Preaching may lead to healing

Wednesday, March 6, 2002 | 9:02 a.m.

Schedule The Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS continues with these events:

The former Catholic priest hadn't been in front of a congregation for a decade, but Tuesday night he was preaching to the choir at the Zion United Methodist Church in West Las Vegas.

It was the second night of "Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS," a national event involving 10,000 churches.

Kevin Walsh, a white man who laid down the cloth in 1992 because, he said, "I had misunderstood the role of God in my life," was telling the story of how he fell in love with and married a black woman shortly thereafter -- and how his wife then died from AIDS, and he acquired HIV. He spoke to a choir of 20 mostly elderly, black women and fewer than a dozen people in the congregation, most of whom were also women.

It was the first time the former priest was revealing he had HIV/AIDS in public. Walsh -- now program director at the Clark County Coalition of HIV/AIDS Service Providers -- had been invited to speak about "Men and HIV/AIDS."

"I bet you all know some men," he began in a pastoral tone, "and you can take this message back to them.

"I am not gay, and I have HIV."

This was the first time Las Vegas participated in the nationwide event, which was built on the idea that the church is a vital messenger in the black community. It was sponsored by a New York-based nonprofit, The Balm in Gilead.

Lionel Starkes, director of the Clark County Health District's Office of AIDS and an Episcopal minister, went to a training session given by the nonprofit two years ago and decided to get Las Vegas churches involved.

That Walsh's message -- and others delivered by Starkes and Keith Andrews II, a consultant with the county's AIDS program -- were delivered to so few people, and so few black men, was not lost on Rev. Marion Bennet, pastor of the Zion United Methodist Church.

The minister is familiar with the state Health Division statistics that show black men in Nevada were infected at a rate of 74 cases per 100,000 in 2000, compared with 23 per 100,000 for white men. Black women showed a rate of 29 per 100,000, compared to fewer than 3 per 100,000 for white women.

He also is aware of the stigma.

"People still don't want to talk about this, or hear about it," he said. "They say if you talk about the disease, you're encouraging sex. But I say if people are active sexually, then they should protect themselves."

Churches need to do more, he said.

"We aren't doing enough about this as churches," he said, after offering his support to giving oral tests for AIDS after Sunday services.