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Editorial
The Editors

This issue of SIDIC came out of a suggestion by one of its readers who is a hospital chaplain working with people with AIDS-related illness. She wrote: "I want to encourage you to consider an issue of SIDIC addressing the subject of AIDS and religious communities - the ill and outcast and our responsibilities of care. In both Jewish and Christian tradition there are various kinds of response to illness and in particular to illnesses which alienate patients from community as AIDS does. Church and Synagogue congregations are in need of resources for theological reflection on the subject".
Medical care and research, pastoral ministry to the sick, the dying and their families and friends are, of course, the most immediate necessities in the face of AIDS. But AIDS is a `pandemic' disease affecting the whole of society; it presents many challenges - in the area of sexual attitudes, issues of justice, education, health care, service, compassion, reaching out, sharing. As the frontiers of this peril broaden, Church and Synagogue will be forced to call upon all the resources of their long tradition to meet its threat. This issue of SIDIC can do little more than raise awareness of the task before us which will force us to probe the deepest questions of human existence - the meaning of life, of suffering, of death.
AIDS cuts across lines of race, ethnicity and age but the basic theological principles determining our response are those that underlie the whole of biblical revelation, namely; every human being, irrespective of race or class is made in the image and likeness of God and has an innate dignity which must be respected. We are all in need of healing and forgiveness and each one without exception must face death. Equally certain is the revelation of a compassionate God who loves each person unconditionally. It is to a similar compassion and love that we are called.
Jennifer Phillips, hospital chaplain and pastor with eight years experience in AIDS ministry, describes the challenge of AIDS and the lines of a Christian response.
Rabbi Piattelli outlines the principles in Jewish tradition that are the guidelines for action whilst Anna Palagi describes concretely the situation in the Rome Jewish Community. Bernard Maruani invokes the mysterious and moving image of Job to help us face the myths and the fears that leprosy in the ancient world evoked and AI DS in the contemporary world is stirring up. David Randall's personal witness is both a strong indictment of the homophobia in the Church and a tribute to the spiritual power and the way of love which are present in the midst of this terrible disease.
It is a source of great hope and even joy to discover that people who have been diagnosed with AIDS and who are confronting their own death are creating communities of love, compassion and service. Perhaps they will give to society the courage to face up to the fear that paralyses it in the face of this unexpected and incurable peril and bring to fruition the human potential to create a truly just society and a people who know how to be both compassionate and helpful in a practical way.