AmFAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, has just released several new ads. One of them reads: “IF THE POPE HAD AIDS, HE’D NEED MORE THAN JUST YOUR PRAYERS.”
Commenting on the ad is Catholic League president William Donohue:
“Instead of blaming the Pope, AmFAR should instead congratulate the Holy Father for promoting restraint. Indeed, if everyone followed the Pope’s teachings, AmFAR wouldn’t exist. It is an elementary truism that if lethal sex acts and drug use were curtailed, so, too, would AIDS. Yet that message is not something that AmFAR has been known to disseminate.
“No private sector institution has done more to service AIDS patients than the Catholic Church: it does more to alleviate the suffering of those with AIDS than all the activist organizations combined.
“Some people’s idea of helping AIDS patients is distributing red ribbons, others choose to blame innocents for the disease, and not a few choose to campaign for more research. The Catholic Church prefers to offer sound advice about the consequences of promiscuity, while simultaneously caring for those with full-blown AIDS. That is why it is unique and that is why the Pope is deserving of AmFAR‘s emulation, not disdain.”
The Catholic League is the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends the right of Catholics—lay and clergy alike—to participate in American life without defamation or discrimination.
