Activists and Clergy Try to Get the World’s Religions on the Same Page About Fighting AIDS

by Judy Martin

You could hear gasps across the hotel conference room which was filled with about a hundred AIDS activists and clergy. Then there was a veil of silence, before a thundering roar of applause erupted in response to comments made by pastor and AIDS activist Timo Frilander of FINNCHURCHAID.

“The Christian church understands itself as the body of Christ. And now we have to say that this body is sick. It has HIV/AIDS,” said Frilander. He went on to say that there’s been a poor reaction from religious leaders in addressing the AIDS pandemic. He explained, “As humanity, we are all connected. Theologically speaking, if we want to support the idea that together we are truly one body of Christ—then we must take responsibility for each other.”

Those statements galvanized the audience at a one-day AIDS Symposium which was part of the 2004 Parliament of the World’s Religions, held in Barcelona this summer. Frilander was one of the clergy people who participated in the program called, “Exploring the Face of AIDS.” It was organized by the Kashi Foundation—a spiritual interfaith service organization founded by humanitarian and AIDS activist, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati. For more than two decades she’s been committed to the cause, and in 1990 started The River Fund—a non-profit AIDS service organization. As a longtime Parliament trustee, Ma Jaya says it was imperative to address AIDS because the event is known as the largest gathering of religious leaders, interfaith advocates, and social activists examining world issues.  

Ma Jaya brought discussion of AIDS to the table at the Parliament in 1993, and when the Parliament reconvened five years later in South Africa, she helped to facilitate bringing an eighty-panel segment of the American NAMES Project/AIDS Memorial Quilt to South Africa.

The AIDS Symposium at the 2004 Parliament sought to explore the idea that religion and religious leaders could have an enormous impact on battling the AIDS pandemic. Worldwide, forty million people are currently infected. It was clear from the symposium that while many faith groups have made efforts in education and prevention, many more remain constricted by interpretation of scripture, boundaries of ignorance, prevalence of discrimination toward those who are positive, and ethical edicts determining sexual discussion.

“At the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, the world watched as spiritual leaders closed their hearts and their doors tightly, not even letting the breath of AIDS come in,” says Ma Jaya. She added that while religious leaders and institutions have come a long way, she often still hears that same story from people living with AIDS. Ma Jaya says religious institutions are not addressing the issue with unified educational standards that while promoting abstinence, also embrace other methods, ideologies, cultural differences, and tolerance.

“To eradicate this disease, we must educate our religious leaders and congregations, while encouraging open hearts. When the word gets out that people with AIDS are welcome to sit in their churches, kneel in their temples, and pray in their synagogues—dialogue begins and prevention can be spoken about without stigma,” explained Ma Jaya. Ma Jaya says religious leaders must be able to speak freely of sex, condoms, and prevention without judgment.

Rachel Mash echoes the sentiments of Ma Jaya. Mash is an Anglican reverend who works with people with HIV/AIDS in Cape Town, South Africa. Rev. Mash spoke on a symposium panel which focused on the treatment of people with AIDS within their religious institutions. One of the saddest things, Mash says, is that many people tell her the place they feel most rejected is in the church. “People tell me it’s not AIDS that is killing us—it’s the way we are treated. Unless we can combat stigma and take away the fear of people with AIDS, then the battle is far from being won,” says Mash.

Mash says it’s irresponsible for the church to only speak of abstinence and faith as the best tools to combat HIV/AIDS. Operating solely on those principles, she says, invalidates the experiences of many people. Children who have contracted HIV/AIDS in cases of sexual violence, she says for example, are the defenseless voices that are often not heard, and eventually persecuted because they have contracted the virus. Mash cites that seventy percent of young women in South Africa have their first sexual experience against their will. Furthermore, she adds, the myth that having sex with a virgin  cures one of HIV/AIDS, has only exacerbated the problem, and the alienation that children—as young as nine—have had to endure. That leaves them often turning to the church, she says, sometimes only to be turned away.

While there are numerous church AIDS programs throughout the world, attitudes about the most appropriate way to address the pandemic vary drastically. But it doesn’t mean the issue is being ignored, says Reverend Father Centurio Olaboro, a Catholic priest from the East African country of Uganda. Father Centurio lost three sisters to AIDS and now runs a center for 800 children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic named after Ma Jaya called Ma’s Orphan’s Providence Centre. There are an estimated 2.4 million orphans, representing nearly ten percent of Uganda’s population. 

“The Catholic Church has been among the first in the response to AIDS,” Father Centurio says. “As a faith-based community we believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Those commandments of God include abstinence and being faithful to one’s partner, and they are working in Uganda.” When asked about the use of condoms he says he does not oppose any approaches to battling the pandemic; although as a priest he adheres to the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Father Centurio adds, in his experience, the Church is also “moving along with the times” by educating about HIV/AIDS. He explains that the Catholic Church addresses AIDS because it’s about human rights, dignity, and following the principles of the Church. But Centurio acknowledges that there are divisions in the Catholic Church which still have fears about HIV/AIDS.

Kashi Foundation Executive Director Krishnapriya Hutner was one of the organizers of the AIDS Symposium. She says, “There is a great opportunity for religious communities and their leaders to make a difference in fighting AIDS by their commitment to their faith, their responsibility to embrace the dying and their dedication to their scriptures. But it appears that pleas for help in this extreme crisis fall mostly on deaf ears,” says Hutner.

There are faith-based programs working on preventing the spread of the disease within most religions; for example, the Balm in Gilead, Inc. It’s an organization which has mobilized more than 10,000 black churches across the country to openly help those living with HIV/AIDS and also cut down on HIV transmission. In Uganda, 850 Imams are educating their Muslim congregations about HIV/AIDS in their neighborhood mosques. Here in the U.S., the Buddhist AIDS Project, based in San Francisco, provides free information and referral services to people living with AIDS, including family and caregivers who are HIV-negative.

The Council on Foreign Relations’ 2004 report entitled, “Addressing the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: A U.S. Global AIDS Strategy for the Long Term,” calls the global pandemic, “one of the most pressing threats known to mankind.” Part of the strategy to eradicate the scourge of HIV/AIDS, according to the report, is to engage “faith-based organizations as critical partners in prevention, treatment and care interventions.”

Still, many faith-based organizations within the Roman Catholic Church, other denominations of Christianity, and various other religions refuse to go far enough in the battle to fight AIDS, says activist Ken South. Reverend South is with AIDS Action in Washington, D.C. He says, for example, the mention of sex is more often than not taboo—even if it means saving lives. “Our theology and especially our sexuality are still stuck in the third century. This Neo-Hellenistic world view is caught in times of rigid thinking,” South says. He went on to explain that it’s ironic that in a modern evolving world, religion has not been moved to evolve to reflect our changing society. “Until we get into the twenty-first century with an integration of sex and spirit, we are going to keep making the same mistakes,” he says adding that that kind of thinking will only make eradicating AIDS that much harder.

Reverend Ken South’s idea was the prevailing sentiment at the AIDS Symposium in Barcelona. Ma Jaya doesn’t mince words on the idea of religion adapting to the times: “Shame on religion if it doesn’t do everything it can to embrace people with AIDS and fight this pandemic. The stigma associated with people living with AIDS must be done away with—from the simple space of human dignity and compassion. Silence can no longer be tolerated.” In essence, the AIDS Symposium in Barcelona offered an open albeit time-constrained discussion on the issue and left no taboo stone unturned. The conclusion was that religious leaders must take more immediate action and responsibility as a credible voice in the world battling AIDS, or freedom from the devastating impact of AIDS might remain chained in fear and discrimination.

Judy Martin is a national radio correspondent who covers business and social issues. She has contributed to The Marketplace Report, World Vision Report, and NPR. She volunteers for The River Fund New York, a non-profit organization founded by Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati which helps people living with AIDS.

October 2004