United States-born Monsignor Robert Vitillo has been full-time, special advisor on HIV and AIDS to Caritas Internationalis and its delegate to the United Nations. He was recently in Australia to speak ata Catholic pre-conference on HIV/AIDS before attending the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne. He spoke with Catholic Leader journalist PAUL DOBBYN at the time.
Q: How did you come to be involved in ministering to people living with HIV/AIDS?
A: It wasn’t my doing but the Lord’s. I was at the HQ of Caritas Internationalis in Rome 1987 at the general assembly of CI confederations when it was decided to promote HIV/AIDS services in Eastern and Central Africa.
I was asked by the Secretary General to co-ordinate CI’s response to HIV/AIDS. Various national bishops’ conferences were most interested and it was also decided to link up with various religious congregations. At that point, it was a very new field for the Church at a global level although certain local Churches were already very much involved.
Q: What were your first activities in your new role?
A: First we began education programs at a global level as well as meeting with medical and ethical experts on the issue. The aim was to help enlighten us and to help Church personnel in the field. We also sought to meet with someone living with HIV/AIDS. Even though I had knowledge that the virus was not transmitted casually, I still had second thoughts on whether I could shake hands with anyone infected by HIV/AIDS.
I will never forget a regional consultation in the Caribbean in the ‘80s. The Bishop of Georgetown Guyana Lester Guilly was very involved in this too. I didn’t know until later that local staff members were refusing to share a room with a young man with HIV/AIDS. The bishop said: “I’ll fix it; I’ll do it.”
Bishop Guilly found a very angry young man, especially angry at God. The bishop was able to assure him that God was a just God. He and the bishop became friends and had an agreement; whoever got to heaven first would pray for the other – the young man died first. I often use this story as an example of overcoming prejudice towards people with HIV/AIDS.
Q: What is some of the work you are currently involved in with this ministry?
A: This includes running workshops to give training for bishops’ conferences and conferences of religious superiors and various Caritas groups.
Most recently I have visited Ukraine. Before that I had been in a number of other countries this year including Africa … for example, in Sudan’s South Kordofan state, a different ethnic group, the Nubans, are under attack. The government is bombarding the area and cutting off medical supplies. So we go to WHO (World Health Organisation) to see how to get the medicine in.
It’s a similar story in Ukraine, where an estimated 238,000 out of a five million population are living with AIDS. There have been big increases in infection in Ukraine and Russia in the past 10 years. Much of this comes from increased hard drug use due to changes in governments … a lot of people are not making the economic progress they hoped for and were promised. Many of the increased infections are coming from drug-injecting users sharing needles.
Q: Is the threat posed by HIV/AIDS increasing or decreasing?
A: Decreasing for many, even those infected. Many have access to life- saving medication … antiretroviral treatment can help avoid the sort of catastrophic illnesses that affected so many in the early days.
Q: What do you say to those people who say the Catholic Church is contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS by its opposition to the use of condoms?
A: Catholic hospitals, doctors, nurses and the Church’s international aid and development agency, Caritas Internationalis not only care for more than 25 per cent of the estimated 38 million living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, but have been at the forefront in the battle since the first cases were reported back in the early 1980s.
Also in all of those countries with a strong religious faith there is a definite decrease in infection. This can be traced to the fact that people started sexual activity later in life and reduced their number of sexual partners.
So Catholics should certainly not be ashamed of the Church’s teaching on this matter. The teaching of Church on abstinence before marriage and faithfulness once married is very realistic ethically, morally and scientifically valid.
The continuing fixation on condoms is not helpful … it means there’s not enough focus on other ways to prevent spread of virus … anyway in general condoms are only ever used intermittently. For example if an infected partner is taking the medication he/she is much less likely to spread the virus.
Q: What major message has been coming through in the conferences you’ve been attending?
A: Various people linked to the United Nations, clinicians and others have been saying loudly: “Please, do more, get more people tested early; if treated early the rates of infection can be lowered.” By 2030, the goal is to no longer make this a big public health emergency. People at the conferences are saying we need more resources – which is the opposite of what governments are saying: Do more with less. As always it’s about priorities.
Figures show countries investing money in the early stages of the illness need to spend to spend less later which would be when catastrophic illness strikes. This has been shown definitely in places such as Brazil where medical costs are much lower.
Other major discussions have been around the need to continue high-quality services, address the needs of the whole human person – physical, emotional, social and spiritual – finding ways to integrate spirituality into work.
Q: What is happening with understanding how to minister to people living with HIV/AIDS?
A: Models are being developed in a number of places in the world to enable doctors, nurses and health workers to assess spiritual needs of those living with HIV/AIDS. They look at things like fear of death, anger at God, difficulty in relationships and so on. The aim is to help put people in touch with a personal God or some deeper reality in their lives; for example people may not be able to link deep sense of hopelessness with a spiritual disconnection.
We have noticed many with the illness do turn to God. We have learnt a lot from them; our faith has been deepened by working with these people.
Q: What can we the faithful do to support this ministry and those living with HIV/AIDS?
A: There is a need to take responsibility for knowing about HIV/AIDS and to overcome fear and prejudice towards people living with the virus.
There is also a wider civic responsibility to advocate good and free, or low-cost treatment, for people with the virus. When elections are on, tell candidates about your views. Expand this to welcoming people with HIV/AIDS who are living in your parish.
You can also join in global solidarity with sufferers of the disease by donating to Caritas Australia for help with their programs.
Q: What’s next on your program after the visit to Australia?
A: I’ll be going home briefly to Geneva then on to Rome for a meeting of Caritas Internationalis. Shortly after this I head to Ghana. The Council of the African Bishops’ Conference has its headquarters there. The conference decided in January to adopt a training manual I’d written on ministry to people with HIV/AIDS as the official training manual for Church in Africa. We will be working on ways to spread this knowledge and training in local areas there.
