God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

09/24/2009 • 7:18 pm 7

24.09.2009 Bishops worried

German Bishops are worried about the increasing numbers of people leaving formally the church, so I read in the news today. And I wonder how the bishops discuss that matter. Do they, as people usually do, search for the blame by the people leaving or do they start soul searching with themselves to find out, what is going wrong in our days. The right-wing Pius brotherhood has a simple solution: Only the way back to the good old times will prevent more people leaving the church – not sure how they really can think like that.  One must be very ignorant to the reality of today and totally living in the past with closed eyes to come to that conclusion. I am sure our bishops are different – and if they really would go out and ask the people why they are leaving the church, one answer will come up more frequently in my opinion:

That church is losing its relevance for the people of our days, that the sermons in church do not match the living circumstances in our days, the announcements of episcopal nature are not matched with how people experiencing church and the representatives of the church in their daily lives. Sunday sermons are followed by Monday blues – power games instead of servants of the faithful – people feel hurt and alienated from us clergy. Obviously we never can generalize it – but in this context the personal experience, the personal encounter is the decisive test for a single faithful. Mess it up and you have lost a soul, so to speak. And there is still the scandal of sexual abuse, the loss of moral stance through the encyclical “humanae vitae”, the dealing with the  Pius brotherhood – so many topics were my church in our days cannot gain points on the score card.

As we accompany people through the times, I guess we always have to reflect on our attitude as professional staff of the church, we always have to ask what is coming first, God’s message of love or church discipline. We might make general rules in the church, but we always have to see the individual standing before God. Not more and not less…

If we do so, maybe people still will leave the church, be it because they found other ways of finding God, may it that the path of the church community is not fast enough for the individual, may it that they even don’t need a church institution anymore because of their direct contact possibilities with God. Whatever it might be – our goal as the Catholic Church should be to serve all good people to be able to connect to God. And when we look into the field of HIV and AIDS, there is even more the need just to bring home the love of God, the unconditional love of God.  Forget about judgement, forget about exclusion – just embrace the person as he or she is – he or she deserves it because he or she is a brother or sister of me and a son or a daughter of God. Embrace the person, make him or her feel home and loved and wanted…

Filed under: Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , , , , , ,

09/22/2009 • 4:56 pm Comments Off on 22.09.2009 more fundamental questions…

22.09.2009 more fundamental questions…

In the last days I described my stance on mandatory testing and the pre-testing counseling. Having now more time to dedicate my energy towards the HIV/AIDS portfolio, there are more topics I feel are necessary to persue in the coming months and years. I have spoken already about the need to end the stigmatization within the health sector itself.  On the political front I can forsee to look more intensive into the question of travel freedom of people living with the virus. The ban to visit certain countries or the ban to get a work permit if you are HIV positive as you can find it in Australia, Singapore and many other countries is not only a sign of a lack of maturity of politicians in the respective countries but also a clear violation of human rights. I am aware that the UN, but also the German “AIDS Hilfe” is dealing with the issue, but we should all join hands and start to pressurize political systems allowing such violations of dignity and human rights.
In some of the blogs I mention the work with HIV positive priests and religious as well as seminarians. This is indeed a very tricky question and I hope that in October, when I am in Rom to meet together with Joachim Franz with the papal council for health care workers, to get this council on board to have a hard look how we deal with HIV and AIDS in our own ranks. Is the refusal to take a HIV positive person into e.g. monkhood or a seminary not a sign of fear and immaturity of the church? Are we as a church really allowed to deal with infected people in refusing them to follow their vocation? I am sure that God does not mind the status of a person. So we also shouldn’t mind the HIV status of a person. What kind of AIDS policies are regulating the life of the church and their institutions? Do we advocate the acceptation of people living with the virus only for the area outside the church? Tough questions, but we owe it the greater love of God to check our own balances on those questions and see whether they add up.

The ethical question of ceasing treatment if somebody does not adhere at all – also a tricky question. I mentioned the criminal law as a tool of prevention, which I find absolutely unreasonable in the way it is administered in most countries, specially also here in Africa.

Those are some of the questions in my mind, where I would like to contribute towards a solution which ends the madness of stigmatization and discrimination, which forces governments and churches to act reasonable and always upholding the dignity and human rights of every person.

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

09/20/2009 • 11:42 pm Comments Off on 20.09.2009 Beyond the condoms…

20.09.2009 Beyond the condoms…

Having written a blog entry about the criminalization of  HIV and seeing the response so far, I just realise that there are quite some moral and ethical issues we still have to deal with in the fields of HIV and AIDS. One is used to hear only about the condom story when talking about or talking with the Catholic Church, but there are more things coming to my mind:
– Equality of man and women
– Criminal Code and HIV
– Travel restrictions or travel ban and human rights
– Commencement and possible cessation of treatment
– Dealing of the Catholic Church (or any church) with their own clergy being positive
– Understanding of sexuality in the context of Europe, Africa and Asia as well as Latin America
– Abstinence only or diverse approach towards prevention work

I wish I could convince the German and the Southern African Bishops Conference to set up a study group on all these issues and surely a couple of more questions, which will come up in a brainstorming session. It would make such a difference.

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, Politics and Society, Reflection, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

09/13/2009 • 11:34 pm Comments Off on 13.09.2009 Sunday eve

13.09.2009 Sunday eve

It is Sunday eve and after a day full of chatter, farewell celebration and lots of eating it is time to bid farewell to Durban. The mass this morning was full of well-wisher and once again I felt this special atmosphere and bond which exists between these good people and me. Lots of hugging and spontaneous joy as I revealed that I will stay in South Africa. Most of the people did not buy into the white lie of the press officer of the German Bishops conference that the termination of my contract was a “normal one”. It would have been easy to fuel the sense of betrayal and frustration; some told me of answers they got after writing to a bishop or the bishops conference and they felt not taken very seriously.  But they have been the lucky once, others even didn’t get an answer. I am not sure whether those responsible really know how they work in their ways against their own objectives to keep people in the church and to strengthen faith. They should be servants of the faithful and not the opposite. We still have a long way to go until the human structure of church becomes mature in this sense. Still too much puberty in the ranks… But I never give up hope. 🙂
Sunday afternoon an invite from the pastoral community council for coffee which happened to stretch until supper – with so much love prepared from Renate and Wolfgang, two parishioners who opened their home for us all. And once again challenging debates around the table. Those are the people who make so much efforts to keep a community going, to bring up their kids in our faith and at the end, all our hierarchy would be nothing and meaningless without the dedicated work of those on the ground. Sometimes I wonder how much wisdom and maturity we as a church miss out because we as the clergy tend not to listen carefully enough. And not only listen but following this – and here we are again – sensus fidelium and spiritual wisdom of those we call laity.  This blog is automatically also loaded to my Facebook side, and speaking about laity and their power, a facebook friend of mine, Jeff wrote a comment about his experience in his church and he ended:

Our parish has a tradition at baptisms where the priest not only makes the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead with chrism but also puts a hand embroidered stole (not a full sized one — they are made by people in the parish and are gifts to the newly baptized, even infants) around the neck of the baptized and says to that person, “you have put on the new life in Christ and are invested as a minister of the Gospel.” That is always a powerful reminder for me as a lay person when I hear those words spoken.

I also find this a powerful symbol and it shows the true power of Gods people, each and everybody is called to minister the faith and to be taken serious.

Well, this eve I feel indeed graced with all kind of things: the kind words, some little presents, quite some hugs, lots of good wishes and blessings and I had to promise that I will pop in next year somewhere and somehow. And I will do. I really will, not only because people here in Durban miss me but because I miss them also after 7 years of  service. I will miss Hermann, who always was worried about my stances on good old doctrine and we became friends, understanding each other 🙂 , I will miss Sr. Agnes, who always found somebody to baptize or confirm or visit when I was in Durban (but I really loved to serve under her 🙂 ), I will miss the talks with all the Mariannhill sisters and their struggle to maintain Mariannhill while growing older, I will miss the altar servers, who never let me down, Trudi and all of the pastoral community council, the finance committee counting the money faithfully after mass,  and all those friendly faces coming up to communion and listen so attentively when I tried to reach hearts and minds with my sermon.

Sizobonana & God bless them all!

Filed under: Reflection, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

09/12/2009 • 12:24 pm Comments Off on 12.09.2009 Saturday in Durban

12.09.2009 Saturday in Durban

Flying to Durban was and is always a pleasure for me as it gives me the opportunity to break my normal life circles and experience a totally different crowd of people. After the flight and check in I went to Mariannhill to deliver a talk on lay piety versus theology. A good discussion followed, centered around the question whether the definition of laity as the opposite to clergy is a) the right definition if we follow the biblical witness and the first Christian communities and b) whether there is a possibility to define laity in a positive way.

Lets face it: In the beginning it was the highest position in our church to be part of “the people of God”. Belonging to Jesus versus being a non Christian.  All were belonging to laity. Gratian and his collection of laws starts the trouble, creating the impression that laity is the opposite of clergy. Since today, there seems to be no real appreciation of the laity and a positive definition. The “sensus fidelium” of all people of God is so important, without this sensus, even the pope cannot speak “ex cathedra” or infallible as the I. Vatican Council degrees.

So I try to make clear to the people attending the talk how important they are, even if we cannot sense this appreciation in the daily dealing of the clergy with the laity. I encourage them to take their role positive and active – at the end we have to admit: Not the clergy, not the words of a pope, no word of a bishop but the daily religious routine of a mother or a father or a teacher brings a child to experience faith, to learn about faith. And seeing how people struggle to do that besides their work, how mothers do that besides all their tasks is much more praiseworthy than those, who are comfortably be paid to do it professionally. I really believe that we as the clergy, including bishops and popes, have more to learn to be of service to the “people of God” instead of trying to rule them.  Not power play but humility is what is missing in a lot of ranks within our church. We are used to rule and manage and decide, the higher we climb the latter of the hierarchy, the more we get used that we have it all. As adviser to church VIP’s also tend to say only what they think their “boss” will hear, it is sometimes getting virulent.

Thinking of the pope, the only title I really like is servant of the servants of God. this is indeed his major role and he can only perform when he also listens to the “sensus fidelium” as a very important criteria of finding the church’s way through the times.

Well, it was a great eve with deep thoughts and meaningful contributions.

This morning another touching ceremony: The baptism of a child and an adult and two confirmations: mother and son. My sermon is rather spontaneous as I meet the people the first time and I have first to touch ground with them to be able to connect well. But they are good prepared and the ceremony is one of joy and participation – one can feel the spirit of God present…

The afternoon is on a lighter note, I will go for a braai to meet members of the community bidding farewell to me, later I will meet with a friend from Kwazulu Natal to spend the eve out and relax a bit before Sunday duties are calling.

To encourage people to live their faith in their own way, to follow their intimate relationship with god, which indeed is a unique relationship seems me so important. People often forget that they are called to the freedom of the children of God and not being a sheep just running behind the pastor. We all have part in God’s good spirit – let us it together to bring the church forward in these difficult times.

Filed under: Reflection, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

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