"... Faced with one of the fastest-growing AIDS epidemics in the Western Hemisphere, church volunteers in this desperately poor Catholic nation are turning their backs on the Vatican's anti-condom stance, which is being upheld by new conservative Pope Benedict.
"It's a minor sin," says Wendy Guerra, head of "Program Open Door" in the sweaty city of San Pedro Sula. Hers is one of an army of Catholic-run AIDS prevention programs in tiny Honduras, home to some 60 percent of Central America's AIDS cases.
"As a Catholic charity we can't hand out condoms but we give advice about them and make sure people know where to get them," said Catherine O'Leary, a British nurse who runs the San Jose Hospice which took in Carlos when an AIDS-related disease blinded him.
A bustling industrial city that sprung up with the banana industry a century ago, San Pedro Sula crawls with prostitutes after dusk, thanks to a handful of nearby ports, and has so many HIV carriers it is dubbed Central America's AIDS capital.
With its chronic poverty, sprawling sex industry, violent crime gangs and macho culture, Honduras has been an easy breeding ground for the virus. Some 70,000 Hondurans are living with HIV/AIDS, nearly two percent of the adult population.
Among gay men and sex workers, the HIV rate is 10 percent.
Aid groups say that with the virus now spreading fast among the general public, which is less informed about the risks than sex workers, education on AIDS prevention is urgent.
"The thing is to try and save lives, which is just as important as focusing on unborn lives," said Guerra, explaining why she quietly advises HIV carriers to use condoms...."
Bien por esa gente, que no se deja cegar por ordenes que ni siquiera están basadas en el Evangelio. Si Jesús estuviera en Honduras, de seguro le diría a la gente que se cuidara.
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