Dec. 1, 2008: Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The first day of December is marked as World AIDS Day, and has been observed since 1988. Episcopalians join billions of people around the world to remember the devastation caused by the AIDS pandemic over the past generation, and to recommit to ensuring a future without AIDS for generations still to come. As our church year begins, it is especially appropriate to remember, pray, and work together to alleviate the suffering inflicted by this disease and its consequences.

As Episcopalians, we understand that we are part of a body that has AIDS – both the Body of Christ and the larger body of the family of God. More than half of our worldwide Anglican Communion lives in countries destabilized by epidemic rates of HIV infection, including several dioceses of The Episcopal Church. Parish communities in the United States have been responding to HIV and AIDS for more than 25 years.

In the United States, this year’s commemoration comes in a moment of transition for American democracy. A new President and new Congress will shape this nation’s response to HIV/AIDS at home and around the world. Many significant challenges face America’s leaders in the coming years.

We must find ways to build on successes in fighting HIV and AIDS in the developing world. American leadership since 2003 has brought life-saving treatment to more than 1.7 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (in contrast to 50,000 in 2002), while supporting more than 33 million counseling and testing sessions and providing prevention services for nearly 13 million pregnant women. Still, more than 6,000 people continue to die each day as a result of the pandemic, and infection rates in some of the hardest-hit places continue to grow. Earlier this year, Congress and the President pledged significantly increased funding, and renewed strategies, for the global fight against AIDS. It will be up to the new Congress and Administration to keep the promises that have been made by their predecessors.

The incoming Administration of President-elect Obama is soliciting suggestions from citizens for national priorities in the year ahead at www.change.gov. I urge all Episcopalians living in the United States to ask President-elect Obama and his Administration to make the fight against AIDS at home and around the world a priority, even in difficult economic times. The security and well-being of the world depends on health and healing for all. You can join your voice with those of other Episcopalians who will take action in the months and years ahead to advocate for strong U.S. responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic by signing up for the Episcopal Public Policy Network at www.episcopalchurch.org/eppn.

I commend to Episcopalians the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, www.neac.org, a grassroots group that has been working in Episcopal communities for more than two decades to support caregivers, give guidance on prevention, and advocate for a more compassionate AIDS policy. In particular, I draw your attention to the online quiz NEAC has developed for Episcopal communities to commemorate this World AIDS Day.

Christians around the world marked the First Sunday of Advent yesterday as a season of hope and expectation, remembering that the "Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings" (Malachi 4:2). On this World AIDS Day, I pray that the God who tents with humanity will raise us up to work together to make the divine dream of healing and abundant life for all creation a reality – may your kingdom come, O Lord, and speedily.

Your servant in Christ,
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop
The Episcopal Church

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/presiding-bishop.htm 

Dec. 1: World AIDS Day-my post from 2006

[12/1/2006]

What a busy week at Christ Church. Our building is buzzing with preparation for the Fieldstone Fair, which is tomorrow.  We’ve been putting the final touches on our stewardship materials, and I’m going on retreat next week, so Carolyn and I have been working on the worship leaflets for December 10 as well as for this Sunday.  In the midst of this, the copier jams, our good printer is still at the repair shop, and the phone rings off the hook!  Not dissimilar to your own busy-ness, either, I suspect.  There is something about late fall and the holiday season that makes the introspection we are invited toward in Advent that much more elusive.

 Important as it is, though, introspection is not always what we are called to. Today is World AIDS Day.  Just thinking about the numbers is staggering: 4 million new cases worldwide every year. 25 million people killed since the first case was identified 25 years ago.  An estimated 3.1 million (between 2.8 and 3.6 million) dead from the virus in 2005 of which, more than half a million (570,000) were children.  AIDS is a disease that often gets talked about as something that happens to “other people”—gay men. IV drug users.  Poor people. People far away.  People in the inner city.  Whoever it is, we reassure ourselves, it’s not us.

 

The trouble is, we are Christians; and as Christians, those distinctions don’t hold up so well. Jesus was serious about that “love your neighbor” business. God isn’t being born among us this Christmas as one of us—God is being born among us this Christmas as one of all of us. We are made in God’s image. So God created, and it was good. And that means that the face of God is just as present in a drug user dying of AIDS, just as manifest in someone whose sexuality is different from yours, just as manifest in a poor person, or a rich person, or an American, or an African, or in me, or in you. 

 And the numbers are staggering; An estimated 3.1 million (between 2.8 and 3.6 million) dead from the virus in 2005, of whom more than half a million (570,000) were children.  How can we grasp such numbers? How can we see the face of God in such a vast quantity of people?

 Maybe we can’t; maybe it’s impossible to imagine as many people as live in Chicago or Los Angeles dying from a single disease in a single year.   The limits of our imaginations, though, should not be the limits of our prayer, nor should it be the limits of our willingness to be moved by such tragedy, however unimaginable. This is where we meet the limit of introspection; no amount of quiet thought or respectful silence can suffice. We are called to honest prayer of lamentation and hope, coupled with substantive action on behalf of and in solidarity with those who are suffering.

 Many of us participated in the June Jubilee walk for AIDS relief in Africa; over 30,000 was raised for Anglican mission in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Our dollars fund programs for orphan feeding and education programs, as well as initiatives for home health care.  Perhaps you would be interested in joining a mission trip to Africa to witness our support and care. Perhaps you will vote in such a way as to support the use of our tax dollars for AIDS relief abroad and sensible solutions for AIDS prevention in the United States.  However you decide to take action, know that there is no grand solution, no master plan that will fix every problem; there are only individual steps, taken slowly by individual people, to cross the bridge.

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has...” Margaret Mead

 For more information, see http://www.worldaidscampaign.info

On eliminating extreme poverty: http://www.one.org