South Africa: Archbishop Appeals for AIDS Relief

While most Anglican leaders in Africa have cut their ties with the Episcopal Church USA since it elected an openly gay bishop last summer, South Africa's Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane stands with his American brethren. Disagreements over homosexuality, said Ndungane, must not divert the church from more pressing matters like the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Last week, Ndungane was in Washington lobbying the U.S. government and corporate leaders for help in fighting HIV/AIDS in his homeland. "Our God is not a one-issue God," he said in an interview Thursday after meeting with pharmaceutical company executives. "Human sexuality is important. But there are life and death issues before us," Ndungane said.

Ndungane met with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and other senior officials to push for full funding of President Bush's promised $15 billion, five-year global AIDS plan. Some religious and humanitarian groups have charged that the administration is failing to keep its commitment. Ndungane is more diplomatic: "It is up to the American public to challenge whatever discrepancies are there. Our view is, we are appreciative for any help given to alleviate the global pandemic before us."

As Desmond Tutu's successor as archbishop of Cape Town, Ndungane presides over black and white Anglicans with a history of division over apartheid and sanctions. This has shaped his ardent belief in remaining together despite differences. Above all, he has repeatedly urged Anglicans to "get on with God's mission in the world" by focusing their attention on disease, poverty and war, not homosexuality.

"The church is not a club of the like-minded, a group of those who are happy to agree," he said at a sermon Friday at the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. "We belong together, whether we like it or not."

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