The Church feels Solidarity with AIDS Sufferers

From July 7 to 12, 2002, Barcelona hosts the 14th International AIDS Conference. There are more than 15.000 registered specialists from all over the world, with support from many governmental and non-governmental institutions, and the interest of the mass media which generate a great expectation. The church hopes that this initiative will reach positive results in the face of such a serious illness. The church is sensitive to those suffering from AIDS. One out of four of them is being cared for by church centres, and in the Third World the proportion is much larger.

Before the onset of this illness, there must be correct preventative programs. The Pope has said that ‘it is necessary to insist on the fact that prevention must be at once respectful towards human dignity, and truly efficient, with two objectives in mind: adequate information and education for mature responsibility’. The church desires that both objectives be always respected in our society. ‘Since AIDS is transmitted through sexual relationships, the best prevention, and at the same time more effective, is formation in the true values of life, love and sexuality’ (Mons. Javier Lozano Barragán, in the 26th special session of the UN assembly on AIDS, June 25-27, 2001).

The effort in clinical and pharmaceutical investigation, creates a very significant imbalance between developed and Third World countries. We can say that a higher economical level carries with it a higher quality of assistance, and even a higher survival rate. Pharmaceutical investigation obtains legitimate benefits from experimentation. But sadly, these benefits don’t reach the Third World or marginalised groups, due to the high economic costs of the medicines. The experimentation with chemical products uses complex tests. To see the effects of a product, experimentation is carried out which consists in working with two groups of patients. One is given medicine while the other is given a placebo, in order to observe the difference in the evolution of the illness. It is painful to know, that some investigation centres use Third World or marginalised people for this type of test. For these people, life also has full value and meaning. All the sick have the right to be helped. We must never fall into a selective attitude based on elitist criteria.

How many people, due to the lack of solidarity in the distribution of the medical and pharmaceutical resources, are doomed to a lack of quality of life and to an imminent death! The passivity of letting people die, shouts at the conscience of citizens. These sick people, when they are in the terminal phase, must always receive palliative care, a privileged form of human and Christian solidarity.

With regard to the state, it must be respectful towards the private life of its citizens. But we must keep in mind that human sexuality has dimensions which go beyond the purely private. Indeed, from the exercise of the sexual capacity, social institutions emerge such as matrimony, paternity and maternity. And when this exercise goes against common morality (pornography or public scandal), when it goes against the rights of minors or whenever the use of sex implies a risk for others and, as a result, for public health, the intervention of public authorities is legitimate.
The complexity of medicine, of nature itself or of laws apart, God says to each and everyone of these sick people: ‘I love you, trust in me’. The church also loves and feels solidarity with those suffering from AIDS.

† Ricard-Maria Cardinal Carles, archbishop of Barcelona