AIDS, Condoms, and more...

Sadly, AIDS is on the rise...

AIDS Rate Soars in Nation's Capital By RACHEL MARTIN, ABC News March 15, 2009

Washington is the nation's capital, home to the President and his family, and a tourist haven -- but it has the highest rate of HIV-AIDS in the country. City officials are expected to release a report Monday showing 3 percent of the city's general population has been infected with the virus. It's the first time the city has done a comprehensive analysis of infection rates in the district. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the definition of an epidemic is 1 percent of the population. Washington's rate of infection with HIV-AIDS is three times that.

Read the report here.

The pope visiting African countries, raised the issue of condomn use in fighting AIDS...

Pope Says Condoms Won't Solve AIDS by The Associated Press, March 17, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday that the distribution of condoms is not the answer in the fight against AIDS in Africa. Benedict has never before spoken explicitly on condom use although he has stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease. You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters aboard a plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

You can read it here.

And finally, responding to the idea that current approaches to AIDS are ineffective, comes these words...

AIDS and the Churches: Getting the Story Right by Edward C. Green and Allison Herling Ruark, April 2008

...the central fact that has emerged from all the recent studies of the HIV epidemic: What the churches are called to do by their theology turns out to be what works best in AIDS prevention.

You can read it here.

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I believe we should use all the tools available to us to help end the AIDS epidemic, which would include abstinence approaches (fidelity) and condom use.

A prayer for those with AIDS:

Merciful God, we remember before You all who are sick this day, and especially all persons who live with HIV. Give them courage to live with their disease. Help them to face and overcome their fears. Be with them when they are alone or rejected. Comfort them when they are discouraged. And touch them with your healing Spirit that they might find and possess eternal life. All this we ask through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.