Present with Suffering(Gerald R Gioglio) “A loveless world is a dead world.” –Albert Camus—

The kindhearted shepherd descended the altar to stand face-to-face with his masked and anxious sheep. No ambo for Father Ron during this heartfelt homily on the duty to be of service to others. Pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Old Colorado City, Colorado during the AIDS epidemic and, after a short hiatus, now again during the plague called Covid. This day Father Ron spoke of the complicated challenges professionals and all of us confront when trying to help others during a time of plague.

During the AIDS epidemic, he remembered spending several hours with a distraught Catholic man suffering from that disease. In a church and a society far from being able to accept homosexuality, this frightened man felt both alone and abandoned. And so, they talked.

After their meeting, out of a lack of knowledge and fear, Father confessed to staring at an empty soda can the anxious, distressed man left on the pastor’s desk. Somewhat embarrassed he recalled a moment of fear and concern over how to properly handle that empty soda can. How should he pick it up? What should be done with it? Father Ron was not alone; those days, we were all hesitant and fearful. Unlike Francis of Assisi, we were afraid to embrace these modern, AIDs-carrying ‘lepers.’ Truthfully, most of us did not know how to help. Sadly, it seemed many did not want to think about that suffering population, and frankly, it seemed some just did not really care.

I drifted into a flashback as I sat there listening in the pew. During the early months of the AIDS epidemic, I worked at the Central Office of the State of New Jersey’s child welfare agency. At the time, scientists, medical professionals and social service agencies had difficulty understanding the disease. It was a scary time. So much was unknown. How did it spread? Was it airborne? Why did the epicenter seem to be among the gay, male population? What precautions should be taken to care for AIDS patients at home, in the doctor’s office or when hospitalized? Soon, medical professionals determined the disease was transmitted through bodily fluids, sending panic and terror through the gay community and among those who loved them. Large numbers were getting infected, sick, and dying.

Soon, women too were hospitalized with AIDS, many of them dually diagnosed as substance abusers. Sadly, some of these infected women were also pregnant, giving birth to children born with AIDS and often suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or cocaine withdrawal.

In urban areas increasing numbers of babies were being abandoned by infected mothers and placed under the care of our agency. Many AIDS-afflicted women, now confronting impossibly dark situations, were unable to care for sick newborns given their own medical and sociological condition. Few could confront the grief and horror of watching their babies die of AIDS while they themselves continued to deteriorate.

Our organization, with District Offices throughout the state, was responsible for finding foster home placement for these rapidly increasing numbers of hospitalized babies. But there was a problem. Not only were many Americans indifferent to homosexual men getting sick and dying, but all too few sympathized with the plight of mothers and babies with AIDS, even as urban hospitals became inundated with hopeless, dying infants.

Doctors and nurses did their best to care for these dangerously ill babies, expressing a defiant hope for a cure in the face of the tragic, terrible truth. Beyond hope, prayer and excellent medical care, one thing they could not do was provide enough consistent touch desperately needed by these infants.

And so, little ones cried. Sick, infected with disease, suffering withdrawal from drugs or alcohol, they existed, wailing alone in agony and desolation. There were not enough hours in the day, staff or volunteers to pick them up. There was no way to provide consistent human contact needed to ease the suffering and isolation of these doomed little ones. Our agency had to get them out of the hospital and into the arms of people willing to provide them with greater attention and comfort.

Under the best of conditions, it is often difficult to find foster parents for available kids, especially older children, children of minorities, children handicapped or developmentally disabled. With AIDS, virtually all existing foster parents were afraid of bringing sick and dying infants into their homes. The fear of infection was so great and the disease so insidious who could judge them for refusing to put themselves and their families at risk? Sadly, despite frantic phone calls to existing foster parents, our District Offices could not come up with many placements for these babies.

One day our supervisors informed us there was a man in southern New Jersey willing to take these high-risk children. We were not told the man’s name, where he lived or which District Office worked with him. All this information was top secret, known only to those supervisors and caseworkers with a need to know. Everything about this situation was kept confidential. The information could not get out or we would lose this resource and hell would break out in the media and elsewhere.

Expressing confusion, we were told extreme confidentiality was needed because this foster parent was a single, gay man. At the time, foster care and adoption agencies in New Jersey and elsewhere preferred couples over singles and due to political and religious objections simply did not place children with homosexuals. But unafraid, this man stepped forward, ready to serve; even in a country unwilling to grant basic human rights to members of the gay community.

What was his motivation? His faith? That is, a religious conviction to care for the least among us. A primordial human desire to have and love children? This story would never be learned, lost to history, justified by the desperate need to keep it all ‘in the closet.’

This single, gay man opened his home, his arms and his heart, receiving one child at a time. No longer were some of these infants alone. He fed them, cleaned them, held them as their infected fluids flowed. He wiped their tears, he wiped their bottoms, he wiped their vomit. He held them close against his breast and rocked them. He showed them love and affection during those agonizing days of their fleeting, dearly departing lives. In those early days of plague, one after another, the babies died…and we knew, each time, a little piece of him must have perished too.

Yet, when babies died, he reopened his home, reached out and nurtured another…and another…and another… and we couldn't celebrate his witness…and we never knew his name… a name indelibly engraved on the souls of those little ones he embraced.

So don't tell me saints do not walk this earth--because I know about this one.

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After Mass, I told this story to Father Ron, blurting out past, deeply held frustrations. “The man was gay, and we couldn’t tell anyone!” Both moved, both speechless, we locked eyes, shaking our heads with powerlessness, empathy and understanding.

THE END

© 2022, Gerald R Gioglio

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