June 1, 2004
Anglicans commit to fight against
AIDS in Africa
ST. CATHARINES, Ont.
The top governing body of the Anglican Church has called
on the Canadian government to triple its financial commitment
to the fight against AIDS.
The move came after an impassioned speech from a senior
United Nations official on how Christian leaders in Africa
failed for 20 years to recognize the pandemic.
Stephen Lewis who serves as the UN's special envoy for HIV/AIDS
in Africa said Anglican and Muslim leaders on the continent
have only recently begun to support those with AIDS and
promote sex education and condom use after long ignoring
what he called the worst calamity facing the planet.
In addition to committing Canadian Anglicans to fight the
stigma surrounding AIDs, more than 300 delegates voted unanimously
to ask Ottawa to triple its annual contribution to a global
anti-AIDS fund to $75 million a year.
While emphasizing many Muslim and Christian leaders in Africa
have begun ministering to those who are sick as well as
educating against AIDS, Lewis said they were too long held
back from action by their faith's ban against openly discussing
sexuality.
In many African countries, Lewis, who is Canadian, said
up to 30 per cent of the population now has HIV-AIDS. Most
of the victims are women and girls, who are often pressed
into having sex or who have contracted the disease after
being raped during military conflicts.
Life expectancy in many countries has dropped in two decades
to 40 years of age from 60 as a result of AIDS, he said.
The continent is filled with tens of millions of orphans.
A frequent visitor to Africa, Lewis described thousands
of households in which both parents have died of AIDS being
led by eight and 10-year-old children.
"The continent is losing people in their most productive
time of their lives," said Lewis, who has been the
UN's AIDS envoy for three years.
Political leaders from the U.S. and Europe who say AIDS
has "become the greatest threat to the planet"
are absolutely right, he said. "The death spiral has
only begun. And the people do not have to die."
Religions can "play a tremendously powerful role"
in the right against global AIDS, said Lewis, who has a
secular Jewish background. "Africa is a very religious
continent."
There are roughly 30 million Anglicans in Africa, out of
the denomination's total baptized membership of 70 million.
In addition, tens of millions more Africans are adherents
of the Roman Catholic Church or Islam.
B.C. Archbishop David Crawley, who is acting primate during
this gathering of General Synod, said in an interview that
many of Africa's Anglican churches failed to respond to
the rapid spread of AIDS in the 1980s because they associated
it with homosexuals. "And they didn't believe they
had gays and lesbians in Africa."
But Crawley joined Lewis in praising several African Anglican
leaders, in particular South African Archbishop Mjongonkulu
Dnungane (the successor to Nobel Peace laureate Desmond
Tutu). for helping lead the continent's recent campaign
to stop AIDS.
Noting the West has spent almost $200 billion on war in
Iraq and Afghanistan, Lewis said diverting a tiny fraction
of that money to the AIDS fight, especially through the
purchase of Western drugs, would save three million Africans
a year.
Acknowledging that Anglican delegates to General Synod were
embroiled in a divisive discussion over same-sex blessings,
Lewis received a standing ovation when he concluded his
speech by pleading, "Forgive me for asking you to address
troubles elsewhere."
