God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Stefan Hippler

Don’t be afraid – On faith and truth

Science and religion are not in conflict but complement one another. That’s what I often hear from the Vatican, and Pope Benedict XVI keeps amplifying it. He emphasised this especially in his controversial address at Regensburg University in 2006. I am utterly convinced that this principle is entirely valid. There is place for both science and faith. Indeed, they need each other to serve humanity. And that is exactly what the Church strives to accomplish: to serve God and humanity, as God and charity command it. There is no love for God without love for humanity, and vice versa. To love humanity is to love the source of all human life: God. It means that, within its powers, our Church has to guide people to salvation. I am convinced that this is possible only if in that purpose we seek the truth – without truth there can be no service of and in love.

Presumably every theologian concurs on that point. But then the questions come in. Who owns the truth? Who can act for it?

We Christians profess that in Jesus Christ the profound truth of God became flesh. As followers of Jesus we try to understand and follow that truth. And because every religion claims to own the truth, we must be careful with it – because God alone is the truth. We can discern it only within the scope of our own human limitations. We are constrained. We perennially try to arrive at that truth and to understand it. But whoever claims to have the absolute truth and backs that assertion by reference to God is blocking their way to actually finding it. God always lets Himself be found anew. Every day we have an opportunity to discover a new facet to the reason for our being and to our destiny. But for that we also need science. And scientific pursuit itself intends nothing else but to reach a comprehension of the nature and contexts of our world. Science seeks to understand creation, which, according to St Paul in his Letter to the Romans, is still in its birth pangs and keeps developing. As Christians we profess that the Holy Spirit blows where it wants, and in Isaiah 55:8, God tells us: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”

The history of our Church is replete with errors, and if we look at the many mistakes and foibles of our popes, cardinals, bishops, priests and theologians over almost two millennia, then we discover – let’s be honest about it – many sins. If we count all the skeletons in our ecclesial cupboard we may get a sense of why Pope John Paul II delivered his mea culpae for the Catholic Church in the Jubilee Year 2000.

To follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, we need this humility, this admission of failures, this acknowledgment of our own human unworthiness. This humility prevails over fear, particularly the anxieties of our Church leaders when they become conscious of their responsibilities. This humility also illuminates God’s loving mercy, his unconditional love for us. This humility gives the Church its human face, because it not only accepts its shortcomings but also lets its believers go their own way of faith in the Church. And this humility encourages theologians to carry out their studies and allow debate which will lead to a deeper understanding of the truth.

It has nothing to do with relativism. On the contrary: we relativise God’s truth when we shut the doors to new insights and assume that we already know everything. We mustn’t diminish God, but always be open to His gift of a deeper understanding.

This does not imply that I am defying the teaching authority of the Church, but it can and must allow tussles over the truth. Revelation and scriptural texts are the fundamentals in that, but they must be scrutinised with all the new scientific insights at our disposal, because the aim of science – albeit acting on a different stimulus – also is to find the truths of the world.

In a discussion on ethical questions, a moral theologian once pointed out that most recent papal writings take no account of recent scholarship. Papal predecessors are cited at length, but it is almost as though after St Augustine and St Thomas of Aquinas, both the official Church and natural science ceased to develop. I would like someone to explain to me why there has been no noteworthy development in certain areas of sexual morality since the Middle Ages. Why do modern papal instructions on that subject tend to echo the spirit of medieval theology? Of course it is true that a pope can’t know everything himself. But where in the Vatican are the qualified consultants who might examine papal statements with a critical eye before they are published?

The moral theologian I mentioned earlier asked me at the end of our conversation with some irritation: “Do you actually still read what Rome puts out?” Yes, I do read it. And there’s much that fills me with anxiety. I would do the Church no service if I weren’t concerned. Reading Vatican statements aids the formation of my conscience. But ultimately I must follow my conscience.

One document that really sickened concerned the admission of homosexual men to priestly ordination. I concede, the instruction could have been worse. But it raises a few issues which may give substance to my rather theoretical deliberations thus far. The instruction, which spooked around the Vatican for years, speaks of “incidents” which necessitated its publication. Everybody knows that this is a reference to the cases of pedophilia which have shaken the Church so much over the past few years. But the notion of linking pedophilia with homosexuality is by the standards of contemporary scientific knowledge simply inadmissible. Indeed, it immediately discredits the statement.

The authors of the instruction refer to a “homosexual tendency”. Whatever one may think about homosexuality, it is more than a tendency. That is a matter of established academic consensus. Homosexuality is a trait which is neither sought nor chosen. So why are terms and descriptions being used that create an impression of a Church that still resists the facts?

Of course, the Church has every right to set criteria for those it will admit into its services. Every organisation and institution has that right, provided it does not violate human rights or valid laws. But the Church ought to resist the temptation to ascribe these arguments to God or to use confusing or inflammatory terminology instead of trying to elicit understanding for its position.

A theology professor once warned me: “Be careful! Nobody who wants to go far in the Church can afford to voice this kind criticism – it could cost him his position.” I don’t occupy a theological teaching post and have no career ambitions. My concern is that we Church people serve people, to serve them more and better. I do not wish to pronounce a new model or manifesto. Nothing I am saying in this volume is set in stone for me. I am moved by questions, doubts, and the search for answers to do justice to God, the Church and the people.

I have experienced for years how much good the Catholic Church, my beloved home, can do. And I also experience how people are despairing at the prevailing teachings which serve to stigmatize them, particular in the field of HIV/Aids. As a representative of the Church I wish I had the strength to cope with the conflict between the teachings and the suffering of the people – and to overcome it. The people I work with in the Aids orphanages and clinics are my brothers and sisters; I experience my encounters with them as encounters with the Risen One. “What you did unto the least of them, you have done unto me” (Matthew 25:40). And I try to act according to an original principle of the Church: vox populi, vox dei – the voice of the people is God’s voice.

The daily condition of being exposed to human suffering is what differentiates most priests from the high-ranking dignitaries in the Church who know the grassroots reality mostly only second-hand. This is not a reproach, but an assertion of fact: those who occupy leadership positions generally have little time or opportunity to be in touch with life on the grassroots. It is therefore important that those who advice the Church on existential decisions be acquainted with the realities of daily life. The teaching office is also an office of service, serving God and His people. It requires courage and humility, clarity and transparency – and a lot if trust in God. These characteristics form the prerequisites for a fearless discourse in our Church, one in which all questions are allowed. But absolutely all questions…

Translation from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology

Stefan Hippler

Rome is always listening – Why the German bishops’ visit left a sour taste

Preface

This chapter brought to me the allegation of disloyalty by my superiors and a strong reprimand. It was indeed also the most difficult chapter I have written in this book and the most prayed over. This chapter is not meant to attack any of the bishops personally, but it reflects in a very open and honest way my feelings during and after the visit. To be fair to all concerned I offered to re-write the chapter together with the relevant persons to bring all different experiences on board. The offer was not taken. I once again want to state that there is no intention of disloyalty or personal attack,. To be open and outspoken means to be vulnerable to criticism but I still hope that this chapter is an honest but subjective, and not infallible reflection from my side, meant to stir a debate within the church, but not to hurt a single person.

——–

There’s always the same pattern: visitors from Europe, politicians, ecclesiastics or students come to South Africa and at HOPE Cape Town experience the realities of a very different life – and they are deeply touched by it. Their direct encounter with people in the townships, the sensory observation of suffering and deprivation, the apparent hopelessness, all leave a profound impression. Feedback from these visitors, comprehensive e-mails, international telephone calls – sometimes months or even years later – show that for the first time in their lives they were confronted with an existential extreme. These reactions show that it is possible to build bridges between the worlds which needn’t be so far apart. People in the North become aware of the human situation in the South, they sense the suffering and that in turn finds expression in concerned messages and solidarity.
In the past few years, there was only one group of visitors from which I did not perceive as strong a reaction – the delegation of the German bishops’ conference. I was confused by that and thought a lot about it. I can’t imagine that the bishops – spiritual leaders and officials of Catholic charities – were left cold by the deprivations they saw. One would have to possess a very crusty soul not to be affected by the poverty of a corrugated iron shack, to return to the cold routines of life untouched after observing the sad fate of others. Could it be, I wondered, that after all these years of seeing so much poverty, injustice and despondency our Church delegates have become used to it, or even become desensitized?

Whatever the case, that official visit left a sour aftertaste. Why did these dignitaries react so business-like, so detached, as if everything they had seen didn’t especially moved them?

Of course, I supposed that it was my fault. I can’t deny that my diplomatic dexterity is flawed at times and that my convictions don’t always conform to the Church’s official teachings. Was that it? Was I the wrong man at the wrong time to facilitate an open and unguarded reflection? Did my critical comments about the Church’s inadequate response to HIV/Aids and my challenges on moral theology and ethics perhaps undermine their trust in me?
On the other hand, I recall some conversations which indicated that, behind the cautious and unemotional façade, my visitors were certainly thinking about solutions which did not necessarily accord with official Church line. At the same time I believe that human beings turn into administrators when they are on a leash, always taking care to avoid making themselves vulnerable. They must always say the correct things and sail with the currents in the increasingly centralised Catholic Church. Rome is always listening.
But doesn’t a bishop who is carefully follows the party line and always weighs his words carefully not at risk of losing some of his powers of empathy? Did his ascent up the hierarchy perhaps remove him too far from pastoral realities? I sometimes wonder how a bishop copes. Does he still distinguish between his official and his private self? Is it a case of not just clothes but also titles making the man? But it would also be unfair to tar them all with the same brush, and I most certainly don’t make any claims of my own analysis being infallible. I am rather expressing a concern about the present structure of the Church hierarchy, the criteria governing the selection of new bishops, the packed diaries of these dignitaries, their loneliness (even though they meet so many people), the pressure of always having to keep up appearances… I am concerned about all of this, and with that I return to my earlier question: Why did the high-ranking delegation which visited our projects in April 2006 react with such detachment?

One bishop wrote to me after his return home, saying I had put the delegation “in a difficult position”. A difficult position? But all I had tried to do was to show and tell them the unvarnished truth – which, according to John’s Gospel, is supposed to set us free. The letter made me think deeply about the visit, its prequel and its consequences.

I proposed the visit of the German dignitaries precisely because working in the area of HIV/Aids throws up many moral and ethical questions, so that they might get a realistic picture about the situation in South Africa. To my surprise, it was soon announced that a delegation from the international department of the bishops’ conference was going to travel to South Africa. It was emphasised that the trip was not intended to be linked to the German-speaking chaplaincy or HOPE Cape Town, but to visit the Southern African sister Church with a special reference to HIV/Aids. And, just like in real life, the jockeying for position began: Who would be with the bishops when? Which projects would be visited? When can who decide what about the itinerary? Yes, the Church is just like any other enterprise: when the bosses come, everything goes topsy-turvy. Besides, German bishops are seen through the prism of Euro signs – they have a big influence over the allocation of funding. After much hassle, an itinerary was finalised.
The delegation arrived in Cape Town on Easter Monday. The next day, the visit to our projects at Tygerberg Hospital and to the townships was scheduled. Then a meeting with Desmond Tutu and a reception hosted by the German ambassador. For the rest of the week the visitors would travel to various dioceses throughout South Africa, and in encounters with selected projects learn more about the multi-faceted efforts made in addressing HIV/Aids. Before their departure they were to gather for a collegial reflection at the headquarters of the Southern African bishops’ conference in Pretoria. That was going to round off their fact-finding mission.

I was honoured to open the itinerary that Tuesday morning at Mfuleni’s day clinic, and was quite amazed at the open discussions that ensued about controversial topics in moral theology. But in my discourse I also pointed out that the local Church was not always very helpful when it came to projects, especially if these were too independent. The local Church can sometimes be more destructive than constructive. Hidden jealousy, envy, the fear of losing funds – there are many reasons for that, human reasons, all too human…
And it was exactly that topic, which I had addressed candidly and matter-of-factly, that had created the “difficult situation”. I had dared to touch upon a taboo subject and contrived to breach the sensitive etiquette governing relations between Church officials. Within the context of the already sensitive question of Aids, my infraction of the protocol must have been particularly precarious. Maybe it was that combination which made my guests react as they did.

After their visit, I carefully read all the statements issued by members of the delegation and media reports concerning their visit in South Africa. Nowhere did I find the people the bishops encountered, or their abject shacks, their hunger for justice, their hopes for God’s comfort and human aid. The indigence of millions of South Africans, countless Christians, who are marginalised and die by their hundreds every day – all that was covered only peripherally in these reports. The people’s cries for help, their laments, their appeals, their courage and endurance became an abstract dimension, peripheral within the framework of internal Church diplomacy.
I want to state it more clearly: The press coverage and the statements shocked me. It showed me how compassion, the search for truth and all good intentions for the good of people can be subordinated to institutional structures and codes. And yet I am convinced that the bishops and other dignitaries only want the best for our Church and the faithful. And because of that conviction I am not entitled to pass judgment. However, words like “institutional deficiency”, or, in theological terms, “structural sin” do come to mind. I suppose that by articulating my thoughts I have broken another Church taboo. But I understand myself as being part of that structure, and therefore see it as my priestly duty to break that rule.

Translation from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology

Bartholomäus Grill

Mercy before law – How five German bishops formed a view of the pandemic in South Africa

The bishops don’t seem to be comfortable. They have just arrived from their dioceses in Germany and now find themselves in the grim township of Mfuleni on the Cape Flats. Earlier, as they walked through the waiting rooms in the day clinic, mothers were holding out their sick children towards them. To the observer it seemed as though the distinguished visitors were somewhat concerned that by touching these children they might catch something. Now the five bishops and their entourage are listening to a brief introduction which seems to make some of them a little nervous, because the priest addressing them is being quite frank. He is referring to clinical trials with microbicides which women apply to their vaginas to protect themselves for HIV. He is speaking about oral sex, with which young people circumvent the demands of pre-marital abstinence. He is talking about African naturopathy and traditional healers who must be integrated in the fight against the disease, and he tells them that he himself is an honorary sangoma and that he had himself circumcised. And he lectures at length about one protective measure which most Church leaders hesitate to bring up. “We show people how to use condoms. As a priest I could not justify telling them: ‘You may not’.”

That Catholic priest is Stefan Hippler, and he is introducing HOPE Cape Town. He had prepared himself thoroughly for this morning’s presentation. After all, it doesn’t happen every day that five German bishops visit a South African township to learn more about HIV/Aids and its terrible effects. Hippler invited these men of God, a singular opportunity to acquaint them with the stark realities. He speaks bluntly and with great passion. The Aids ribbon on his lapel seems like the insignia of an officer in a military campaign against the disease. On the wall behind Hippler a board meticulously records the distribution of condoms at the day clinic over the past 12 months. It even registers the target figure – 16,306 prophylactics per month. “And yet, so far we have failed,” Hippler concedes. “All our education efforts have failed to meet our goals; prevalence is increasing.”

The statistics from Mfuleni confirm the extent of the crisis. Some 85,000 people live here in cramped conditions. Unemployment stands at 60%, the tuberculosis rate is 30%, and 80% regularly take drugs such as tik (methamphetamines), mandrax or high potency alcohol. The official rape statistics are extremely high; the unofficial numbers are even higher. The virus can spread almost unchecked in that kind of environment. About 30% of men and 45% of women (think about it for a second: forty-five percent) are HIV-infected.

“I would like to tell people in good conscience and with the backing of the Church: ‘You may protect yourselves’,” Hippler reiterates. “People are suffering from Church prescriptions about what they may and may not do…we are creating misery. We are complicit when people infect themselves.”

A German-born bishop from Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, who is escorting his German counterparts, listens to all of this and then rises to speak. “What are we supposed to do with condoms? You are talking nonsense,” he says angrily. A short silence follows. From the room next door we can hear the whimpering of an infant. It is as though an old Catholic ghost is floating in the room: heresy.

Delegation leader Dr Ludwig Schick, Archbishop of Bamberg in Bavaria, chooses his words carefully, but he is taking the same line as his incensed brother bishop. The discussion cannot be reduced to condoms, he cautions, that’s just a side aspect. “Condoms won’t solve the problem, they are not a formula to avoid the spread of Aids,” Archbishop Schick says. “The actual causes must be fought against: poverty, inadequate education, deficient hygiene, deficient medical care…and also moral error.” The archbishop’s analysis sounds downright revolutionary, but one suspects that he really wanted to get off the subject of condoms, that anathema of Catholic teaching.

A consultor in the delegation later says that in “this matter” Africans have to decide for themselves. “We should not and may not interfere. That would be a new form of colonialism.” What audacious justifications we devise to absolve ourselves from responsibility! Evidently the consultor was unaware that a few years earlier the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference had relaxed the policy on condoms as a means of HIV prevention within marriage. Their pastoral letter “A Message of Hope”, adopted in July 2001, allowed spouses to use “appropriate means” to protect themselves from infection. And these appropriate means are made of rubber.

So on this autumn morning there is privation, violence and vulnerability on the outside, and inside hand-wringing balking and reality-dodging. There it is again, that old fear that the dam will break should moral teachings be liberalised. One could call it the Gorbachev Syndrome, after the man who wanted to reform Soviet communism but instead presided over the demise of the Red Empire.

Oh, if only Catholics were as daring as the Anglicans, and more courageous like their shepherds, such as Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town, whom the German delegation wants to meet with. At the height of apartheid, The Arch – as the locals fondly call him – put up a Black Madonna in the magnificent neo-Gothic St George’s Cathedral. Just behind the Mother of Mercy, the visitor can admire colourful tapestries which depict how early and resolutely the Anglican Church joined the fight against the disease. And in front, at the entrance, there are brochures with explicit information about HIV/Aids, including images of female and male sex organs affected by sexually transmitted diseases. It is unthinkable that such realistic illustrations would find their way into a Catholic church – in the eyes of the chief ideologues, that is indecent, indeed, dirty. Something like that can’t be shown. The hang-ups are so powerful that eyes are averted from these images. And so one also pushes aside the suffering to which these pictures testify.

But back to Mfuleni, to that memorable meeting with the bishops which is at risk of turning into a lesson about the self-inflicted dilemma of the institutional Church until Gerhard Pieschl, the Bishop of Limburg, raises his hand. He is generally regarded to be on the conservative side of things, but here he shows empathy with Stefan Hippler’s case. “Mercy comes before the law,” Bishop Pieschl explains, “and because of that there must be a way that our Church can differentiate for the good of the people.” To the amusement of the assembly, he adds: “Am I going to end up on the stake now?”

As the visitors walk through the slum, looking into its humble shacks and chatting with their residents, Bishop Leo Schwarz of Trier says something else which gives me hope: “These people must know all the option and decide according to their conscience.” He evidently has taken to heart the earlier plea from Fr Hippler: “I ask you to think more about these questions… We must overcome the fear that we might say something wrong. I can say it, because I don’t want to become a bishop.”

Translation from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology

Stefan Hippler

Saints and sinners – Billions for the ‘War on Terror’ – alms for the fight against Aids

When I attended the World Aids Conference in Bangkok in 2004 I noticed how few American experts had come to present their latest research findings. I asked a delegate about that, and he cited two reasons. Firstly, the US health ministry delegation had been jeered at the previous Aids summit in Barcelona. Secondly, Washington was increasing spending on its “War on Terror” and cut funding for Aids research. The military machinery in Iraq and Afghanistan, the secret anti-terrorism missions, the military prison camps and torture centre, “extraordinary renditions” of suspected terrorists…all that costs a lot of money. In February 2007, then-President George W Bush proposed increasing the military budget to the astronomical sum of $700 billion. It’s almost impossible to imagine how one could use these hundreds of billions of dollars to fight and alleviate poverty and diseases such as HIV/Aids. Instead the hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on death.
The poor die quicker
The majority of humanity is poor, and the rich countries aren’t really interested in changing that. The example of Aids illuminates the scandal. A few alms are handed out to the fight against as a way of polishing the public image. When President Bush announced his PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Programme for AIDS Relief) fund, initial enthusiasm quickly gave way to disillusionment when it became clear that large portions of the funding had to be spent on expensive medications made in America. Critics charged that with PEPFAR, Bush settled a debt to the pharmaceutical industry which had supported him. To qualify for funding, projects had to satisfy strict moral criteria – the arch-conservatives and fundamentalist Christian supporters of the president demanded as much. Distribution of condoms or working with prostitutes had no place in the Bush initiative. To qualify for support, one had to buy into ideology. Many African countries with exhausted health budgets couldn’t afford to refuse the American offer.

But studies have shown that life expectancy is low even among those who receive medical treatment but live in precarious conditions. Medicine offers limited benefits when one is unemployed, or living with no prospects in disordered circumstances. The Aids pandemic can be beaten only if we manage to overcome the inhumane levels of poverty.

Only in 2008 the guidelines for the PEPFAR programme were more relaxed regarding abstinence programmes and work with prostitutes.

Women are at higher risk from Aids
The majority of infected people globally are women. There certainly are biological and medical reasons for that, but the primary cause is social injustice. In most societies, women can’t haggle with men – they are subordinated and subjugated. The quest for meaningful equal rights hits an obstacle at religious customs and traditional gender roles. South Africa is a good example: Women are the pillars of township life, they typically are responsible for an income, care for the children, put food on the table – but in a conspicuously macho society they have no say. They don’t even have autonomy over their own bodies; sexuality is not a matter of their own discretion. And South Africa’s rape rates are the highest in the world. Women are helplessly exposed to the Aids pandemic and its effects.

Those who know less fall ill quicker
In a battle with poverty, education has no chance. The daily fight for survival is arduous; many people are illiterate, many have never even seen the inside of a school. For them education is an extravagance. Sometimes even church institutions exploit this social deficiency: poor and uneducated people are easier to lead; they don’t ask too many questions. And they have little idea about how to protect themselves against HIV/Aids.

One only needs to speak with some people in Cape Town’s impoverished slums, young adults who barely speak English, if at all. One will soon realise why all these noble education programmes fail. Often they will say that they don’t need advice because they can’t be infected. That may sound crazy – but isn’t that the same argument used by Western sex tourists, who are convinced that when they go on holiday, so does the virus?

I feel helpless after such encounters, and often ask myself what my Church could do. It can’t suffice to say that it is doing a lot in Aids care and in the distribution of Aids drugs. Its response must be more diverse and multi-faceted. My Church’s inquest into the causes of poverty should become more rigorous; it should place greater emphasis on the issue of gender inequality and on the disastrous effects of traditional norms and morality. It must unequivocally denounce the injustices that cry out to the heavens.
Pope John Paul II set a standard when he vociferously condemned the invasion of Iraq. He placed peace, justice and the preservation of Creation on the agenda. Every year, $1,2 trillion is spent on armaments. At the same time millions of people die because of an unfair global distribution of goods, resources and opportunities. We Christians believe that every person is equal in dignity, and that this dignity derives from God’s love. Every person is equally precious, everybody has attributes that should be encouraged, and everyone has a right to life, work, health and physical security – in short, the right to a humane existence.

We Church people must be like prophets in the desert, unceasingly explaining the complex relationship between poverty, underdevelopment and inequality. We must be honest brokers and also be prepared to acknowledge and admit our own shortcomings. We Catholics especially are part of the problem in the area of HIV/Aids. In theological terms, the Body of Christ – the Church itself – is infected with HIV. Only when we regard that illness as our illness, only when the cries of the suffering are our cries, only then will we understand the communion of saint and sinner. And only then are we capable of playing a role as credible agents of change. And only then can we lead by good example.

Translation from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology

Bartholomäus Grill

’Safari in Zambia’ – A modern fairy tale in South Africa

The journalist drives to the township, visits a clinic, views the medical facilities, stands next to a sick-bed, speaks with patients, their relatives, nursing sisters, doctors. And then he returns to his desk to draft his report. He is shaken by the stories he has heard and the suffering he has seen, but now HIV/Aids is as distant as his city office is from the slums. That’s the routine of the foreign correspondent in South Africa. He moves between two worlds and tries to convey to his European readership a hopefully authentic picture of the pandemic’s destructive effects.

But today, a scorching day at the end of November 2004, everything is different. Christmas is coming and, as every year, I’m making plans to take gifts to the township. Toys which our son Leo doesn’t play with anymore or which are slightly damaged – toy cars with bent axles, faded building blocks, a plastic robot from Kentucky Fried Chicken that has lost its antennas. And a beautiful white rocking horse with real horse hair which Leo recently won in a tombola at his crèche. He was never really that keen on it, calling it a “girly horse”, and now he wants to give it to the children at the Beautiful Gate orphanage in Crossroads township. These children have very few toys, and white kids like him have plenty. And such a big rocking horse, that would be something very special for them. Leo wants to present it himself, and now we have a problem.

We, as parents, are now facing a question which we have not asked ourselves before: what are the risks of infection if Leo should play with HIV-positive peers. Shouldn’t a four-year-old rather stay at home? Or are we being overprotective? Are we still unnerved by the dregs of those myths and urban legends we have encountered in Africa? Some people believe that you can get HIV just from shaking hands. Or from the saliva of people who spit when they speak. Or from toilet seats. Or from touching a door handle.

Of course we know that these ideas are baloney. But what if Leo gets a scratch while fooling around on the monkey gym, if he’s bleeding from an unnoticed wound and wrestles around with a kid who has an open sore? Or if a child with TB coughs at him? We are anxious. We may know a lot about HIV/Aids, but do we know enough? A weird feeling comes over us, but we don’t want to admit it: it’s a kind of residual fear of HIV/Aids.

In the end, we rose above these concerns. After all, we had often visited the children at Beautiful Gate with colleagues and friends. We played with them and carried them in our arms. So, pack in the rocking horse and off to Crossroads! It turned out to be a jolly afternoon. The children were delighted with the rocking horse, and Leo, who during the presentation was still a little shy, was running around with them in the garden. Today, a few years later, we can only laugh at those concerns of ours.

But then there is the story of the  Pettersons* family: Lisa, an entrepreneur from Belgium, and Ulf, a Swedish designer, and their son Arvid. Their nanny Tshepo had been feeling unwell for a while. (She doesn’t want to be identified for reasons that will become clear, so her name and that of others involved in this account have been changed.) When she couldn’t work any longer, the Pettersons sent her to their general practitioner. He examined Tshepo thoroughly and voiced an alarming suspicion. After repeated blood tests he called Ulf and told him that Tshepo was HIV-positive. During the telephone conversation Ulf looked out of the window into the garden, where Tshepo was playing with Arvid. It’s easy to imagine what fear suddenly gripped Ulf. And he was also annoyed that the doctor should have given him, not his patient, the test results.

Shortly after, Tshepo, the doctor and Arvids’ parents gathered in the Petterssons’ living room. Tshepo seemed to sense what was going on because, as Ulf remembers it, there was panic in her eyes. She reacted with shock to the news and expressed doubt that the GP was telling the truth. She pushed little Arvid away from her – to protect him. She presumed she was going to lose her job that day.

The weekend seemed to last an eternity. The Petterssons were facing an emergency. What now? They conferred with medical experts in South Africa, called Aids consultants overseas, googled the Internet, talked with friends, and discussed all available options to the point of personal exhaustion. Out of the blue, HIV/Aids had ceased to be an impersonal disaster that was raging elsewhere, out there in the desolation of the townships. It now was an illness close to home, intimately so. It was entering the inner family circle, posing a risk to what was most precious to them, their only child.

At times like these one begins to question certainties. What are the possibilities of infection? How big is the risk of contagion really? Aren’t there some extraordinary circumstances when the virus can be transmitted? Could it happen while brushing teeth? Or during nappy changes when the child’s skin is raw? Or through tiny abrasions while the child is playing?

It was a torturous weekend. The love for their child was at variance with the welfare of a person who had loved the child like nobody else. What to do? For parents this is a lonely time.

And so it was for Tshepo. That weekend she sat in her tiny flat in Gugulethu township, tormented by fear, resignation and an intense sense uncertainty. She berated herself. How could it come to this? How could she ever lead a normal life again? Could she even justify to still take care of little Arvid? Out of the question, case closed. She felt like all people do at first after receiving such crushing news: as though they are on death row. But what if it turns out differently? What if there is a miracle and she can continue working? Tshepo is a religious woman, and in all the gloominess of her situation there was still a tiny glimmer of hope. She thought about how she could protect Silas. She could wear plastic aprons and gloves, and stop working at the lightest scratch until it was healed.

And then came the decision Tshepo didn’t expect – and neither did the Petterssons. They resolved to keep Tshepo on. To this day they are surprised at the boldness of their decision. They even went against the insistent advice of their doctor who thought the risk was too high and recommended that Tshepo be dismissed immediately. My wife Antje and I have often talked about what we might have done. Our Leo and an HIV-positive nanny? Could it, would it, might it have been defensible? Are there limits to compassion? Where do we draw these limits? I’m not sure that I would have been as courageous as the Petterssons.

Since the Petterssons took their decision, Arvid got a little sister, Annika. And of course Tshepo looks after her too. She is a cheerful and happy person; she has a fulfilling job and a family which embraces her as one their own. “Tshepo enriches our life,” says Ulf, “because through her we have discovered a whole new dimension to humanity.”

Arvid celebrates his fifth birthday with a party. The garden is decorated with paper flags, and a crowd of children are running after colourful balloons. In the midst of them are Arvid, Annika, Leo and Tshepo. They are now climbing all over Lisa’s old Landrover and play “Safari in Zambia”. Tshepo tells me that she changed antiretroviral medications two months ago. Her CD4 cell count – that is, the white blood cells that coordinate the human immune system and help to ward off infections – had dropped to a life-threatening 35 per millilitre of blood, but now it’s back to 700. She tells me all that clearly and without inhibition. She has learnt to speak about HIV/Aids and its implications. And she has set some strict ground rules for when she is in the company of the children. But generally her disorder is no longer an issue.

“Do you remember when we visited Tutu?” she asks me. How could I forget the meeting with the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town? Events like these are among the highlights of any foreign correspondent’s life. In 2006 Ulf and I had an appointment with Tutu to do a profile on him for a Swiss magazine. Tshepo had heard about it and asked if she could tag along; it was her dream to meet that outspoken man of God personally. So we took her along, and I think our meeting was all the more relaxed and jovial because we were accompanied by a black sister, a simple woman, who bore her heavy cross with a light heart. After the interview Tutu blessed us and Ulf took a picture of Tshepo with the Archbishop. That photo now hangs in her parents’ house, in a small village in the Free State, and hardly a day goes by when neighbours and relatives don’t come around to admire it.

Everybody is proud of Tshepo, but that could quickly change if her HIV status was revealed. Only her parents know, and her sister, with whom she shares the flat in Gugulethu. The fear of being stigmatised is great, and in rural areas having the disease can lead to banishment from the community – and then even a photo with the legendary freedom fighter Desmond Tutu won’t help. And that’s why Tshepo insists that her story won’t be published in South Africa.

But she doesn’t have more time to chat now. The minibus taxi will come soon. She must get home to Gugulethu while the sun is still out because after dusk it is too dangerous to walk outdoors on account of the robberies. Tshepo embraces Ulf and Lisa, and kisses the birthday boy. And little Annika gets a specially big kiss on the cheek.

* Names and places changed

Translation from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology