>From: "Peter McWilliams" <peter@mcwilliams.com>
>Subject: AIDS in the priesthood hidden
>Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 23:41:20 -0800
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>
>KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- 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, and 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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