The meaning of AIDS:

...The social phenomenon of AIDS breaks down our minds' defense systems and gives free rein to the deep-seated fears of even the most well-adjusted among us...

...As with the interventionist position, it is not logically necessary that there be a one-to-one correspondence between those who are "guilty" and those who are punished...

...tour, the pope was asked whether AIDS is a punishment from God...

...AIDS is the great American Rorschach test, a dark blot whose interpretations may say more about the interpreter than about the picture being interpreted...

...God is involved in human affairs insofar as human beings respond to this inner call and give themselves over to it...

...The position of the bishops is echoed in a pamphlet put out by the Catholic Health Association of the United States, "AIDS: Ethical Guidelines for Healthcare Providers" by Diana Bader and Elizabeth McMillan, 1987...

...official Catholic teaching is clear about the immorality of homosexual activity and drug abuse...

...What God most offers human beings are choices...

...For example, those who see AIDS as the hand of God warning about social permissiveness seem inclined to permit "the sinners to suffer" the consequences of their misdeeds...

...Antonio laments that "the Pied Pipers of the homosexual liberation movement have led hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of young bathhouse habitues to an impending AIDS death...

...The Real and Alarming Facts about AIDS (Ignatius Press, 1986...

...John," the being who is channeled, envisions AIDS as a mirror reflection of the way that society has treated the high risk groups, homosexuals and drug abus-ers...

...A reading of some of the popular literature on the ultimate meaning of AIDS reveals a complex picture...

...God offers humankind the choice between accepting and rejecting the role of caregiver i.e., risking possible suffer-into to lovingly respond to the afflicted...

...Although the bishops' moral objection to any homosexual activity is hotly contested within society at large, the bishops still manage to stress a loving response to persons with AIDS while upholding the church's guidelines for moral sexual behavior...

...They are not intended to be either inclusive of all possible positions or free of overlap...

...Although the ways of God are difficult to discern, the ways in which things happen are surely more than coincidence...

...You know well that God's wrath can be made manifest in this life and that justice is thereby done...

...Flynn discerns in AIDS a call for human beings to exercise Christian love of neighbor...

...This approach can be found in the position of Gene Antonio in The AIDS Cover-Up...

...Is the fact that lesbians are currently the lowest risk group for AIDS a sign of God's favor...

...Believes that God's power is persuasive, not controlling...

...any mention of'' morality "is taken, of itself, to be judgmental and reactionary...

...Yet a broad pluralism exists even among Catholics who may think in terms of the interventionist, discernment, intentional, or process model, or more likely some combination thereof...

...AIDS is an illness, an epidemic, a killer, a threat, a news event, a mystery...

...Her conclusion suggests that any wrestling with an ultimate meaning for AIDS is senseless and self-serving...

...Positions taken on AIDS education, prevention, and research are grounded in presuppositions about the way in which God is at work-or not-in the world...

...Rather, God 'risked' creating a world in which HIV could develop...

...Among those who see in AIDS an opportunity to exercise Christian charity and healing, any general questioning of social permissiveness is viewed as inappropriate and irrelevant to the task at hand...

...The Catholic voice needs to make these ethical points even more forcefully because some persons both inside and outside the church think that Catholic moral doctrine sanctions the punishment idea...

...It is clear that the social phenomenon of AIDS raises not just ethical questions but fundamental theological questions...

...Most Catholics, for example, would find the secular view foreign to their consciousness...

...He chastises the "self-appointed prophets of nihilism and pansexual libertinism who have succeeded in fostering the conditions leading to the biological and social downfall of society...

...That Eileen Flynn takes such a position is reflected in the title of her book, AIDS: A Catholic Call to Compassion (Sheed and Ward, 1985...

...During his trip, he both reached out compassionately to persons with AIDS and reasserted the church's official stand against homosexual activity...

...Even the poll results are as interesting for what they suggest about people's attitudes toward God as for what they suggest about people's attitudes toward AIDS...

...Fortunato writes: "I do not know why God-whose ways I wish I could just give up trying to understand-initially chose gay men to comprise most of AIDS' victims...

...He said further that "homosexuals are in the heart of the church...

...Any attempt to import a dramatic meaning from outside the strict medical model will result in a destructive distortion of reality...

...and stress that "as with all other diseases, AIDS is a human illness...

...How could anyone see the hand of God in the pain of human beings...

...Discernment...

...Ultimately God is writing straight with crooked lines...

...The U.S...

...He believes that we cannot know the ultimate reason for AIDS...

...Natural Consequences...

...The terms "interventionist" and "intentional" are taken from John Shea's Stories of God (Thomas More Press, 1978), though what Shea means by them differs somewhat from my usage here...

...The trouble with this variety of competing beliefs is that issues that should be central to society's response to the AIDS epidemic-such as care-giving, prevention, and societal values-are becoming exclusively associated with certain sets of presuppositions, hampering the debate about what is a proper public response...

...Implicit in this approach to the problem are powerful notions of culpability and guilt...

...It is distinct from Mullor's ppsition in that it locates the morally outrageous in society's treatment of high-risk groups rather than in behaviors of the high-risk groups themselves...

...You know also that in your fundamentalist reading of the Bible homosexual behavior is consistently and clearly condemned...

...It is only necessary that there be a fairly high correlation...

...Antonio draws a connection between the onset of AIDS and the widespread violations of biblical injunctions against homosexuality and bestiality...

...An examination of several approaches to the question of how God acts in the world will serve as a vehicle for introducing some current literature about the meaning of AIDS...

...God somehow influences not only the consciousness of human beings, but also guides major historical events and shapes significant moments in the lives of individuals...

...Stresses divine omnipotence, with an emphasis on God's occasional breaking into the natural order of things to accomplish special purposes...

...Believes that God is at work in the world in mysterious ways, without relying on a model of direct intervention...

...Imagine that you believe the Bible is inspired by God in a way that it is factually inerrant...

...He replied, amid many T.V...

...This approach underlies the position of Charles Stanley, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention...

...With AIDS, the horrendous physiological consequences of their deathstyle can no longer be concealed...

...Since the question asked whether AIDS might be a punishment from God, isn't it outrageously presumptuous to suggest that God has nothing to do with AIDS...

...Loretta Koppelman, writing in a collection of essays, AIDS: Ethics and Public Policy (ed...

...From this perspective it would be silly not to suspect strongly that God is directly behind AIDS...

...Her overall thrust, however, dismisses the value of any discussion whatsoever about the morality of behaviors involved in the transmission of AIDS...

...That the punishment of one group spills over onto others does not mean that God cannot be the cause...

...Although Fortunato emphasizes that it is all a great mystery, he offers what he labels the "non-rational" suggestion that AIDS will put sufferers in touch with a true spirituality of death, resurrection, hope, and compassion, and that perhaps it will be through AIDS that society's attitude toward gays, drug abusers, and other marginalized groups might be converted...

...And yet he still feels compelled to wrestle with the question of the meaning of AIDS in the divine scheme of things...

...The bishops outline a compassionate response that respects official Catholic teaching on the meaning of human sexuality, and implicitly criticizes any position which discerns in AIDS a direct punishment from God...

...And yet for the 42.5 percent who said yes, the connection may seem obvious...

...John Paul II, although his specific discernment differs from Fortunato's, seems to take a similar approach to the question of God's activity in the world...

...Nor is this by any means a debate confined to interventionists and secularists...

...Shelp and Sunderland are therefore not as concerned about the cause of AIDS as they are about the human response to AIDS...

...Intentional...

...Flynn presents a God who acts not through any kind of direct intervention but rather as a forceful tug on human intentionality...

...Similar presuppositions are reflected in the position taken by the Vatican representative to the United Nations, Archbishop Justo Mullor, in a speech given to the World Health Organization in May, 1987 when he said that AIDS, although not directly caused by God, is the result of disturbances in human ecology due to a "suicidal permissiveness geared to anarchistic pleasures...

...These guidelines insist on the importance of correcting the belief that AIDS is a punishment from God: "Such an attitude, personally demeaning to the person with AIDS, has the further disastrous effect of isolating from the community the sick person most in need of its practical support...

...She emphasizes universal human dignity, the special claims of the needy and the suffering, the imperative not to judge, the taking up of one's cross, being steadfast in hope, and many other central Christian themes...

...What is fascinating about Fortunato's position is that he combines a gay activist view with the notion that AIDS has meaning in the divine plan...

...God does not foreknow the future, but rather struggles and suffers, triumphs and rejoices along with us...

...Secularists characterize the "religious" view as holding that AIDS is a divine punishment, and sharply criticize that view...

...Divine justice is structured into the uni verse such that ultimately one pays the price of one's transgressions...

...Can society distinguish between blaming AIDS victims for the outbreak and spread of the disease on the one hand, and discussing the morality and risk associated with those behaviors...

...The immanence of God is God within the human heart...

...The following models are intended to provide a general backdrop against which to understand the presuppositions of various interpretations of AIDS in its relationship to God...

...God is not directly zapping people...

...the transcendence of God is the divine call to growth in love...

...In other circles, it is difficult to discuss the behaviors by which the disease has most often been transmitted in the U.S...

...There are as many positions about how God acts in the world and, consequently, what AIDS means, as there are commentators...

...Can society distinguish between giving heartfelt material and spiritual help to the suffering and condoning, without hesitation, any lifestyle whatsoever...

...Lewis explain how pain can come as a gift from God to move us from sin to grace...

...Drawing upon the thought of Susan Sontag, Ross concludes, "AIDS has been permitted and encouraged to carry a moral meaning, but the morality is in our minds, not in the disease...

...Flynn is critical of official Catholic teaching about homosexual activity, and suggests that monogamous relationships be encouraged...

...Secular...

...The pope's approach is neither to deny nor to overinterpret the activity of God, but to model an appropriate response in the face of an epidemic that challenges our powers of discernment...

...Didn't C.S...

...In its commingling of sex, death, and drugs, AIDS strikes fear and fascination into our hearts...

...A recent Times Mirror Gallup Poll revealed that 42.5 percent of those surveyed think that AIDS might be a punishment from God for immoral sexual behavior (Newsweek, February 1, 1988...

...Fortunato rejects the idea that AIDS is a divine punishment...

...They say, "Jesus has revealed to us that God is compassionate, not vengeful...

...They argue that "God does not 'send' AIDS for some retributive purpose (such a thought flies in the face of the New Testament witness to a loving God...

...God is experienced as a tug on our subconscious toward truth, goodness, beauty, and love...

...cameras, that "the ways of God are very difficult to determine...

...by Christine Pierce and Donald VanDeVeer, Wadsworth, 1988), uncovers the contradictions inherent in the "punishment concept of disease," both religious and secular, when applied to AIDS...

...Like the positions of Antonio and Mullor, this New Age view presupposes a natural order that responds to moral outrages without the need for a special divine intervention...

...Why would Stanley say this...

...In this confused logic, the answer to the problem is simple: Repress these behaviors...

...Is it simply a coincidence that the two highest risk groups, non-monogamous homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers, are engaged in activities that traditionally carry the admonishment of religious authorities...

...The debate about the meaning of AIDS is inextricably mixed with the debate a-bout the meaning of God...

...Beliefs about AIDS and Divine Activity: Interventionist...

...This manifests one way of understanding: what you sow you reap...

...Fortunato is of the school of thought that there is a reason for everything...

...Such an approach underlies the position taken by the gay activist writer John Fortunato in his book, AIDS: The Spiritual Dilemma (Harper and Row, 1987...

...Catholic bishops in "The Many Faces of AIDS" (Origins December 24, 1987) take a position on the question of divine activity that sounds very much like Flynn's...

...They call for Catholics to respond as Jesus would...

...These scholars interpret AIDS as one unfortunate actualization of the many possibilities of this free and diverse universe that God has created...

...Presumably, about 57.5 percent find that pretty hard to believe...

...Didn't God send the angel of death to kill the firstborn of the Egyptians when the pharaoh refused to let God's people go...

...They focus on revelation as the disclosure of the possibility of new life and the deeper meaning of divine love...

...Process...

...Thus, to challenge any of the positions I have outlined is to challenge not just an opinion about a disease but deeply held sets of presuppositions and beliefs...

...To "channel" is to serve as a medium for a being from another spiritual plane or from another time...

...Flynn discusses in depth the place of God in the phenomenon of AIDS without ever bringing up the question of whether God causes AIDS...

...Believes that God is the primary cause of all, but there exist secondary chains of causality...

...You read the stories of God wiping out the world of Noah, putting plagues upon the Egyptians, sending the Israelites into captivity, striking dead Ananias and Sapphira, and on and on...

...A New Age interpretation of AIDS, which is something of the flip side of Antonio and Mullor's positions, is claimed to have been "channeled" by Kevin Ryerson from John of Zebedee, who lived 2,000 years ago and was a follower of Christ (see Psychoimmunity and the Healing Process, Celestial Arts, 1986...

...What about the people who acquired AIDS from blood transfusions or while in the womb...

...Believes that God works through our inner life...

...Last fall, on the night he arrived in Miami for his second U.S...

...The argument that some victims are clearly "innocent" is unconvincing, for the Scriptures put no constraints upon God to have everything work out justly in this life...

...The bishops' perspective in "The Many Faces of AIDS" is a striking example that we can...

...In a separate channeling, a direct link is made between the collapse of the immune system and social disinvestment...

...Stanley is quoted in the Los Angeles Times (January 24, 1986) saying, "AIDS is God indicating his displeasure toward a sinful lifestyle...

...Fortunato speculates about redeeming elements that might be uncovered in the AIDS epidemic...

...Believes that the causes of this-worldly happenings can be explained adequately without any reference to God...

...God created a universe with many risky possibilities...

...The universe is structured in such a way that sooner or later you will pay...

...Each commentator is operating with basic theological presuppositions, whether explicit or implicit...

...It is futile to argue against an interventionist that divine justice is not at work on the grounds that not every case fits a neat pattern...

...Writing in the same volume, Judith Wilson Ross offers an incisive analysis of various metaphors used to talk about AIDS...

...This approach informs the position of Earl E. Shelp and Ronald H. Sunderland in their book, AIDS and the Church (Westminster Press, 1987...

...In yet another essay in the same volume, Allan M. Brandt writes, "In some quarters the misapprehension persists: AIDS is caused by homosexuality rather than a retro virus...

...Common to these interpretations is the insistence that AIDS is caused by a virus, period...

...Nor is it effective to argue against an avowed secularist that the combination of factors involved is too uncanny to be mere coincidence...

...Our reactions to AIDS are complex and often anything but level-headed...

...Secondary causes are at work in such a way as to achieve the ultimate ends of divine providence...