ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

258Rodica Ţuguion the need to definitely know more about AIDS so that he would „preachmorality”, to awaken the feeling of compassion for the suffering in the soul ofeach person from the community „pastored” by him. He also should advocatetolerance between the people because the problem doesn`t get solved by castingaway the sick and his exclusion. In any event, it is a part of the priests’ duty. Theauthority which he enjoys allows him to raise the awareness of the populationabout the danger of „spreading” the virus and about the need to „accept” thesick 54 . They shouldn`t be treated like they are suffering of leprosy as at someother time people did, but unfortunately this still happens 55 .In certain situations 56 , the priests confess their anxiety about their ownbehavior or the behavior of the community regarding the sero-positives: Eventhough the priests are aware that the infected have the right to privacy, as well astheir families, discretion is needed about the fact they bear the virus. The priestsknow that public recognition is synonymous sometimes with stigmatization orexclusion. The priests are “afraid” that „keeping” such a secret can lead toincreasing the risk of contamination for those around them.Some of the priests participating in the group discussion consider thatthey need specialized instruction 57 in order to adequatley respond to theproblems which this disease raises for the community: ”we, as priests, can`t haveinspired solutions for all the problems of the community. And the HIV infectionis relatively new and all the other medical diseases have not found a responseyet. But even so, the way in which the disease is transmited is known. How canyou treat someone infected with HIV? I think it is good for priests to meet withpresents to the sero-positive and say hello. They were happy and full of life. They have impressedme.” (priest Constanţa)54“The priest could, as we just said, wake the feeling of compassion and tolerance forthe sick person. And compel the healthy ones to understand, to support, and to cast out their fear ofgetting infected. I know that many times it happens in the community and in the schools, wherethe sero-positives are cast away. They are not received in the classroom. So here I think that thepriest should have a special role to wake up the conscience of the people, to convince them that itis about a sick person who needs to be treated with compassion and love, as any other humanbeing. Exclusion doesn’t solve the problem.” (priest Alba-Iulia)55 “While the data suggests that there are not that many sick people with HIV there are notmany places that they can live and be cared for. Even when they are offered everything it is done ina very aggressive way making it seem like those places where the lepers were put in the ancient timewhen the priest had to relate between the infected and the healthy ones.” (priest Alba-Iulia)56“I have a 17 year old girl in my parochy who doesn’t know that she bears HIV, (she`staken into account at the Mayor’s office and the family, who knows about her disease and takescare of her, is paid) and she has a boyfriend. I`m not very much aware about the status of therelationship between the two of them. It`s probably a friendship. I don’t know exactly what`sgoing to come of this. The girl doesn’t know about her disease and the boyfriend is a boy from thevillage nearby, and there is very little possibility that someone will inform him. I was looking in onthem one Saturday afternoon, and all seemed normal when looked at from the outside. But whatshould be done?” (priest Constanţa)57“I admit that I`m not ready to teach somebody else how to stay away from thesethings or how he should be accepted in a circle of friends or by the family of someone who`s aseropositive because I don’t have the special preparation.” (priest Bucureşti)