Another media smear

More outrage in Belgium as Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Léonard, is slammed for comments in a book.

From the Sydney Morning Herald's report

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium sparked an uproar on Friday after the release of a new translation of a book in which he says the AIDS epidemic is a "sort of inherent justice" resulting from the "mistreatment of the profound nature of human love".

Note well the use of selective quotes to report what the Archbishop actually said.

the report continues

Coming just weeks after a report that detailed the abuse of hundreds of children by Catholic priests over several decades in Belgium, the comments of Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard has plunged the Church into a fresh controversy.

Political leaders, media, medical institutions and gay rights campaigners have all lined up to denounce his words.

After a non sequitur about the abuse scandal we are lead to a paragraph introducing the Archbishop's critics and if you follow the link you can read the litany of outrage provided by "[p]olitical leaders, media, medical institutions and gay rights campaigners".

So what did the Archbishop actually say?

What do you think about AIDS? Do you consider the disease as a ‘punishment from God for the sexual revolution?

“Someone once asked John Paul II if AIDS was a punishment from God. He then wisely answered that it is very difficult to know God’s intentions. I myself don’t reason in those terms at all. So I do not see this epidemic as a punishment, but at the most as a sort of immanent justice, sort of like how, in ecology, we are faced with the consequences of what we are doing to the environment. Maybe human love also responds when she is treated badly, without the need of a transcendent source. Maybe it is a sort of immanent justice, but as far as the concrete causes are concerned, doctors should some day be able to say how this disease came to be, how it was initially transmitted and then spread further… But considered more generally, I stick to something in the order of a sort of immanent justice. Badly handling physical nature causes it to treat us badly in turn and badly dealing with the deeper nature of human love will ultimately always lead to catastrophes on all levels.” Msgr. Léonard – conversations, pp. 173-174.

The Archbishop in an attempt, to get ahead of this, gave a news conference in which he said

Clarifying his remarks in a news conference, the archbishop said that “it was not about AIDS from a blood transfusion or as an illness with which someone has been born.”

“If someone gets lung cancer from smoking, the cancer is a sort of inherent justice,” he added. “The actions, consciously done, have a result.”

Now there's a thing, liberals disapprove of smoking so pointing out that smoking might give you cancer is no big thing but pointing out promiscuous, unnatural sex may lead to life threatening illness - well that is just not on. It's discriminatory.