Grace Cathedral is one of a handful of American churches possessing an AIDS Chapel. The Chapel occupies the main floor lobby of the Singing Tower, the cathedral's north tower. The upper levels of the tower house the bell carillon and Chapel of St. Francis/Columbarium. The tower lobby, formerly used at various times as a storeroom, carilloneur's room, Cathedral School classroom, and, briefly, as the cathedral gift shop, was set aside as the AIDS Interfaith Memorial Chapel in 1995, and the completed Chapel was dedicated in 2000. At the dedication, Vice Dean Frances Tornquist commented on the location of the Chapel, placed close inside the cathedral entrance, so that those who might otherwise feel uncomfortable inside the vast cathedral would be welcome to come in "just a little way."

The word "memorial" was subsequently dropped from the chapel's official name (despite the lettering on its north wall) because the Chapel is intended not only as a memorial to the 19,400 San Franciscans and the many others who have died of AIDS, and to remember those living with the disease, but also to honor the many living caregivers and volunteers who have fought, and are fighting, HIV/AIDS despite decades of prejudice, resistance and apathy. The stated aims of the Chapel are to be a place for solace, meditation and remembrance, as well as a working chapel and an AIDS resource.

A wider intent can be seen in the name "Interfaith" and the symbols of world religions -- Christianity, Islam, Taoism, indigenous faiths, Shinto, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, and all other faiths--on the tower piers flanking the altar. Bishop William Swing launched the United Religions Initiative in 1995, a growing movement created to reconcile nations and peoples through interfaith dialog. HIV/AIDS is no respecter of religion, race or sexuality, and is having an especially devastating effect on the people of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. World-wide, over 43 million people currently carry the HIV virus. The world death toll from AIDS has now passed 27 million, and will continue to grow in the future. The AIDS Chapel is a statement that compassion must be at the heart of committed response to the disease, an active global compassion that knows no boundaries, and upon which hangs the fate of millions of people.

The focus of the Chapel is a bronze and white-gold triptych altarpiece, the last work of Keith Haring, noted New York pop artist (1958-1990), completed just weeks before his own death from AIDS. Haring described the work as "really heavy", yet even its serious theme, perhaps his most challenging, does not hide the playful quality that permeates his art. Haring was inspired to create the altarpiece when artist Sam Havadtoy created large icon-shaped clay-filled trays for him to work on, based on a little Russian Orthodox "traveling" icon. Haring worked on the panels with a loop cutter, without preparatory sketches and making no corrections, in one of the New York Dakota Apartments rooms owned by Yoko Ono. The triptych is entitled "The Life of Christ". In the center panel, a multi-armed figure of compassion cradles the infant Jesus, with the heart and the cross above. Tears rain down on an agitated crowd that fills the base of all three panels, but a shining sun suggests that there is hope. In the side panels, angels soar among the troubled crowd, and one on the right is falling in an ungainly sprawl. The altarpiece, one of a limited number cast, was purchased for Grace Cathedral through the efforts of Frank Malifrando, and several major donors. At the dedication Malifrando spoke of the tears in the tryptich, and the rain falling outside, the first in months, describing both as blessings.

Hanging at the rear of the chapel is half a panel of the AIDS Quilt, with eight memorial names, one of now over 40,000 panels of the Names Project, founded in San Francisco in 1987. Quilt panel sections have hung in the Chapel since 1992, and were hung in the cathedral nave every fall for a decade, before the Project moved to Atlanta in 2001. Other chapel furnishings of interest include dark steel entry pillars and candlestands designed by John Wheatman, and forged by Roger Yearout. A Book of Remembrance, handcrafted by Joanna Sonnichsen, is on display to one side. A hand-printed floral linen dossal by Robin Dintiman hangs behind the Haring altarpiece, which stands on a table designed by Bert Hutt. The free-standing white oak altar was designed by John G. Sheridan. On the back wall of the chapel, flanking the bronze tower doors, are two historical plaques; the Singing Tower and carillon dedicatory plaque (1943) and the Golden Anniversary (cathedral completion) plaque (1964). The north doors were the gift of women of the diocese in honor of the cathedral completion. The chapel floor displays in Virginia greenstone an eight-pointed star, symbol of renewal. The floor predates the chapel, but the symbol seems eminently appropriate. The unfinished ceiling vault of the chapel is an unintended reminder of the unfinished work of compassion that the AIDS Interfaith Chapel, and indeed Grace Cathedral, represents.