After False Start, Religious Coalition Renews Ministry to AIDS Patients

A year ago this month, a procession of robed clergy from a dozen Valley congregations, 200 worshipers and a gospel choir gathered in a joyous celebration of faith at Temple Beth Hillel in North Hollywood.

The gathering was more than a gesture of interfaith goodwill. The worshipers were people with AIDS, their families and friends. The congregation also included members of churches and temples who wanted to show their support.

The colorful service trumpeted the formation of the Valley Interfaith AIDS Coalition, which planned to hold monthly AIDS worship services and act as a local clearinghouse for information and assistance on acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

But the group had trouble sustaining that first outpouring of support. Subsequent services were shorter, smaller gatherings. Then, faced with funding and staff limitations, the coalition discontinued the services for the summer. In the fall, the services did not resume.

Today, the coalition’s leaders say they have regained lost momentum, citing a pressing need to provide spiritual help and social services to Valley residents affected by AIDS.

In January they revived the AIDS services, scheduling them for the third Sunday of each month at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in North Hollywood. The group prepared to poll Valley churches and synagogues about pooling resources to help people with AIDS and their loved ones. It also began planning an AIDS information forum in March.

“They’ve been re-energized,” said Barry Smedberg, executive director of the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council. The AIDS coalition operates under the auspices of the council, which represents about 250 Valley congregations.

Still, Smedberg said the coalition faces serious obstacles. AIDS activists must compete against other groups that want religious leaders’ attention on a variety of social issues, ranging from homelessness to malathion spraying. For many clergy members, AIDS is an issue they would rather ignore.

“Some have not been able to differentiate the AIDS problem from homosexuality, which some churches have a difficult time embracing,” Smedberg said.

Two years ago, Lutheran Social Services invited clergy members from 48 San Fernando Valley Lutheran churches to attend a seminar on helping congregants cope with AIDS. Just one minister showed up, recalled Smedberg, who was then the agency’s area director.

Although attendance might be higher today, he said, “there’s a lot of apathy out there on this issue.”

The reluctance of Valley clergy to become involved with AIDS issues mirrors a nationwide trend, said Keith Wintermute, a Presbyterian minister in Oxnard who produced a documentary film last year called “AIDS and the Church’s Role.”

“This is a disease that pushes people to the brink of eternity,” he said. “They face the fundamental issues of faith, and their families desperately need the voice of the pastor or rabbi or priest. The churches are kind of sitting back and yawning. It’s staggering.”

The revived Valley Interfaith AIDS Coalition hopes to fill this void by providing spiritual and social programs that are more readily available elsewhere in the city.

“Just because we’re on the other side of the hill doesn’t mean we don’t have the same problems as the rest of Los Angeles,” said Marsha Van Valkenburg, a Northridge resident who chairs the coalition.

As of Dec. 31, 8,576 cases of AIDS had been reported in the county since 1981, with 5,686 resulting in death, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. For the same period, 386 of the reported AIDS cases, or about 5%, were in the Valley.

Although some religious leaders in other parts of Los Angeles have taken a more active role, getting clergy to address AIDS has been difficult. “It’s not as ‘safe’ as giving food and clothing to the homeless,” said the Rev. Ginny Wagener, a coalition member who is pastor at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in North Hollywood.

When AIDS patients or family members seek spiritual comfort, local hospitals often turn first to the predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church in the Valley.

“Our pastor was constantly being called because he was the only one thought to be sympathetic,” said Sean Kinney, a coalition member and a founder of Metropolitan’s AIDS ministry. Kinney hopes the coalition can spread some of the work around.

The group’s new questionnaire will try to find clergy from other Valley congregations who are willing to assist hospitals in AIDS cases. “The coalition had a specific interest to me because our church was almost tapped out,” Kinney said.

The group also wants to help people with AIDS connect with local social services, such as a new Meals on Wheels program that will deliver low-cost food to homebound people who are younger than 60. Traditionally, such meals have been provided only to senior citizens.

Alma Patotzka, volunteer director of the meal program, which is sponsored by the interfaith council, said her problem is getting the word out to Valley residents with AIDS or other serious illnesses. “I have the program, I have the volunteers, but I don’t have the clients,” she said.

The AIDS coalition dates back to a directive given two years ago to Father Ed Allen, rector at St. Andrew and St. Charles Episcopal Church in Granada Hills.

“I had been approached by one of our bishops and asked to set up a center for AIDS information for the Episcopal churches in the Valley,” he recalled. “We spent a year avoiding the issue as much as anything. As we learned more about it, we realized it was too big an issue for one denomination to handle.”

A committee at Allen’s church sent letters to about 300 religious leaders in the Valley, asking them to attend a meeting about AIDS assistance. Six prominent clergy members from various faiths signed the letter.

About two dozen people representing 18 congregations attended the first meeting, said Van Valkenburg. “We decided the first priority was to let the Valley know we were here,” she said. “The best way to do that was by having a service.”

“It was very powerful,” recalled Rabbi Steven Jacobs of the New Reform Congregation of Woodland Hills. “It was just a very moving experience. We used dancing, singing and prayer. It was a joyous experience.”

Along with the monthly AIDS worship services, the coalition has tried to educate religious leaders about the disease.

“Clergy people are first and foremost human beings, with the same fears and trepidations that everyone else has regarding sexuality and mortality,” said Van Valkenburg. “We felt that if we could educate the clergy, we would be encouraged to come into their congregations to educate the people.”

The task is difficult because some religious leaders associate AIDS with sinful behavior.

“Some people like to think of it as a punishment for being a gay person,” said Jacobs. “Nothing could be further from the truth. When a person is suffering or dying, you don’t sit in judgment. You extend compassion.”

Joe McGowan, associate pastor at St. Stephen Presbyterian Church in Chatsworth, said the problem is not unique to the Valley. Before assuming his post in September, McGowan served on a New Orleans AIDS task force that also had trouble attracting volunteers from the clergy.

“The church has done very little in this area,” he said. “I’m talking about all faiths.”

McGowan said AIDS worship services are important because people affected by the disease face religious turning points. “There are some who go through great spiritual tension at this time and some go through spiritual experiences in re-establishing their faith in God,” he said.

He said the local AIDS worship services are “also tailored to the care-givers, the nurses and doctors, the people who deal with this on a regular basis. The services are very positive. They stress God’s love and grace and God’s healing power. They’re not designed to tell these people they’ve done wrong and if they turn their lives around, they’ll get well.”

Leaders of the Valley Interfaith AIDS Coalition became involved for a variety of reasons.

Van Valkenburg joined the group partly because she observed the harassment of gay co-workers. “I’ve always been very outspoken against prejudice of any kind,” she said.

Wagener had worked on AIDS projects in San Francisco and Omaha. “One thing I’ve found is people who have AIDS are life-affirming, rather than being preoccupied with death and dying,” she said. “That’s been the biggest surprise to me, the biggest blessing I’ve received from the people who have AIDS.

“It’s not so much that we professionals in faith are bestowing spirituality on people with AIDS. Often it’s the other way around.”

Four years ago, Kinney helped found an AIDS ministry at his North Hollywood church. “Even though we were a gay and lesbian organization, we didn’t have a response,” he said. “There was mass denial within our own people about what was going on.”

More recently, Kinney himself has tested positive for exposure to the AIDS virus. “It challenges every spiritual foundation,” he said.

A recent addition to the coalition is a North Hollywood resident who has attended a mainstream church in Northridge for many years. The coalition member, who asked that his name not be used, said his family and co-workers know he is gay, but not his fellow worshipers.

“The church is the only place I’m not ‘out,’ ” he said. “My discomfort is my own, not anything they’re inflicting.”

He said he joined the interfaith coalition because “it’s important for me to support other people who are affected. Here at the Valley Interfaith AIDS Coalition, I found an ongoing, affirming ministry.”