EARLIER this year Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times
correspondent whose job takes him to some of the most dire realities on
the planet, reflected that in his travels he routinely encountered two
Catholic churches.
''One is the rigid all-male Vatican hierarchy that seems
out of touch when it bans condoms even among married couples where one
partner is HIV-positive. To me at least, this church - obsessed with
dogma and rules and distracted from social justice - is a modern echo of
the Pharisees whom Jesus criticised,'' Kristof opined.
The ''other'' Catholic church ''does far more good in the
world than it ever gets credit for. [It] supports extraordinary aid
organisations like Catholic Relief Services and Caritas, saving lives
every day. This is the church of the Brazilian priest fighting AIDS who
told me that if he were pope, he would build a condom factory in the
Vatican to save lives.''
While there is not much likelihood of this,
depending on which of a confusion of theological interpretations you
subscribe to, seismic utterances by Pope Benedict XVI may have just
nudged open the door to a Vatican blessing of condom use to prevent the
spread of HIV.
As commentators tie themselves in knots over what it all
means, I'm nursing an image of devout religious dropping to their knees
in the hospitals and clinics where HIV is their daily scourge, pausing
in their endless work to utter the simplest of prayers. Please God.
Having had the privilege of encountering the ''other''
Catholic church several times, in places from Southern Africa to the
Pacific, I have been awed by the work of the religious on the front line
of the HIV emergency - the nuns most of all.
In many cities and villages where AIDS looms large it is
the nuns - in their guises as nurses and counsellors - who will break
the news that the person sitting before them has tested positive. It is
the nuns who will have to try to answer the excruciating questions: What
will I tell my wife/husband? What will it mean for the babies I haven't
borne yet? Who will care for my family?
It is the nuns who will give them the medicine they pray
will keep them well, who nurse them when it doesn't, who hold them when
they die. In the Papua New Guinea highlands in the early years of the
pandemic, when people were too scared to touch the dead, the
extraordinary Sister Rose Bernard Groth would bury them herself.
Sister Rose, nearly 80, has been at the forefront of the
HIV/AIDS battle for 25 years. In the impoverished, remote highlands
community where she lives and works, women have no right to negotiate
sex, to say no to an infected husband. Even to try may cost a broken arm
or smashed teeth. If the church tells them not to use a condom, how
will they protect themselves?
When I asked how she reconciled the edicts of her church
with her ministry, Sister Rose explained she separated her vocation as a
nun from her role as a counsellor to people of many faiths. She tells
those in her care ''the most important thing is to keep you alive'', and
lays out the strategies for doing that. Sometimes a condom is the best
option.
''We're not here to tell you what to do. We're here to give you
all the information, and you make your decision.''
I have had many similar conversations with clergy and lay
Catholic aid workers engaged with this work, trying to reconcile their
practice, their church, with the enunciations of Head Office.
It's never
a comfortable conversation.
The wry joke among nuns at the coalface is that they are
getting very old and hard of hearing, and Rome is a long way away. The
line reflects their weary forbearance, but it obscures the darker
reality of their bravery.
Not so long ago, I was quietly urged not to write what
everyone on the ground knows is true - that condoms are available in
Catholic clinics in vulnerable communities - or critical programs might
be targeted for retribution by ''the Catholic Taliban''.
Having been
born, raised and educated in the Catholic tradition, I was appalled by
this threat from within to the healers and carers I was taught to revere
and respect. This was not the church I remembered.
Trying to resolve the schism between the two churches, I
recently came across the work of Elizabeth Reid, once a women's adviser
to prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has 30 years' experience on the
development front.
These days she works for Catholic agencies in PNG and
the Pacific talking to clergy frankly and openly about sexuality, about
the HIV pastoral ministry, and about how to deal with the fraught
ethical issues of the epidemic in their communities.
She explains that there are indeed two churches - the
theological, and the pastoral. The first we know from the headlines and
the loud declarations of doctrine.
The second is hidden, deeply
personal, it is in the cloistered intimacy of the relationship between
the counsellor and the counselled. In this realm there is capacity for
discernment, for reflection, for the exercise of informed conscience.
I am no theologian.
I am merely an itinerant witness of
the best that Catholic pastoral care can achieve, programs distinguished
by compassion and humanity recognisable to Catholic and Calithumpian
alike.
They survive despite the best efforts of that other church.
Their theology rests on one simple doctrine - not a
cliche when it comes from the mouth of a Sister Rose. ''What would Jesus
do now if he was here on this earth? He'd be here to help the people.
I'm here to help the people, that's what I do.''
SIC: TA/AU