FROM THE OBLATE SUPERIOR GENERAL

 

Dear friends,

“AIDS is exceptional”, the experts say. We have all read statistics about HIV-AIDS. In certain countries, one child in six is an AIDS orphan. It is one thing to describe the phenomenon, to analyze and explain it, and another thing to confront it in reality.

Some of our friends have relatives who are sick; and others have caught the disease themselves. I remember a Mexican Oblate scholastic who died of it 20 years ago. He suffered from hemophilia and was infected with HIV through a blood transfusion.

More often HIV-AIDS is sexually transmitted and this fact makes the disease something difficult to speak about. The endemic is, however, so exceptional that we cannot remain silent or inactive. We are told that it has become a catastrophe that has reached 65 million people and will expand over decades.

An Oblate friend once shared with me a story once about a scandal that had happened in a neighboring community and narrated that in front of him the superior of the place was helplessly exclaiming: “This is terrible! What shall I do, what shall I do?” My friend answered quietly: “I do not know what you should do but do something!”

We could ask ourselves how St. Eugene would react. I am sure he would “do something”, as he always did to assist the sick and dying during various epidemics. Several times he and the first Oblates risked their lives both in Aix and in Marseille.

The recent General Chapter invites us to take initiatives, and it mentions the emergency twice. The letter of the Capitulants states: “as a Congregation, we have not done enough to respond to the deadly crisis of AIDS, particularly in Africa”.

Under Mission to Youth we read the following:   

“The widespread poverty of today's youth is not just a question of material deprivation, but is also systemic (unemployment, drugs and addictions, manipulation, sexual exploitation, child labour, absence of hope for the future, broken families, HIV & AIDS, etc.). Despite this we believe that youth have enormous capacity to transform the situation through their embodiment of Gospel values, expressed in their generosity, commitment to face challenges, openness to internationality, thirst for spirituality, sense of justice, readiness for change, and much more.” (WtH, before 18).

It is consoling to see how a few Oblates have responded in unassuming ways to the challenge. We have already started to answer this cry of the poor but the Chapter is right, we have not yet done enough. How to begin? The direction in which to go is obviously that we work with others. Let us approach the youth, inviting “their enormous capacity”, trusting “their embodiment of Gospel values”. Let us rally the faithful in our parishes and missions to promote a Christian lifestyle that can stop further spreading of the sickness, to find affordable medical help, to assist those who suffer and the dying. We must also collaborate with all people of good will. This is a chance to learn from each other and to recognize God at work everywhere, as Jesus himself did putting before us the example of the Samaritan on the road.

I wholeheartedly support the present initiative of our Justice and Peace Service to promote our commitment to those who need us now.

(SGD) Fr. Wilhelm Steckling, OMI

            Superior General

Rome, May 6, 2005

 

FROM THE PROVINCIAL SUPERIOR OF THE UNITED STATES OBLATES

 

In the 80's, when the first cases of HIV/AIDS were appearing in the papers, I had a personal, first hand experience of this reality. On the pastoral team of our large urban, poor parish one of the Sisters began to have very strange symptoms: deafness, welts and discoloration on her arms and legs, never-ending colds, great weakness and fatigue. She would get better for a short while and then something else would happen.  After a year and a half of endless tests and doctors' appointments, she was diagnosed as HIV positive, having contracted the virus through blood transfusions some seven years earlier.

As we began to accompany Sr. Dirce in her round of medical appointments, the many facets of HIV/AIDS became routine to us: the high price of medicine, the fear, repugnance, cross looks and  misunderstanding.  At that time, there was so much ignorance around this reality. She faced it all with her feistiness, her indomitable spirit and her immense inner strength.  Her sickness brought all of us on the pastoral team closer together and we began to talk about what was really important and what didn't matter so much. We began to focus on life and what serves Jesus' project of bringing life in abundance to all people.

The vast extent of HIV/AIDS throughout the world is clamoring for a response. We are challenged as Church and as Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate to respond to the reality before our eyes and to again make real Jesus' healing touch. For centuries, the hospitals and medical care provided to society's ill members was mainly managed and conducted by the Church and women and men religious. Today our role has changed since more and more of the health care system is out of our hands. Today we are challenged to join other sectors of society and together with them confront the HIV/AIDS reality.

I think of three things we are challenged to do as a congregation. The first is to help provide support and the necessary infrastructure for those with HIV/AIDS.  Formerly, with our large institutions we were able to do this on our own, but today, we must do this in conjunction with other sectors of society. I think of Our Lady's Hospice in Zambia where the Oblates are part of the Board of Directors. Together with other religious congregations we help with our organizational and administrative skills as well as with some financial resources to make this Hospice a haven for those with advanced cases of HIV/AIDS. It is also a treatment center and clinic for dispensing medicine for those who live at home and which provides doctors, nurses and other health care professionals for the benefit of the people, mostly unemployed and poor.  I think of Oblate novices in the United States who do ministry washing the clothing and bed clothes of patients at an HIV/AIDS house in Washington, D.C.  These are "hands on" ways that we join together with various sectors of the Church and society to care for the sick and infirm.

Secondly, we are challenged as a Congregation to act collaboratively so that medical supplies for HIV/AIDS patients may be made accessible to them. Again, we act in conjunction with other congregations, religious groups and interested sectors of society on national and international levels so that drug companies cannot exploit the present pandemic by maintaining high prices for life-saving medicines.  The emphasis on research for future treatment of HIV/AIDS is part of this struggle with the drug companies as well as the reduction of cost and availability to all people. At this level we are also challenged to pressure governments and their agencies to uphold and defend people's basic human right to have the necessary medical care their situation demands.  

Thirdly, education around the area of HIV/AIDS is a long term goal that is the most sensitive and delicate piece which challenges us.  The facts on how the virus is contracted and what care is needed for those who have contracted it is an ongoing educational process that calls us to clarify and divulge the truth, dispelling myths and misunderstandings.  Right now we see in the news some of the customs that women endure such as the "widows' cleansing" rituals. How can we approach this with cultural sensitivity and yet be a liberating force for women in this situation?  As a congregation we have the Church's teaching on human dignity to bring to this educational process and all that flows from the dignity of the human person in terms of the right to health, nutrition, medical assistance.  

As we join forces with other groups combating the proliferation of HIV/AIDS we bring to the discussion a particular vision of the body in an integral and holistic outlook.  We contribute with our vision of sexuality and our reflection on moral and responsible behavior. As an international congregation, I believe that we also bring an invaluable contribution to education concerning HIV/AIDS from our multi-cultural experience helping us to be sensitive to cultural expressions and yet challenge them when human dignity is injured by them.  While the urgency of the moment in which the world is living the HIV/AIDS affliction tends to discount long range education, a real change in our ways of thinking and acting demands a deeply grounded response.

Finally, I think that the present situation of HIV/AIDS on Planet Earth, asks a deeper question about ourselves and our relationship to the earth. We cannot isolate human sickness from the ecological sickness of our earth.  As Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate we are called to a new vision of integrating our human life within the fabric of God's creation, seeing its connectedness and mutual interdependence. In this way we can truly embrace God's gift of fullness of life, the Life that Jesus came to bring to all people.

 

Fr. Louis Lougen, OMI

Provincial, U.S. Province