By Gretchen Keiser

About a dozen priests from the archdiocese were among some 70 people from different denominations who met Oct. 24 to learn more about the disease AIDS and to talk about the pastoral needs of AIDS patients and their families.

Several of the priests interviewed later said that they have already been asked to counsel AIDS patients in Atlanta hospitals or they had encountered AIDS patients during regularly scheduled visits to Catholic patients in the hospital.

“In a little over a month...I’ve had two deaths (from AIDS), three patients and a fourth being readmitted” to the hospital, said Father Alan Dillman, who is pastor of Holy Spirit Church in northwest Atlanta and a hospital chaplain at West Paces Ferry Hospital. Four of the six people are Catholic, Father Dillman said, and the other two asked to see a priest because they wanted to join the Catholic Church. For himself in a little over a month’s time, Father Dillman said, awareness of AIDS and encounters with it have “moved from an academic question in the press to real flesh and blood people.”

The gap between publicity about AIDS and the reality of the disease, whose initials stand for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, was one of the focuses of the six-hour workshop called “Pastoral Care and AIDS.” Speakers and members of the audience commented upon the fear associated with AIDS in the public eye and the strong emotions generated by the fact that the majority of AIDS victims are homosexual men, bisexual men or intravenous drug users. However, the workshop also pointed out that AIDS has infected hemophiliacs, who need constant blood transfusions, and others who have contracted AIDS through contaminated blood products. It has also spread into the heterosexual population through sexual contact with those who are already infected, several speakers said. However, that is about one percent of the reported cases, they said.

In Georgia, there have been 247 diagnosed cases of AIDS, and only 10 are women, according to Margaret Draganac, a registered nurse who has been named AIDS Project Director for the state Department of Human Resources. Fifty-two percent of those diagnosed have died.

The disease is spreading rapidly, speakers said. Ms. Draganac said that 14,000 cases have been diagnosed in the United States at the present, but that 40,000 cases are expected to be diagnosed by the end of 1986. The state of Georgia is tenth in the nation of reported cases of AIDS, she said.

She emphasized that AIDS is a sexually transmissible disease or one spread by contaminated blood, not an illness spread by casual contact. Family studies where one person has contracted AIDS have not given any indication that it is spread by casual contact, she said. In addition, she acknowledged press reports that the virus believed to be involved in AIDS, called HTLV-III, has been isolated in the saliva and tears of patients. However, she said there have been “no cases reported in Georgia or in the U.S. transmitted this way.” If the virus could be transmitted through casual contact, “we would be seeing a lot more heterosexual cases,” she said.

Another medical aspect of the disease emphasized by the speakers is that AIDS is not a single illness, but a spectrum of illnesses and that a person infected by the virus can become ill to a point anywhere along the spectrum. At one end would be those who have been exposed to the virus and exhibit no symptoms of illness and at the other end would be those dying from a fully diagnosed case of AIDS.

Before reaching that extreme end of the spectrum, there are those who are also dying from a variety of causes, but who may not be formally diagnosed as having AIDS, the speakers said.

Social worker, Jody Wood, called the disease a “roller coaster” for victims because they will swing from extreme sickness, near death, to temporary recovery. Typically patients are in the hospital for long periods of time and then discharged and readmitted, she said. Loneliness, depression, isolation from friends and family, and severe financial problems are common for those on the AIDS spectrum, she said. Often a family finds out simultaneously that their son is dying and that he is homosexual, she said.

The basic need of AIDS patients for care was stressed by Father Eric Carpine, O.F.M., who has visited patients at Grady Hospital in the last six months. Father Carpine said the situation with the dying patients reminded him of the needs of his mother when she was dying of cancer. In his eyes, she was neglected until admitted to a special hospital in the area for the dying where particular care and warmth was provided. The AIDS patients, he said, need help eating their food, bathing and the need of visitors to listen to them. Because of the size of Grady Hospital and the demands upon the staff, he said that kind of close care from the staff is not possible and it has been the family or friends of the patients who have ministered to them.

Father Carpine said he had visited about four AIDS patients in the last six months who were either Catholic or had asked to see a priest. His longest contact was with one young man who has since died, he said.

The dying man “was most open. He talked about his past life, what he used to do. He cried openly about the devastation of the disease,” Father Carpine said, “but he never had any angry feelings toward God and the church. He felt no anger or guilt, but he was totally devastated by the disease.” In addition to Father Carpine, the dying man’s brother regularly visited him and cared for him, the priest said. He also praised the hospital staff at Grady and the chaplain’s staff who are ministering to some nine or 10 people with AIDS at the moment. Although the needs of AIDS patients are great, there is also confidentiality surrounding those who are ill with AIDS and help is likely to come only through directed channels.

Asked what he thought the church could do, Father Carpine said, “I really don’t know what we should do because it is a difficult situation. I would hope the church and lay people would be most attuned to the needs of the sick and dying persons.”

He also said that he has attempted in his visits “to allay the feeling of the sick and dying that ‘I’m being punished.’”

Instead, he said, as with all dying patients he has tried to emphasize that suffering and sickness can be an offering to God.

Father Dillman said that his perception of the illness and of those sick with AIDS has changed as he began to minister to the dying.

“You have a person who is very sick and wants to talk to a priest,” he observed. “The whole question of their sexuality, it was a non-issue for me as soon as I went into the room, as soon as I got through to talk to them.”

Two of the people who asked to see him were baptized into the Catholic Church, Father Dillman said.

He said that he saw part of the church’s ministry during the AIDS crisis as being to “destigmatize” those who contract the illness, “not to treat people as if they are somehow beyond the pale.”

“You are dealing with a person who needs ministry and love and care,” he said. “They are there and they are suffering and the Church’s ministry is going to be present to them.”