The Church, Sex and AIDS
- Category: Faith
- Date 13-10-1996
- 948 views
In his book, ‘AIDS - Meeting the Community Challenge’ (edited by Vicky Casstick), Cardinal Basil Hume underlines the general outlook of several religious backgrounds towards AIDS.
He wrote, “Aids has presented a set of specific questions to the Church … challenged our moral theology, our educational systems, our ministry to the sick and the dying … (thus) Christians can seem rather uncertain about how to respond to Aids.
“The response of the Church will have to be swift, imaginative and radical. Our future as a society depends on our rediscovery of a strict moral code. Only in this way can we safeguard and develop what is noblest and best in human nature. This solution to the moral problem which lies behind the questions of public health is not to be found in declarations by experts but in the perceptions and spiritual renewal of the whole people of God.”
About the attitude towards Aids victims, the Cardinal notes, “The Church must clearly condemn sin but never disown a sinner. It would be wrong to give the impression that all who suffer from Aids do so as a result of wrongdoing. We have to learn how to live and love in a more genuinely human way … for … the message of Jesus Christ is that life is to be found in and through death.
“Our moral statements will mean little and may not be heard, unless we are seen to be evidently, obviously publicly committed to cherishing the bodies of those with Aids,” he writes.
“The Church is concerned with truth,” he adds, (and if part of that truth is that dangerous behaviour brings disaster, the Church must say so).
“Jesus showed particular compassion for the outcasts … he was found offering care and compassion where no decent person could go, so if the sick are worthy of God’s love and care, the Christian will be in the foreground of caring for Aids sufferers. Christian care for the sick is an encounter with the Christ who is thirsty and ill.”
“These words may shock us, but it is the shock of discovering what we must know if we are to serve people with Aids.”
“Aids patients bear the burden of knowing that they will die within a short time and may well turn to the Church for reassurance and support and it would be scandalous if this were not easily and immediately available,” Hume writes.
“The Church must not judge them for there is no way the Church can offer any pastoral help unless we have emptied from our minds the lingering suspicion that God may be using this illness to punish anyone.”
Regarding the stand of the Church, the Cardinal declares, “The Roman Catholic Church urges everyone to rule out sex before marriage and choose a lifelong partner who shares your moral convictions. To advocate abstinence from sex before marriage and faithfulness within it is to proclaim the traditional Christian teaching. But the world today no longer accepts this teaching.”
“The catastrophe of Aids is challenging us urgently to present the Christian teaching in its most persuasive light. So, Christianity is faced with a new situation which is likely to remain with us permanently. The world in its attitude towards sexuality has sanctioned the goodness of sexual activity.”
“The Catholic Church cannot be expected to lend support to any measures which tacitly accept, even if they do not encourage, sexual activity outside marriage. Christians (further) argue that the virtue of chastity consistently taught by their faith is the sure preventive against Aids,” the Cardinal asserts.
The attitude of the Orthodox Church (in this book) is; “Faced with Aids, the Church has first of all the duty and the ability to announce that faith, hope and love are still possible. Aids is a divine visitation upon the permissive society; a blessing that will restore Christian marriage and morality to the public sector.”
In the Jewish view, a question is set, “Can a disease like this one (Aids) be attributed to divine wrath and altogether be judged in moral terms?”
The answer in the book is, “We are certainly never entitled to declare a certain form of suffering as punishment for a particular manifestation of wrongdoing … so such simplistic relationship between evil and misfortune. Aids people suffer no vengeance, but they probably pay the inevitable price for moral negligence or turpitude.”
Great concern, however, is shown that doctors and political leaders are urging men to use condoms to prevent infection (the Churches of Reformation accept this).
In the Jewish view, “The provision of condoms; condoning and facilitating sexual irresponsibility, is hardly the answer even if they temporarily reduce the transmission of Aids. They would increase the ravages of personal degradation and social disintegration and encourage indecent conduct.”
In the Catholic view, the Cardinal wonders, “How can any appeal for faithfulness be heeded when there is on all sides explicit encouragement to promiscuous behaviour and frequent ridicule of moral values? Society is in moral disarray for which we must take our share of blame” (as a Church).
“The Roman Catholic Church is being urged to modify its position to the use of condoms and its condemnation of sexual activity outside marriage. There are, however, serious matters of principle which the Church is not at liberty to ignore.”
The Cardinal continues, “We do not need to be judgemental in caring morally and demonstrating by our attitude that we have moral standards which matter to us.”
“The government would be wise to avoid giving out free condoms because … free condoms would seem a positive invitation to sexual promiscuity…. Condoms per se may not be deterrent to Aids …. Can a condom regime be maintained on a long-term basis without reinforcement by some more fundamental behaviour change?”
Cardinal Hume challenges Christians, “A lot of our discussions of moral theology are attempts to excuse ourselves from being involved. Faced with sex and death, it is easy for morality to take refuge from these painful realities. Much that is perceived of as morality may be the flight from chaos.
“Any service to the sick is not merely a matter of bringing Christ to others but meeting him in them for Christ always encounters us in people in need: ‘as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did me” (Matthew 25:46).
Venansio Ahabwe, Teacher of English Language and Literature in English, Immaculate Heart Girls’ School, Rukungiri.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: The Sunday Vision