Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Nairobi (Agenzia Fides)- “There is still much hesitation in the church to offer pastoral care to those living and dying with HIV/Aids,” said Fr Robert Vitillo, special advisor on HIV/Aids to the Catholic charity, Caritas Internationalis. He was reviewing the church’s response to the killer disease at the start of four-day workshop organised by the Symposium of Bishops’ Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) in Nairobi 21-24 June. Delegates from Bishops’ conferences across the continent, experts and representatives of international organisations attended the conference.
Although the Catholic Church in Africa has been in the forefront of the war against the pandemic since it broke out twenty-five years ago, much of church teaching on the disease - some 80 bishops' pastoral letters and statements - has not reached the parishes. "People in our parishes do not know what our teachers are telling us," Fr Vitillo said, adding, “Church representatives need to speak openly about HIV/Aids from the pulpit and in other preaching.”
The workshop - being held at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa - was convened to discuss and adopt a pan-African plan of action on HIV/Aids drawn up by SECAM in 2003
During a mass to open the function, the papal nuncio to Kenya archbishop Alain Paul Lebeaupin said the suffering caused by HIV/Aids should lead people to “consider the necessity of moral conduct in the use of sexuality”, and reiterated the church’s rejection of condom use in the fight against the scourge. “Our world is questioning our position and that is where we must be strong in belief, following the teaching of the church. Facing the difficult reality, the temptation will be, of course, to take the easy way.”
The nuncio concelebrated the mass with the president of SECAM, Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, vice-president Bishop Francisco Silota of Mozambique, the chairman of Kenya Bishop’s Conference, Archbishop John Njue, and the Archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Mwana ‘a Nzeki. Archbishop Onaiyekan said the workshop would obtain concrete information on the church’s response to the disease so far and determine how SECAM would implement its plan of action. “To a large extent HIV/Aids has been very much an African tragedy: we only need to look at the global statistics. If that is so, there must be some form of African response, a SECAM response, from the point of view of the church”.
According to the United Nations, 24.5 million people - equivalent to two-thirds of all people living with HIV - are in sub-Saharan Africa.. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 26/6/2006 righe 38 parole 428)
