c. 1998 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ There was a time when a cloak of silence about AIDS shrouded the black religious community, a shroud woven by stereotypes and misconceptions about what was considered a white, gay man’s disease.

But Harlem Minister Canon Frederick Boyd Williams said he has seen a marked change in his congregation and his community from the days when people were afraid to come to meetings where AIDS was on the agenda.

A dozen years ago, Williams, pastor of the Episcopal Church of the Intercession, recalled in an interview, he dared not utter the word AIDS from his pulpit and he watched as African Americans with AIDS were shunned by their churches.”Everyone wore gloves and masks. They wouldn’t bury people with AIDS,”he said. Today AIDS prevention, education, even advocacy, is a daily part of his church’s mission.

But health experts say the epidemic that once ravaged _ and now more or less successfully contained _ the white gay community has only begun to take its toll on African Americans.

For too long, Williams said, the majority of the black community has thought of AIDS as a merely a gay and white disease.”It never was and never has been,”said Williams,”and the church has not responded appropriately as it has done with other issues of health and healing.” So 10 years ago Williams and others took an active role in finding a way to combat ignorance about AIDS and the ostracism of its victims.

The result was the Black Church Week of Prayer and Healing of Aids. The national Week of Prayer, which begins Sunday (March 1), started as a community program in Harlem in 1989.”I was shocked. Black people were dying of AIDS and there was no spiritual support,”said Pernessa Seele, founder and CEO of The Balm in Gilead, a national nonprofit organization that helps black churches address AIDS issues.”There were 355 churches in Harlem and not one was doing anything about AIDS,”she said.

Today, churches and social service agencies in some 25 cities across the country are participating in the week by organizing prayer meetings and information sessions to spread the message about the devastating disease. Seele said the event works on the same principle as an”old time revival.” Churches are the natural focal point, Seele said, because historically they have been the principle dissemination points within the black community.”We use the week as a vehicle to open the doors of churches to become a community center for prevention and education,”she said.

Seele and others say in terms of its population-wide impact, the struggle against AIDS could be to African Americans in the 21st century what the civil rights movement was to the 20th century. And she said churches have an obligation to play a leading role in this crisis too.

Already AIDS is the leading cause of death for African Americans under age 55. And statistics suggest that by 2005 nearly 60 percent of all AIDS cases in the U.S. will be among African Americans.

Williams said in order to effectively deal with the issue the church must break free of the notion that AIDS is a moral issue.”AIDS is first a health crisis, not a moral issue,”he said.

Williams has witnessed the transformation in his own 900-member congregation. AIDS prayers are included in services every Sunday and during the week there are counseling programs, prevention seminars and occasional participation in protests.

Seele said she fears with the decline in overall new AIDS cases in the U.S. and the medical developments that have helped some AIDS patients live longer, the disease is becoming a”back-burner”issue.”It’s true people are living longer but how long can anyone take nine to 15 pills a day when they contract the disease in their 20s?” New treatments aren’t helping the majority of black AIDS victims because the drugs are too expensive and many doctors in rural communities are not able to adequately deal with the disease, said Seele.”(The prayer week) may be the first time a church says a special prayer for AIDS victims, it may be the first time they say `AIDS,’ but we want to make sure that prayer and healing together are part of the culture,”she said.

Eds: For more information about the Black Church Week of Prayer call 1-888-225-6243.)

DEA END WORDEN