Mexico City
Ecumenical News International
Dr Peter Piot, the executive director of the United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS since its creation in 1995, has praised the work of faith-based organizations in the campaign against HIV/AIDS, and said his own attitude to religion has changed over the past 13 years.
“I’ve seen some great examples of treatment and care that came from the religious community, and lately in the area of prevention.”
– UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot
“When I started this job I saw religion as one of the biggest obstacles to our work, particularly in the area of prevention,” Piot told a media conference at the 17th International AIDS Conference taking place in Mexico City last week.
“But I’ve seen some great examples of treatment and care that came from the religious community, and lately in the area of prevention,” he said.
The 59-year-old scientist and researcher, known for his campaign to expand AIDS treatment and prevention in the world’s poorest countries, announced in June that he will leave his position as UNAIDS executive director at the end of 2008.
Like Piot, Craig McClure, executive director of the International AIDS Society, credited faith-based organizations for being among the first to care for children orphaned by the disease and for those dying from AIDS-related illnesses.
In his opening remarks to an inter-religious AIDS gathering held just prior to the beginning of the International AIDS Conference on 3rd August, McClure also identified a sometimes “significant tension between secular and faith-based responses” to the challenge.
The most common tensions, McClure said, are found in views about homosexuality, same-sex marriage and sex outside of marriage. For Roman Catholics, the use of condoms, a practice that greatly reduces exposure to HIV, is also against church teaching.
“Homosexuality and heterosexuality have existed throughout all time and they will continue to exist,” McClure said. “Love between people must be honoured in whatever form it takes.”
In an interview with Ecumenical News International, Kay Warren, an evangelical Christian and executive director of the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Community Church in California, said that balancing religious beliefs while targeting HIV and AIDS can be “a pretty treacherous river to try to swim”.
She said, “HIV is a sexually-transmitted disease, and it doesn’t come naturally for us in the Church to talk about sex but we’ve got to get good at it if we are going to make a difference.”
Ms Warren said the church also has given too many negative messages such as, “You’re bad. You’re sinful.” She added, “The judgement and the stigmatisation we’re quite good at but the real question is how do we hold on to biblical principles while reaching out in love to others?”
She is known for telling her audiences, “Anyone who has to ask how the disease was contracted before offering help is starting at the wrong end of the equation.”
Warren said she and her husband, Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book, The Purpose-Driven Life, usually begin with an apology for a lack of sensitivity by the church, and for the pain it has caused those who are HIV positive.
“That tends to open doors,” she said. “We will not deny what scripture says about human relationships but we will lead with an open embrace.”
