Solidarity with vulnerable people and the respect for each individual's dignity are at the heart of the Catholic Church's work in Africa to stem the spread of HIV and care for people living with AIDS.
Fr Fratern Masawe, SJ, said when AIDS first began to afflict Africa 25 years ago, "few of us reacted well. People who were HIV-positive or suffered from AIDS could easily find themselves condemned, rejected, cast out and treated 'as good as dead'."
The Church has worked to prevent the spread of HIV, defend the dignity of people who are HIV-positive, and offer medical treatment.
"Abstinence and fidelity are the best ways to avoid HIV and tackle AIDS," Fr Masawe said.
Anglicans must accept all Catholic doctrine
Following the constitution recently announced by the Vatican aimed at accepting Anglicans in the Catholic church Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster said those who wish to enter the Church must recognise all Catholic doctrines.
He said that it would be a serious mistake to think that what Pope Benedict "has put in place is a kind of minimalist approach to picking bits of the Catholic faith that I like and then seeing myself as it were contained as a quasi-Catholic, not a real Catholic, under the umbrella of this constitution".
Cardinal critisises lack of religious formation
Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela, the head of the Spanish bishops' conference, said that the "deterioration of religious and moral formation in schools is good for no one, least of all for the young people".
Addressing the Spanish bishops' plenary meeting he said students "should not be trained only in practical abilities to construct a material world. We should be teaching people about corporal and spiritual existence, to aspire to overcome the limits of guilt and death, to uphold freedom and conscience, and to take personal and social responsibility according to the imperatives of justice, brotherhood and love."
Vampire film New Moon offers a 'moral vacuum'
The film reviewer of L'Osservatore Romano has criticised the teen-oriented vampire film New Moon, as a film that offers "a moral vacuum more dangerous than its deviant message".
Fr Franco Perazzolo, an official of the Pontifical Council for Culture, says the film, the latest in the Twilight Saga series, plays to the audience by using tricks, including the transformation of humans into werewolves and vampires.
The depiction of attractive young people experiencing supernatural powers offers an "explosive mix" for impressionable young viewers, he says.
Priests change religion to marry
The Catholic Church in South Korea has lost four priests to the Anglicans in recent years, with marriage cited as the most important reason.
"They want to marry and at the same time serve as pastors," Anglican Father Peter Lee Kyong-nae, a former Catholic seminarian, told the Asian church news agency UCA News.
Two other Catholic priests are currently preparing to become Anglican priests, he added. "The priests made an honest and courageous decision to leave the Catholic Church in order to build a family, and they gave up all the privileges they enjoyed in the Catholic Church," Fr Lee said.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)