SAN ANTONIO • At an international conference addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic (now a pandemic) held in Vancouver in the early 1990s, a senior citizen addressed the gathering of 10,000 people. “I’m 68 years old, I’m a grandmother and I have HIV,” she said. “Now, some of you are wondering how I got it.” She paused. “It just doesn’t matter.”
    Today, about 14,000 new infections of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) occur worldwide daily. In the United States, it is estimated there are 40,000 new infections every year. The faces of those carrying the disease are those of grandmothers, babies, college women, businessmen. They are of all races, ages, nationalities and sexual orientations. They could be your son, your sister, your co-worker, your high school buddy. What they have in common is a disease that can be slowed, but not cured. And they are all God’s children.
HIV, the immunodeficiency virus that attacks the immune system and frequently develops into AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), has not gone away. Thriving in the darkness of stigma and isolation, it has mushroomed into a silent, relentless killer. And, unless we join hands in the spirit of Christ, reaching out to the afflicted and their loved ones, and addressing the causes and solutions, it will continue to spread and we are falling short as Catholics.

    The University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) addressed this issue in a panel, Catholic Responses to the HIV/AIDS Pandemic, held on Oct. 21 as part of their Distinguished Speaker Series. Panelists included Sister Mary Annel, MM, MD, a Mary-knoll Missioner in Central America for more than 30 years, who works as a medical doctor with the El Salvador Catholic AIDS Team’s integrated Health Care Clinic; Father Edward Kilianski of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, United States Province, who serves on the board of the National Catholic AIDS Network (NCAN) and has actively been involved in the HIV/AIDS ministry since 1989; and Dan Lunney, MTS, NACC, executive director of the National Catholic AIDS Network and hospital/hospice chaplain.

SISTER MARY ANNEL
    Sister Annel explained that her foundation’s fight against AIDS in El Salvador began 11 years ago, during which time they developed a preventative AIDS education program stressing participatory education. In addition, they have responded with workshops and clinics. “We’re not in competition with the Ministry of Health programs for people who are living with AIDS,” she said, noting her group responds to the needs of people living with AIDS within the parish framework.
   One of their discoveries was that their patients, due to poverty, were consuming only about 1000 calories a day instead of the requisite 2000 calories. This led to the establishment of a supplemental nutrition program. They also began several youth theaters, with youths acting as peer educators to other adolescents, “but always from the base of our Catholic faith and response,” Sister Annel added, “trying to get the church involved when it is possible.” They were fortunate in being welcomed by the archbishop of the diocese and formed into an archdiocesan team.
    The priest who first welcomed them told her, “We have our ideals in this church and we’re not going to change that respect for the dignity of every person and what true love is about, about commitment to one another, communication, respect for the dignity of every human being. Those are our basics.” It was a fruitful partnership.
   Sister Annel had always considered her own North American culture as a relatively “macho” society. “But it doesn’t have much on Latin America,” she said, adding that she no longer handles the cultural work. “It’s all done by Salvadorians, because I don’t want to give the impression that I’m criticizing Salvadorian culture,” she said. She observed things are in a state of transcultural exchange.
    She then asked two audience members to read from the script of one of her group’s socio-dramas, taking on the fictional roles of “Father Juan” and a young Salvadorian housewife, “Rosa.” Rosa relates to the priest how her husband beats her and their children, sleeps with other women and then forces himself on her. He also has AIDS. Instead of really listening to Rosa, the priest reminds her that her marriage vows were for good times and bad and “Right now you’re experiencing a bad time.” He goes on to tell her she needs to be more understanding of her husband and perhaps God is punishing her for her past sins. Her fears that her husband is going to die of AIDS, leaving her and the children homeless, and that perhaps she herself will be infected with AIDS by him, are ignored.
    Sister Annel went on to explain that in this socio-drama the wife is being marginalized by the older teachings of the church, while the priest is ignoring her dignity as a person and responding by rote from what he has been taught. “It’s not what we do for people, it’s how you listen,” Sister Annel said. “Real, true istening just really cuts the burden in half.”
    She noted, “One of the riches that we have from our U.S. culture is a respect for the dignity of every human being — man, woman and child, elder, sexual orientation doesn’t matter.” She added this is not as strong in the Latin culture, “so it’s something I bring as a gift.” She, in turn, feels gifted by the community ethics of the Latin culture she works with. “What I’ve learned is the richness of working with a team,” she said. “It’s part of the richness of Latin America.”
    There are many volunteers in the El Salvador programs, including three youth groups (80 to 90 adolescents), 35 buddies who visit persons living with AIDS in their homes, five people with HIV/AIDS who give testimony during the courses they teach, a mobile AIDS extension service, and other services to the sick.
    Sister Annel concluded by offering advice to those interested in AIDS ministry. “Investigate your reality,” she said, warning not to plunge in before analyzing what is the best approach. “Try and associate with an existing group whose vision you share,” she added. She also urged working in teams to avoid burn-out, studying participative education and, above all, having “a compassionate heart.”

FATHER EDWARD KILIANSKI
    Father Kilianski next addressed the gathering, noting he had been involved in HIV/AIDS ministry since 1989.
    He remarked that the enacted socio-drama “really struck a chord” with him, as it recalled many of the true life experiences he had heard about that drew him to the field of HIV/AIDS.
    He shared several personal stories, including one from his days as a young priest in 1984. “I can remember a mother coming to me and telling me that her son was dying of AIDS,” he said. “And his father would not come to the hospital room to see him because he was a homosexual.” Father Kilianski recalled talking with the father in the hospital parking lot. “I finally got him to go up to see his son,” he said, “but before he got to the room, his son had died. It was a horrible, horrible experience.” Later, that father went on to become one of Father Kilianski’s best volunteers in an AIDS program in Milwaukee.
    Father Kilianski also recalled the emotional impact of the grandmother who spoke at the HIV/AIDS conference in Vancouver. “It was yet a different face on the pandemic,” he said. “It wasn’t just gay men. It wasn’t just people of color. It wasn’t just drug users. It was really everybody!” This removed the moral issue that many had placed upon the disease back then, referring to AIDS as a “moral disease.” “It’s not a moral disease,” he said. “It’s a human disease.”
    He stated that today the disease is affecting more and more women, especially women in college, and is infecting adolescents at an alarming rate. “There are still 40,000 new infections every year in the United States,” he said. He attributes this to the lack of preaching about abstinence and protecting oneself, safe sex. It saddens him that “We still stigmatize people who have the virus today. We still stigmatize people who are living with and dying from AIDS.” This is especially true in the Latin culture.
    “But I have been heartened over the years by the church’s response to the virus,” he added, “not only here, but around the world.” He noted that around 25 percent of the response in the international community comes from the Catholic Church and that the pope has spoken out many times on respecting the dignity of all persons. “I think if we can respect each person in a way that shows that they have value, that they have worth, then the stigma will gradually go away,” he said.
     “I think that each of us together can help to build up the body of Christ,” he said, “if we respond to that part of the body of Christ that’s still going through suffering.”

DAN LUNNEY
    Lunney spoke on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, noting that the church is often criticized for its position on condoms. “But if we look at the teaching,” he said, “the church is teaching a holistic response to this. Condoms have been available and HIV is still with us. In fact, we are just at the beginning of this pandemic.” He stated the issues involved are more complex than the use of condoms, which is not a solution, and sees a need to “go to the well of Catholic social teaching … to find the responses that are adequate for dealing with HIV/AIDS.”
    “HIV/AIDS thrives where there is denial,” he said, pointing out that is one of the reasons why the National Catholic AIDS Networks has chosen as its patroness, Mary, Mother of God, Light in all Darkness. “HIV/AIDS thrives in darkness, and so one of our goals is to bring to light and to bring to discussion the various causes of HIV/AIDS,” he said.
    He observed further that we must be willing “to look at racism, sexism, poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources,” in addressing HIV/AIDS. He noted that in the United States, the average span of time between infection and symptoms is 10 years, while in El Salvador, due to poverty and lack of nutrition, that time span shortens to five years because the immune system is weakened.
    “Let me emphatically state,” he said, “there is no cure for HIV and AIDS. There are medications that can slow the progression of the diseases, but there is no cure.” And as good as the medications may be, they are often toxic, with profound side effects. Right now the emphasis is on retrovirals, and Lunney fears people may perceive this as being a solution, which it is not. “They’re part of the solution,” he said, “but until we start addressing the broader perspective — again, where Catholic social teaching can be our guide — we will not succeed in wholly addressing HIV and AIDS.”
    He noted a large percentage of the world in undeveloped countries struggle with access to clean water and other inequities. “We need to look at what are the systems that perpetuate the injustice and what are some things that we can do to address that,” he said, referring to the challenge that we are called to as People of God.”