Is the Church still restricting burials in their graveyards to those who were HIV negative? Shame.
[him] moderator
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This Happened to Show God’s Love
Sister Mary reports on what’s behind the latest need for care in Myanmar.
If you’re an AIDS patient in Myanmar, the days of being afraid to ask for help may soon be over. That’s because churches in the country can no longer deny the pressing need for AIDS ministers like Sister Mary Grenough.
An increase in deaths blamed on “tuberculosis” and unnamed causes this year is bringing many families in Myanmar to the brink of despair. Parishes in Myanmar are now rushing to offer support to AIDS patients, who usually feel fear, not hope, inside church walls.
Entire families are dying--husbands, wives and children, one after the other. Find out more in Sister Mary’s latest blog post.
The symptoms are have become so overwhelming that Myanmar’s culture can’t ignore the signs of people who need help. Sister Mary has always been there for Myanmar’s AIDS patients. A trained nurse, she was able to organize the first national Catholic conference on AIDS care here three years ago. When the body met a year later, Sister Mary was asked to be the coordinator of Myanmar’s new National Catholic HIV/AIDS Network.
Now Sister Mary plans to launch a wave of AIDS workshops and follow-up outreach across six dioceses designed to replicate those given to Myanmar’s church leaders.
“With limited funding, we will be able to re-echo the workshops given to church leaders in different dioceses and offer other seminars and workshops to increase awareness,” Sister Mary said in an interview. The effort will still need funds to buy anti-AIDS medicines and hospice care, plus food and tuition for the groups which are forming for this ministry.
Meanwhile, the stigma faced by those with AIDS shows in terrible ways, For example, you could die of AIDS in Myanmar and not be allowed in some Catholic churches for burial.
Though the needs remain, the stigma is slowly changing. Find out how in Sister Mary’s blog post.
http://www.mklsisters.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1427&Itemid=21
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September 30th, 2010
Myanmar’s pastors find a voice on AIDS crisis
Five years ago in Myanmar, it was very difficult to get genuine interest and commitment from Church leaders to become involved in programs to prevent and provide care and support for people with AIDS, despite the fact that in the early 1990s, early awareness-raising workshops were provided to the bishops and the leader of Karuna, the social arm of the Catholic Church.
But by this year, it has become very obvious that the epidemic is reaching every diocese and affecting many families. Sadly, due to inadequate knowledge and very little available help, fear, stigma and discrimination have been the experience of most persons who are suffering from this disease.
In fact until now, some parishes will not allow the body of a person who died from AIDS to be brought into the church for burial or even to be buried in consecrated ground.
Sr. Mary Grenough with a family in MyanmarIn early 2010, the response was still very inadequate, and stigma, discrimination, and fears due to lack of understanding of the epidemic were painfully obvious. The awareness programs were for the most part limited to the usual churchgoers, not the high-risk groups for HIV/AIDS.
Yet in some dioceses, the underlying causes of the fast spread of the disease were rampant: poverty, very inadequate general education, almost no education on human sexuality, migration, intravenous drug use, and males and females resorting to “sex work” for survival or to attempt to improve their incomes.
A breakthrough came when 10 persons from the Myanmar HIV/AIDS ministries were able to join the first Asia-Pacific Catholic HIV/AIDS Network meeting in Bangkok in May.
As a result, Monsignor Robert Vitillo, head of the Caritas Internationalis delegation and special advisor on HIV/AIDS, came to Myanmar and gave workshops for bishops, priests, Religious, laypeople and interfaith groups from July 30 to Aug. 13.
Karuna Myanmar Social Services (KMSS) started HIV/AIDS awareness programs in 2003. Pyay diocese’s program started in 2005 and is currently assisting more than 300 HIV-positive persons and is the only Church program actively working with sex workers on prevention, care and self-help.
Myitkyina diocese started providing educational assistance to students affected by HIV/AIDS and home visits, in addition to peer education, life skills training, and some self-help projects. Banmaw diocese started its care program in 2009 and currently is working with 83 infected persons, 63 of whom are receiving anti-retroviral medicines.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition are presently serving in three programs (Kyaikkhame, Mon State) since 2003, Kalay (Sagaing Division) since 2007, and Loikaw, Kayah State, since 2009. The Religious of the Good Shepherd have started two programs: Tachileik, in northern Shan State, in 2005, and Yangon in 2009. The Missionary Sisters of St. Columban started home visits in 2004 and later expanded to offer a shelter and hospice program in Myitkyina, in Kachin State.
Another program staffed by lay professionals under the Mandalay Archdiocese Health Commission started working with people living with HIV/AIDS in 2007.
All of these programs interact with local and international non-profit organizations and some with the government to access any available medicines, medical services and training.
Stigma still prevails as is evident in the clientele of the above programs. All programs serve people regardless of religion or ethnic background. However, all report that very few Catholics will come to ask help from the programs run by dioceses or Religious in their own areas because they fear or have already experienced discrimination.
In 2007 and 2008, the Sharing about Caring – of Myanmar Catholics involved in HIV/AIDS Ministries - consultations were held in Yangon. The Caring Working team was formed in 2008. The bishops’ conference and Religious superiors were strongly requested to support urgently needed HIV/AIDS ministries in dioceses and parishes.
Results have been most encouraging. Since the workshops, bishops and priests have begun to speak about HIV/AIDS in their homilies.
To quote one bishop speaking to a group of thousands who had gathered for the celebration of Our Lady of Health on Sept. 8: “When you meet a person with AIDS we should not ask, ‘Who sinned?’ but as Jesus answered those who asked this question about a man born blind, we should reply, ‘Neither this man nor his parent have sinned. This happened so that God’s power might be shown in him.’”
And by our respect, care and support for the person with AIDS, God’s power and love will be shown through us.
— Sister Mary Grenough, MM
http://www.mklsisters.org/index.php?option=com_mojo&Itemid=28&p=142
