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By Priscilla Greear
ATLANTA—When serving as pastor at Sacred Heart Church, Father
Steven Yander, now chaplain at Saint Joseph’s Hospital, encouraged David
Caron to visit an AIDS ministry meeting in 1992 at the church. Caron, a
corporate executive, was diagnosed with HIV in 1988.
While about 30 of Caron’s former coworkers “dropped me
(as friends) like a hot potato,” he found ministry members to be kind,
accepting and non-judgmental. At times when he hasn’t felt well,
they’ve visited and prayed with him and have brought food. At that first
meeting “it was like ‘what can we do for you and in what way can you
help us?’” he recalled.
“That’s my parish; it’s my community and part of it
is because of the support I receive from the AIDS ministry,” he said.
“There’s that spiritual family that you need, that everyone needs,
not just people with AIDS. It’s been a very important part of my life and
(contributed to) the fact that I’m still alive. It is by the grace of God
that I’m still alive.”
With firsthand understanding of the importance of AIDS ministries,
Caron has served for the past seven years as the coordinator of Sacred
Heart’s AIDS outreach. He now is also the chairperson of the new
archdiocesan HIV/AIDS Ministry Advisory Committee. Father T. J. Meehan, pastor
of St. Anthony’s Church, Atlanta, led the archdiocesan HIV/AIDS task force
from 1995-99, until he became a pastor. But it fell inactive when Father
Meehan’s parish responsibilities overtook the ministry.
The new committee of 18, all of whom have been active in various
AIDS ministries, will work with Sister Nora Ryan, OP, coordinator of HIV/AIDS
Ministry in Catholic Charities. She began in the new position in August.
“I’m very happy the archbishop has hired (Sister Ryan)
and stands behind us on this,” Caron said. “The coordination is
needed. Many parishes are doing many wonderful things, but on an archdiocesan
basis there’s been no coordinated effort. The need is there to get the
AIDS ministries together so we can have one voice in the archdiocese, so we can
know what each other is doing, so we can take ideas and help each other achieve
(our) goals.”
On the morning of World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, Archbishop John F.
Donoghue commissioned Caron and the other committee members at a ceremony in
Cannon Chapel at Emory University. Sister Ryan opened the ceremony thanking the
archbishop for his support and welcoming Jim Kantner, Ph.D., executive director
of Catholic Charities, and Dr. Regina Kay, program coordinator for the National
Catholic AIDS Network, to which Sister Ryan and the committee now belong.
“In the past 20 years, AIDS has claimed the lives of nearly
22 million people. If current projections are accurate, the number of deaths
caused by AIDS in the next 10 years will be greater than the combined
fatalities in all the wars of the 20th century,” Sister Ryan said.
“Although these numbers are frightening—we must not be daunted.
Rather, we must take heart. We must hope, pray and work even harder . . . Each
of us can make a difference. Let us speak out—for who will speak if we
don’t? Let us act now. For the sake of our children and families we shall
help alleviate the disease of AIDS together.”
While people treated with new drug therapies in the United States
are living longer, approximately 40,000 new people are infected each year, a
rate unchanged since 1992, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. In the Litany of Gathering, Caron said it was a gathering to
remember and affirm their faith and hope. “We gather this morning to
remember. We gather this morning in sadness and frustration . . . We gather
this morning to witness to hope and healing. We come seeking the support of one
another and the caring embrace of our God who heals all brokenness.”
The choral group from Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Atlanta, sang
“The Patchwork Quilt,” a soul-warming song evoking love and sorrow,
written by a person after witnessing a display of the Names Project-AIDS
Memorial Quilt.
“Your lives had meaning, and your lives had joy. You touched
so many people, many more than you will know. You wrapped yourselves around me
as I walked down those rows, you letting me feel your beautiful soul,”
they sang.
Prayers were spoken by committee members Maria Rivas, Hispanic
outreach coordinator at AID Atlanta; Nick Danna, executive director of the
Living Room, a housing agency for those with HIV; Sharon Collins, coordinator
of AIDS ministry at St. Ann’s Church, Marietta; and Tanya Stevenson of
Catholic Social Services.
In his remarks the archbishop said that the Lord today might
choose someone with AIDS—abandoned by proper society and left alone to
suffer a lonely, long death—as the man beaten and abandoned along the
roadside in his parable of the Good Samaritan.
AIDS is most often spread through sexual contact and drug abuse,
creating a stigma around it and a sense of shame and guilt in some carriers.
“It is sad, but true, that too many in our society consider the origin and
isolation of this affliction of more concern, than the care of those who suffer
it.”
But the Lord showed how one should respond with love to one facing
illness and disability.
“This is total commitment, and though our Lord may have been
painting an ideal picture, we are nevertheless, bound by our Baptism and by our
consciences, to be as close in reality to the Good Samaritan as we can,”
he said.
He asked the Lord to bless committee members as they begin their
most important work.
“Such a fulfillment of our Lord’s teaching, I see before
me today, and the Church rejoices, that men and women like you, are taking upon
their own shoulders, the burden, but also the gift, of this worthy ministry.
Your charity will produce richness for your own souls in the poverty of need of
those you have committed to help, and by the sharing you are so generously
undertaking, their illness and troubles will be relieved.”
Those gathered then read a mission statement, which is to assist
“the faithful to compassionately respond to those who are infected with,
or affected by, the HIV disease. By offering educational resources, spiritual
and emotional support, we shall endeavor to alleviate barriers of fear and
prejudice and proclaim with one voice a message of hope.”
Sister Ryan expects the committee will meet two to three times a
year, as needed, but said, “most of the activity I want to go on right at
the parish level.”
She said the committee will establish parish leaders in churches
without ministries and will support existing ones in engaging their
congregations in education and prevention. It will foster collaboration between
ministries as “some parishes have more advanced programs and other
parishes can tap into their experiences.”
The committee will provide “services of healing and
support” to people with HIV and grieving families and may work with social
service agencies.
The Georgia Bulletin canvassed parishes in December 2000 and
determined that 20 of the 101 parishes in the archdiocese at that time had AIDS
ministries.
And the church is challenged anew on World AIDS Day, said Sister
Ryan, to foster an environment where compassion and healing can replace
judgment, fear and despair, which is also the call of Pope John Paul II.
“The church must be a leader,” she said.
“Therefore, members of the HIV/AIDS Advisory Committee will encourage
others in our archdiocesan parishes to join in solidarity with those who are
living with the disease by supporting, through prayer, projects or ministry,
efforts to alleviate the root causes of the HIV/AIDS.”
“Many people suffer a social death, which precedes their
actual physical death,” Caron said. “That’s one of the reasons
AIDS ministry should exist in each parish, to give people with HIV/AIDS a
social outlet, if not also a spiritual outlet, because many people are
searching for just a friend.”
He noted that the needs of parishes will vary, depending on their
congregations, but all have them. Members often don’t realize that others
in their congregation have HIV, as the afflicted are now able to stay healthier
through medications. “You can’t spot them like you used to. The
people are there. There’s still a lot of denial in communities.”
Like society, the church wasn’t always supportive of the
afflicted, he added, but has gotten much better. “It’s important for
us as people who are ministering to people with AIDS to be up front and out and
about in parishes— as well as people with AIDS to be up front and out and
about in parishes—which will break down the fear and misunderstanding.
Because we often fear what we don’t know.”
Archdiocesan HIV/AIDS Ministry Advisory Committee:
Sue Amsden, Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, Atlanta;
Rose Campbell, St. Philip Benizi Church, Jonesboro;
Committee Chair David Caron, Sacred Heart Church, Atlanta;
Wayne Clark, Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta;
Sharon Collins, St. Ann Church, Marietta;
Nick Danna, Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Atlanta;
Mary Davis, Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Atlanta;
Janis Griffin, Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Atlanta;
Father T.J. Meehan, pastor of St. Anthony’s Church, Atlanta,
Committee Chaplain,;
Joan Moore, St. Anthony’s Church, Atlanta;
Maria Rivas, AID Atlanta Hispanic outreach;
Regina Sanford, St. Paul of the Cross Church, Atlanta;
Joseph Sequeira, Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Atlanta;
Tanya Stevenson, Catholic Social Services;
Delores Thomas, St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Smyrna;
Doris Weaver, Prince of Peace Church, Buford;
Aaron Wetherington, Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Decatur;
Mary Williams, St. Joseph Church, Marietta. |
