FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
In our second piece or article on HIV/AIDS, we reflect on our attitude towards those persons living with HIV.
With many other Christians, the Catholic Church is deeply and widely involved through various organizations in the global care of patients affected with HIV-AIDS and the fight against its spread. Following Christ, the Church is committed to be compassionate with all, in particular with people on the margins of life, namely the poor, the sick, the migrants, the refugees, the elderly… And compassionate with persons living with HIV. This especial compassion implies fighting stigmatization and discrimination.
Fighting discrimination of persons with HIV
Many people and Christians are fighting against the still existing stigmatization or discrimination of those who have contracted HIV. Hence, many persons living with HIV feel the evil effects of the stigma, that is, loneliness, depression, and guilt. In this context, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) is committedly campaigning to fight “the stigma faced by people with HIV amid rising infection rates which are partly blamed on social bias.” The NCCP comments that it is stigma that prevents people vulnerable to HIV infection, which often leads to AIDS, from going for detection tests and early treatment.
The followers of Christ are to imitate the life and teaching of Jesus. Therefore, their attitude towards persons living with HIV ought to be non-judgmental or condemnatory, but open, respectful and helpful. The Church urges continually Christ’s followers to be close to the marginalized in our world, including those affected and discriminated against because they are persons with HIV. The “least” for the world, who are “the first” for Jesus, ought to be given preferential love: these persons represent the Lord in a very special and unique way. Jesus words in his Parable of the Last Judgment continue ringing in the ears and hearts of his followers: “What you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me” (Mt. 25:40). In their beautiful pastoral letter on AIDS, entitled “In the Compassion of Jesus,” the Philippine Bishops tell us powerfully: “We invite all persons of good will to be in solidarity with HIV/AIDS patients. They are our brothers and sisters. We see in their faces the suffering image of Jesus himself” (CBCP, In the Compassion of Jesus. A Pastoral Letter on AIDS).
Facing persons living with HIV
What ought we to do facing HIV/AIDS patients? We all are asked by our common humanity and our faith in God to be just to them: we are all equal in dignity and rights. Moreover, we are called to be in solidarity with them: they are our brothers and sisters. Justice as respect for the equal dignity and rights of every person, and solidarity with all – members of the same human family – as compassionate solidarity are the two basic ethical categories to respond to HIV/AIDS from our faith in Jesus, who is God’s face of fraternal justice, of unconditional love and limitless compassion.
In the context of HIV/AIDS, solidarity is significant to four groups of persons, namely, the healthy, the potentially affected persons, the affected by HIV, and the sick living with AIDS (cf. Reinhard Law, Problemas bioéticos del SIDA): (1) Solidarity of the healthy with those affected by HIV/AIDS means no discrimination, but help. (2) Solidarity of those potentially affected with those who are healthy calls the potentially affected to submit themselves to voluntary HIV/AIDS testing. (3) Solidarity of those affected with those not affected involves for the affected to act responsibly and ethically concerning sexual actuation. (4) Solidarity of persons with HIV/AIDS with those without it implies for the sick to avoid the transmission of the infection.
If these four groups of men and women would fulfill their duties, there would not be much need of many laws on the matter. However, because of human nature, not all our fellow human beings and brothers and sisters in Christ will be responsible persons. Hence, the need of pertinent laws to protect the healthy, and likewise to protect the affected with HIV/AIDS.
HIV/AIDS, God’s punishment?
Some Christians speak of HIV/AIDS as God’s punishment – due perhaps to an immoral and promiscuous life. To us, this seems a pharisaic or legalistic attitude at the objective level (subjectively, we do not judge), rooted, perhaps, in a wrong or incomplete image of God. I remember vividly the case of a young woman with HIV/AIDS. Maria Jose Frances, a Catholic journalist, who died on December 5, 1994, after four years of continuing suffering, wrote: “I received a blood transfusion only, and they put in my blood the most terrible disease of the century. In less than a year, I lost my work, my husband, economic stability, health and even the hope of a death with dignity. Why do you (God) do this to me? What kind of heroine do you consider me? I know: I am a sinner; but I will never believe that you are punishing me for something I did. If it were so, where would then be your message on the lost sheep and on the feast in the Kingdom after the conversion of a sinner?”
To say that HIV/AIDS is God’s punishment to great sinners (let us remember the Book of Job) appears to convey the idea that God is a vengeful and punishing God. But the God of Jesus Christ is love – always merciful and compassionate. Jesus, the Son of God, is indeed the Good Samaritan, and the model of solidarity with persons living with HIV/AIDS – of solidarity as compassion. As Christians we are asked by our faith not to be condemnatory: stone throwing is not Christian (cf. Jn 8:10-11). And to be humble: “He who is without sin, let him throw the first stone” (Jn 8:7). To be compassionate is the best way to show real solidarity. The merciful face of Jesus is found in “the least, the lost and the last.” Certainly, solidarity includes justice; but the justice of Jesus is charitable, fraternal justice.
Facing the tragedy of HIV/AIDS, ethics – and doubly so Christian ethics -, pronounces a word: compassion! Writes Pope Francis in his latest Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad): “Even when someone’s life appears completely wrecked. Even when we see it devastated by vices or addictions, God is present there” (GE, 42).
Let me close our reflection on HIV/AIDS with the essential words of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP): “Every person, regardless of social class, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, drug use or sex work is deeply loved by God.”
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