Ugandan Bishop Christopher Senyonjo’s U.S. Compass to Compassion tour reached San Diego on Tuesday with a ceremony blessing and honoring the hands of doctors, nurses and all engaged in the business of healing and caring for the sick. The ceremony took place at LifeHouse San Diego Health Care Center, one of the largest nursing facilities in California that includes a new HIV/AIDS program for the LGBT community.
“I admire the staff and families at San Diego Health Care Center because healing does not discriminate. God has given us hands to bring healing to each other and we will bless the hands of caregivers, who day in day out care for us,” Senyonjo said. “It is a way to thank them for what they are doing and to recognize the need to welcome everyone. I admire the work of the staff and their care of the marginalized and rejected, including people living with AIDS.”
The bishop is keen to learn about the needs and experiences of families and people with AIDS in San Diego. The bishop has been invited to contribute to the planning for the United Nations high level meeting on AIDS and he recently opened an HIV program in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.
Commenting on those living with HIV and AIDS the bishop said, “When you are a family, you feed everyone in the household, you do not discriminate. The same moral principal applies to people living with HIV and to LGBT people. We are part of the same human family,”
Bishop Senyonjo has been an outspoken advocate for human rights in Uganda. He has taken great risks in defense of LGBT people in his country and has been excommunicated as a bishop from his own Anglican Church of Uganda for counseling LGBT persons.
The main purpose of the bishop’s Compass to Compassion tour in the USA is to raise awareness about the plight of LGBT people who live in the 76 countries which criminalize homosexuality.
He said, “It is illegal to provide these children of God with education, prevention services and health care. How can we withhold our healing hands from anyone, particularly when we are told to do so in the name of God?”
