MILWAUKEE, Wisc. (AP) — A Wisconsin bishop told a church-based AIDS ministry to stop organizing delegations to march in an annual AIDS fundraiser walk because some participating groups promote homosexuality, a newspaper reported.

La Crosse Bishop Raymond Burke wrote a letter in May 2002 to Marge Schumann, coordinator of the diocese-supported Central Wisconsin HIV/AIDS Ministry Project in Stevens Point, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The letter warned the ministry not to participate in an annual AIDS walk in Milwaukee.

Two groups that benefited from the walk — the Milwaukee Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center and YWCA Rainbow Alliance for Youth in La Crosse — promote homosexuality, the letter said.

“By participating in AIDS Walk Wisconsin, the Central Wisconsin HIV/AIDS Ministry would be cooperating materially with groups that act against the moral law,” Burke wrote.

Word of the letter came the same week that Burke was named archbishop of St. Louis and news broke that he wrote letters to Catholic lawmakers saying they should vote in line with the church on abortion and other issues.

Diocesan officials made it clear the AIDS ministry could not apply for funding from the diocese’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development charity if it continued to participate in the AIDS walk, the Journal Sentinel reported.

The ministry had a group that participated in the walk, raising about $5,000 a year in pledges, Schumann said. The group didn’t participate in the walk last year or this year after it received Burke’s letter.

Schumann said she regretted losing the pledge money. The ministry used it to pay for supporting people with HIV and AIDS, she said.

“And if I was going to make a stink about this, I could have prevented myself from doing the work I’m doing,” she said. “So we agreed to disagree, and we moved on.”

Burke told the Journal Sentinel the diocese continues to provide about $17,000 annually to the ministry and asks every parish in the diocese to give $250 each to the group.

But he said he wouldn’t allow the group to participate in an activity that promotes a lifestyle contrary to moral law.

Milwaukee LGBT Center community relations director Patrick Flaherty said the organization doesn’t promote homosexuality but does run an AIDS prevention program for gay youths.

“We think keeping young gay people HIV-free is a laudable goal,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that the bishop does not feel the same.”

The AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin runs the AIDS Walk, which raised $502,000 this year. Center president and CEO Doug Nelson said Burke’s order to the ministry shocked him.

“It’s just astonishing that they (the ministry) would be ordered not to participate,” he said.

Nelson said he wrote a letter to Burke asking him to reconsider his order.

The Journal Sentinel reported that Burke wrote in reply:

“The AIDS Walk raises money for organizations that actively and publicly promote homosexual activity, thus cooperating in the activities of these organizations and giving them a kind of legitimacy in the public forum,” Burke wrote to Nelson. “This is completely unacceptable.”

The Rev. Michael Hammer, director of Catholic AIDS Ministry for the Milwaukee Archdiocese, said his participation in the AIDS Walk doesn’t promote homosexuality. Instead, it helps pay for care of AIDS and HIV sufferers, he said.

“There are 680,000 Catholics in the Milwaukee Archdiocese and, you know, we all don’t think alike,” he said. “And not all bishops think alike, either.”