<P> In November 1989 at the annual conference of the Pontifical Council at the Vatican, recognition was given to an American priest from Massachusetts, Rev James Martin Graham, who was the director of the Archdiocese of Hartford's Office of AIDS Ministry, who pleaded for better communication efforts between the Church and governmental health agencies to share information to better combat AIDS . As a result of his proposal, Graham was appointed by then Archbishop Fiorenzo Angelini as the director of the new International Christian AIDS Network (ICAN). As a follow up to this appointment, Archbishop Angelini traveled to the United States in June 1990 and visited Graham's Sts . Martin & James Respite, a hospice and living facility for HIV - positive and AIDS patients in Waterbury, Connecticut, where a 24 - hour care residence was named for him . Archbishop Angelini met with several of the patients and gave Father Graham a silver stalk of wheat that would serve as the handle on the door of the Respite's Chapel tabernacle . In an interview with American television, the Archbishop remarked that Graham's Respite was recognized by the Pontifical Council as a model facility that should be followed to make treatment and spiritual care of HIV - positive and AIDS patients available for all . The work of ICAN was short - lived, however, for Father Graham died in 1997 . </P> <P> Monsignor Mupendawatu said, in an interview on Thursday, July 21, 2011 with the semi-official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, that a papal foundation affiliated with the Pontifical Council, that is dedicated largely to AIDS patients, may expand its services to include a global program of distributing anti-AIDS drugs . </P> <P> The initiative would respond to a shortage of antiretroviral drugs and other drugs in poorer countries, where the vast majority of AIDS patients receive no adequate treatment . </P> <P> Mupendawatu is a delegate to the Good Samaritan Foundation, established by Pope John Paul II in 2004, to provide economic support to the sick who are most in need, particularly those suffering from AIDS . </P>

Pontifical council for pastoral assistance to healthcare workers