I was going to post a nice, cheery “can’t wait for Christmas” ramble this week, but I’ll save that for later because a more pressing matter is at hand.
Tomorrow is World AIDS Day. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I hate this pandemic. I hate what it’s doing to workforces in developing countries, I hate what it’s doing to children – the way it’s killing them slowly or robbing them of their childhood as it leaves them orphaned and in charge of siblings. But more than that, I hate the stigma that still surrounds it, I hate the ignorance and judgment that comes from so many in the West, and I hate how little we’re doing about it.
I attended a seminar on HIV and AIDS in New Zealand recently. The person lecturing said someone called her recently to ask what they should do with a discarded tissue that had been used by an HIV-positive person. I’m not surprised – we like to think education and awareness has led us to a place of higher knowledge in this country, but because most of us are not confronted by the realities of HIV and AIDS every day I think it’s quite the opposite.
What those of us who care about slowing the tide of destruction HIV and AIDS is causing know is that stigma and discrimination in developing countries are our biggest barriers to any sort of success. Yet, we as Kiwis appear to suffer from it too, and I find the damage that this is causing hard to bear.
I’m going to quote two people I hold in high regard:
“Jesus did not say, ‘If I be lifted up I will draw some’, Jesus said, ‘If I be lifted up I will draw all, all, all, all, all.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“God is in the the slums… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunities and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.”
Bono
How do we get away with ignoring this in our country? How do we as Christians, and more specifically Catholics, get away with turning a blind eye? How do we get away with a discriminating immigration policy that stops people infected with HIV from entering this country? Are we really so naive and unfeeling as to think we can keep our heads buried in the sand about this? Are we really so stupid as to think we won’t be called to account about ignoring the needs of so many of God’s children?
- 38.5 million people are living with HIV – 24.5 million of those are in sub-Saharan Africa
- there are currently 12 million children orphaned by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa
- 1500 children under the age of 15 are newly infected with HIV every day
A very timely and vitally important reminder Captain.
Pope Benedict gave an excellent message for World AIDS Day last weekend.
You can read the speech imploring the Church to respond with compassion to the victims of AIDS here:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06112703.html
25% of the world’s AIDS victims are cared for by institutions of the Catholic Church or by Catholic nongovernmental organizations.
And they do need our financial support to keep doing this.
I know a couple of Catholic priests running orphanages for children with AIDS in Africa, and they are always in need of funding and support.
I think that through education we can correct the lack of education around HIV AIDS (much like was done regarding Leprosy).
I also see that Father Angelo D’Agostino, a Catholic priest who dedicated his life to serving African Children with AIDS died last week.
You can read about him and his work here:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=8123
Very true Capt’n.
Every year in New Zealand brings a new record for the amount of new HIV cases. But we are still among the lowest in the world for new HIV cases. Perhaps that accounts for some of the stigma attached to the disease?
But does anyone else think it’s interesting that there seemed to be more public awareness campaigns 15-20 years ago about HIV than there are today? Even though the number of cases continue to rise.
(remember that little girl that died of AIDS but helped run that big telethon type thing to raise money for AIDS awareness?)
That last statistic of your’s is truly frightening. It’s almost impossible to comprehend.
Though I’m not sure us Christians and Catholics are necessarily turning a blind eye. The Catholic Church is doing huge work in places like Africa, even though we don’t always hear about it.
But we definitely seem very isolated from the problem here, and so can very easily turn a blind eye.
Hi MacGyver,
Interesting points – I too often ponder the lack of public awareness now compared to a number of years ago. That’s surely got to have something to do with our rising HIV infection rate…
I agree our isolation means we can easily turn a blind eye. And I agree that our Church is doing a lot already, but I suppose my frustration is at how little we talk about it here. This goes back to the lack of public awareness, I believe, and because we get away with it. But I don’t think that’s always going to be the case.
Thanks for your comment though, I appreciate it
There is certainly a need for increased public awareness.
But, thanks to Hell Pizza and their “Lust” campaign, there are efforts underway to encourage people to front up to the facts about HIV/Aids and ways to prevent it and other STIs.
That’s sarcasm, in case the smiley doesn’t fully reflect it. What a joke those guys are, and trying to couch it as a “safe-sex message” rather than a shallow marketing gimick.
So true Scribe!
I was glad to hear that they have been found guilty of breaching advertising standards laws with their recent condom campaign.
What next?
A free IUD with your fries?
Maybe contraceptive ice-creams, so you can have unhealthy food and unhealthy sex at the same time!
Heaven Pizza
“For those who don’t want to go to Hell”
Heaven Pizza
“Our name may be cheesy, but so are our pizzas”
Hey Captain, nice work. I also struggle to understand why HIV and AIDS education has nearly vanished despite growing prevalence and its severity as a disease never diminishing. I do differ in your opinion though when you ask: “How do we get away with a discriminating immigration policy that stops people infected with HIV from entering this country?”
How can New Zealand (or any country for that matter) possibly have a Welcome-All policy with the HIV positive and those with AIDS? It might seem selfish and as though we are leaving people out in the cold but it’s not just our own individual health we put at risk, it’s also all the other national-level consequences that would come about. The extra strain on our health system would certainly be unwanted and would go on to effect our national economy as a result. Let’s face it, our laboratories are pushed to the limits as it is; drugs are expensive without enough government funding which itself doesn’t exist for our own epidemics.
I really think it’s obvious why we do exclude infected individuals but this is not to say these people should be ignored or subjected to our too-often blind eye.
I suppose my frustration is at how little we talk about it here.
I don’t think this is true in Catholic NZ.
All the letters to the editor of the NZ Catholic newspaper and the debates on this blog show that many Catholics are passionately concerned about AIDS and how to help those afflicted with this terrible disease.
God Bless
Hey MastersGirl,
I’m in two minds about the issue you raise #9.
I think that compassion is the key in regards to immigration policies around HIV.
I agree that we must consider why that person is seeking to immigrate to NZ, the family circumstances of that person, and what would happen to them if they were denied immigration.
As far as I’m aware we don’t deny immigration based on cancer (I know it’s not an infectious disease, but it will still be accost on our health system – either directly or indirectly).
I think that if an HIV Positive person has no real grounds to immigrate to NZ (no family, or job and they aren’t fleeing an evil regime, etc), and that there would be no harmful consequence to them being asked to return to their country of origin then I don’t have a problem with a closed border policy for HIV.
But if a person has family and a job here (which means they are paying taxes which contribute to the health system), or they are fleeing political or religious tyranny, or they will be seriously harmed by being denied immigration then I think they should be allowed into NZ.
Just as we need to avoid being blindly tolerant of everything, we must also avoid Utilitarian thinking which reduces a human person (which is a created good) to a mere object.
This leads to what is known as the Malthusian mentality (named after Thomas Malthus – 1766 to 1834); where we think that material resources are more important than the good of the human person, and that we must take steps against the dignity of the human person in order to protect our resources.
Ox:
“This leads to what is known as the Malthusian mentality (named after Thomas Malthus – 1766 to 1834); where we think that material resources are more important than the good of the human person, and that we must take steps against the dignity of the human person in order to protect our resources.”
Very true. This is one of the biggest philosophical errors of our time. Material Principles placed above Spiritual Principles.
Nice poist Captain.
Obviously something you are passionate about and good on you for caring so deeply about it.
The Church is extraordinary in its efforts to work with those suffering AIDS and alliviate their suffering. But the Church doesn’t just work in that area only, it looks to solves the problem at it root, which involves proper teaching and formation of the whole human person.
When I lived overseas, I lived with a doctor who headed up the largest AIDS clinic in France. He often travelled to AIDS conferences in Rome. At one particular conference, the possiblity of teaching abstinence was brought up as a solution to the problem. At the mere mention of this, apparently the whole auditorium, with thousands of medical professionals, burst out laughing…as if it was a complete joke….
Tells you something about the people who are trying to solves this problem, doesn’t it?
The observation I have is this:
1. AIDS cases keep rising here in NZ,
2. The level of availability of condoms and sex education increases…
It’s not perfect and some groups (ethnic, socio-economic, age, etc…) may be missing out.
So, even with the increase of sex-education, and distribution of condoms (which I completely disagree with on moral and logical grounds), the pandemic isn’t getting better, and in fact is worsening….at a very alarming rate.
This is also true in Africa by all accounts.
There certainly is less awareness of the suffering that comes about due to AIDS, due to less exposure in the media.
Can I suggest, that there is not a lack of public awareness to the dangers of unprotected sex….in fact, more than ever, young people seem to know all about sexually transmitted diseases….and how to use a condom….and all the details of sex….
The issue is that people seem resigned to the fact that we can’t seem to stop people running around everywhere just having sex with whoever they feel like. They’ve given up because it doesn’t seem to be working…and they can’t seem to work out how to deal with it…
Or…is it more becasue they refuse to acknolwdge, that the Catholic Church might be right after all, and they refuse to employ what the Church so wisely advises.
I am deeply concerned about this issue, and the suffering, and many other issues centrally located around this issue of sexuality; and in my experience, the only way to stop this problem is to teach people not to have sex, and to wait until they get married.
If people really want this scandal, and pandemic, and atrocity to go away, and for the immense suffering to cease, then people need to understand, that it’ll only happen when people learn to control themselves. This is what should be the biggest drive in the sex-education that is going on in Afrcia and NZ. Not how to put on condom.
The reason that I think that it is getting worse in Africa, is not because the Church is still teaching ‘no’ to contraceptives, but because so many organisations, including the very dangerous UN, advocate abortion, contraception, and sterlisation…which just further entrenches the mentality that one does not have to live with the consequences of one’s actions, i.e., I can have sex and not have to accept the natural object and consequences of the act.
If we continually produce ways for people to avoid responsiblity and consequences for their actions (babies, disease, emotional hurts, spiritual damage), we will, and are, ending up with an infantile society….a society where everybody acts like teenagers….selfish and self absorbed…thinking that we can go on acting this way and expecting science to bail us out of having to face up to one thing….we are mortal, and if we run around acting like animals with no control over our passions, we will reap what we sow.
If we sow in sin, we will reap death.
I’m n ot talking about those who contract AIDS through no fault of their own.
But even these who contract it innocently, are victims of this “sex crazed” culture that doesn’t know how to say “no”. So these people who run around just doing what they want, are indirectly hurting many many innocent children and others….through their selfish actions.
Captain, you obviously care alot about the victims of AIDS and that is a beautiful thing.
I encourage you to use your work, as a platform to promote and teach the Catholic position of abstinence to solve this problem, not condoms.
Hi MatersGirl,
I can’t believe I’m saying this
but I agree with Ox, and he’s summed it up quite nicely.
I’ll tie my response to Chris into this as well: We talk about HIV and AIDS, sure, but to what extent? How much do we talk about the actual virus and the details of it, and the ways to deal with it, and the love and care people who have it need?
MatersGirl, you mentioned putting our individual health at risk. Open dialogue about this issue would mean our individual health wouldn’t be at risk. Knowing how HIV is transmitted means protecting oneself against it. Hopefully, we all know how its transmitted, and there’s no really good reason why a person with HIV – if they are embraced by our society, given the correct education and encouraged to “live positively with HIV” rather than hide it and pretend they aren’t infected – should ever transmit it in a country like New Zealand.
Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) are expensive, yes. But they are only given when a person has progressed to a late stage in the virus. The onset of this stage can be delayed if a person’s general health is pretty good, so nutrition and exercise are obviously huge parts of this. Why deny people the chance to live in a country like New Zealand with access to good food, and clean air, which can help in their ability to cope with the disease?
Regarding cost to an already-stretched funding system, the reality is we have more than enough money in this country to look after our citizens and many others. Poor management and policies are the reasons behind our current crappy health system. In my opnion anyway…
Ah yes, JPIII, abstinence is a beautiful thing! There are thousands of people in the world living life fruitfully and faithfully and in purity.
A friend of mine showed me a book the other day that she got for her birthday and the page it opened on had in bolg black writing ‘The only disfunctional way to have sex is none at all’ – this to me summed up what we are being fed day in day out through all medias. It’s disgusting.
Sure I have been scoffed at and laughed at and criticised when I suggest people not continue in their sexual relationships and contraceptive ways – ‘You’re single, what would you know?’ –
What I know is what Our Lord teaches, purity. Being chaste is a fruit of truly loving, is it not? Loving all people and also loving yourself as a creation of God.
Note Above – when I said thousands I meant an unknoweable number… not literally a couple of thousand in the entire world…
Interestgin link that just turned up on Stuff.co.nz
These men must know to some degree, the risk theyre taking, but still CHOOSE to do it.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3887031a11,00.html
The issue here isn’t education, I don’t think, but self control.