By Nancy Devine

There are more than 40 million people around the world who have been diagnosed HIV-positive, meaning they have been infected with the virus that leads to AIDS.

The diagnosis comes with a heavy dose of stigma, silence discrimination, denial and fear, says Glen Williams, a South African writer and editor who has collaborated on Positive Voices, a new booklet which explores the experiences of religious leaders living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

Speaking at an Aug. 12 workshop before the start of the International AIDS conference in Toronto, Mr. Williams said the booklet is the first in a series of resource materials on issues related to HIV/AIDS.

The series, Called to Care, is aimed at pastors, priests, religious orders, church lay leadership and congregations, and is intended to be toolkit to foster understanding of the spiritual, theological, ethical, health and social implications of the AIDS pandemic. It is a partnership project between World Vision, Strategies for Hope, and ANERELA+, an African-based advocacy and support organization for religious leaders living with HIV/AIDS.

Positive Voices presents 14 personal stories of religious leaders who are either living with HIV or are personally affected by it. In honest and open language, they write from the heart. Most say that while faith sustains them, their religious communities often let them down.

For example, there’s the story of Elsa Aygui Ouko, secretary of the Mother’s Union in the Anglican Church of Kitale, Kenya. When her husband died of AIDS, she discovered she was also HIV-positive. Her relatives had a hard time accepting the news, so she turned to her pastor. He asked her not to tell the congregation.

“I kept quiet for a while, but it was very hard,” she writes. “I like sharing my experiences, and if I can’t I get disturbed. Finally, I decided to speak up.”

After one Sunday service, during the announcements, she told her congregation. Her pastor took her aside, but she told him in order to live a positive life, she would have to tell people about her status.

“The changes in my church since I went public have been tremendous,” she concludes. “More HIV-positive people have gone public, and the church has an HIV desk. Without such changes, there is stigma and discrimination in the church, and most of us die of stress and depression. But, if people are open it reduces the spread of HIV within the congregation.”

The book, which available as a free download at www.stratshope.org, looks at the issue of HIV/AIDS in the church from a very African perspective. But Mr. Williams says there are universal messages for those seeking to better understand faith communities’ role in embracing and empowering HIV-positive people.

“These are stories of life in the raw,” he says. “It is not always easy to swallow questions of credibility within the life of our faith communities. But we must acknowledge that we are imperfect and we fall far short of what we ought to be. This booklet does not present the church as a perfect model. If it simply opens up our communities to discussion, then I think we would consider it a success.”