An Anglican clergyman is preparing to tell his congregation that he is HIV-positive, writes Belinda Beresford
Would you share the blood of Christ with someone who has HIV? Would you support fellow church members with the virus, or would you condemn them as sinful? And would it make any difference if one of those fellow churchgoers was your priest?
Such choices are rapidly approaching. One Anglican clergyman, currently wrestling to overcome his fear and reveal to his congregation that he is HIV-positive, is only one of many shepherds worried about how their flock will react to their confession.
The priest, David, has known for three years that he carries the virus. Healthy, energetic, without any signs of wasting, he is the embodiment of HIV as a chronic and largely manageable disease.
David also encapsulates the two worlds of HIV/Aids in South Africa: the one of the rich and the one of the poor. Initially diagnosed while undergoing routine blood tests, he, like the vast majority of South Africans, was unable to pay for private care with anti-retroviral drugs. With his CD4 count a measure of the strength of the immune system rapidly dropping to dangerous levels, he counted himself fortunate to be able to get on to a clinical trial at a large state hospital. Unfortunately his body was unable to tolerate the regime. He stopped taking the drugs, but still ended up in hospital.
Although his heart stopped beating, doctors forced it to start working again and cleared his body of the drugs that were poisoning him. For the majority of South Africans that would probably have been the end, as his weaker and thinner body tried both to recover and hold off the HI virus.
Fortunately for David, he discovered that the Anglican church’s medical scheme includes the HIV-management programme, Aid for Aids. He became part of the lucky few thousand able to pay for private HIV treatment. The combination of a skilled private doctor and a specially tailored course of anti-retroviral drugs means that 18 months later, tests cannot detect HIV in his blood and his immune system has greatly recovered.
David told his family and friends that he was HIV-positive when he first started anti-retroviral therapy. He said he waited until he had access to the medicines that would break the link between HIV and dying. “Many people still believe the equation HIV = death, so there is still a conspiracy of silence … People are only willing to disclose when they are just weeks from death. People face up to Aids when they are dying. Ultimately the answer [to the silence] is getting people on to therapy.”
>From his superiors in the church he has had full support and understanding. Unlike most people, David’s bishop’s first question was not “how did you get it?” but “how can I help?”
That question, David says, raises further difficulties. Some older clergy still talk about HIV as a punishment for a sinful lifestyle. “There is always the comment that ‘they must have sinned’. I think that sadly it reflects a sick understanding of sexuality. Obesity is the gluttonous inability to control desire, yet we don’t associate it with sin. Sin equals sex.”
As an example he points out that one Anglican congregation in KwaZulu-Natal for a long time refused to have a married priest: “They cannot conceive of a priest who might have cavorted in a marital bed on Saturday night celebrating Mass on a Sunday.”
Divorced and with a child, David became infected in a continuing, long-term, committed relationship with a man. To a degree he is uncomfortable about revealing the gender of his partner in life. “Then people start to make assumptions about my sexuality and the way I exercise my sexuality,” he says.
In some ways David is everyman. His siblings have been supportive, as was his mother. His father, who was told shortly after his mother died, has not rejected him but has rejected his illness. He refuses to discuss it, or have any conversation relating to his son’s health. David is trying to break the news to his own child.
And now David is preparing himself to tell his congregation. “I’m desperately scared of hurting them; there’s also a degree of anxiety about being rejected. I’ve told a few people and every time it has been with huge anxiety and bated breath.”
Although he wishes it were different, David feels that revealing his HIV status would make life uncomfortable for some of his parishioners, and may even chase them away from the church.
He would like to see a response to the epidemic on behalf of the government.
“It is culpable homicide to watch a child being born with HIV. ABC [the Abstain, Be Faithful and Condomise campaign] stigmatises people. Walk in to buy a condom and you are admitting that you can’t abstain and you can’t be faithful.” He recounts figures from the recent All Africa Anglican Conference on Aids, where one researcher said that 61% of infected women were faithful and married.
He also feels strongly that winning the war against Aids involves making it part of society, rather than treating it as a separate problem. “We should not try to cope with Aids but to embrace Aids, because there isn’t a person who is neither infected nor affected. So HIV is part of who we are and part of who we will be. We must deal with it as part of ourselves.”
He says he’s not afraid of death: “For a Christian this is the most exciting moment of life; you are released into total union with God.” Nor is he angry with the partner who gave him HIV, but with whom he is still involved. David says he blames only himself for being infected. “I had a choice, no one forced me to do anything. I had the right to insist on checking whether he had HIV. But I didn’t, because I thought it couldn’t happen to me. It was my own neglect.”
David’s hope is to become a full-time Aids counsellor for the church, taking a similar role to that of Ugandan priest Father Gideon who disclosed his HIV status in 1966. The message, he says, is that “I am a priest living with Aids.” Then he corrects himself. “No, I can’t say that. I’m a priest living with HIV and it’s OK.”