Tuesday, February 03, 2009
In a move that has AIDS advocates already lodging discrimination complaints against the Roman Catholic Church, an archbishop in central Mexico announced last week that any men seeking to become priests in the region must be HIV-negative.
Puebla archbishop Rosendo Huesca Pacheco said in press conference that any men seeking to enter the priesthood through the city's seminaries must take an HIV antibody test and post negative results. Those who test positive, he said, will be turned away.
"They undergo tests, including HIV, so that someone who is sick can't get in through the cracks," he said. "We pay attention to this. We are not asleep, but sometimes things get past us. But if you are sick, we do not accept you."
Pacheco also said gay men were banned from the priesthood.
The policy banning HIVers from the priesthood was implemented after local lawmakers said they intended to champion legislation that would allow government officials to press charges against priests who sexually abuse children. Pacheco never explained why he believes there is a link between HIV-positive priests and the sexual abuse of children. Brahim Zamora Salazar, director of the nonprofit organization Democracy and Sexuality, says that banning HIV-positive men from the church in Puebla is a violation of federal laws preventing discrimination against HIV-positive individuals. Salazar said that a group of leaders from nongovernmental organizations would be traveling to Puebla to personally hand copies of the laws to archbishop Huesca, since "it is obvious he doesn't have knowledge of it," reports the Mexican publication Proceso.
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