A disease without borders.

The statistics about HIV/AIDS in Africa can be mind-numbing: In some countries more than a quarter of the population is infected; the number of AIDS orphans on the continent exceeds 12 million; and in sub-Saharan Africa, the tally of deaths from AIDS is expected to climb from the current 5,000 per day to 13,000 per day by 2010. But numbers, no matter how shocking, never tell the whole story.

"We can't let the statistics overshadow the human part of the reality, because then it's easy to look away," says Maryknoll Father James Noonan. "These are our brothers and sisters. They live far away from us, but if we only knew them, we would love them and we would find reaching out to them the most natural thing. If we let the people become statistics, that would be even more tragic."

Noonan was part of a seven-person roundtable discussion about the need for global solidarity and justice at the annual National Catholic AIDS Network (NCAN) conference, held July 20-25 in Chicago. Those involved in AIDS ministry from Africa, Central America, and Asia painted a picture of HIV/AIDS in developing countries as predominantly a disease of the poor, who cannot afford the "cocktail" drugs that have increased the life expectancy of those living with HIV/AIDS in the United States.

"We need to connect Catholic social teaching with the message about AIDS," says Father Robert Vitillo, chair of the Caritas Internationalis Task Force on HIV/AIDS. Vitillo brought back stats and stories from the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. "AIDS in Africa is claiming more lives than the sum of all wars, famines, and floods," he reports. Infection rates are especially high among young women.

Vitillo and others note the connection between debt and lack of resources for health care in developing countries and urges debt relief in this Jubilee Year. He also notes that faith-based communities, which have played such a key role in caring for HIV-infected people around the world, must also preach the message of the dignity of all people to prevent the disease. "What makes people vulnerable is lack of respect for human rights, especially for women," he says.

At the NCAN conference, workshops on multicultural issues, women, and immigrants and refugees reflected the changing face of AIDS in the U.S., as did the participants--nearly one fifth of whom are infected with the disease. "This conference is very Catholic, not just in its religious identity, but catholic in the sense of reflecting the universality of this pandemic," says Father Rodney DeMartini, executive director of NCAN. "It's not just a pandemic of certain people."