Bono: Do more to fight AIDS

Put up or shut up Christians, Bono challenged last week.

Christians need to do more to fight AIDS, the singer told a Chicago Sun-Times reporter, according to the newspaper.

"Christ's example is being demeaned by the church if they ignore the new leprosy, which is AIDS," he told the newspaper. "The church is the sleeping giant here. If it wakes up to what's really going on in the rest of the world, it has a real role to play. If it doesn't, it will be irrelevant."

More than 6,500 people in Africa die each day from the disease because they have no access to medical treatment. More than 40 million others are infected. Meanwhile, questions persist about whether U.S. drug companies who make AIDS medications are doing enough to make the treatment available for impoverished people in the developing world. Last winter, President Bush committed the U.S. to spending $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa over five years. Some critics, however, argue that he is not living up to that commitment.

About a million people in the U.S. have AIDS, and 20,000 died from it last year.

Bono told the Sun-Times that he thinks Christianity calls people to take radical stands on issues like AIDS.

"To some people the church is their ticket to respectability, a certain bourgeois point of view, a safety net for when they go to bed. My idea of Christianity is no safety net; [it's] a scathing attack on bourgeois values, and a risk to respectability, " he said. "By the way, I don't set myself up as any kind of Christian. I can't live up to that. It's something I aspire to, but I don't feel comfortable with that badge. It's the badge I want to wear."

During Advent, we remember that because of Jesus' birth "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Isaiah 9:1). Maybe Advent is time for all of us to take Bono up on his challenge and see what else we can do to learn more about AIDS or other problems in our world. Click here to read the entire article, "Bono issues blunt message for Christians" .

To read more about the world AIDS crisis, U.S. policy toward it and what you can do, please visit the Student Global AIDS Campaign website and the Global AIDS Alliance website .

Catholic Connections

The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.
- The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, a1965 Vatican II document.

Reflection Questions

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