Maher Breaks Silence on AIDS, Vows to Help Victims : Bishop Says Diocese Will Open Care Center, Calls for Greater Church Concern

During the years of the AIDS epidemic, religious leaders of many faiths have called for compassion for those afflicted with the deadly disease. They have said that AIDS is a public health menance, not primarily a moral issue.

But the single most powerful religious leader in San Diego County--Roman Catholic Bishop Leo T. Maher, spiritual leader of 382,000 Catholics--has been officially silent.

“His silence had been deafening up until now,” said Lance Clem, spokesman for the San Diego AIDS Project, pointing out that the San Diego Rabbinical Assn., the Unitarian task force, local Episcopalian churches, among others, have been active in their support of AIDS victims.

This week, the bishop broke his silence and he did it not tentatively, but in an emphatic homily likening AIDS victims to early Christian saints whose suffering brought them closer to God.

“Suffering is always a trial, at times a very hard one, such as the victims of AIDS, but these sufferings can (lead to salvation),” Maher said at a Mass for AIDS victims and their families celebrated Sunday at St. Joseph Cathedral in San Diego.

” . . . In suffering, there is concealed a particular power that draws a person closer to Christ, a special grace,” Maher said. “To this grace many saints owe their conversion. It could be that AIDS patients will be among our saints.”

He quoted from Paul’s letter to the Romans: “We are . . . fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

Maher, leader of the Catholics diocese that covers San Diego and Imperial counties, also announced that the San Diego diocese will soon open a six-bed home-care center in San Diego for AIDS victims.

In issuing a sweeping call for greater church concern for AIDS victims, Maher provided an unspoken repudiation to the idea that AIDS victims should be shunned because

the virus is often contracted through conduct the church finds abhorrent: homosexuality and drug use.

While other religious leaders have been outspoken in their views that AIDS is a public health menace, and not primarily a moral issue, Maher had previously declined to hold a Mass for Catholics sick with AIDS.

Clem of the San Diego AIDS Project said, “This is a wonderful development and a major shift for the bishop.

“Catholics with AIDS have felt like outcasts and now they have been welcomed back to their church to receive the kind of guidance and support they need,” Clem said.

Glenn Allison, director of Episcopal Community Services and co-chairman of the San Diego Ecumenical Conference on AIDS Chaplaincy program, said he hopes Maher’s comments serve as a “wedge” to encourage more Catholic priests, nuns and laymen to work with AIDS patients. While there have been individual priests and nuns involved in the Ecumenical Chaplaincy program, there has been no official support or liaison with the diocese.

‘Moving Experience’

“This provides an enormous legitimacy to the idea of caring for such people,” Allison said. “It was a very moving experience to witness people (at the Mass) whose status was once ambiguous now sitting in the front row by invitation, holding hands, singing the Lord’s Prayer.”

In an interview Tuesday, Maher said he chose to deliver his comments at St. Joseph Cathedral rather than at a parish church to underscore the importance he has placed on ministering to AIDS victims and their families.

He said he has encouraged parish priests to discuss AIDS with members of their congregations. He appointed the Rev. Rand Reichert, chaplain at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, as a coordinator of an interfaith AIDS ministry.

“We must lift the burden of prejudice wherever we find it,” Maher said. “We need to educate people, to wipe away the fear and the stigma associated with AIDS. The church must take a leadership role in this fight.”

He added that legislation may be needed to combat housing and job discrimination against people with the disease. The Board of Supervisors is set to consider an ordinance Tuesday to ban housing discrimination for AIDS victims, although a proposal to eliminate job discrimination has been shelved.

‘A Gospel Response’

Maher said his message Sunday was in response to the 7,700-word statement, “The Many Faces of AIDS: A Gospel Response,” issued Dec. 11 by the administrative board of the United States Catholic Conference.

The board called for greater pastoral effort in providing spiritual guidance for those afflicted with AIDS.

Maher said a task force within the San Diego diocese had developed the concept of an AIDS home-care center, to be run by the St. Vincent de Paul Center, which also runs a center for the homeless in downtown San Diego.

The home, at an undisclosed site, is currently in escrow and set to open in March. A planning committee of doctors, social workers and nurses will help run the home and select its residents; those selected to live at the house will not necessarily be Catholics.

The diocese will assign two employees for day-to-day operations. The center will be called the Josue Center, a reference to the book of Josue in the Old Testament, which tells of the entry into the Promised Land and the fulfillment of God’s promises.

Maher said the somewhat delayed timing of his message did not indicate any lack of concern on the part of the church.

“Like anything else, it takes time to study these things and know where we’re going,” Maher said. “Now we know.”

The AIDS virus attacks the body’s immune system, leaving the victim vulnerable to a variety of infections and tumors. It is transmitted by sexual contact, by contaminated needles and blood, and from an infected mother to her newborn.