When in 1991 I first visited Bonaventure House, an AIDS care facility on Chicago's Near North side, it was only two years old. In those two years, the 26-resident facility (it can house 34) had sheltered 100 guests. Twenty-one of them had returned to their loved ones, chosen a hospital in which to die, or had left the house either because group living was not for them or because their addictions had a greater grip on them than the reality of terminal AIDS. Fifty-three had died. (Only nine died in 1999, an indication of the advances in AIDS care.)

In her 1988 book, AIDS and Its Metaphors, Susan Sontag states her belief that AIDS has become the contemporary societal metaphor for chaos and paranoia. According to Tim McCormick, former CEO of Bonaventure House, "AIDS is a metaphor for everything that is wrong in our society. That little red ribbon that AIDS patients and supporters wear ties up all the problems that society doesn't want to see. AIDS has two faces. There is the ugly side that robs us of our youth. Then, there is the face of compassion and care that helps us to see the beauty."

I scheduled my first interview at Bonaventure House with Bob, an architect, who was better off financially than most of his fellow residents, although the incredible cost of the disease- between $102,000 to $120,000 per victim-had diminished his resources. The day before the interview, he had written a check to Bonaventure House to ensure that a penniless female resident would have flowers at her funeral. "I'll probably die before she does," Bob said, "and I want her to have some flowers at her funeral."

On the morning of my interview, Bonaventure House called to tell me that Bob had died. Although I had never met him, I felt a sense of loss for a man who thought of others. I went to his funeral in a local Catholic church. Not long before, a volunteer had introduced Bob to the Catholic church, and in only a few weeks, he had experienced leaps of faith. On Bob's deathbed, Brother Don Lucas, a Franciscan Brother, now deceased, who had been at Bonaventure House since its inception, whispered in his ear: "Bob, this is your agony in the garden." "No, Don, no," Bob replied. "It is my ecstasy in the garden."

Not all residents go to every funeral. But after each burial, residents and staff gather outside the former parish convent, that is Bonaventure House, and share a liturgy, during which each participant holds a balloon while someone speaks words of kindness about the friend they may have known for only a few months. Then, as if breaking the last earthly ties, the balloons are released, symbols of a soul ascending to heaven.

Not long after the funeral, I attended a Chicago symposium, sponsored by New Ways Ministry, a group whose apostolate is directed at ministry to gays and lesbians. One of the speakers was Detroit's auxiliary bishop, Thomas A. Gumbleton, one of a handful of U.S. bishops who risked Vatican displeasure by continuing to speak publicly in support of gay and lesbian rights. For Gumbleton and a few fellow bishops, it was not just a rights issue but as a gospel demand. "The church should affirm and bless the gay community," he said, "for teaching what it means to love." In his words, he was there to praise the gay and lesbian community for "the beautiful expressions of love and care toward those afflicted with AIDS. Nowhere do we find the resurrection more meaningful than in the community affected by AIDS…Nowhere is the grace of God more active."

Sadly, Gumbleton's words fell on largely deaf episcopal ears. The result has been a devastating loss of credibility on the morality of sexual issues. When AIDS first entered the U.S. in 1981, it was confined mainly to San Francisco bath houses, populated largely by gays. Few in the church were examining it closely. In May, 1986, Philadelphia's aging Cardinal John Krol told a reporter that the spread of AIDS was "an act of vengeance against the sin of homosexuality." A year later in December, 1987, the administrative board of the United States Catholic Conference, a group of some forty bishops, issued a statement that read: "Abstinence outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage as well as the avoidance of intravenous drug abuse are the only morally correct and medically sure ways to prevent the spread of AIDS."

Not all episcopal statements regarding homosexual conduct and related AIDS are negative. Indeed, in recent years they have issued sensitive pastoral statements even while terming homosexuality "disordered." In May, 1995, Cardinal George Basil Hume of Westminster issued a Vatican-approved letter titled "A Note on the Teaching of the Catholic Church Concerning Homosexuals." It contained background from an earlier letter, written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, titled "Letter on the Care of Homosexual Persons" (1986). "The Church recognizes the dignity of all people," Cardinal Hume's letter said, "and does not define or label them in terms of their sexual orientation…The Church refuses to consider the person as heterosexual or homosexual and insists that every person has a fundamental identity: a creature of God and, by grace, his child and heir to eternal life."

"There is no faith criterion for entrance to Bonaventure House," Tim Budz, former executive director, said, "but belief in a higher power is a great coping mechanism for most of our residents." It has been for Budz, too. Like most of the professional staff, he was once alienated from the institutional church, in part because of its attitude toward people's sexual orientation and AIDS. But his experience at Bonaventure House brought him back to active practice. "Spirituality is a big piece of this place," he said. "It's 95 percent of the system. It brings us to grips with who we are."

According to Mara Adelman and Lawrence Frey, authors of a study of Bonaventure House (The Fragile Community: Living Together with AIDS), 62.7 percent of the residents find that spirituality or religion helps them to cope better with their illness. For 54.2 percent spirituality or religion a is very comforting support, and 40.7 percent report that they have become more spiritual or religious since arriving at Bonaventure House. Religion is visibly expressed by small Bible study groups and various services in the chapel. Although it is not a hospice, 80 percent of the residents choose to die there Bonaventure House was founded by the Alexian Brothers, a 650-year-old Roman Catholic community of men with a history of reaching out to society's throwaways. It honors Bonaventure Thelen, the first Alexian Brother to come to the U.S. The Alexians invested $1.4 million to renovate the convent of the old St. Sebastian's Church and added a wing to create the present Bonaventure House.

The facility opened in March 1989. Within its first five years, it admitted 274 residents, 71 percent of whom died after an average stay of only 233 days.

The lifespan for people with AIDS is much longer now than it was when Bonaventure house opened. Residents who adhere to a therapeutic regime of protease "cocktails" may actually improve, move out, and return to jobs. Since no one is admitted to Bonaventure House unless diagnosed by at least two physicians as having full-blown AIDS, a resident's life expectancy nonetheless remains much shorter than for those who are yet only HIV-positive.

The facility now has a staff of 13 full-time and 14 part-time workers, together with more than 150 volunteers. Staff members generally leave after an average of 30 months. "If they stay too long," McCormick observed, "they tend to build up an immunity. Death loses its mystery."

In the Bonaventure community, there are conflicts, distrust, thefts, and locked doors. There are entanglements of dependence and independence. Residents experience episodes of salvation and despair. Living there requires abundant psychosocial adjustment. Resentment at times accompanies the loss of autonomy in exchange for community and depression can comes from with being around so many of dying people.

Most residents remain at Bonaventure House until their illness dictates hospitalization or until they die. Some leave on their own; some are asked to leave. Yet there are often instances of heroic charity, and there is a pervasive hopefulness. "Everyone around you has AIDS," one resident said. "So, you're not afraid. You're not ashamed." "Someone will be there to hold your hand," McCormick said. "Someone will be there no matter what. You won't be alone when you die."

The story of Bonaventure House suggests some important areas for theological reflection as well as providing a practical model of care. As McCormick points out, "We used to treat [the first generation of people with AIDS] using professional models, much like hospital patients with specific ailments. Now, the old professional model must give way to a service model in which the victim interacts with the caregiver."

The service model is a relational model in which each person gives to the other. Bonaventure House has discovered that it is not necessary that the presence of God be established through formal religious structures.

Reflecting on the theological aspects of AIDS, Donald Senior, C.P., a renowned scripture scholar, general editor of the Catholic Study Bible, and president of Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, observed that the disease forces Christians back to the basics of their faith more than any other contemporary plague. It forces people to ask if God has forgotten them and whether God created this ugliness. Why has God allowed AIDS to flourish, especially among the poorest of the poor?

Senior pointed out the lessons of AIDS, citing David Keck's observations about persons with Alzheimer's disease in Forgetting Whose We Are: Alzheimer's and the Love of God. "We learn that we are not as autonomous as we sometimes think we are. We are not really in control of our destinies even when we think we might be. We leave life as we entered it-helpless and dependent upon others for the care of our bodies and our spirits."

The ministry that takes place at Bonaventure House is not a complicated one. "Our residents don't ask what the church teaches," Dan Steiner, the spiritual director, said. "They ask if God loves them."

According to Steiner, Bonaventure House residents have an uncomplicated faith. "I don't hear a lot of despair," he said. "I hear a lot of frustration and shame. I hear a lot of anger. Many claim to hate the institutional church, but they enjoy religious types. It has become a rather simple spirituality for them-and for me."

"These are people who need this place," he continued. "These are people in real need. Many were homeless and addicted long before they got AIDS. Ours is more a theology of presence than one of moralistic therapy."

The model of Bonaventure House demonstrates that there is indeed a balm in Gilead. Here you will not find a fully developed moral theology. There is still much need for further dialogue and understanding concerning society's response to AIDS and the complex issues that surround it. There is still a need to build bridges, break new ground for theological reflection, and to open new doors to dialogue. Fr. Robert Nugent writes, "The ravages of AIDS can be transformed into opportunities for joining with Christ in his own pilgrimage of suffering and death." Thus, understanding the evolving theological dimensions of AIDS gives witness to the mysterious workings of God's grace in a vulnerable humanity. The main hope for people who seek answers in religious values is that the search for answers to the AIDS tragedy will be increasingly shaped by reason rather than fear, by compassion rather than condemnation, and by love rather than hate.

FURTHER READING
Adelman, Mara B. and Frey, Lawrence R. The Fragile Community: Living Together with AIDS. N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 1997.