Faith Community Gains Respect in AIDS Policymaking, Say Observers

Faith-based organizations, which for years have been relegated to the margins of discussions on AIDS policy and planning, are finally beginning to gain recognition, said participants in the XVII International AIDS Conference, which concluded Aug. 8 in Mexico City.

"This isn't perceived as a friendly place to be a religious leader, but increasingly the faith community is being respected and taken seriously," said Linda Hartke, coordinator of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, a group that includes several U.S. Catholic groups, including the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services and the Catholic Medical Mission Board.

"Yet with respect comes new responsibility and challenges. The more engaged we are, the more other people expect of us. The challenge for us is to do more, to do it better, to learn from our experience, to build bridges to other sectors of civil society as well as governments and the private sector, because it's only by working in partnership and not in isolation that we'll be more effective," Hartke told Catholic News Service.

During a speech to a gathering of 600 religious leaders that preceded the conference, Craig McClure, executive director of the International AIDS Society, applauded the churches' response to HIV and AIDS. The Geneva-based International AIDS Society, the main sponsor of the international AIDS conference, is the world's leading independent association of HIV and AIDS professionals.

"Many faith-based organizations have been at the front line of the response to HIV since the very beginning. In the early years of the epidemic, some were the only groups willing to provide solace for the dying. When many others shunned those living with HIV and AIDS, many Christians and people from other religions reached out with compassion to those in their communities who were in need," he said.

Nonetheless, McClure said, "the significant proportion of HIV services that are delivered by faith-based organizations throughout the world is not reflected in their influence globally, regionally and nationally on policy setting and regulatory processes and this must change."

He said some lingering tensions complicate making faith-based groups full participants in policymaking.