Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The Miami Herald - October 22, 1999
D. Aileen Dodd - adodd@herald.com
For many of them, AIDS is a disease that happens outside of their community -- to gays, drug users, the homeless.
A pair of religious-based AIDS education conferences this week will give South Florida's reluctant clergy a wake-up call: AIDS can affect anyone.
``We are all the faces of this epidemic,'' said Marc Cohen, president of Miami's United Foundation for AIDS, which cares for about 100 patients daily in the HIV community. ``The reluctance of certain religious groups to inform congregants on ways to prevent themselves and others from contracting the HIV virus is very dangerous.''
Today, at the Florida Catholic AIDS Network's seventh annual HIV/AIDS Conference at St. Thomas University, workshops will cover topics such as living with HIV, the Christian responsibility of caring for those with AIDS, and talking to children about the disease.
At a two-day conference that begins Sunday -- HIV & Spirituality: An Urgent Dialogue -- clergy again will be nudged to become more active in the local fight against AIDS.
That event, sponsored by the United Foundation for AIDS and Florida International University's Department of Religious Studies, will include workshops with national speakers and tips for pastors to launch AIDS ministries.
Organizers hope the conference leads to discussions about AIDS in places of worship. ``There is a lot of denial,'' said Nathan Katz, chairman of FIU's religious studies department. ``In the Orthodox Jewish community, to admit to an AIDS problem is to admit to either homosexuality or drug abuse, and those are not issues likely to be discussed at service. In African-American and Hispanic communities, homosexuality is not talked about very much, and if that is not talked about, you can't discuss AIDS. There is also resistance from the Catholic Church that one of the preventative measures against HIV is condoms. The church is opposed to contraceptives.''
AIDS killed 1,530 Floridians last year. About two-thirds of the casualties were black, and the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced this month it will funnel about $2.3 million into Florida to bolster the state AIDS prevention programs in minority communities.
Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, an international activist who will speak at the FIU conference, said he hopes the week's events change negative attitudes in the religious community about helping those with HIV.
``I've held thousands of people in my arms who died without their own pastors,'' Bhagavati said. ``By fighting back together we get that much closer to the day when HIV will only be a painful memory.''
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