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Appreciate Churches in the fight against HIV/AIDS
Fr. Ambrose J. Bwangatto
I am writing in response to an article titled “Church Leaders failing us” by Hillary Bainomugisha that appeared in the New Vision of Wednesday 12th May, 2010. In this article which started as his experience from the seminar organised by the Office of the First Lady to discuss the ways of helping married couples improve their fidelity in order to curb the rising cases of HIV/AIDS, he went on to make a number of unwarranted assertions. But most notable among them for the spread of HIV/AIDS which came to characterise his article, was that people do not take their spirituality seriously and have not been helped by religious leaders we esteem so highly. From this observation he made a host of statements that portrayed the Church negatively in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
First, he brought an example of Fr. Santos Constantino Wapokura of Nebbi Catholic Diocese who defiled two girls and possibly infected them with HIV. Immediately after that he mentions himself as a Catholic who tried to join the seminary but was stopped by the Rector and when he mentions it to people, they sigh with relief. Meaning that, he is lucky not becoming a priest as priests are defilers like Fr. Santos just mentioned, rapists and child molesters as press reports from all over the world indicate. So, he indicated that in the fight against HIV/AIDS priests as religious leaders have failed all the efforts to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS among married couples. I don’t know whether Bainomugisha made a survey in the churches to establish the Anti-HIV programs before his stinging criticism of the Church leaders. It is wrong and unethical to describe the historically known government partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS as partners in the spread of the same disease! It is wrong to portray the church, one of the architects of the internationally acclaimed ABC strategy as having failed the same cause they have fought for ages!
Secondly, he joins the popular opinion to call for optional celibacy in the priesthood arguing that people decide to become celibate priests at a time when they are totally unaware of their own resistance capacity against what they will be missing. I don’t know how much seminary training with theological formation Bainomugisha got to the extent of proposing against the virtue of celibacy. But apart from that, on a practical side I have got testimonies from people who suggest that they have been inspired by those faithful celibate chaste priests to live a life of sexual abstinence in this time of HIV/AIDS. Whereas, Bainomugisha popularly calling himself Dr.Love, has consistently promoted a permissive and laissez-faire sexual culture in the columns he runs in the New Vision and as a direct result expose countless people to HIV/AIDS, the priestly celibacy he mocks has proved the contrary and for his information, it motivated the origin of the A strategy in the whole ABC campaign for which Uganda as a country is applauded. On my recent visit to a school in Aachen, Germany, I was surprised to find a teacher using an HIV manual from Uganda with the ABC strategy being strongly emphasised.
Thirdly, he attacks the institutional churches and labels them as institutions which celebrate the prevalence of sin in the world because that is how they survive, because without sin, church leaders would be on the streets begging for food. He argues more that when spirituality is institutionalised, churches end up more concerned with image other than justice, making alliances with other churches they oppose from the pulpit and praying for the restoration of idolatry and always courting the rich and shun the poor. I cannot tell for sure whether Bainomugisha reads and prays with the bible or not and I cannot tell whether during his seminary days, he took a course called Bible Knowledge or not. The alliances he indirectly refer to and condemns, is the Uganda Joint Christian Council (UJCC) a body that brings together Christians from the Church of Uganda, Catholic Church and Orthodox Church. These churches despite their doctrinal differences, try as much as they can to realise the prayer of Jesus Christ for his disciples: “...that all of them may be one” (John 17:20-21). This attitude that Bainomugisha adopts against the institutional churches is rooted in the post-modernist culture that does away with traditional institutions and doctrines and advocates for loose and private spiritualities. I am afraid that the mode of hostility and criticism against the institutional Churches and church leaders is not helpful in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Fr. Ambrose J. Bwangatto teaches Theology and Philosophy at Ggaba Seminary, but currently in the Netherlands.
