Pope calls for abstinence to fight AIDS

Despite being bedridden in a Rome hospital, where he continues to fight the flu and recovers from throat surgery, Pope John Paul II found the energy to again call for people around the world to practice abstinence or monogamy as the preferred way to fight the spread of HIV, Agence France-Presse reports. In a message delivered to Catholic bishops in Tanzania, which has about 2 million HIV-positive residents, the pope said, "Fidelity within marriage and abstinence outside it are the only sure ways to limit the further spread of infection. Communicating this message must be a key element in the church's response to the epidemic. It especially grieves me to consider the many thousands of children left as orphans in the wake of this merciless virus."