Francis of Assisi, stands just a half-kilometre east of the Olympic Park. Two large marquees have been erected and fitted with big screen televisions in the church parking lot to broadcast all events live. Free refreshments were to be offered 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

"It is a very casual hospitality suite," Frank van Velzen, assistant Catholic co-ordinator for the games, told CNS.

"We have got table tennis and badminton and games for the youngsters to play but there is also a quiet prayer garden for people to get away from the noise."

St. Franciscan parish will see its clergy increase more than threefold as local pastors are joined by friars from Italy and Portugal so confessions can be heard in several languages and Mass and Benediction can be celebrated with unusual frequency.

The church was to be open around the clock for eucharistic adoration.

On July 29, athletes and their families packed the church when Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez Nieves of San Juan, Puerto Rico, was to celebrate Mass for the Puerto Rican national team.

The hospitality effort not only was to provide spiritual comfort to visitors but to make the churches better known to the wider London community.

Fr. Michael Dunne, the pastor of Our Lady and St. Catherine of Sienna parish, also hosting a hospitality centre, is aware of the witness the church would give to people who pass by during the games. The church is situated on one of the main thoroughfares running west from the Olympic Park to central London and thousands of people will walk past its doors each day.

"We are very excited and want to share the faith," Dunne said.

"It is very important that we witness to Christ among us. This is faith-sharing on the maximum scale."

Parishioners and volunteers were planning to stand on outside the church, offering visitors free bottles of water and votive candles and inviting them into the church. Sporting events were to be shown on a big screen television in the church hall. The parish garden, with 48 varieties of roses and a large statue of Mary, will be open for prayer.

The hospitality centre that was to be burning the midnight oil, however, was at Notre Dame de France parish, situated off Leicester Square in the heart of the West End entertainment, shopping and dining district. As part of its attempt to offer hospitality, the Marist-run parish, was planning a "Praise Marathon" from 3 p.m., Aug. 4 and running through Aug. 5.

Anne-Marie Salgo, the parish's evangelization project co-ordinator, said the West End was often busiest in the early hours of the morning and that the parish wanted to offer a "welcoming service centring on the games."

"We believe that welcome is a very special charism of the Catholic Church in our location," she told CNS.

"The Church of Notre Dame de France is an oasis of peace and a chance for people to get away from all the noise and to reflect on the deeper things in life."

VATICAN CITY - Asked about how he would handle the most controversial cases he inherited, the new head of the Vatican's doctrinal office said, "For the future of the Church, it's important to overcome ideological conflicts from whatever side they come."

German Archbishop Gerhard L. Muller, named prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in early July, told the Vatican newspaper that the congregation's discussions with the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X and with the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious would focus on the fact that being Catholic means believing what the Church teaches.

Although he has been a member of the congregation for five years, Muller told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, that it would take him some time to get up to speed on all of the details of the congregation's work.

The archbishop was asked what he thought about the ongoing discussions aimed at bringing the traditionalist SSPX back into full communion with the Church and about the congregation-ordered reform of the LCWR, the organization that brings together the superiors of most religious orders of women in the United States. Apparently referring to the talks with the SSPX, which rejects certain reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council, Muller said, "One cannot make reference to the tradition of the Church and then accept only parts of it."

In an apparent reference to the LCWR, he said, "One cannot profess the three religious vows (poverty, chastity and obedience) and not take them seriously."

Speaking about the role of women in the Church, Muller said, "For the Catholic Church it is completely obvious that men and women have the same value."

Many supporters of the ordination of women, he said, "ignore an important aspect of priestly ministry," which is that it is not a position of power. It's a mistake to think "emancipation will occur only when everyone can occupy" that role, he said.

"The Catholic faith knows that we are not the ones to dictate the conditions for priestly ministry and that behind being a priest there is always the will and the call of Christ," he said. The Vatican strongly and formally teaches that the Church cannot change the male-only priesthood because Christ chose only men to be His apostles.

The Vatican newspaper asked Muller how it was that Pope Benedict not only chose him, but decided to give him the apartment where he had lived as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and where he still keeps many of his books. Muller, 64, said he would define the 85-year-old Pope as "a paternal friend, since he's older than I am by a generation." He said his job in Rome will be "to relieve part of his work and not bring him problems that can be resolved" at the level of the congregation.

"The Holy Father has the important mission of proclaiming the Gospel and confirming his brothers and sisters in the faith. It's up to us to deal with the less pleasant matters so that he will not be burdened with too many things, although, naturally, he always will be informed of important matters."

Muller said he knows the problems and challenges facing the Church are serious, including "the problem of groups — of the so-called right or left — that occupy much of our time and attention." However, he said, a bigger danger is losing sight of "our principal task, which is to proclaim the Gospel and explain in a concrete way the doctrine of the Church."

The newspaper also asked Muller about his annual trips to Peru and his friendship with the liberation theologian Dominican Father Gustavo Gutierrez, with whom he wrote a book. In the 1990s, the doctrinal congregation had asked the Dominican to write and rewrite articles clarifying some of his theological and pastoral positions.

The archbishop said he was invited to participate in a seminar with Gutierrez in 1988, and he went "with some reservations" because the doctrinal congregation had criticized aspects of liberation theology that it said were too influenced by Marxist ideology.

"One must distinguish between an erroneous and a correct liberation theology," Muller told the newspaper. "I maintain that a good theology is involved with the freedom and glory of the children of God."

While a Catholic must reject Marxist ideas and analysis, he said, "we must ask ourselves sincerely: How can we speak about the love and mercy of God in the face of the suffering of so many people who do not have food, water, medical care; who don't know how to give their own children a future; where human dignity really is lacking; where human rights are ignored by the powerful?"

The archbishop said that for the past 15 years he has spent a month or two each year in Peru or other parts of Latin America, living simply and getting to know people. In his travels, he said, "this is what I've experienced: You can be at home anywhere. Where there is an altar, Christ is present. Wherever you are, you are part of God's big family."

VATICAN CITY - Throughout history, the Vatican has dealt with so many accusations and scandals, one would expect the Holy See to have a well-oiled PR machine primed to deal with the constant media onslaught.

Well, better late than never. Recent changes — some official, some done on-the-fly — demonstrate the Vatican is taking seriously its need to face the media clearly and directly both on offense and defense.

The first pivotal indication was the hiring of a seasoned lay journalist at the Vatican Secretariat of State to help "manage" the message. The Vatican created the new adviser position in June and handpicked American Greg Burke, a member of Opus Dei and longtime Rome correspondent for Fox News. The idea was to get someone knowledgeable about the Church, yet culled from far enough outside the Vatican bubble to be able to see if any train wrecks were coming.

The Regensburg controversy is an example of one derailment that could have been avoided, many journalists have said, including Burke.

A deeply intellectual and nuanced speech citing a controversial 14th-century Byzantine emperor on the evils of a faith disconnected from reason may not present problems in a lecture to a group of theology students, "but in a sound-bite, headline culture, it's a whole different thing," Burke has told CNS.

Someone, in fact, who understood and sated the media's hunger for quick concise sound bites was Joaquin Navarro-Valls, another Opus Dei member and longtime lay journalist who headed the Vatican press office for 22 years. Some have said, in fact, that the Vatican's tailspin into the media maelstrom began not long after Navarro's retirement in July 2006 — just two months prior to the Pope's speech in Regensburg.

He was replaced by a much more understated and paternal figure — Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, a northern Italian mathematician, who learned to compute the media equation as head of Vatican Radio and the Vatican television station. Measured, frank and open, Lombardi always answers journalists' questions patiently and in a timely way; he also tries to keep up with monitoring the deluge of what gets written about the Pope and the Vatican. One of his jobs, in fact, is to decide when to call out absurd or untrue stories.

He said his style is to hold back and not give added attention to something that doesn't deserve it. One example was when an Italian scent maker created, on her own initiative, a cologne for Pope Benedict XVI; it morphed into headlines such as "Pope orders his own custom-made cologne." When the Vatican was asked at the time if it were true, one journalist was met with an arched eyebrow and a shake of a head. Not even "no comment" was uttered.

Lombardi said prudence is key because making any kind of comment, including saying a story is false, often is taken as an "official" position statement from the Vatican and gives a baseless story even stronger legs to walk on, he told CNS.

He said he has had journalists respond to denials with "See! You are just defending so-and-so!" when the problem was that the claim was unfounded and no one bothered to verify it or back it up.

Part of the problem is media outlets competing to be the first out with the story or the first to repeat it to their own audience, he said. Writers may blindly rely on a shaky source, skip verifying or double-checking the facts "because they're afraid of being behind."

Lombardi went on the offense this year in an effort to pre-empt the preposterous. He organized a landmark tour for journalists of the Vatican bank, which included a Q&A session and two-hour long presentation by the bank's director, as a way to bust its "secretive" image and help reporters get correct information. He also had a Vatican judge give a 90-minute briefing on the complex workings of the Vatican court system and explain what could or might happen to the papal butler accused of aggravated theft of confidential documents.

Also on his own initiative, Lombardi started holding almost daily briefings. He said they were not part of a new communications strategy as much as a response to the nonsense and inaccuracies being written in the press in the wake of the "VatiLeaks" scandal.

"I wouldn't have had to hold so many briefings, and everyone could have gone on vacation," if so many false and unsubstantiated stories hadn't been coming out every day, he said.

The nature of the so-called news reports — many bordering on libel — also prompted him to intervene often and firmly, he said.

The "VatiLeaks" scandal, which saw private correspondence between the Pope and Vatican officials published in the press, erupted in January. The leaked letters, revealing allegations of corruption and infighting, fueled an already sensationalist-minded press.

In criticizing poor journalism, Lombardi hasn't gone as far as Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, who recently blamed the ongoing scandal on unethical journalists "imitating Dan Brown," and continuing "to invent fables or repeat legends." Lombardi has taken a more pastoral approach, peppering his statements and briefings with reminders that distortions and mistruths not only are not journalism, they are not in the public interest.

At a time when the press is clamouring for the Vatican to be more transparent, Lombardi said he agrees, but he added that truth, honesty and high standards also should apply to journalism.

Recognizing the pressure some writers are under from editors or management to favour fast over facts, he said he's tried "to get journalists to reflect on their real duty and a sense of serious professionalism." Writers need to strive to "understand things more and better, to have a critical eye toward information," which will benefit their audiences as well, he said.

WASHINGTON - As someone living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, Joshua Mavundu would welcome a cure for the disease. He knows intimately its ravages. His weight dropped to 70 pounds before he was tested and put on antiretroviral medication by a Catholic AIDS program in Zimbabwe. Today, he feels healthy and weighs almost 175 pounds.

Mavundu was in Washington for the XIX International AIDS Conference July 22-27. He also participated in a two-day gathering of Catholic AIDS workers held beforehand. He arrived as news reports gushed about the U.S. government's approval of a pill to help prevent HIV infection, and the claims of some scientists to be close to developing a cure for the deadly disease.

"I openly live with HIV, so I share the excitement about a possible vaccine and cure," Mavundu told Catholic News Service. "But we need to look back at what we've learned about solidarity, about people coming together and being united, and we should keep that intact. Talking about vaccines is fine, but we shouldn't forget solidarity and justice and community."

Mavundu is the gender and advocacy officer of the Batanai HIV and AIDS Service Organization in Masvingo, Zimbabwe, a program supported by Trocaire, the Irish bishops' overseas aid agency.

There have been rumours of a cure before, but the deadly virus has proved itself to be a wily survivor. This time around, however, scientists and AIDS officials believe they're on the verge of something big.

Like Mavundu, several conference participants who work in faith-based responses to HIV and AIDS are nonetheless concerned that the sudden interest in the science of curing AIDS will distract the world from the lessons learned in 30 years of battling the epidemic. They say simply coming up with a pill to kill HIV won't solve all the problems the virus has caused.

The initial conference discussions have focused heavily on medical issues, much to the frustration of Maryknoll Father Richard Bauer, who runs a massive HIV education and treatment program in Namibia. He told CNS July 24 that while finding a cure is vital, it is important that AIDS workers remember to work with local communities to limit the spread of the disease.

Bauer said the virus will leave behind a painful legacy, even if a cure is found.

"Even if we got a vaccine tomorrow and a cure on Monday, we have two generations of children who have not been parented," he said. "They're now becoming parents and they've never been parented. In the high impact countries that had all the deaths in the late 1990s and early 2000s, nobody is talking about the social and developmental ramifications of not being parented. Even if they announce a vaccine and a cure at this meeting, we still have a lot of work to do."

Mavundu pointed out that some eight million people around the world are eligible for antiretroviral treatment but cannot afford the medicines. Such inequality, he warned, will likely plague the distribution of any new drugs.

"Even with a cure, there's no guarantee that everyone can access it. Already we see shortages of ARVs in Africa, especially in my country," he said, referring to antiretroviral drugs. "So if a cure comes today, not everyone will be able to afford it."

In Myanmar, one Catholic HIV expert said, the disease has provided a rare opportunity for collaboration.

"In our country, AIDS is one place where people come together from different strata, backgrounds and beliefs, and work together in a very democratic process," said Soe Naing, social mobilization adviser at UNAIDS. "We listen to key affected populations, we listen to people living with HIV and we hear their voice and try to build up their capacity and empowerment.

"This is unusual compared to other development sectors in a country like Myanmar. AIDS is definitely a bad disease but we can learn a lot of lessons from our experience with it, of bringing people together and building consensus. It has encouraged empathy and understanding. Even if HIV goes away tomorrow, that solidarity will remain," he said.

Michele Broemmelsiek, the global director for AIDSRelief at Catholic Relief Services, said organizations like hers work best when they help community members solve their own problems.

"When you truly engage the community, that's when you really win the fight against AIDS. If you just base your work on a medical response, train doctors, get the best laboratory equipment, fix up the pharmacy, you still haven't won the fight against AIDS. When you can address stigma and provide support to affected people in the community, that's when true justice happens," she said.

Catholic institutions have long offered clinic- and home-based health care programs, but Broemmelsiek said AIDS has pushed the Church deeper into communities.

"As faith-based groups advocate for health for everyone, they're building a future at the grassroots that's more important than a vaccine or new treatment, because it reknits the community together," she said.

Finola Finnan, chair of the Catholic HIV/AIDS Network and the head of Trocaire's HIV and gender equality program, said the political and social context that made HIV infection a fatal epidemic remains a challenge, whether or not a cure appears.

"The epidemic has taught us that we need to go back to our roots and talk about justice, gender and equality. Those are the social determinants that are driving this epidemic. HIV has put a spotlight on those at the margins who need to have a voice, on women needing to be at the decision-making table, and on the factors that drive poverty. That's what the epidemic has taught us, and we won't end it until we deal with those issues," Finnan said.

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI expressed his hope that the Summer Olympics would help bring peace and reconciliation throughout the world.

The Olympic Games, held this year in London, are "the greatest sports event in the world," drawing athletes from the myriad nations of the world to one city, the Pope told visitors gathered to pray the Angelus with him July 22 at the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo.

The games have "important symbolic value," and for that reason the Catholic Church looks to them "with special fondness and attention," he said.

"I send greetings to the organizers, athletes and spectators alike, and pray that, in the spirit of the Olympic truce, the good will generated by this international sporting event may bear fruit, promoting peace and reconciliation throughout the world," he said.

The Olympic truce tradition, originating in eighth-century B.C. Greece, asked that all wars and conflict be suspended before and during the games as a way make sure participants could travel to and from the venue safely.

The Pope said he prayed the Olympics would be "a true experience of brotherhood between all peoples on Earth."

He also gave his blessings to all those taking part in the games, which begin July 27.

PHILADELPHIA - Common Pleas Court Judge Teresa Sarmina closed the latest chapter in the clergy sexual abuse scandal in Philadelphia by sentencing Msgr. William Lynn to three to six years in state prison.

During the sentencing hearing July 24, after more than two hours of arguments and letters presented from victims and Lynn's defense, Sarmina handed down a sentence just shy of the maximum seven years.

The former secretary for clergy, who recommended priest assignments to the archbishop of Philadelphia and investigated claims of sexual abuse of minors by clergy, was found guilty of one felony charge of endangering the welfare of a child June 22. He became the first official of the U.S. Catholic Church to be convicted of a felony not for abusing a child, or even witnessing it, but for his responsibilities in managing priests, some of whom abused children.

District Attorney Seth Williams said the fact that Lynn, 61, was convicted not for abuse made this "a very different case," one that is "unprecedented in American jurisprudence."

"We held responsible a man who did not abuse children himself, but who did not do enough to protect children," Williams said outside the Criminal Justice Centre in Philadelphia.

The priest's defense lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, incredulously referred to the sentence as "grossly unfair" and "unbelievable."

"He's being punished for things he did properly. He met with victims, he met with accused priests, he documented everything, he sent it up to the cardinal," Bergstrom said.

Lynn's conviction resulted from the actions of a former priest, Edward V. Avery, who last March pleaded guilty to abusing an altar boy in 1990. Avery, who was laicized in 2006, is serving two-and-a-half to five years in prison.

Williams said Lynn was "institutionally responsible" for the suffering of victims of sexual abuse by priests.

Evidence at trial showed that months after becoming secretary for clergy in 1992, Lynn took the initiative to compile a list from church archives of known or possibly abusive priests spanning several decades. He presented the list of scores of priests to Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who was archbishop of Philadelphia at the time. The cardinal ordered that the list be shredded, but a copy was retained and forgotten in a locked safe at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Centre in Philadelphia.

Once he knew of the list and the extent of the clergy sexual abuse problem, Lynn should have resigned, Williams said. Instead, "he locked the list of names away in a vault — names of priests he knew were abusive," Williams said. "Now he will be locked away for a fraction of that time."

Bergstrom said Sarmina in her sentencing "didn't follow the facts of the case," including his contention that priests Lynn investigated and sent for treatment "never abused again."