Catholic Church’s AIDS TV Spots Urge Compassion

In response to the “isolation and rejection” felt by AIDS sufferers, Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony said Friday that the Catholic Church is sending a series of public service videotapes to television stations nationwide in hopes of eliciting compassion and volunteer help.

Studies show that the highest percentage of AIDS sufferers have been sexually active homosexuals and needle-sharing drug users--two activities the church strongly condemns. But at a news conference Mahony said: “How someone has contracted (AIDS) is unimportant. What matters is that . . . we cannot turn away.”

Content of TV Spots

The six TV spots, each lasting a minute or less, depict a hospital visit, education of children, loving gestures by neighbors and a march on behalf of AIDS sufferers. The messages will be in both English and Spanish.

Mahony said AIDS patients have told him that “personal misery” arising from rejection by their families and society produces “far greater suffering than the disease itself.”

There is an urgent need, he said, for food bank workers, phone counselors and volunteers to be “companions and friends.”

Mahony also said that the Los Angeles archdiocese, which last year established a six-bed hospice in the Crenshaw area for sufferers of the fatal disease, is close to opening two more homes at undisclosed locations, pending the successful outcome of delicate negotiations with neighborhood residents.

“The amount of fear and ignorance about the disease has been enormous,” he said.

No suggestions about how to avoid contracting the AIDS virus are made in the spots, which were produced by Los Angeles’ Franciscan Communications Center.

Mahony chairs a committee of bishops that hopes to produce a comprehensive statement on AIDS, including church advocacy of sexual abstinence, to be voted on in November by the nation’s full church hierarchy.

“It’s going very well,” he said.

“I’m very, very pleased and excited about the statement. I think it is a very positive, compassionate, hope-filled statement that deals with all aspects of AIDS--prevention, obviously . . . as well as a whole host of medical, social, practical and spiritual services to deal with it.”

An AIDS statement approved by the bishops’ administrative board in November, 1987, drew fire from several cardinals and archbishops who said it appeared to give Catholic hospitals and educational agencies permission to point to condoms as a potential safeguard against AIDS whenever they were counseling people. The church teaches that sexual chastity is the moral and practical solution for avoiding the disease.

Second Statement

Although that statement still stands as an official church document and was vigorously defended by proponents, in a compromise reached in 1988 the bishops decided to draft a second, more comprehensive statement.

Cecilia Martinez, who created and produced the video messages, said the family reconciliation and compassion they illustrate will be especially important in the Latino community because of “taboos against talking about sex” in family settings.

The $90,000 project was financed primarily by the annual national Catholic Communications Campaign.