INTRODUCTION:
Despite efforts to
reduce the prevalence and impact of HIV and AIDS in India through prevention
and treatment programmed, reports continue to show a significant increase in
HIV and AIDS prevalence.
The current estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS
is at least four million in India and probably rather more – with a national
prevalence level of 0.8 per cent. In the World since we have
no cure for the HIV AIDS. The
Church and each individual must focus on caring
for the psychological and mental welfare of people living with HIV/AIDS. And
this is the duty of the believers to look after and to care and to love such
kind of people and the Church must also take part without a wall to all kinds
of people and should look after with love since all are the children of God.
THE CHURCH WITHOUT WALL TO PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS
A frequently asked question is: What does the Church say about AIDS?
Other questions often stand behind this one: Is AIDS is a form of God's
punishment? How should we response to a people living with HIV/AIDS? Besides
suffering from AIDS, why do I suffer so much prejudice and rejection, even from
other members of the Church? Can we do anything about this world-wide epidemic?
This maybe the question asked by the
people living with HIV/AIDS to themselves.
The Church, in fact, has spoken clearly and powerfully about HIV/AIDS.
Based on the Bible and on the Church's long tradition and especially on the
life of Jesus, the Church's teachings have stressed 1) the value and dignity of
every person, 2) the rights and responsibilities of society, 3) the love and
compassion of God.
Human Dignity
Firstly, if we take the statement of Roman Catholic in a Catholic
conference held in Vatican AIDS conference, 1989 "Made in God's image and
likeness, every human person is of inestimable worth. All human life is sacred,
and its dignity must be respected and protected" "The Gospel demands
reverence for life in all circumstances" "Discrimination and violence
against persons with AIDS and with HIV infection are unjust and immoral"
(Called to Compassion and Responsibility). "The necessary prevention
against the AIDS threat is not to be found in fear, but rather in the conscious
choice of a healthy, free and responsible lifestyle" (Pope John Paul II to
a Vatican AIDS conference, 1989).
The message is clear: every human being is created in God's image,
redeemed by Jesus, and called to everlasting life. Accordingly, all persons
have worth and dignity, rooted simply in who they are (and not in what they do
or achieve). This conviction about the preciousness of every life grounds the
Church's teachings about HIV/AIDS. People living with HIV/AIDS face
discrimination which is dehumanizing and suffering which strips the person's
sense of worth and dignity. Of course, this worth also needs to be cherished
and protected by all of us, by individuals and organizations, especially the
Church. All forms of discrimination are wrong, whether in housing, jobs,
insurance, health care, or religion.
Solidarity
The Church's teachings speak extensively about the rights and
responsibilities of society. "As members of the Church and society, we
have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with and reach out with compassion
and understanding to those exposed to or experiencing this disease. We must
provide spiritual and pastoral care as well as medical and social services for
them and support for their families and friends.” "
A comprehensive AIDS education then has to place AIDS within a moral
context; impart accurate medical information and challenge misinformation;
motivate individuals to accept the responsibility for personal choices and
actions; confront discrimination and foster the kind of compassion which Jesus showed
to others; model justice and compassion through policies and procedures"
Grace
Everything the Church has said about HIV/AIDS has been stated in the
context of faith and trust in a good and gracious God. "While preaching a
Gospel of compassion and conversion, Jesus also proclaimed to those most in
need the Good News of forgiveness. The father in the parable of the prodigal
son did not wait for his son to come to him. Rather, he took the initiative and
ran out to his son with generosity, forgiveness, and compassion" "The
love of God is so great that it goes beyond the limits of human language,
beyond the grasp of artistic expression, beyond human understanding . . . . God
loves us all with an unconditional and everlasting love"
"The cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ shed light on the
true meaning and value of human suffering. The Lord invites everyone to join
him on the road to Calvary and to share in the joy of Easter". "The
threat of AIDS now confronts our generations with the end of earthly life in a
manner which is all the more overwhelming because it is linked, directly or
indirectly, to the transmission of life and love . . . . It is all part of the
difficult problem of the meaning of suffering and of the value of all life,
even when it is damaged or weakened" The various Church statements about
HIV/AIDS always affirm the love and compassion of God. Jesus has revealed a God
who loves each of us unconditionally, a God who forgives our sinful actions.
God is not vengeful. God respects human freedom, calling us to love and
responsibility, but not interfering even with destructive choices. HIV/AIDS is
a human illness not a punishment from God. The statements are very clear about
these points. HIV/AIDS causes great suffering and death. And so the Church
teachings address this sober reality, helping people to stand before the
mystery of suffering and to realize that even here God's tender mercies can be
experienced. The teachings neither downplay the immensity of the suffering nor
promote a passive acceptance. Rather the teachings urge all Christians to model
their lives after Jesus, trusting in God, bringing comfort to those in need,
and confronting oppressive structures and situations.[1]
Church as Servant,
Teacher and Prophet in Today's HIV/AIDS Crisis
When
Jesus had finished washing the feet of his disciples during the last supper, he
gave them a fundamental commission and orientation: “you call me Master and
Lord, and rightly – so I am. If Lord, then, your Master, and I have washed your
feet, you must wash each other's feet. I have given you an example so that you
may copy what I have done to you.” (John 13: 13–15).
The Church as Servant
The church's response to this challenge
of the Lord is to be a servant, to serve the people of God in their needs. In
India and many countries, the greatest needs of God's people today are those
arising out of their experience of HIV/AIDS. They are suffering pain, grief and
human loss on an unimaginable scale. They are coping, and coping magnificently,
with orphans in numbers, which far exceed anything previously known in human
history. In their sufferings, dignity, and patience, the people are showing that
their joyous and hopes, their grief's and anxieties are not only those of the
followers of Christ. They are the joys and hopes, the grief and anxieties of
Christ himself among us today.
In our bewilderment and puzzlement as
to how to deal with the problems that HIV/AIDS brings, let us be grateful for
the way the Church and its members have shown themselves so faithful to what
the Lord asked of us, that we copy what he has done. And let us continue to
examine how in our lives, our families, our small Christian communities, our
parishes, our religious communities, our organizations, we can extend that
response of service.
At this time more than at any other;
let us see how we can be Christ to our suffering brothers and sisters, to
bereft orphans, to vulnerable children, to grandparents facing yet again the
challenge of rearing children.
The Lord also commissioned his Church
to teach: “go, therefore, make disciples of all nations.... and teach them to
observe all the commands I gave you.” (Matt.28: 19.20).
The Church as Teacher
The teaching role is inspired in part
by the recognition of how the Lord himself worked with people. He did not
hesitate to associate with prostitutes and sinners. He never rejected them,
never spurned them. Following this example, the Church wants us to be always
accepting of the persons infected with HIV, never to spurn the person suffering
from AIDS. Because of the inspiration it draws from the life and practice of
the Lord, the Church encourages openness about the disease.
It acknowledges the brokenness and
weakness of these members – clergy, religious and lay. It acknowledges that
they may be HIV-infected, but it sees that this is a reason for service and
compassion, never for condemnation. The Church also teaches that even
though HIV/AIDS is something new in the experience of humanity, it is not a
curse sent by God. It is not God's punishment on any human being for
promiscuity or sin. God is every best loving instinct in is, magnified to
infinity. God is the one who, like a mother, teaches us to walk, takes us in
her arms, and holds us close to her face. God is the one who personally entered
into our sufferings in the death of Jesus on the cross, so that we might know
that God understands suffering and death from inside.
Today, God still shows that mysterious,
deep, powerful love by suffering in a person dying from AIDS, by grieving in a
family that loses its loved one, by crying in an orphan left without mother or
father. “God so loved the world that he gave his only son... that the world
might be saved through him.” (John 3:16)
The Church as a Prophet and Leader
At the Last Supper, Jesus promised his
disciples that he would send them “another Paraclete to be with them forever,
the Spirit of truth whom the world can never accept” (John 14:17). He promised
them that as his Church they would understand things in ways that the world
does not understand them and that they would be strengthened to proclaim these
insights fearlesslesly.
The Church has always exercised this
prophetic, leadership role. It has pointed out new directions. It has resisted
oppressors. It has sided with the weak and powerless. It has always taken to
heartas we have seen in the scripture+ scattering the proud hearted, casting
the mighty from their thrones, raising the lowly. The whole thrust of Church teaching and
action in favour of the poor is expression of this. Its deep concern for
justice, for an equitable distribution of the goods of this world, for the
preservation of the world's ecological heritage, springs from the same
prophetic charism.
At the same time, the church recognises
its fragility and brokenness. It acknowledges that many times it has not spoken
out fearlessly enough or strongly enough. It is aware that at times it has
repeated the weakness of Simon peter: it has temporised, it has been too
cautious and fearful, and it has been too silent.With HIV/AIDS it has been the
same as with other areas. The Church has spoken and acted for the lowly, for
the afflicted. It has reached out in prophetic gestures to those that are
afflicted. A dramatic expression of this occurred in a nearby country when the
local priests to visit a woman who had AIDS because she had been a sex worker.
When the bishop heard about this, he
made a point of visiting the woman regularly until her death and celebrated her
funeral mass with solemnity in his cathedral.
We need more leaders like that bishop.
We need more prophetic gestures of this kind. We need the church to come out
now and use its powerful moral influence and leadership to break once and for
all the choking silence that surrounds HIV/AIDS.
This silence leads to stigma and
discrimination, and all three – silence, stigma and discrimination – only serve
to make it easier to transmit the disease[2].
CONCLUSION
The way we treat HIV/AIDS patients today is almost the same as the way
persons with leprosy were
treated in the time of Jesus. In the first century, when someone
discovered that they had the chronic
infectious disease called leprosy, they were immediately ostracized.
They were kicked out of their homes, excluded from synagogue and Temple
worship, had to live outside the city walls and were virtually banished from
human society. People with leprosy had to shout “unclean, unclean” wherever
they went, always remain at least six feet away from other people, and avoid
all human contact with other people. However, Jesus followed none of these
prohibitions against people with leprosy. Matthew tells us that, when Jesus
came down from the mountain where he gave what we call the Sermon on the Mount,
a leper came and knelt down before him and said “Lord, if you
choose you can make me clean.” (Matt. 8: 2). But Jesus responded in a
way that shocked them all. Rather than fearing the leper and keeping his distance,
Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the man with leprosy saying, “I do
choose. Be made clean!” (Matt. 8: 3). Immediately, the man with leprosy was
healed. When others excluded, Jesus included. When others reacted out of fear,
Jesus responded with compassion. When others avoided human contact, Jesus
reached out and touched the excluded one with his healing hand.[3]
Just as lepers were excluded and avoided in the time of Jesus, so
persons with HIV/AIDS are frequently excluded and avoided in our world today.
People living with HIV/AIDS are in all of our communities, Church and around
the world; so the only question is, do we banish them because of our fear and
our judgments, or do we follow the example of Jesus Christ and reach out to
them with love and compassion?
BIBILIOGRAPHY
1.
Overberg Kenneth
R.: What
Does the Church Say About HIV/AIDS?, Xavier University in Cincinnati,1993
2.
.Kent M Millard: How Would
Jesus Respond to Persons Living With HIV and AIDS, Abingdon, 2003
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