Church operating 117,000 centers for AIDS patients worldwide

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, taking good care of the poor

 

 

Vatican City, May 27 (CNA/EWTN News)
.- The president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care reported
that the Catholic Church is currently running 117,000 centers to care
for AIDS patients throughout the world.

Archbishop
Zygmunt Zimowski told L'Osservatore Romano that in the past 30 years,
more than 60 million people have contracted HIV, mostly in Africa. He
spoke to the Vatican paper on the eve of a congress on the treatment and
prevention of HIV and AIDS.

The
conference is taking place May 27-28. It was organized by the Good
Samaritan Foundation, instituted by Blessed John Paul II in 2004 and
entrusted to the Pontifical Council for Health Care.

He
underscored the testimony of "numerous health care workers and
volunteers who, in their courageous care for the sick … have themselves
contracted the infection."

 

He also highlighted the work by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and the late
Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor of New York, "who promoted numerous heath
care centers for AIDS victims" and "many treatment and assistance
programs in the United States and in other poor countries."

 

The congress is intended to respond to the questions of "many bishops
who contact our dicastery in order to receive constant help, with
material assistance but above all with information on the latest
advances in science in the fight against this disease," Archbishop
Zimowski said.

 

The objectives of the congress include the improvement of pastoral and
health care for AIDS victims and the encouragement of the developed
world  to show solidarity with poor countries, "as too many people die
without access to the treatment they need, especially antiretrovirals"
currently available only in developed countries.

 

In 2008, then-president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care,
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, reported that 27 percent of
institutions around the world caringfor AIDS patients are Catholic; 44
percent are governmental; 11 percent are operated by NGOs; and 8 percent
are run by other religious confessions.