Activist Priest Says He Has AIDS; Doctors Blame Clinic’s Needles

Father Luis Olivares, the activist Roman Catholic priest and long-time champion of Central American refugees who had been hospitalized for the past month with meningitis, revealed Thursday that he has AIDS.

Doctors said they believe that he contracted the disease from contaminated needles while undergoing treatment for other ailments while traveling in Central America.

From his hospital bed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in West Los Angeles, Olivares said he decided to make the nature of his illness public to “let people know that anybody can get this disease and not to abandon those who happen to get it, regardless of how they contracted it.”

Olivares is the controversial pastor of historic Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles--the first church in the Los Angeles Archdiocese to declare itself a sanctuary for Central American refugees and later for illegal immigrants bypassed by amnesty under the 1986 immigration reform law.

Flowers, posters and other expressions of support from his many friends in the community crowded his hospital room. A steady stream of visitors included union leader Cesar Chavez and actor Martin Sheen.

On Thursday, the day he was released from the hospital, he received expressions of support from church superiors.

In a written statement, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, who visited Olivares earlier in the week, voiced sadness about Olivares’ illness and admiration for his work.

“Father Olivares has served the poorest of the poor here in Los Angeles with great commitment and courage, and he has aroused the conscience of us all as we try to understand our responsibilities towards newly arrived peoples and those whose lives are not sheltered by laws and protections,” he said.

Noting that he and Olivares “have approached various social issues with different strategies at times,” he added that they nevertheless share a commitment to “live out the Gospel.”

Father John Martens, provincial of the Claretian Order, to which Olivares belongs, said simply: “We will love and care for Father Louie. He’s our brother.”

Olivares, who was scheduled later this month to leave the downtown church--known among parishioners as La Placita --and report to a new parish in Ft. Worth, Tex., said Martens has released him from that obligation. Olivares said he plans instead to live at a Claretian residential center near Hancock Park.

Doctors said it is impossible to predict how long Olivares will survive. But they said that once the illness manifests itself in a serious infection, as it has with Olivares, victims generally live from two to six years longer.

“Though it sounds very terminal, I haven’t given up,” said a frail and unusually soft-spoken Olivares. “I have a lot of hope.”

Dr. Laurence Heifetz, Olivares’ primary physician, said the priest has almost fully recovered from the meningitis, a bacterial infection that attacks the brain and spinal cord. “We expect he’ll get back to normal before the next manifestation of the HIV (AIDS virus) will hit,” he said.

Dr. Davida Coady, a professor of medicine at UCLA and a personal friend of Olivares’, said, “We hope he will have several years of active life.”

Olivares has traveled numerous times to Central America since 1984 to visit refugee camps and to meet with government and church officials.

Dr. Coady, an expert on medicine in underdeveloped countries, said she checked with several clinics in El Salvador where Olivares had received treatment for various minor maladies related to his health problems, including diabetes.

She said she is convinced that the priest was infected with the AIDS virus at a clinic six years ago where medication was injected, apparently with contaminated needles. Although she declined to provide further details about the clinic, citing confidentiality issues, she said she learned that other people have been infected with the AIDS virus at the same facility.