Confessions of a Miillennial Gay Catholic: HIV/AIDS

Source: cbc.com

* Please read the Twitter link before the rest of the blog post

(if there are problems opening the link, please copy the URL above and paste in a new window)

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A year or two ago, I found a movie on Netflix called Holding the Man. It’s a biographical drama about two men who meet in high school in Australia and become each other’s love of their lives. I found out that the movie was based on the actual memoire written by Timothy Conigrave, so I decided that I would read the book before I watched the movie.

Eventually this summer, I made it to the book. I learned that Conigrave and his partner John both attended a Jesuit high school in the Melbourne area. I knew that in the end John would die due to complications from HIV/AIDS. As I neared the end of the book, I kept putting it down because I did not want John to die nor did I want Tim to die as well. But, I made my way through the book and finished it. It was so sad. The book, and the movie, are important to me because this HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s is part of my history as a member of the LGBT community.

I feel so distanced and sheltered from this crisis. And HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence like it was for Tim and John. You can have the virus and live a normal life if you stick to your drug regimen so that you become undetectable. Now, there is also a daily pill you can take that can kill the virus (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP). So, even though I am distanced time wise from the crisis, it is important to remember that people are still contracting the virus on a daily basis. It is also important to remember that this is not a gay disease but one, like cancer and others, afflicts people regardless of their sexual orientation. And as someone who lives in Saskatchewan, a province with HIV rates as high or higher than central African countries, I am well aware that this is still a disease with which to concern oneself.

Although the disease knows no sexual orientation, society in the 1980s and 1990s and even in some places today associates HIV/AIDS with being gay. Religious people, unfortunately there are Catholics amongst these people, use the disease as an example to show that gay people are sinners and are going to hell. Well, yes, gays, like straight people, are sinners, but they are no more likely to go to hell than a straight person. It is time we move on from this posturing that certain religious people take and to embrace the model the Jesuits have implemented in Toronto since the 1980s.

Gay Catholics who have HIV/AIDS, like anyone who has cancer or any other life threatening or altering disease, can become scared and seek out solace from traditional places: family, friends, and sometimes the Church or whatever religion this person is. We need to console people, support people, and above all love and accept them for who they are. Our job is not to judge them. Our job is to accept them and help them. We are to live out the Gospel, which tells us that we are to welcome the stranger, the foreigner amongst us.

Therefore, instead of shaming people for a mistake, for a decision made in the heat of the moment, we should embrace them, console them, and help them with their new life because this disease is not going anywhere anytime soon. We also need to educate ourselves. One key area is teaching in Catholic schools, publicly funded or private, comprehensive sexual education. Yes, the Church demands that we have sex for procreation, but it is also endorsed by the Catechism as a way to unify the couple. The problem here is that it limits sex to heterosexual married couples. This is the Church’s right.

But let’s now step into reality where people, married, not married, straight, queer are having sex left, right, and centre. Ok, since we accept this fact, let’s not be prudish and not talk about it. If we accept that our kids are probably going to have sex before marriage, do we not want them to be healthy and safe? Of course we do! So, let’s make sure that they go into the situation with as much knowledge as possible so that we can try and reduce the number of people who contract an STI of any type.

I am sure that some people will not be pleased with what I wrote, but it is the rational thing to do. This approach may stand against certain Church beliefs, but we also need to be realistic and try and promote healthy lives. At the bare minimum, I am calling for the education of our children to include the simple idea that it is better to wrap it up than to not in order to help curb the spread of STIs. This is a useful idea to teach, one much more useful to teach than calculus or algebra when the student is destined to avoid math like the plague such as I did in university!

If you still are not convinced, please make sure you read the Twitter thread linked at the top of the article. Or watch the movie Holding the Man on Netflix. Real life does not always reflect the Catechism, so we must be flexible and think, ultimately, about what God would want us to do. In my heart, I know that God does not want us to be spreading these diseases around. So, using that belief, I arm myself with the necessary tools if I happen to be in such a situation.

If you are interested in learning more about HIV/AIDS, here are some links:

https://www.catie.ca/en/positiveside/summer-2017/uu

http://www.whatisprep.org

http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet

https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/services/reports-publications/canada-communicable-disease-report-ccdr/monthly-issue/2017-43/ccdr-volume-43-12-december-7-2017/ccdr-43-12-ar01-eng.pdf

https://www.catie.ca/en/fact-sheets/epidemiology/epidemiology-hiv-canada

Luke Gilmore is an Alumnus of Campion College, the University of Regina., and is a political scientist..

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8 Comments
  • Peggy Spencer
    Posted at 02:23h, 26 April Reply

    Thank you Luke for your most informative article on the HIV/AIDS crisis. The good news, I guess, is that this HIV/AIDS problem is no longer a death sentence and that people can have the virus and yet live a normal life. I have to confess that I too was ignorant of the fact the HIV/AIDS health disease is not primarily a gay disease but one, like cancer and others that can afflict people regardless of their sexaul orientation. It is very sad that so many people, religious or not, believe that gay people are sinners and bound for hell. As a Christian (Catholic), I totally agree with your positive statement: “Our job is not to judge them. Our job is to accept and help them”. And I believe that to be a Christian is to see Christ in everyone.

  • Barbara Lewis
    Posted at 09:03h, 26 April Reply

    I used to be a visiting nurse, hospice care. I had the privilege of being with people without “polite conversation” bogging things down.
    Over the years I cared for only two patients who had HIV/AIDS.
    It did not surprise me that they had the usual symptoms exhibited by people who knew they were dying.
    They were sometimes afraid, lonely, sorry for some things they did, grateful for things they achieved.
    They suffered immobility, constipation, exhaustion, pain and other difficulties.
    When I bathed patients or gave other personal care, I noticed that the human body is either male or female.
    Catholicism calls us to love our brothers and sisters. No excuses…work on it!
    My two HIV/AIDS patients were two of the easiest to love.
    Peace.

  • John Montague
    Posted at 09:03h, 26 April Reply

    In the late eighties I was part of the planning group for the first HIV/AIDS healing service at Our Lady of Lourdes Jesuit Church in Toronto. There still is a small side chapel memorial to the right of the sanctuary, with a painting by Father Bill McNicholls dedicated to people with HIV/AIDS.

    It was a very painful time. I went to over 25 funerals. I still miss my closest friend Arnold Morrissey who died in 1992. He wrote a message he wanted shared at the end of his funeral Mass. In part it said “be kind to one another.”

  • Paul Baker
    Posted at 10:30h, 26 April Reply

    Luke, thank you for your informative and timely article. I especially liked “… the simple idea to wrap it up than to not in order to help curb the spread of STIs.” If you or the readers of this article have not read of my 25 year massage ministry with the Toront People With Aids Foundation, you may want to read it at igNation post, A Letter of Appreciation, October 29,2016.

  • Eduardo Soto Parra
    Posted at 11:18h, 26 April Reply

    We need more and more readings (and testimonies) like this in order to change ‘exclusionary’ mentality inside and outside the Church, and specially in the so-called ‘third world’ countries…Thanks Luke!

  • Peter Bisson, SJ
    Posted at 15:31h, 26 April Reply

    Thank you Luke!

  • Esther Gilbert
    Posted at 10:51h, 28 April Reply

    Love one another as …

  • Eileen Curran
    Posted at 08:30h, 29 April Reply

    Hi
    I remember well the Aids crisis. I was a nurse working in ICU at the time. To see these young people die so cruelly. always Young, And with associated stigma, rejection, and secrecy and hysteria (As we did not at all understand what we know today about transmission). Thank you for this article. You cannot imagine how tired and angry I am about how the church deals with the LGBTQ community, and any other sexual issues. Enough already! Get with the Gospel!

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