Mixed message on HIV/AIDS
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman Online, February 22, 2006
PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL – A moving evangelical message on HIV/AIDS was reduced to a written handout by program managers at the WCC. At the invitation of the WCC program committee, Gracia Violeta Ross Quiroga had been prepared to tell the heart-rending story of her life apart from Jesus Christ that contracted one of the world’s most deadly infections, and her new life as a believer who shares Christ’s love with those who are similarly infected.
Members of the press were, as is customary at meetings of the WCC, given Quiroga’s printed address, embargoed against delivery. But when the time that had been docketed for her speech arrived, Quiroga’s address was replaced by a panel discussion representing various views on the Christian response to HIV/AIDS. In making the change, WCC officials agreed to provide written copies of her address for all delegates.
Gracia’s story
“Gracia in Spanish means Grace,” said Quiroga. She told the assembly that her Christian parents (her father is a pastor) named her Gracia as an expression of their faith. But when non-Christian friends teased her about her name, she decided to be known by her middle name, “Violeta.”
The choice was symbolic, for this young Bolivian woman began to live two lives. “Within the church I was Gracia, living a ‘good life like ‘the daughter of a pastor’ that I am. Violeta was a rebellious teen-ager doing her will and ignoring God’s commandments. As Violeta, I did all things Gracia was not allowed to do.”
Sneaking out of the house at night, Violeta entered a world of alcohol, drugs and illicit sex. In March, 2000 a small insect bite became infected. Extreme fatigue and occasional nosebleeds caused her to think that she may have contracted malaria because the zone in which she lived was endemic for this illness. But a blood test resulted in a very different diagnosis. She was HIV positive.
Confession and forgiveness
Violeta knew she must tell her parents, but was terrified at the prospect. Anticipating that she would be thrown out of the house, she moved in with a friend and then wrote her parents a letter.
“My family did not reject me at all. They received me with open arms. They told me they did not want to know what happened. They just wanted to be with me and support me until the last day. I began to understand this proof of love was a reflection of God’s love in my family,” she said.
Violeta became Gracia again. She went before her parent’s congregation and confessed what she had done, asking them to forgive her and not to allow any stigma to fall upon her parents for the sin that she alone had committed.
Again, she was greeted with open arms. “The Lord used different brothers and sisters in the faith to bring healthiness and consolation to the pain in my heart. He showed me nothing could take me away from his incomparable love, neither all the evil I had committed, nor the virus, nor the death,” she said.
An emerging ministry
Encouraged by her church family, Gracia began to sense that the Lord might use her illness as an instrument for his blessing to others. She began to experience the call of God: “The sacrifice Jesus made in the cross was enough to save me and enough to forgive my sins and those of people living with HIV. The Lord is faithful to me, even though I was unfaithful. He had a mission for my life, even based on my mistakes!”
Gracia said that Jesus’ approach to the lepers of his day was most meaningful to her. “The whole society and synagogues treated them with discrimination (physical, symbolic, and social discrimination), having special rules for them, asking them to use a bell to announce their presence. Jesus touched them, ate with them and healed them, both physically and spiritually,” she said.
“I decided it was not important to know how much time would I live. Each day lived would be for God’s glory.”
Together with other team workers, Gracia formed a ministry for persons living with HIV/AIDS. She travels and speaks throughout Bolivia and is often featured on television programs.
Weakness and strength
Gracia told the WCC that her viral load is now 15,000 per ml and that because of the high cost (USD $1,500 per month) she does not take any antiretroviral medicine. “The HIV virus reproduces itself every 37 hour in my body,” she said. “A medical diagnosis would point that I am a weaker person every day, but God supports me. He said to me:
‘My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. This is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (II Corinthians 12: 9-10).”
Press conference on HIV/AIDS
At a press conference organized by the WCC, Gracia participated, but only had a few moments to summarize her message. Other members of the panel shared other views. Dr. Sue Parry, a physician serving in Zimbabwe, put her emphasis on condoms and drugs. She said that when the churches in Zimbabwe realized that they were conducting more funerals than baptisms, they knew they had to address the problem. “Our whole aim is to build an AIDS-competent church,” she said.
An AIDS-competent church, said Parry, teaches the people how AIDS is spread and how to prevent it. “A condom is not a sin; it is a piece of rubber,” she said. Parry referred to Jesus’ message that it is not money but the love of money that is evil. Likewise, she inferred, “It is not the condom that is the problem, but the misuse of the condom. In some situations, not to use a condom is a sin.”
Rev. Canon Gideon Byamugisha, an Anglican minister from Uganda, told the press that he is the first practicing HIV-positive priest in Africa, having “broken the silence” in 1992. “HIV is preventable,” he said, “and that must be the message of the church.” “We can break the HIV chain. I make sure I have protection when having sex.”
Rev. Jape Heath, minister to the parish of St. Mary Belles in Johannesburg, said he tested HIV-positive in 2000, and he is now the coordinator of the African Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Affected by HIV and AIDS. Heath said that there are many stigma that those who live with disease must face, but the most harmful is “faith-based stigma,” which is perpetrated by some church people.
‘Faith-based stigma’
“Faith based stigma,” said Heath, occurs “when people are given moralistic messages that demean them as persons. We need to break down the ‘them and us’ distinction.”
Byamugisha agreed: “This stigma originated from moralistic messages that say the people brought this on themselves and are sinners. There are many factors, including poverty, gender imbalance, and children. The fact that more people who live with HIV are in the developing world rather than in the developed world tells us that poverty is the major force.
Parry offered her social diagnosis: “HIV is a justice issue. It is an economic issue. It is a trade issue. It is a cost-cutting issue.”
Heath added: “To limit the message of HIV to sex is to increase the stigma. We must start speaking holistically. We must tell people to know their HIV status. This is most important. It is absolutely no good to say that faithful sex is safe sex if your partner has HIV.”
Scripture and seat belts
Toward the end of the press conference, I noted that Scripture had rarely been mentioned and asked the panel if any of them had found in the Bible some guidance regarding sexual behavior that might have a bearing on the transmission of HIV/AIDS.
It appeared that Gracia Violeta Ross Quiroga, who had remained silent after her opening statement, was moving to answer the question. But Byamugisha was quick to take the microphone: “The Bible talks about sex that is not allowed. We’re not talking about sex that is allowed or not allowed. We’re talking about sex that is safe. That is what our youth need to hear, not ‘shall you buy the car, but have you buckled your seat belt.'”