What do you think of clergy who lived through the bubonic plague and never addressed it pastorally with their people? We are precisely in that situation today with ministry in "the AIDS era" - the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic, perhaps the worst disaster to have befallen humanity since the Great Plague of 1347 to 1350, where close to one-third of the population perished.

Mother Teresa, who established an AIDS hospice in New York City and an AIDS home in San Francisco, believes that "God is speaking to us through this disease." What might God be saying?

The church has always called on its members to "love one another," to love "because God first loved us." Indeed the marvel of the ancient world was "Look how these Christians love one another."

But these words sometimes seem…