Date: 30 Jan 2000 13:40:47 -0500
From: Wes676767@aol.com
To: CTRL@listserv.aol.com, snetnews@world.std.com
Subject: SNET: Vows Taken Seriously?


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Paper reports hundreds of priests have died of AIDS 
Copyright © 2000 Nando Media


KANSAS CITY, Mo. (January 30, 2000 1:39 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - 
AIDS has quietly caused the deaths of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in 
the United States although other causes may be listed on some of their death 
certificates, The Kansas City Star reported in its Sunday editions. 

In the first of a three-part series, the newspaper reported that its 
examination of death certificates and interviews with experts indicated 
several hundred priests had died of AIDS-related illnesses since the 
mid-1980s and hundreds more are living with HIV, the virus that causes the 
disease. The death rate of priests from AIDS is at least four times that of 
the general population, the newspaper said. 

Church leaders in the United States and at the Vatican declined requests to 
discuss the findings, the Star said. The Vatican referred questions to local 
bishops. 

Bishop Raymond J. Boland of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, said the 
AIDS deaths show that priests are human. "Much as we would regret it, it 
shows that human nature is human nature," Boland said. 

The Star sent confidential questionnaires to 3,000 of the 46,000 priests in 
the United States last fall, asking about AIDS and other issues, and received 
responses from 801 priests, a 27 percent return rate. 

Six of 10 priests responding said they knew of at least one priest who had 
died of an AIDS-related illness and one-third knew a priest living with AIDS. 
Three-fourths said the church needed to provide more education to seminarians 
on sexual issues. Asked about their sexual orientation, 75 percent said they 
were heterosexual, 15 percent said they were homosexual and 5 percent said 
they were bisexual. 

The Star said exact numbers of priests who have died of AIDS or become 
infected with HIV is unknown, partly because many suffer in solitude. When 
priests tell their superiors, the cases generally are handled quietly. 

The newspaper cited the case of Bishop Emerson J. Moore, who left the 
Archdiocese of New York in 1995 and went to Minnesota, where he died in a 
hospice of an AIDS-related illness. His death certificate attributed the 
death to "unknown natural causes" and listed his occupation as "laborer" in 
the manufacturing industry. 

After an AIDS activist filed a complaint, officials changed the cause of 
death to "HIV-related illness," the newspaper reported, but the occupation 
was not corrected. 

Farley Cleghorn, an epidemiologist with the Institute of Human Virology in 
Baltimore, said he has treated about 20 priests and religious-order brothers 
with AIDS, all of whom had kept it a secret. 

"The church and religious orders need to acknowledge that there is a problem 
- that priests have sex and they are susceptible to all sexually transmitted 
diseases, including AIDS," he said. 

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