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High praise for Pontiff
President inaugurates cultural center
US President George W. Bush dedicated the new Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in March, praising the Pope’s call for a renewal of the “culture of life.”
Speaking of the Holy Father’s grand contribution to humanity, Bush said: “The Pope reminds us that while freedom defines our nation, responsibility must define our lives. He challenges us to live up to our aspirations, to be a fair and just society where all are welcomed, all are valued, and all are protected. And he is never more eloquent than when he speaks for a culture of life.”
The President added:
The culture of life is a welcoming culture, never excluding, never dividing, never despairing, and always affirming the goodness of life in all its seasons. In the culture of life we must make room for the stranger. We must comfort the sick. We must care for the aged. We must welcome the immigrant. We must teach our children to be gentle with one another. We must defend in love the innocent child waiting to be born.
Responding to those words, most of the members of the crowd— including a number of Catholic bishops from the US and abroad, as well as Washington political leaders—leapt to their feet in applause. Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, a noted proponent of legal abortion, remained seated.
Touring the center, which includes a multimedia exhibit, an academic think-tank, and displays of some of the Pope’s possessions, Bush remarked, “Always, the Pope points us to the things that last and the love that saves. We thank God for this rare man, a servant of God and a hero of history.” He added, “His is not the power of armies or technology or wealth. It is the unexpected power of a baby in a stable, of a man on a cross.”
Both Rome and Krakow were considered as sites for the center, but John Paul selected Washington because he sees the city as “the crossroads of technology and the people,” said Father G. Michael Bugarin, the center’s director.
Stopping births, not AIDS
US efforts focus on contraception
In Africa the United States spends more money to prevent births—including abortion and sterilization campaigns—than to halt AIDS, which is still spreading at an alarming rate, according to the Population Research Institute (PRI).
AIDS has now killed 225 million Africans, and left dozens of millions of orphans as well as children whose parents cannot care for them because of the ravages of the disease. But PRI—which gives updated figures on North American aid to Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda—says that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) devotes most of its African spending to “aggressive propaganda” for sterilization and abortifacient pills, “rather than taking care of babies and orphans, the sick, and the hungry.”
In Nigeria, the most populated country in Africa with 109 million people, PRI reports, USAID spends $6.4 million on health care and assistance for children, whereas almost double that amount—$11 million—is spent for birth-control programs. In Tanzania, which has a population of over 33 million, PRI said only $2.5 million was assigned for 2001 for health care and assistance for children, while exactly twice as much—$5 million—was earmarked for family-planning efforts. Uganda, with more than 21 million people, received $2.8 million dollars to provide health care for children, and $7 million for birth control.