A Patchwork of Positive Stories
Faith & HIV: Dying from AIDS to Living with HIV
‘A Patchwork of Positive Stories’ event was hosted by CAPS in central London, Monday 8 September. This public symposium was the culmination of a series of workshops facilitated by local Artist Kate Burnett, during which PositiveFaith members reflected on their own experience and created a new work of Art together.
At the evening event two HIV-AIDS Quilts were displayed for the fi rst time. Together they represent the Church’s response to HIV in the UK spanning the last 40 years. The fi rst quilt, newlyreconditioned, displays patches created by the Catholic AIDS Link (CAL) Charity (1988-1999) remembering people who died of AIDS. The second has been made by members of CAPS’ PositiveFaith HIV-Peer-Support Ministry, presenting stories of people living with HIV today.
Even though there was a tube and Rail Strike over 60 people attended. HIV sector clinicians and workers, Local Authority Commissioners, faith community members and people living with & affected by HIV listened to PositiveFaith members who spoke about their patches. Diverse experiences of living with HIV were shared by men & women, heterosexual & gay, migrants or refugees from Africa and Europe receiving HIV-treatment in the UK.
CAPS’ Director Vincent Manning put the quilts into historical perspective noting how the CAL Quilt represents the Catholic response to AIDS in the 1990s and the CAPS Quilt the Catholic response to HIV today. He described how in both cases, whilst supported by individual Bishops and members of the clergy, these pastoral and educational responses to HIV in society were led by Christian women and men living with HIV. Vincent challenged the rather simplistic prejudicial view of the Church as an unhelpful player in the ways that the Church has responded to HIV and AIDS historically. He described the pastoral need of any Christian diagnosed with or affected by HIV to address spiritual and doctrinal issues in order to “make faith-sense of living with HIV”. These two Quilts represent the ways in which bishops, clergy and the people of God have consistently and continually acted in solidarity with PLWH in this country.
Vincent named the distinction between these 2 Quilts: The first a memorial of loved ones who died of AIDS. The second, thanks to modern day medicine, a patchwork of Positive Stories of life and living well with HIV. Taken together they tell stories of courage, resilience and overcoming suffering. Stories of faith, hope & love in action.
Each of the five speakers emphasised the importance of faith and how belonging to the PositiveFaith community had helped them to navigate social disadvantage and overcome HIV-Stigma.
The two Quilts will be displayed again at The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, London, on Saturday December 6th to coincide with the celebration of a Mass for World AIDS Day at 3pm where CAPS’ Patron Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe OP will preach. (see below)
