April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
Outlines disaster of AIDS in Africa
Via email, The Evangelist interviewed Bishop Dowling as he prepared for his visit.
Q: Tell us about your diocese.
Bishop Dowling:
The Diocese is 32,120 square kilometers, roughly 150 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg. The population is estimated to be about 1.2 million, of which 43,500 are Catholics. It is mostly a rural and extremely poor area, and there is only one large town, Rustenburg itself. I have served here for 10 years.Q: It's been estimated that more than half the people in your diocese are infected with HIV. Is the rate of infection increasing?
Bishop Dowling:
It is difficult to estimate the average percentage over the whole diocese, except that this province has one of the highest infection rates of all nine provinces in the country.What makes for a really serious problem are the large number of platinum mines in the vicinity of Rustenburg town. These still have a residue of the apartheid past: severe socio-moral problems, among which are prostitution and the men taking partners locally while their original wife, family and home may be far away.
In the greater Rustenburg town area, [the] incidence of AIDS and HIV infection is estimated to be 35 to 38 percent but is probably higher. The infection rate and percentage is increasing, and people and even children are dying of the disease in increasing numbers.
Q: What conditions are people living under who have HIV/AIDS?
Bishop Dowling:
There is great poverty in the whole region due to massive unemployment. In spite of efforts by the government to improve living conditions through the introduction of electricity and clean water, the prevailing poverty is there.Widespread poverty with its attendant malnutrition gives rise to the opportunistic diseases, like TB, which, when combined with HIV and AIDS, brings death much more quickly. This is especially evident in babies and little children. Economic and development issues are integral to the whole AIDS context.
In the many squatter camps, the poverty situation is so much worse. The conditions here are truly indescribable. For example, at Freedom Park, shacks are erected on land right next to a mine shaft and hostel called "black turf" -- a type of soil which when it rains becomes a quagmire of mud. When it dries, it bakes hard. There are no toilets, therefore, because it is impossible to dig a hole for a toilet, and people have to walk into the neighboring field for this purpose.
There is no water there; steel tankers come in from villages each day and sell water to the people. There is no electricity and no refuse removal, so rubbish is thrown on piles, creating a stench and a danger of disease. There are no schools (except the primary school we as Church have started), no clinic (except the one our sister started), no work opportunities, nothing. The misery is unbelievable, but we have worked hard to start skills training, education and development projects. We as Church are the only organization involved in this community.
Q: Why is AIDS education so difficult in Africa?
Bishop Dowling:
One of the major problems we face is the "culture" of silence around sexuality. Adults and parents do not talk about sex to their children. There is also a stigma, and a consequent fear, attached to being infected [with HIV], and people do not talk about this openly.The massive effort to create education and awareness programs on AIDS may have had some effect, but it is not producing the behavior change without which we will not turn this pandemic around. The awareness campaign is having a negative effect because young people are getting "switched off" by all this and don't want to hear any more.
Q: Have you known people who have died of AIDS? How did their lives affect yours?
Bishop Dowling:
I have personally known many people, and even babies, dying of AIDS -- the most recent just four days ago. I visited a shack where a young mother is dying of AIDS. Last week, her little child died of AIDS, and she has an absolutely emaciated baby of four months, a baby who will die of AIDS within the next couple of weeks. The real tragedy is to see how many young people from 15 to 35 are infected.Q: How has dealing with this crisis affected your ministry as bishop?
Bishop Dowling:
We as a local Church must bring to people the experience of the compassionate, caring God in whom we believe. [We must also] change the attitudes which create a climate of fear around the disease, the stigma and silence, and the lack of motivation to respond to the crisis.We are slowly making headway and are now training wonderful people from local communities to minister to people and families living with HIV/AIDS. This includes prevention strategies, but the major effort has to be in motivating our people and communities to care for their sick themselves.
My role as bishop has been to motivate our whole Church community, poor and under-resourced as it is, to find the will and resources to respond to the pandemic. Until recently, even some Church personnel did not believe we were facing such a massive crisis.
Q: You're trying to start an AIDS hospice in your diocese. How is this process progressing?
Bishop Dowling:
I have seen people at the last moment of their lives lying in a zinc shack with a zinc roof inches above one's head, which is like an oven in the summer and a freezer in the winter,...people lying on floors with absolutely nothing, with no food, with no family to support them, ostracized, lying in filth and diarrhea and vomit. No person should have to die like that, and there are literally thousands dying in such conditions.Our hospice will only be a part of a whole system and program of counseling and home care. There is no doubt that there is a need for a hospice. The great problem has been to find the money.
Q: The Evangelist did a story in March on parishioners from St. Clement's in Saratoga Springs sending funds to help with the project. Have their contributions made a difference?
Bishop Dowling:
The support of the parish of St. Clement's has been very important. It has enabled me to pay for part of the necessary planning phase, fees for consultants and the architect, and so on. It will also pay for part of the expenses when we sink a borehole to provide water to the complex.It is also important from the point of view of people of faith in the U.S.A. entering into partnership with us. This is what Church is all about, and I trust that my visit will deepen this relationship. The project will last at least for the next 20 to 25 years, and I hope we can continue to work together to enable us to be faithful to the people to whom we are so committed.
I fear the crisis is so enormous and complex that people can get weary of hearing about it and feel helpless about making a difference. I want to show that it is a bringing together of small efforts and responses, and consistent collaboration, which will enable little people like ourselves to do something relevant, and at the same time to make the Gospel and God become real in a situation of desperation.
I cannot do this alone. I need the support and care of my sisters and brothers in the U.S.A. It will be a privilege to share my journey [in my talk] in the hope that what we are doing here will touch the people I meet -- and [show] that they matter to people thousands of miles away over here in a remote and poor diocese.
(Bishop Dowling will speak on June 15, 4 p.m., at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany. To attend, call 285-8150.)
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