Faith is a universal human experience that transcends culture, nationality, and language, and even religion. For some time, while we are very comfortable of course with our Catholic roots and Passionist theology, we have been asking ourselves whether the name CAPS (or Catholics for AIDS Prevention & Support) was serving us and the people we support in the best possible way.

We are here because we have sisters and brothers everywhere, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, who are threatened with grave illness, or who are already sick unto death. Lives are disrupted; families are devastated; and ordinary hopes are challenged in every way. Despite some significant progress in the struggle against the dread HIV infection, it continues to outrun us.

I have been involved in different pastoral responses to HIV/Aids since the late 1980s, and can easily see parallels between Julian’s time and our own, particularly when recalling the first two decades of the AIDS pandemic. In the richer nations, new treatments have relieved most of us of the imminent sense of panic in the face of death that attended HIV/Aids during those first disease ridden years. Yet HIV remains an issue in the UK today.

HIV affects the poorest people in our society disproportionately, many live on welfare benefits, are refugees, in debt and in housing need. Despite medical advances many still suffer with debilitating sickness and die at a younger age than in the general population. They are often isolated and alone, despised by others because stigma and prejudice persist, and sadly, they are generally overlooked in our churches.

They described how they felt that HIV was a taboo subject, not to be spoken of, in their churches. Many explained that within the congregation several people were, like them, living with HIV - they would see each other at the HIV clinic. However, this was never acknowledged between them, nor spoken of within the congregation, nor by their priests or pastors. Still today, silence around issues of HIV is the norm in most churches.

The focus of World AIDS Day 2017 is the ending of isolation, stigma and HIV transmission. Vincent Manning considers the important role that churches can play in meeting those challenges. How can church members, teaching and resources respond to the individual pastoral needs of people living with HIV and, in doing so, enter into a valuable partnership with the NHS in order to fight the virus?

The pandemic of HIV/AIDS has been with us for nearly thirty years now. The situation for those living with HIV in the West has dramatically altered with the development of more effective treatments that delay or prevent the onset of AIDS for those who are diagnosed HIV positive at a sufficiently early stage of infection. This paper will review the last three decades in brief, and consider the similarities and differences between then and now. With a very close look at the experience of Catholics living with HIV in the UK, we shall consider the particular ministry of ‘Positive Catholics’ and reflect upon the challenges and gifts that those involved have experienced.

The society in which the early Church first proclaimed the Gospel, regarded the Cross and Crucifixion, as symbols of shame, stigma and rejection. They were words not to be mentioned by decent people.