The Southern Cross - 111130

www.scross.co.za

November 30 to December 6, 2011

R5,50 (incl VAT RSA) Reg no. 1920/002058/06

Nativity church’s heritage plan meets opposition Page 4

A blueprint for the African Church Pages 6 & 9

no 4752

In faith, grab the starfish Page 7

Oblate: Murdered priest was ‘like my own brother’

By SyDney DuVAl

A

N Eshowe priest who was found murdered might have known his killers, who stole personal items from him.

Fr Senzo Mbokazi, 35, of St Pius X parish in Melmoth, KwaZulu-Natal, was found lying stabbed on his bedroom floor on November 20. He was bound hand and foot with his belt and the cord of a stereo player. Police described the scene as a terrible mess.

The priest’s body was found after police and parishioners went to investigate why he had not appeared to say Sunday Mass.

Bishop Teddy Kumalo of Eshowe said the diocese’s Catholic community was shocked and distressed at the news and the circumstances of the priest’s death.

“People are expecting the priest to say Mass. They see his car is still there. Everything looked normal. Then, after waiting and waiting, they get the news that he has been found murdered.”

Bishop Kumalo had finished doing confirmations at St Scholastica parish in Twasana when he was told of the murder. He immediately drove to the parish house at St Pius X where he himself saw the body of Fr Mbokazi lying on the floor.

Captain Victor Mthombela of the Melmoth police, who with parish council chairman Dennis Wagner found Fr Mbokazi’s body, said the murder must have taken place on the night of Friday, November 18. Fr Mbokazi had been seen in the town about 19:00 that evening, when he reportedly also drew money from an ATM. Capt Mthombela confirmed that cellphones and wrist watches were missing, adding that Fr Mbokazi may have known the perpetrator/perpetrators.

The case has been handed over to Organised Crime at Richards Bay. Newly ordained Oblate Father Bonga Majola of Johannesburg shared the shock and distress of the bishop, fellow clergy, religious and parishioners.

“My family is devastated,” he said. “Fr Mbokazi was at my ordination at Alexandra a month ago and at my Thanksgiving Mass in my hometown Nkandla [in KwaZulu-Natal] a week later—and now he had been helping my family prepare for the Thanksgiving Mass and celebration at home in Nkandla for Saturday, November 26.”

Fr Majola had known Fr Mbokazi when he was a pre-novice at Rayton and Fr Mbokazi was finishing his theological studies at St John Vianney, Pretoria.

“He served in my home parish, Holy Trinity in Nkandla, as a deacon and later as an assistant parish priest,” Fr Majola said “That's when he became a very good family friend.

He visited my family quite often at Nkandla and he really became part of the family. Even when he was transferred to Melmoth now and again he would come home to check on us. To my parents he was like one of their sons and to my brothers a true brother.

“I was with my parents when we received the news of his death. They were inconsolable! We are all still shocked and really devastated by his death, and finding it hard to believe that he is gone.,” Fr Majola said.

“I will remember Senzo as a person’s person, a free spirited man, friendly, sociable and indeed as my own blood brother. May he rest in peace.”

Mr Wagner was at St Pius X church when

Fr Mbokazi failed to appear for Mass.

“We were still waiting at about 8:30 for the 8am Mass. We were getting anxious.

Father’s car was still there. Some parishioners decided to see what was happening at the parish house next door. They called and shouted, but got Fr Senzo Mbokazi, no response. who was found “We thought somemurdered. (Photo: thing was wrong and Sydney Duval) called Melmoth police.

Captain Mthombela arrived and together we went to the parish house. The doors and windows were locked.”

They gained access to the house through an old broken window. When they managed to open the locked bedroom door “we found everything turned upside down—a terrible sight”. At first they did not see any sign of Fr Mbokazi, but then found him lying upside down next to the bed. He had been tied up.

“There was blood everywhere. We later found that clothing, watches and cellphones were missing,” Mr Wagner said.

He described Fr Mbokazi as a good pastor who gave good sermons, was quiet spoken and always approachable.

Fr Mbokazi was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Gerald Ndlovu, retired of Umzimkulu, at St Patrick’s church, Empangeni, on December 3, 2005.

The Requiem was held at Holy Cross church in Emoyeni on November 25, followed by the burial in the clergy cemetery. A Vigil Mass was held the night before.

Fr Mbokazi is survived by an aunt at Kwambonambi, where he grew up.

Our lady of Guadalupe is depicted in a modern painting by Stephen B Whatley, an expressionist artist based in london. The appearance of Mary to St Juan Diego on a hill in the Tepeyac desert, near Mexico City on December 9, 1531 is said to have resulted in millions of conversions to Catholicism. According to the account of Juan Diego, the Blessed Virgin described herself by the Aztec nahuatl word-name of Coatlaxopeuh, pronounced “quatlachupe”, which became the Spanish “Guadalupe”. The feast of Our lady of Guadalupe is on December 12.

(Photo courtesy of Stephen B Whatley)

‘Little doubt’ that Shakespeare was a Catholic

By SARAh DelAney

T

HERE is “little doubt” that William Shakespeare was a Catholic who was forced to hide his faith in Protestant England while leaving hints about his faith throughout his vast body of work, according to an opinion piece published in the Vatican newspaper.

Taking a cue from renewed speculation about Shakespeare’s true identity sparked by the film Anonymous (which suggests that Shakespeare was a fraud and cover for the Earl of Oxford), L’Osservatore Romano wrote: “There may be questions regarding his identity, but not his religious faith.”

The opinion piece said that this view was at least partly shared by the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, who said in a debate at a literary festival last May that Shakespeare “probably had a Catholic background and had Catholic friends”.

It also pointed out that shortly after the Bard of Avon’s recorded death in 1616, Anglican Archdeacon Richard Davies wrote, “He died a papist”, a pejora-

tive term Protestants used to refer to Catholics.

The article said that while there is legitimate debate about who was truly behind the Shakespeare name, “there is little doubt about another question regarding the life of Shakespeare: his convinced adherence to the Catholic faith”.

Shakespeare’s work, it said, “is full of open references to the Catholic religion”.

These references are especially evident in the play Hamlet, it said. In the play, Hamlet speaks of purgatory—a belief which L’Osservatore noted is not shared with the Church of England and would have been evident in “Elizabeth's violently antiCatholic England”.

The opinion piece also said the argument that Shakespeare lived a life “fleeing and denouncing the bloody persecution that Elizabethan England inflicted on its subjects that were following the beliefs of their fathers” was worthy of further serious study.

Shakespeare scholars have also noted that his school teachers were Catholics and that he is said to have married his wife Anne Hathaway in a secret Catholic ceremony.—CNS

William Shakespeare is depicted at age 34 in this painting from 1847. An opinion piece in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said there is “little doubt” that the Bard was a secret Catholic. (Courtesy of Art Resource)

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LOCAL

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

Teacher gives for her 60th birthday

By ClAIRe MAThIeSOn

A

TEACHER, inspired by a Southern Cross article reporting on preparations for World Youth Day 2011, decided to celebrate her 60th birthday by foregoing gifts and celebrations and instead raising funds to send learners on a pilgrimage to Switzerland and Italy.

Bernie Keeson of Holy Cross Convent in Maitland, Cape Town, said after hearing about World Youth Day she knew exactly what she wanted to do for her birthday.

Interested learners had to write a motivational letter explaining why they thought they should be given the opportunity to go.

But due to application procedures, the Holy Cross crew missed the deadline for World Youth Day, which was held in Madrid in August.

At first Ms Keeson said she was disappointed that she’d missed out on the international event. “But, in fact, our pilgrimage ended up being so meaningful—it was meant to be!” The pilgrimage also marked the school’s 100th birthday.

Ms Keeson asked friends and family to donate to a fund instead of giving her gifts for her birthday.

She then embarked on a year-long fundraising effort which would eventually take two learners and

Bernie Keeson, lindley Francis, nicole Atso and Jessica Makanga return from a holy Cross themed pilgrimage.

another teacher to the home of the Holy Cross Sisters and other famous European pilgrimage sites.

It was decided the group would visit the home of the Holy Cross order in Mezingen, Switzerland— “the heart of the Holy Cross sisters”—and Lucerne, where the order’s headquarter is based,

before travelling to Italy to visit Rome, Assisi and Venice.

Grade 11 learners Jessica Makanga and Nicole Atso were chosen to join the pilgrimage as “they were head and shoulders above the rest” in their motivational letter. Life sciences teacher Lindley Francis accompanied the

group on a pilgrimage to honour the roots of their school.

“It was a sacred experience,” said Ms Keeson. “We wanted to learn more and embrace the charism of the Holy Cross order and amazing things kept happening along the way.”

In Mezengen, the group was met by an 86-year-old sister who had been the principal at Maitland and had appointed the present principal.

“We also saw an amazing museum dedicated to the work of the order around the world—and it included contributions from Maitland,” said Mr Francis of one of his highlights. He added that it was a special moment to see the Holy Cross Sisters keep a candle burning in their chapel for their school in Maitland.

The group took soil from their Maitland graveyard where the remains of Sisters who had served the school are resting, and scattered the soil at the Holy Cross graveyard in Menzingen, thereby connecting the sisters once again.

“We also took letters and prayers from all the teachers and learners, thanking the Holy Cross sisters for their contribution,” said Jessica. “The trip made me feel a part of something bigger and understand more about what I’ve been taught,” the Grade 11 learner added.

Mr Francis said the school prides itself on the Holy Cross ethos, but said he truly understood it only while on the trip. “It was an awesome, life-changing experience and the trip has strengthened the ethos. I now know how important it is, and as teachers we need to maintain this ethos, despite everything else.”

The group was also able to visit Assisi on the feast day of St Francis. “It was amazing to see how the world celebrates important people in our lives. We now know so much more about history and I’m proud to be a Holy Cross learner,” she Nicole. Jessica added that she could finally “relate and feel a part of St Francis and St Clare. I now look at the world differently”.

Ms Keeson, an avid Southern Cross reader, said standing in places where she’d seen many newspaper photos taken was exciting—ut the thrill of achieving it all was by far the greatest feeling.

“It’s a big deal for our school to have done this. For everyone to have come together and to have made this happen was a wonderful act of the human spirit,” Ms Keeson said. “I am a ‘young’ Holy Cross teacher—I knew something about our roots and saints, but now I understand and I have contributed to the foundation of Holy Cross.”

Alpha ‘a tool of evangelisation’ Members of Cape Town Archdiocese’s Justice and Peace department took part in the mass protest outside parliament on ‘Black Tuesday’ in november to oppose the Protection of Information Bill. (Photo: Claire Mathieson)

By leBO WA MAJAhe

S

OME 250 people attended a “Breakfast with the Archbishop” as an initiative to give an introduction to the Alpha course in Bryanston parish, Johannesburg. Presentations were made to explain Alpha.

Gerald Rodrigues, one of the organisers, described Alpha as an opportunity to come and be off-witness to God’s presence through testimonies and works shared by others. The course runs for ten weeks; the next one will commence on January 25.

Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg said he was very happy with the turnout and thanked the Alpha team for organising the initiative.

The archbishop described Alpha as a means of “falling in love with God and developing

A “Breakfast with the Archbishop was held in Bryanston, Johannesburg, and was also anuntroduction to the Alpha couse. a new attitude towards life. He said it’s a way for priests and lay alike of inspiring others through the word of God”.

He expressed his desire to see Johannesburg as an “Alpha archdiocese”, with every parish running the programme. “[It is] just a pity that some people refuse to see the great results that could come out of this programme because it is not Catholic-based”, Archbish-

op Tlhagale said.

Alpha was initially developed by Anglican ministers. It has been adapted for use in Catholic parishes.

Both Alpha and Renew Africa can be used as tools for people to inform themselves so that they play a meaningful role in becoming evangelisers in the Catholic Church, Archbishop Tlhagale told the gathering.

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LOCAL

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

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Queenstown youth forge ahead with new plan

By ClAIRe MAThIeSOn

T Fr Mark Pothier decommissioned the old Roman missal at the end of Mass on november 20, the last Sunday of the past liturguical year, at St James’ parish in St James, Cape Town. The newly translated Roman missal was implemented in english-speaking regions of the Church on the first Sunday of Advent. (Photo: Maria Wagener)

Clerics croon for jubilee STAFF RePORTeR

A

N archbishop and a priest sang for about 250 guests at Our Lady Help of Christians parish’s Jubilee Ball at Savio Hall in Lansdowne, Cape Town.

Below the high ceiling, draped in swathes of black and white material offset by fairy lights simulating the night sky, Salesian Father Canice Dooley sang two two Irish songs in true operatic style, one of which was specifically dedicated to Archbishop Stephen Brislin’s 93 year-old mother.

This was followed by Archbishop Lawrence Henry, retired of Cape Town, rendered an Afrikaans ditty which reportedly “had the everyone in the audience in stitches”.

Some 250 guests attended Our lady help of Christians parish’s Jubilee Ball at Savio hall in lansdowne, Cape Town, where an archbishop and priest sang. Guest included (from left) Denise Martin, Fredrieka Davies, Mercia Pillay and Tana Sauls.

HE diocese of Queenstown will forge ahead with a new plan for its youth when a new Diocesan Youth Commission will be presented on December 910 during a youth gathering.

Fr Matthias Nsamba, the diocesan youth coordinator for Queenstown, said the gathering will see Catholic youth from around Queenstown join with religious and pastoral workers. Bishop Dabula Mpako will “commission [the youth] to take the Light of Christ to their parishes”, he said.

The gathering will take place under the theme “You will be my Witnesses (Acts 1:8)”. It will include an address by Bishop Mpako, the introduction of the Diocesan Youth Vision plan and an opportunity for “young people witness among themselves in preparation of receiving the Holy Spirit”, said Fr Nsamba.

The event will launch the new commission. Fr Nsamba said Queenstown wants to be a selfsupportive and caring diocese committed to the development of the youth.

With the power of the Spirit, the evangelised and evangelising youth will become a factor of integral development in the Church and in the world, he said.

But while the vision is clear, Fr Nsamba noted a variety of challenges facing youth in the diocese: “Lack of basic education, lack of adequate Christian instruction, lack of adequate biblical forma-

tion, lack of proper guidance and counselling, and a lack of motivation and goals in life.”

Furthermore, he said, many of the diocese’s youth have been exposed to forms of abuse and violence, criminal activity, unemployment, poverty and Aids.

But this is precisely why the diocese decided to dedicate their attention to the youth ministry, the priest said.

“Queenstown diocese has decided to embark on a process of integral development for the youth in order to ensure their spiritual, physical, emotional, sociopolitical, economic and intellectual growth,” Fr Nsamba said.

He said a “midwife method” will be used to help the youth in the diocese: “When a woman goes into the labour ward, she finds the midwife who uses her skills to ensure a safe birth. The midwife is only a helper; the main actors are the mother and the baby. In the youth ministry, the pastoral workers and the adult supporters, far from being domineering figures, are there to help the youth grow, to accompany them on their journey and to create the atmosphere for a smooth passage to adulthood.”

The youth ministry will be coordinated through a team of pastoral workers at all levels. Fr Nsamba said this will help the ministry to draw support and expertise from various backgrounds and environments.

“It will also empower young people to train their fellow youths

since they know each other better than pastoral agents do,” he said.

Fr Nsamba said youth often move from the rural areas in the diocese to cities for better jobs and opportunities.

Accordingly, the diocese is ensuring to train leaders who are stable, strong and committed and whose main role is “to pass on the information, culture and tradition of the youth ministry in Queenstown diocese from one generation to the next”.

The diocese will have a dedicated youth office and Bishop Mpako has committed to meet the youth once or twice a year in diocesewide gathering. Fr Nsamba said more frequent youth events and workshops will also be planned.

Fr Nsamba said the workshops and programmes will cater for the five pillars of growth: spiritual formation through retreats and healing sessions, psychological formation through emotional growth and self-esteem, physical formation through health issues and sports focused programmes, intellectual formation through education and social-political formation through community building activities and justice and peace issues.

The priest said the diocese had big plans for youth ministry but said the formation of youth leaders is of paramount importance to its success. n Youth from all Queenstown parishes are asked attend the gathering. For more information call 045 843 1131

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The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

INTERNATIONAL

Palestine UNESCO plan: Jesuit journal wants ‘democratic’ Internet ‘Leave church out of it’

By CInDy WOODen

By JuDITh SuDIlOVSKy

T

P

ALESTINIANS are hopeful that UNESCO will recognise the city of Bethlehem as the first Palestinian World Heritage Site, but Franciscans in charge of the city’s holy places say they do not want them included in the classification.

“We don’t want the [UNESCO] recognition for the holy places,” said a Franciscan source who asked not to be named. “We fear it could lead to nationalisation of the shrines. The shrines are not tourist places, but are places of prayer and worship.”

The custos of the Holy Land, Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM, told the Italian bishops’ news agency SIR that the Greek Orthodox and Armenian patriarchates had joined him in asking the Palestinian Authority to exclude the church of the Nativity in the application for the UNESCO World Heritage Site classification.

He said the church could be included later “when the situation, including the political situation, will be quieter”.

“We don’t have any problem with proclaiming the city of Bethlehem as a UNESCO heritage site. We are not too enthusiastic about the Nativity. It is an initiative that makes it harder for us to run (the church), because, under UNESCO rules, the board in charge of running a place for the UN agency is the government, not the owner of a site,” Fr Pizzaballa said. He added that he feared “the holy places might be used for political reasons”.

“Right now, we do not want to become, on one hand, the keepers of places run by governments and, on the other hand, to be exploited for issues in which the holy places must not be involved,” he said.

The Franciscans are the Catholic partner in maintaining the Status Quo, a 19th-century agreement that regulates jurisdiction of and access to key Christian sites in the Holy Land for Catholic, Orthodox and other Christian communities.

The Franciscan source said adding UNESCO to an already com-

The courtyard of the church of the nativity in Bethlehem. The Franciscan custodians of the holy land oppose plans to have the ancient church declared a uneSCO heritage site. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) plex situation would only make it more complicated.

If the World Heritage Site status is accepted, “you have to run it by their [UNESCO’s] rules,” something the Franciscan Custody would object to, said the source.

However, Palestinian tourism minister Khouloud Daibes Abu Dayyeh said the nomination file asking for recognition of the city of Bethlehem as a World Heritage Site was signed and submitted to UNESCO last year, and it included the church of the Nativity.

“We will be working in coordination with the churches when it comes to the technical details of the implication of Bethlehem being included as a World Heritage Site,” said Daibes Abu Dayyeh, who is Christian.

She said now that the Palestinians have membership in UNESCO, their application can be considered at the June UNESCO meeting in St Petersburg, Russia. She said she is confident that the city will become the first Palestinian site to be recognised as a World Heritage site.

She noted that the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls had been accepted as a World Heritage site in

2007 as proposed by the Jordanians—who occupied East Jerusalem until the 1967 war but remain as the guardian of Muslim holy sites in the city.

Ms Abu Dayyeh said the recognition by UNESCO was valuable “in order to raise awareness of the importance of cultural heritage as a shaper of cultural identity.”

She said the Palestinians had 20 other sites they hoped to be named World Heritage Sites, including Jericho as the oldest city in the world; the city of Hebron, which is of religious significance for Muslims, Jews and Christians; the Qumran caves in the Judaean Desert; and a Religious Roots Holy Land Nativity Trail.

However, as with most things in the Holy Land, there are potential political complications.

Hebron is the largest West Bank city, with about 165 000 Palestinians, but it is also home to more than 500 Jewish settlers, and a large majority of the city is under direct Israeli control. The Qumran caves— where the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered—are located in a disputed area now under Israeli control.—CNS

ORFORD

CONSTRUCTION

HE Internet is a global public good that should be accessible to all and respectful of the rights of others, according to an influential Jesuit magazine.

With repressive regimes restricting access to information and communications, democratic governments should work to guarantee access to the Internet and adopt general principles to ensure network use respects universal human rights, said an editorial in La Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuit journal reviewed by the Vatican before publication.

“What the law permits or prohibits offline must also be the case online,” said the editorial.

The “only widespread international consensus” on online material to be censored regards child pornography and cyberterrorism, the article said.

The Jesuit journal said that with individuals abusing the free-

dom of expression, with companies potentially exploiting computer users for financial gain and repressive regimes blocking information from their citizens, the world needs a “Charter of Human Rights for the Internet”.

In preparation for a late November Council of Europe conference on the Internet, the European Council of Ministers drafted ten “Internet Governance Principles” that La Civiltà Cattolica said should be “included in an international treaty” protecting the Internet and access to it.

The ten principles include protecting democracy and respect for the law on the Internet; promoting greater involvement in Internet governance, including by users; protecting the universal nature of the Internet and promoting cultural and linguistic diversity; and broadening access to the Internet and its content.— CNS

Youths send a record ‘holy shout-out’ for Jesus Christ

By MARy Ann GARBeR

M

ORE than 2 000 years after his birth, Christ was honoured in a historic way with a massive electronic “holy shout-out” via texts, e-mails and tweets sent simultaneously from cellphones by 23 000 participants at the US National Catholic Youth Conference and National Catholic Collegiate Conference.

It was a fun and faith-filled way for the Catholic youths and young adults to honour God and conclude the 31st biennial national conference, held in Indianapolis.

Bishop Christopher Coyne of Indianapolis, asked all participants at the closing Mass to SMS, e-mail or tweet the words “Called to Glory”, the conference theme, to family members and friends throughout the US. Murmurs began to spread

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through the quiet football stadium when Bishop Coyne surprised the conference participants by asking them to turn on their cellphones at the end of Mass.

“For over two hours now, we have turned this space into a holy place where holy people have listened to holy words and done holy things and received holy gifts,” Bishop Coyne said.

“I want you all to dig out your cellphones...and turn them on because we’re going to do a holy shout-out. I don’t think this has ever been done...with a crowd like this, and maybe the first time at a big Catholic gathering. I want you to type in ‘Called to Glory.’”

After he announced the “holy shout-out,” the young Catholics quickly typed in the words then awaited his cue to press the “send” button on their cellphones.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

Fear has silenced Pakistan’s Christians

F

An egyptian Christian holds a cross made of flowers as he chants slogans following clashes between Coptic Christians and residents in Shoubra suburb of Cairo. Several people were injured when residents clashed with a group of Christians marching through the capital to commemorate those who died in confrontations with the army. (Photo: Reuters/CnS)

Computer search for who wrote what in the Bible

By JuDITh SuDIlOVSKy

A

TEL AVIV University professor has developed a computer programme to help Bible scholars distinguish different authors of the various books of the Bible.

Many books of the Old and New Testaments are thought to be composites, but distinguishing among the multiple sources has been a difficult process.

Prof Nachum Dershowitz, computer science professor at Tel Aviv University, said his computer algorithm can help unravel the different sources by recognising linguistic cues, such as word preferences, to divide texts into probable author groupings.

The researchers used the computer software programme on the original Hebrew-language Bible, but said that, with adjustments, it could be used on other parts of the Bible.

“Bible scholars have many clues as to the sources and styles, but what we are trying to do is to use the most objective of methods,” said Prof Dershowitz, who worked in collaboration with his son, Bible scholar Idan Dershowitz of Hebrew University, and lecturer Moshe Koppel, and doctoral student

Navot Akiva of Bar-Ilan University.

“In any narrative an author may choose to repeat [certain words] for literary reasons... other scholars may [look] at stylistic preferences. We are only looking at word usage,” Prof Dershowitz said.

He noted that the research is part of a growing new field called “digital humanities” in which computer software is being developed to give more insight into historical sources and programmes to help attribute previously anonymous texts to well-known authors based on writing style. Prof Dershowitz said such programmes can even uncover the gender of a text’s author.

“The Bible presents a new challenge because there are no independently attributed works to which to compare the biblical books,” Prof Dershowitz said.— CNS

EAR has silenced the voice of Pakistani Christians since the political murder of Catholic minister Shahbaz Bhatti on March 2, according to Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha, retired of Lahore.

“People are very sad, very bitter.

They said, ‘If that happens to him what happens to us?’” Archbishop Saldanha said.

Mr Bhatti’s killers remain at large. The convicted murderer of Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab who was murdered because of his opposition to the blasphemy law that is used to persecute Christians, was greeted in court with rose petals and garlands.

In an atmosphere of impunity for anyone who kills a Christian, educated Pakistani Christians are getting out of the country. Those who remain are keeping their heads down and their mouths shut, said Archbishop Saldanha.

“In such a situation, minorities don’t have much place. There’s no tolerance for other religions,” he said. “Either you convert or you leave. This is the choice.”

Archbishop Saldanha moved to Toronto, Canada, in early November, joining his extended family.

In the more than 50 years since his priestly ordination, he has seen his country slide from corrupt oligarchy to military rule to mob rule. “Everything is a big mess there—economically, socially, religiously,” he told The Catholic Register, a Canadian Catholic weekly.

Waves of suicide bombings, targeted killings and death threats against Christians have human rights campaigners and staff for the Pakistani bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission keeping their statements low-key and their names out of the papers. Even educated Muslims in Pakistan’s big cities have turned against the country’s religious minorities, the archbishop said.

“The mentality is changing, especially among the middle class and lower-middle class,” said Archbishop Saldanha, who headed the Justice and Peace Commission the past 10 years. “They are being Talibanised.”

For the last year, Lahore’s Sacred Heart cathedral has been guarded by three sharpshooters.

Concrete barriers have been placed at the entrance and around the bishop’s house to slow down drivers and minimise the possibility of a suicide bomber getting close to the church.

But despite the risks Christians face, “the churches are packed”, said Archbishop Saldanha. But if they can get out, Pakistani Christians are heading for Canada, Australia and England.

While in theory democracy should create a better environment for minorities, majority rule in Pakistan right now would be a disaster for the Christians, he said.

“The majority are pro-Islamic and they will vote for strict Islam,” he said. “If you have democracy, Islam will surely win, especially in the north.”—CNS

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Vatican plans Aids document

By JOhn ThAVIS

T

HE Vatican is committed to publishing a set of pastoral guidelines for Church personnel engaged in Aids care and prevention, but it probably won’t happen for at least a year, a Vatican official said.

The guidelines are expected to treat the issue of condoms in Aids prevention, but as part of a much wider approach to the question of the treatment and spread of the disease.

Mgr Jean-Marie Mpendawatu, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, said that the first step towards the guidelines was the imminent publication of the acts of a conference on Aids sponsored by the Vatican last May. The conference looked at prevention strategies, rejecting condom campaigns in favour of behavioural change, and also examined issues of medical research and treatment.

Mgr Mpendawatu said the Vatican was “committed to working in a rapid fashion” on the guidelines for pastoral workers, using much of the material from the conference.

“We promise this, and I think it will be useful for the whole Church,” he said.

But he said the guidelines would not be drawn up until another project is completed— the updating of the Vatican’s “Charter for Health Care Workers” which dates to 1994. It will probably not be ready for publication until late 2012.—CNS

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LEADER PAGE

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Editor: Günther Simmermacher

A mission in Africa

T

HE Church of Africa told Pope Benedict about their concerns at the Second Synod of Bishops for Africa in October 2009. Three years later, the Holy Father came to Africa to present the continent with his apostolic exhortation Africae munus (“The Commitment of Africa”), which follows Pope John Paul II’s synodal exhortation of 1995, Ecclesia in Africa.

Africae munus provides the Church with a blueprint for its salvific mission and for its relationship with the world.

The document gives witness to new realities within Africa’s Church. Pope Benedict acknowledges that “Africans are today missionaries on other continents”, and pays due tribute to them.

He notes the great numbers of vocations on the continent, and urges the African Church to form its future priests not only in matters of theology and spirituality, but also to help them “develop a correct understanding of their own culture while not being locked within their own ethnic and cultural limits”.

The pope encourages the African laity, the “ambassadors of Christ” (2 Cor 5:20), to be active participants in the Church’s mission, and asks that “centres of biblical, spiritual, liturgical and pastoral formation be organised in the dioceses”.

In 2009 the bishops of Africa noted that the rapid increase of Catholics on the continent was not matched by a depth of understanding of the faith. Pope Benedict in his exhortation encourages catechists, and stresses that it is fair that they should be paid for their labour, in as far as their material circumstances require relief.

But it is in posing the challenges of social justice where Africae munus must energise the African Church in particular.

In words which should resonate among the poor in South Africa, Pope Benedict writes that “given the chronic poverty of its people, who suffer the effects of exploitation and embezzlement of funds both locally and abroad, the opulence of certain groups shocks the human conscience” and encourages the Church to work towards a just economy.

The challenge for the South African Church, and those who share this perspective, resides in

making this message heard above the din of affluent populists who use the anger of the poor to profit their political aspirations.

At the 2009 synod, the bishops of Africa did not mince words when they demanded that multinational corporations operating in Africa stop “their criminal devastation of the environment in their greedy exploitation of natural resources”, and referred to “a tragic complicity and criminal conspiracy of local leaders and foreign interests”.

Pope Benedict clearly shares the feelings of the African Church in this regard, even as he couches them in more diplomatic language.

The pope makes it clear that to foster hope for a better future on the continent, the Church in Africa must be rigorously and fearlessly prophetic in preaching the Social Gospel.

Pope Benedict also endorses the synod’s call for the empowerment of Africa’s women. Noting the discrimination of the continent’s women and ancestral practices that degrade them, the pope writes: “Unfortunately, the evolution of ways of thinking in this area is much too slow. The Church has the duty to contribute to the recognition and the liberation of women, following the example of Christ’s own esteem for them.”

For all its problems, Africa is a vibrant and forward-looking continent. Pope Benedict recognised this when in an address to political leaders in Benin he criticised “the fruit of a bleak analysis” of the continent and the “reductionist and disrespectful points of view which lead to the unhelpful ‘objectification’ of Africa and her inhabitants”.

The fast-growing Catholic Church has a prophetic role to play in Africa’s life and development. Africae munus, written by a pope from Europe who has listened closely to the African Church, will serve as a guide in that mission.

Pope Benedict closes Africae munus with his wish for the continent’s Church: “May the Catholic Church in Africa always be one of the spiritual lungs of humanity, and become daily an ever greater blessing for the noble African continent and for the entire world.”

We, the Church of Africa, must work to make it so.

The Editor reserves the right to shorten or edit published letters. Letters below 300 words receive preference. Pseudonyms are acceptable only under special circumstances and at the Editor’s discretion. Name and address of the writer must be supplied. No anonymous letter will be considered.

Become web missionaries now HE hurt, hate, fear, frustra- t h e y c a n h u r t , a n d , a t t h e T tion, bitterness, racism, anxi- moment, there is an avalanche of ety, provocation and unbridled hateful, destructive communicainsults expressed on some news websites on the Internet are enough to make one want to give up on the future of this country and its “rainbow nation”.

At the same time there are many readers who try very hard to make their voice of reason, reconciliation, hope and constructive interaction heard. Unfortunately, there are not enough of them, and the war-mongers will take every opportunity to turn the most innocent discussion into an attack based on racial divides.

All well-meaning Christian and Catholic South Africans who are intent on helping this country and its society survive and prosper should join these websites and make their voices heard.

Words can heal as much as

tion on these public forums which will lead only to more polarisation and alienation in our society.

Furthermore, the vicious and positively evil attacks on God and his salvation plan for this world are almost unendurable. The moment an article that touches on religious matters is posted, or a Christian dares bring religion into an online discussion, it is as if a screeching flock of demented spirits descends on these website.

The notion of God is attacked, believers of any kind or denomination are ridiculed and made out to be gullible imbeciles, and the Catholic Church is vilified, its members and clergy verbally attacked, and all information about the Church completely distorted and exaggerated.

Omission of courage

please?” I was careful to reply that God can help her first and that he had already forgiven her for her sin.

The Culture of Life Apostolic (COLA) in the archdiocese of Johannesburg is working hard to open two or three “shelters” to encourage and support pregnant girls and women to give birth.

(The alternative is often a visit to the abortion clinic.)

It is planning another special Mass and walk in March 2012 to highlight once again the evil of abortion. It deserves maximum support.

Br George Whyte, Roodepoort, Johannesburg

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Y compliments on your well considered editorial on abortion (November 9). However, there is a serious omission: you forgot to mention the fact that the Democratic Alliance not only whole-heartedly supported the African National Congress in Parliament in the matter but also refused to give its members a free vote.

It therefore did not hesitate to censure Dene Smuts, the only MP brave enough to show her misgivings about the Bill and abstain from voting on it.

Surely her courage in confronting her party on the issue should have been mentioned.

Aideen Gonlag, St Michaels-on-sea, KZN

The Culture of Life Apostolic

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WISH to congratulate you for the splendid editorial “Responding to Abortion” (November 9).

Some of the facts mentioned are horrific, for example, every day in SA an average of 233 mothers abort their children legally. That is 85 000 per year.

I recently received an SMS from a girl of 18 in a Soweto matric class. “I did an abortion. I regret it. Can you help me

May I plead with individuals who have the necessary technological infrastructure at home, who have the biblical and theological knowledge necessary to engage in constructive discussions, and the wisdom and patience to do this in a loving manner, and who have enough time on their hands, to start a mission of their own, right here and now.

This would link up perfectly with Fr Anthony Egan’s Hope&Joy article of October 26 in which he wrote: “Now the [the laity] too had their own mission, even if they could not go off to far-off places: bearing witness to Christ as laypeople in their own societies (often secular and increasingly in need of what John Paul II would call the “new evangelisation”) in the public realm (politics and business) and through their witness to Christian values in their private lives.”

Monica Rohlwink, Cape Town

with a week-long programme of Masses, devotions and organ recitals. On Monday October 31, there was a Pontifical High Mass for convent school girls and on November 4 one for pupils at Catholic boys schools.

Some Southern Cross readers, or their parents, might have been at one of them. They might like to commemorate the occasion by buying a platinum brick which will mean their name will be engraved on the donor wall adjacent to the cathedral.

Judy Stockill, Johannesburg

Out of context

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Buy-a-brick

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HANK you for the article on the new chancery for the Johannesburg archdiocese (November 2).

Readers who would like to Buy-a-Brick to donate to the building fund can do so on line at www.chanceryjhb.co.za In 1960, the solemn dedication and opening of the cathedral of Christ the King was celebrated Opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in letters to the editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the Catholic hierarchy. The letters page in particular is a forum in which readers may exchange opinions on matters of debate. letters must not be understood to necessarily reflect the teachings, disciplines or policies of the Church accurately.

AMIEN McLeish (November 9) refers to my letter, “A tale of two cardinals”. Does he appreciate what is news?

That a Catholic archbishop is pro-life is quite normal. It is like believing in the Ten Commandments or the Blessed Trinity. If a bishop did not believe in the Church’s pro-life teachings, that would be news.

Emphasising the self-evident isn’t necessary. So why would one single out Archbishop Chaput’s stand against abortion in a context that has nothing to do with life issues?

What is noteworthy is when two archbishops of common background act differently in a similar situation.

Fr Allan Moss OMI, Pietermaritzburg

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What Vatican II tells us about Aids

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ECENTLY some epidemiologists (scholars who track the origins and growth of diseases) have suggested that the first possible recorded case of someone dying from Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome (Aids) dates back to 1959 in what was then the Belgian Congo.

No one then knew what this strange “tropical disease” was. Only with the rapid growth of air travel in the 1970s and the spread of Aids that followed was it identified as such. No one at Vatican II had heard of Aids—and yet the Council is relevant to our subject today.

The reason why the Church involves itself in the Aids crisis can be found in the famous opening lines of the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. It is worth quoting in full: “The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially those who are poor and afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in our hearts. For theirs is a community composed of people, of people who, united in Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, press onwards towards the kingdom of the Father and are bearers of a message of salvation intended for all.

“That is why Christians cherish a feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history” (1).

Since the beginning the Church has cared for others, not only fellow Christians, but all people.

Historian-sociologist Rodney Stark has suggested that it was precisely this openness to the Other that made the Church grow in the first centuries.

Throughout our history, the Church has been deeply involved in health care through the involvement of religious congregations (many but not all of them women) and priests, many of whom during the middle ages combined pastoral care with medicine.

In more recent centuries lay people have worked alongside clergy and religious in Churchbased health care, particularly as medical missionaries across the globe. In its various documents, on laity, on mission and on the religious life, the Council reaffirmed this aspect of mission as one of the traditional corporal works of mercy.

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are for persons with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Aids continues this great tradition of the Church’s mission and pastoral outreach. Inspired by a compassion that mirrors Christ’s compassion for all humanity, Catholics have been deeply involved in hospital and hospice care, in anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment and in research into finding a cure for HIV/Aids.

In many countries, particularly in Africa (including South Africa), Catholic hospitals run increasingly by laity have been at the forefront of the struggle against Aids. This is a sign of the renewed lay vocation, called for by the Council and responded to with great generosity, as much as a result of the decline of religious vocations.

Inevitably this response has come with some controversy. Since HIV/Aids is very often sexually transmitted, it has posed moral dilemmas for the Church with which many of us are still struggling. One of the effective ways in which HIV transmission can be reduced is by the proper use of condoms, which are artificial contraceptives that the Church rejects as immoral in the 1968 document Humanae Vitae.

The Church’s alternatives—abstention from sex outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage—is undoubtedly more effective than condom usage, which (depending on their quality and proper use) are less than 100% “safe”.

Yet some moral theologians have noted that not all people are able, through force of economic and social circumstances, to freely abstain.

While the official Church teaching remains generally opposed to condoms, such ethicists have argued that in some circumstances they may be permitted based on classical Catholic moral ideas of double effect and the lesser evil.

Many, too, have appealed to the principle of conscience, affirmed at Vatican II (and to be discussed in a later article in this series).

The condom controversy should not, however, be overstressed at the cost of the fundamental principle at work in Catholic response to HIV/Aids: solidarity. Solidarity and the accompaniment of those who are suffering, is central to the new openness to the world proclaimed at Vatican II and expressed in our ongoing commitment to people with Aids.

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

Don’t lose sight of the starfish

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HERE is a story about a little boy who was on the beach with his dad. They were building sandcastles, playing games, collecting shells and having fun on the beach when all of a sudden they spotted something—a huge, bright red starfish floating in the water just near the shore.

The little boy lit up. So, his dad encouraged him: “Go on, it’s yours! Go get it!” The boy ran about halfway into the water, stopped, turned around and came back. Again the dad said, “Go on, go get it!” and he ran back into the sea back towards the starfish, going a bit further, then returning again.

This happened once more and the dad asked: “What’s going on? Why don’t you go and get it?” The little boy looked up, stopped moving, and said desperately: “Dad, I can’t. My hands are full of shells!”

We are like that too with our lives. Sometimes we spot the great things which God has for us, the starfish in the sea, and we run towards them, only to realise that we can’t receive the blessings because our hands are full of shells.

We’re holding on to the mess

and stuff in our lives that won’t satisfy us fully. We have to let go of all the things in our lives that are holding us back and have hands that are empty and open, so that we can receive the amazing things God has for us.

I had the blessing recently of being a part of a parish youth night run by a confirmation group in Durban who have heard the message that God has something greater for us all. They’ve been invested in over the last four years— believed in, encouraged, supported, inspired—and they’ve taken this message to heart. They’ve let go of some of their shells for something greater, for the message of truth, for a relationship with Christ.

T h e y ’ v e touched the starfish of a life of faith and they know they’re made for more.

And now they’re on fire to share it with others.

Young people in our Church today want to be believed in. They want hope. They want

Living life, day by day

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DVENT has sprung upon us. From now on for a whole year I am promoting the idea of “Day by Day with God and Family”. So please allow me a little deeper promotion of the idea and the resource material to go with it.

First the concept. Every day, all day and all night, no one is an island, no one is entirely alone psychologically and spiritually even if we are alone physically. How can we, or do we, relate to the idea of being with God all day, every day?

Is it a comfort, a challenge, a joy, a bother? Is it like having someone looking over your shoulder all the time?

We’re not only with God every moment of every day, but belonging and being part of a family are essential elements in one’s identity. Even while being a widow and living alone much of the time, my relationship with my late husband, Chris, is not cancelled out. Nor am I not a mother if my children are far away. I am mother, mother-in-law, grandmother and probably more remotely sister or sister-in-law, and even more distantly aunt.

Whether I see my children or not—and I do wish that I was living closer to them and the grandchildren—their lives are connected to mine, their joys and worries are more mine than those of a colleague or friend.

Maybe it can best be described figuratively as if my family is in my blood. This is somewhat of a cultural issue too. When

I ask at a workshop what a family is and who your family is, I do have people mentioning neighbours or members of their sodality. There is however a mysterious sense of belonging to kin, while a degree of intimacy is also important.

At the end of November, we commemorated the 30th anniversary of Bl John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation “The Role of the Family in the Modern World”, also known as Familiaris Consortio. It sets out the essence of Church teaching on family life.

Familiaris Consortio describes family as “an intimate community of life and love, bonded together for life by blood, marriage or adoption.” The family has several tasks to perform in the Church and the world. Firstly, to form and become that intimate community. Secondly, to serve life, nurture it from conception until natural death. Thirdly, to be active in the world and fourthly to share in the life and mission of the Church.

In the early days of our marriage preparation work, Chris and I were given a poster by a couple. It reads: “ The closer we get to God, the closer we get to one another.” That poster still stands in my bedroom. Chris tried to convince me it works the other way round too: “The closer we get to one another the closer we get to God.” I wrote a prayer poem on this when I became widowed, one that is contained in the booklet Becoming Widowed (Redemp-

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Steven Edwards youth and Mission truth and they want to be trusted. This group has had that. They’ve had the love of Christ shown to them in their youth group and now they’re willing to do many “small things with great love” as St Thérèse tried to do, by loving others in the small ways and getting involved in their parish.

God is working in our Church and he is renewing our youth groups. There is a reason and a point for serving in the ministries in our parish. There is a reason for giving up time on a Friday (or whatever) night to be present to teens at our youth groups. God is changing lives.

Are we holding on to shells in our own lives which are keeping us back from the “more” God has for us? Are we believing in and investing in our young people—getting to know them and walking with them in faith, telling them about the more? Are we trusting and believing in them so that they can get involved and share what faith they do have? n Steven Edwards is a young Catholic from Durban and a hopeful future teacher.

Recently returned from being a missionary in the United States, he is involved with youth ministry in his archdiocese.

Toni Rowland Family Friendly

torist Publications): “Now God, or circumstance has called you from this life to become one with God and my remaining option is that to become closer to you, I must become closer to God.” We did not fully achieve that unity, that intimacy that is our calling. We experienced glimpses of it, sure, but the calling and the journey to love and intimacy, ideally in marriage and family relationships, remains in a different way. It is still my calling, our calling as family people. Day by Day. The 2012 Family Yearplanner calendar has themes for the months to highlight areas of family life. As we reflect and share and pray about these areas with the help of the little MARFAM booklet Day by Day with God and Family (Part 1), we can and should hopefully grow in intimacy with one another as spouses, as parents and children, siblings and as family members across the generations.

Family ministry does not aim to change people, but to help them grow, in a sacrificial way yes, because there is sacrifice in all relationships. Most importantly we recall the words of Jesus “that they may have life and have it to the full.”

As we prepare for the coming of Jesus once again at Christmastime, and also for his second coming, let’s remember that image,” Life to the Full” and imagine too aspiring to that, Day by Day.

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8

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

AFRICA

The pope in Benin O

N his three-day visit to Benin, Pope Benedict urged African Catholics to witness the hope of the Gospel in their daily lives and make the Church a model of reconciliation for the entire continent.

In a particular way, the Church must be “attentive to the cry of the poor, the weak, the outcast,” the pope said at a Mass for more than 50 000 people who filled a stadium in Cotonou.

“I would like to greet with affection all those persons who are suffering, those who are sick, those affected by Aids or by other illnesses, to all those forgotten by society. Have courage! The pope is close to you in his thoughts and prayers,” he said.

The 84-year-old pontiff delivered his homily in French, English and Portuguese, adding a few words in Fon, the local indigenous language. He occasionally wiped his brow as temperatures rose during the morning liturgy.

The pope stressed the urgency of evangelising and said the Church must make a special effort to reach those “whose faith is weak” and who think selfish satisfaction and easy gain is the goal of human life.

“The Church in Benin has received much from her missionaries; she must in turn carry this message of hope to people who do not know or who no longer know the Lord Jesus,” he said.

The pope’s message was aimed beyond the borders of Benin, a small West African country with a population of nearly 3 million Catholics out of a total population

of nearly 9 million. At every one of his public events, Africans— including many pilgrims who came from neighbouring countries—gave the pontiff a lively welcome, blending song, dance and prayer in a spirit of religious celebration. The smiling pope clearly appreciated the reception.

One of the most animated encounters saw the pope surrounded by several hundred schoolchildren, who accompanied him in a rhythmic procession and cheered him inside a parish church.

In a talk, the pope told the children to ask their parents to pray with them. “Sometimes you may even have to push them a little.

But do not hesitate to do so. God is that important!” he said.

Later he pulled a rosary from his pocket and asked the young people to learn how to pray it.

Each child was given a rosary at the end before they left.

He came to Africa to unveil the 138-page apostolic exhortation Africae Munus (“The Commitment of Africa”, see page 9). He travelled to the coastal city of Ouidah, a former slave trading post on the Atlantic, to sign his follow-up document to the 2009 Synod of Bishops for Africa.

In a brief talk before the signing, the pope said that in the face of Africa’s problems, “a Church reconciled within herself and among all her members can become a prophetic sign of reconciliation in society” and help guide the struggle against “every form of slavery” in the modern world.

Ouidah is known as a centre of voodoo practices in West Africa,

and in a meeting with Catholic faithful there the pope underlined the need to reject customs incompatible with Christianity. Understood correctly, he said, the Christian faith “liberates from occultism and vanquishes evil spirits, for it is moved by the power of the Holy Trinity itself”.

He also encouraged lay Catholics to defend the institution of the family “built according to the design of God” and the Christian understanding of marriage.

Parents should transform family life through the power of prayer and by transmitting values to their children by their own example, he said.

In a Ouidah church, Pope Benedict prayed at the tomb of Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, who worked for many years with the future pope in the Roman curia. The pope said that over the years, the two had met many times, engaged in deep discussions and prayed together.

Addressing diplomats, civil authorities and religious representatives in Cotonou, the pope said Africa’s challenges reflect wider issues common to all humanity, including scandals and injustice, corruption and greed, and “too much violence which leads to misery and death.”

He urged world leaders to put the common good at the centre of their policies.

“From this place, I launch an appeal to all political and economic leaders of African countries and the rest of the world. Do not deprive your peoples of hope! Do not cut them off from their future by mutilating their present!”

Pope Benedict kisses a child during his visit to the "Peace and Joy" Centre of the Missionaries of Charity at St Rita Parish in Cotonou, Benin, during his three-day visit to the African country. (Photo: l'Osservatore Romano / Catholic Press Photo, CnS) The pope also cautioned the international community against viewing Africa solely as a place of problems and failures. Often this perspective is fuelled by prejudices, he said.

“It is tempting to point to what does not work; it is easy to assume the judgmental tone of the moraliser or of the expert who imposes his conclusions and proposes, at the end of the day, few useful solutions.”

He warned of the related risk of seeing Africa only in terms of vast resources that can be easily exploited.

Relations between Christians

and Muslims in Benin are generally good, and representatives of Islam were among those present at the Cotonou meeting. The pope emphasised that “everyone of good sense” understands the need for interreligious dialogue today and rejects the attempt to justify intolerance or violence.

“Aggression is an outmoded relational form which appeals to superficial and ignoble instincts.

To use the revealed word, the sacred scriptures or the name of God to justify our interests, our easy and convenient policies or our violence, is a very grave fault,” he said.—CNS

AFRICA

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

9

Pope’s blueprint for Africa’s Church Pope Benedict came to Benin to launch his apostolic exhortation following 2009’s Synod of Bishops for Africa. JOhn ThAVIS reviews the contents of Africae Munus, the blueprint for the Church in Africa.

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N his wide-ranging document on the Church’s future in Africa, Pope Benedict urges Catholics to become “apostles of reconciliation, justice and peace” across the troubled continent.

The key to the Church’s mission in Africa, the pope says, is for all Catholics to know the faith and the Church’s social doctrine well, then witness it in daily life.

The document, called an apostolic exhortation, explores the themes treated by the 2009 Synod of Bishops for Africa. Titled Africae Munus (“The Commitment of Africa”), the 138-page text offers what it called “guidelines for mission” in virtually every pastoral area, including the sacraments, social justice and interreligious dialogue.

The pope signed the document during a ceremony in Ouidah, Benin, a slave trade city on the Atlantic coast.

The document says Africa, like the rest of the world, is experiencing a culture shock that strikes at traditional values and ways of life.

But faced with this “crisis of faith and hope”, Africa has the ability to be a spiritual inspiration because of the human and religious resources of its peoples.

The pope says the Church should lead the way, promoting respect for human dignity and life at every stage, fighting against economic imbalance and environmental degradation, providing health care to those with Aids and other diseases, educating the young and reconciling human hearts in places of ethnic tension.

These actions are the heart of the Church’s evangelising efforts, which include witness, words and service, and which must be based on the personal encounter with

Pope Benedict signs the apostolic exhortation Africae Munus at the basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Ouidah, Benin, as cardinals look on. Cardinal Wilfrid napier of Durban is third from left. (Photo: Catholic Press Photo /l’Osservatore Romano/CnS)

Christ, he says.

One specific proposal in the document is for a continent-wide “Year of Reconciliation” to beg God’s forgiveness for “all the evils and injuries mutually inflicted in Africa” and for the reconciliation of people who have been hurt in the Church and in society.

Two separate sections of the document addressed men and women, in language that reflects the synod’s concerns over discrimination against women in many African countries.

Women and girls have fewer opportunities than men and boys in Africa, and their dignity and essential contributions to the family and society are often unappreciated, the pope says, adding that too many ancestral practices debase and degrade women.

“Unfortunately, the evolution of ways of thinking in this area is much too slow. The Church has the duty to contribute to the recognition and the liberation of women, following the example of Christ’s own esteem for them.”

The pope calls women the “backbone” of local Church communities in Africa.

The document reminds men to be faithful to their wives and to make a real contribution to the upbringing of their children. In an

apparent reference to polygamy, it urges men to reject traditional practices that are “contrary to the Gospel and oppressive to women in particular”.

The document touches on many other issues raised at the 2009 synod: l It pledges the Church’s continuing assistance to Aids patients and the Church’s support for affordable treatment. But it says Aids is an ethical as well as a medical problem, requiring “change of behaviour”, including sexual abstinence, rejection of sexual promiscuity and fidelity within marriage. l It says abortion, the “destruction of an innocent unborn child”, is against God’s will, and it encouraged Africans to be wary of confusing language in international documents on women’s reproductive health that goes against the Church’s teaching. l It urges Africans to continue to protect the institutions of marriage and the family and to maintain their traditional respect for the elderly.

“This beautiful African appreciation for old age should inspire Western societies to treat the elderly with greater dignity,” the pope says. l The document says the Church must be present wherever

human suffering exists and “make heard the silent cry of the innocent who suffer persecution, or of peoples whose governments mortgage the present and the future for personal interests”. l It says African countries rightly expect outside assistance in dealing with their problems, but at the same time must themselves implement political, social and administrative justice at home. l On the issue of ecology, the document says private business and government groups have enriched themselves by exploiting resources in a way that causes pollution and desertification, putting countless species at risk and threatening the entire ecosystem.

“The plundering of the goods of the earth by a minority to the detriment of entire peoples is unacceptable, because it is immoral,” the pope says. l The document says Catholic relations with Muslims are a mixed picture across Africa; in some countries, members of the two faiths get along well, while in others Christians are treated like “second-class citizens”. It asks Church leaders to work through patient dialogue with Muslims towards juridical and practical recognition of religious freedom. l The pope warns that witchcraft is enjoying a revival in Africa, in part because of people’s anxiety

Women hold crosses as they dance before Pope Benedict’s arrival at the Peace and Joy Centre of the Missionaries of Charity at St Rita Parish in Cotonou. (Photo: Paul haring, CnS)

J.M.J People cheer as Pope Benedict leaves in his popemobile after celebrating Mass at the stadium in Cotonou.

(Photo: Paul haring, CnS)

Pray that AFRICA may draw closer to the HEART OF CHRIST 2 Chron 7:14 Matthew 7:7-12

over health, the future and the environment. He asks bishops to face the challenge of Christians who have a “dual affiliation” to Christianity and traditional African religions. The Church must clearly reject any “magical elements”, which cause division and ruin for families. l The document calls on African bishops to find a correct response to the growing popularity of African independent churches, which have adopted elements of traditional African culture. It distinguishes between those churches and religious sects, which it says were leading people of good faith astray. The Church needs to study this phenomenon in order to “stem the haemorrhage of the faithful from the parishes to the sects”. l It denounces the “intolerable treatment” of many children in Africa, who are subjected to forced labour, trafficking and various forms of discrimination. “The Church is mother and could never abandon a single one of them.” l The document decries the rising crime rate in urban areas of Africa, but also says prisoners are frequently mistreated. It says society’s leaders need to “make every effort to eliminate the death penalty” and to reform the penal system so that prisoners’ human dignity is respected.—CNS

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BOOK REVIEWS

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

The Church’s plan for Africa RECONCILIATION, JUSTICE AND PEACE: The Second African Synod, by Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator SJ (ed). Acton Publishers, Nairobi. 2011. 259pp.

R159,50.

Review by Raymond Mwangwala OMI ANY analysts blame Africa’s many problems on politicians alone. But are politicians the only ones responsible for Africa’s wellbeing? What about the Church and people of faith?

The theme of the Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops—”The Church in Africa in Service to Reconciliation, Justice and Peace: ‘You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world’” (Mt 5:13-14)—is clearly a challenge to the Church in Africa to become an active agent for transformation.

The synod, which took place in Rome in October 2009, considered some of the implications of this call.

Pope Benedict officially delivered to the Church of Africa the

M

fruits of the synod in the traditional post-synodal exhortation during his visit to Benin in November.

While it waited for that, however, the Church in Africa had not been idle. Various initiatives to bring the synod home have taken place. Reconciliation, Justice and Peace: The Second African Synod, edited by Jesuit Father Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, is one such initiative.

The volume brings together reflections and essays on the synod by theologians from various African countries, some of whom participated in the gathering in Rome. It aims at “generating thought and prompting discussion” around the theme of the Synod.

The five sections of the volume provide critical and concise summaries reflecting on particular subjects that were discussed at the synod. Each chapter also concludes with suggestions for practical implementation, making the volume an important resource for understanding and making the

synod fruitful.

The introduction, by Fr Orobator, places the synod in context, both historical and theological. In the years between the first (1994) and the second (2009) African synods much has happened on the continent and in the Church.

A synod is a kairos moment, a time of grace, for the Church to reflect on its experience and to recommit itself to the mission received from God, through Jesus Christ.

This mission, in service of reconciliation, justice and peace, is not primarily about what the Church does, but rather about what the Church is and should be.

Teresa Okure’s challenging essay (chapter 1) calls on the Church to go back to the basics, to become Church as intended by God: a place of reconciliation, justice and peace. In this way, she writes, the Church will become a credible witness to the good news.

The other chapters each focus on particular aspects of Church and mission in Africa.

For the Church of Africa to be credible and relevant it must enter into dialogue with African religion and with other role players on the continent.

The challenges facing Africa are many and require concerted effort by people of faith and others if the continent is not to remain a perpetual tale of misery.

Small Christian Communities are affirmed as a privileged locus for witnessing as Church. Gathered together around the word of God, members reflect together on common problems such as gender justice, HIV/Aids, poverty, ecology and so on, and search for solutions.

The volume serves as an important tool for reflection on the many and complex topics discussed at the synod.

Ideally, each chapter should be read on its own, reflected upon, expanded and discussed with others.

Reconciliation, Justice and Peace should provide an important commentary to the pope’s apos-

tolic exhortation.

In the end, the words of the book will remain empty words unless they are brought to life by Christians and others of good will.

The work has only just begun: “Courage! Get on your feet, continent of Africa!” n Fr Mwangala is the dean of studies at St Joseph’s Theological Institute in Cedara, KwaZulu-Natal.

OId priests and friends remembered Theme for December 4: Christmas Pt 1

JUST REMEMBERING, by Fr W H Barnes. Self-published, Port Elizabeth. 2011. 130pp. R50 Review by Michael Shackleton WELL known active and energetic priest of the Port Elizabeth diocese in his seventies has to have a knee-replacement operation and, though unable to walk, he does not rest.

He decides that this is a good time to write a book to remind the clergy, religious and layfolk of the diocese of the Christian witness and heroic lives of the priests and religious brothers who have graced their region since 1830.

In this little compendium he can devote only thumbnail sketches to each because either his sources were too few or too untraceable, or too much material on one would be at the expense of others. This can be frustrating for the reader whose attention is immediately gripped by what he has to narrate so sparsely. Fr Barnes whets the appetite to know a lot more, particularly for those who had met the priests or brothers whose lives and works he reanimates with colourful strokes.

For example, he tells of East London’s widely known and respected priest, Mgr John O’Keeffe, who had been an army chaplain and spent 27 years as parish priest of Immaculate Conception church in Albany Street. Fr Barnes quotes the late Donald Woods, a Catholic former editor of the Daily Dispatch, who published an appreciation of this great, charitable-to-all priest. He tells how Mgr O’Keeffe visited hospital patients of all faiths and none. Once, when a woman told him she had just given birth to a boy, he remarked: “It’s St Andrew’s day. You should call him Andrew.” “But I’m Jewish, Father,” she protested, and got this retort: “So was St Andrew, my girl.”

Fr Matthew McManus was a rough diamond and a bit of a hellraiser, getting himself into trouble with the law and the bishop at times. But when the need for real Christian love and courage arose, he was unhesitant. During the bubonic plague he was the only volunteer to go into the townships to tend to the sick and bury the dead.

A PO Box 11095, Mariannhill 3624 DECEMBER 24 - janUaRy 1

a sPiRitUal ChRistMas hOliDay “CathOliC Faith - God’s mysteries in our lives.”

Led by Fr Urs Fischer

2012 janUaRy 3 - FEBRUaRy 2 sPiRitUal EXERCisEs according to st ignatius of loyola. thirty days of prayer and meditation Led by Fr Urs Fischer. janUaRy 6 - 14 7-Day preached retreat by Fr Declan Doherty: aCCEPtinG thE Way OF jEsUs janUaRy 6 - 14 7-Day directed retreats

By Fr Urs Fischer and Br Crispin lEntEn lECtUREs Mondays 19h30 Feb 27 and Mar 05/12/26 the Eucharist: Source and Summit of Our Christian Life.

Led by Mgr Paul Nadal MaRCh 9 - 11 Trust in God by Fr Pierre Lavoipierre

MaRCh 16 - 18 the Four last things: Christian thinking about Death, Judgement, Hell, Heaven.

Led by Fr Urs Fischer hOly WEEK: MaRCh 31 - aPRil 8 1. Preached Retreat by Fr Christopher Neville OMF 2. st Faustina & Bl john Paul ii: Divine Mercy Week by Fr Urs Fischer aPRil 13 - 15 the Eucharist: Source and Summit of Our Christian Life Repeat of Lenten Lecture by Mgr Paul Nadal aPRil 20 - 22 Question and answers: about your journey to God Led by Fr Urs Fischer nOVEMBER 9 - 11 search for life by Fr Pierre Lavoipierre nOVEMBER 23 - 25 Mary, the Mother, has the message by Deacon Tony de Freitas DECEMBER 7 - 16 8-Day directed retreats by Fr Urs Fischer and Br Crispin Graham DECEMBER 24 - janUaRy 1, 2013

a sPiRitUal ChRistMas hOliDay: Praying constantly, bring your faith to life

by Fr Urs Fischer

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Fr Barnes includes his own story with straightforward candour. But he modestly does so towards the end of the book. His first aim is to recall those priests and brothers who lived before him and in his own time, and present them as great Christian men in spite of their human sensitivies and weaknesses.

Fr Barnes has been meticulous in gathering information and writing it up descriptively, in spite of the often frustrating lack of material. His hard work may yet prompt some other author to dig deeper and beyond and provide the diocese of Port Elizabeth with more complete biographies of one or more of the men who laid the foundations for the Church in the Eastern Cape and who have continued a fine tradition into the 21st century.

This book would be an ideal Christmas present. It is easy to read and yet can impress deeply as it paints portraits of the magnificent courage and faith of the priests and religious we tend to take for granted. n Copies at R50 each (excluding postage and packaging) are available from Fr Barnes at P O Box 3089, Cambridge, 5206 East London, or by phoning landline 043 726-5487 or cell 083 512-5608, or e-mail bill-hb @telkomsa.net

Visit our archive of book reviews: www.scross.co.za/category/books

The Southern Cross, november 30 to December 6, 2011

Fr Garth ‘Msizi’ Michelson OMI

O

BLATE Father Garth Eric “Msizi” Michelson died on November 16 at the age of

78.

Born on June 1, 1933 of Reginald Eric Michelson and Helen Esplin in Bloemfontein, he attended high school at Marist Brothers’ College in Observatory, Johannesburg. He matriculated in 1950 and from 1951-52 he was employed at Modderfontein Dynamite Factory while studying.

He entered Oblate novitiate in Germiston, Johannesburg, in 1953 and made his first vows the following year.

From 1954-60 he studied philosophy and theology at St Joseph’s Oblate Scholasticate at Cedara, KwaZulu-Natal. He made his final vows in 1957 and was ordained priest in 1959.

In 1960 he did postgraduate studies at Gregorian University in Rome, attaining his doctorate in theology (ecumenical). He lectured at St Joseph’s scholasticate from 1965-71 and from 1972-73 in theology at St Peter’s Major Seminary at Hammanskraal.

In 1972 he was also appointed as secretary for ecumenism of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

In 1974-6 Fr Michelson supplied at Stanger and Greytown parishes in the archdiocese of Durban and worked as chaplain at Montebello convent.

In 1977 he founded the Sion Community of Reconciliation in Mariannhill and served from 1978-85 at Joan of Arc in Pietermaritzburg. This was a community, as he said, “of persons who would strive, through prayer and work, to bear witness primarily to God’s liberating/reconciling love, in Christ, across barriers of separation, race, denomination, religion.” During these years he also taught at Fedaral Seminary and did parish work at Sobantu Village.

From 1986-92 he worked as parish priest of Mbava parish in

Community Calendar To place your event, call Claire Allen at 021 465 5007 or e-mail c.allen@scross.co.za, (publication subject to space) BETHLEHEM: Shrine of Our Lady of Bethlehem at Tsheseng, Maluti mountains; Thursdays 09:30, Mass, then exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. 058 721 0532.

CAPE TOWN: Good Shepherd, Bothasig. Perpetual eucharistic Adoration in the chapel. All hours. All welcome.

Day of Prayer held at Springfield Convent starting at 10:00 ending 15:30 last Saturday of every month—all welcome. For more information contact Jane hulley 021 790 1668 or 082 783 0331.

DURBAN: St Anthony’s, Durban

Central: Tuesday 09:00 Mass with novena to St Anthony. First Friday 17:30 Mass—Divine Mercy novena prayers.

Tel: 031 309 3496.

JOHANNESBURG: Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament: first Friday of the month at 09:20 followed by holy Mass at 10:30. holy hour: first Saturday of each month at 15:00. At Our lady of the Angels, little eden, edenvale. Tel: 011 609 7246.

PRETORIA: First Saturday: Devotion to Divine Mercy. St Martin de Porres, Sunnyside, 16:30. Tel Shirley-Anne 012 361 4545.

Word of the Week Anamnesis: The remembrance of God’s saving deeds in history in the liturgical action of the Church, which inspires thanksgiving and praise.

Application: Every Eucharistic Prayer contains an anamnesis or memorial in which the Church calls to mind the Passion, Resurrection, and glorious return of Christ Jesus.

Thousandhills, and in 1992 was sent to Umzimkulu diocese as parish priest of Margate and Gamalakhe. From 1994-2008 he was the parish priest of Ntuzuma parish in Durban archdiocese.

Fr Michelson retired in 2008 to Sukuma Wenze Place of Care, a home of the HIV/Aids victims, where he continued to minister to the people of this home. He also helped out at Matikwe parish.

Throughout his ministerial life he was driven by the spirit of reconciliation which led him to be involved in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and social development issues.

He presented papers and held symposia in various countries on these issues, and visited countries such as Indonesia, India and Turkey regarding these issues. He gave retreats of all sorts of groups leading them to reconcile with God. In a recent notes he wrote: “If time has come for me along life’s pilgrimage path to lay down life, I do it freely in Jesus only to take it up again in Him. A deep sense of gratitude wells up in me to God and to all. Please thank all for me, and I thank you.”

Fr Vusi Mazibuko OMI

Liturgical Calendar Year B

Sunday, December 4, 2nd Sunday of Advent Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11, Psalms 85: 9-14, 2 Peter 3: 8-14, Mark 1: 1-8 Monday, December 5, feria Isaiah 35: 1-10, Psalms 85:9-14, Luke 5:17-26 Tuesday, December 6, St Nicholas Isaiah 40: 1-11, Psalms 96:1-3, 10-13, Matthew 18:12-14 Wednesday, December 7, St Ambrose Isaiah 40: 25-31, Psalms 103:1-4, 8,10, Matthew 11:28-30 Thursday, December 8, Immaculate Conception of Our Lady Genesis 3:9-15,20, Psalms 98:1-4, Ephesians 1:36, 11-12, Luke 7:24-30 Friday, December 9, St Juan Diego Isaiah 48: 17-19, Psalms 1:1-4, 6 Matthew 11:16-19 Saturday, December 10, St Melchiades Sirach 48: 1-4, 9-11, Psalms 80:2-3,15-16, 18-19, Matthew 17:10-13 Sunday, December 11, 3rd Sunday of Advent Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11, Psalms: Luke 1:46-50,5354, 1 Thessalonians 5, 16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO #473. ACROSS: 5 Curb, 7 Centennial, 8 None, 10 In the red, 11 Staged, 12 Pariah, 14 Lashes, 16 Coffin, 17 Adequate, 19 Rank, 21 Imprudence, 22 Whit. DOWN: 1 Icon, 2 Strength, 3 Unkind, 4 Lift up, 5 Clue, 6 Revelation, 9 Outlandish, 13 Reformer, 15 Stamps, 16 Cherub, 18 Quit, 20 Keen.

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DEATH MICHELSON—Fr Garth.

Passed away suddenly on november 16. Sadly missed by Maureen and Charles, also Susan, Michael, Peter and leonard and families. A wonderful brother and friend to all. Well done good and faithful servant.

May he rest in peace.

IN MEMORIAM MAHER—herbert died 6/12/2009 and Cicely Myrtle died 11/12 2006.

Remembered in our prayers lovingly. Joan, James and Sharon.

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PRAYERS HOLY St Jude, I receive the gifts of God with a grateful spirit. St Jude, help me to see the blessings that surround me and give me life. I offer you my prayer of thanksgiving.

Give me the grace to be ever thankful for the love and mercy of God and the gift of life each day. May this gratitude inspire me to give generously in all ways to others. Brandon and Tracey.

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THANKS GRATEFUL thanks to the Sacred heart of Jesus, Our Mother Mary and Ss Joseph, Anthony, Jude and Martin de Porres for prayers answered. RCP.

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Magnificent views, breakfast on request. Tel: 082 774 7140. bzhive@telkomsa.net KNYSNA: Self-catering accommodation for 2 in Old Belvidere with wonderful lagoon views. 044 387 1052.

St Joseph’s Home for Chronically Ill Children are offering parents or caregivers temporary relief (Respite Care) from caring for their special needs child.

Family Reflections December theme: peace on earth begins at home.

December 1: World Aids Day. With the theme of peace beginning at home, families could make a concerted effort to be reconciled with one another and others around who are infected or affected by HIV/Aids. Has there been insensitivity, stigmatisation, selfishness or hurt in any way around this issue? Asking and granting forgiveness is God’s way to make peace.

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LONDON, Protea house: underground 3min, Piccadilly 20min. Close to River Thames. Self-catering. Single per night R250, twin R400. Phone Peter 021 851 5200.

MARIANELLA Guest house, Simon’s Town: “Come experience the peace and beauty of God with us.” Fully equipped with amazing sea views.

Secure parking, ideal for rest and relaxation. Special rates for pensioners and clergy. Tel: Malcolm Salida 082 784 5675 or mjsalida@mweb.co.za SOUTH COAST, uvongo: Secure holiday unit, with lock-up garage. Sleeps 6.

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STELLENBOSCH: Five simple private suites (2 beds, fridge, micro-wave).

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www.scross.co.za Editor: Günther Simmermacher

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3rd Sunday of Advent: December 11 Readings: Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11, Luke 1:4650, 53-54, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28

Encounter the mystery of Advent

N

Nicholas King SJ

EXT Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent, and you might suppose that, now over halfway through Advent, we are getting a bit deeper into the mystery of the coming of the one whom we are celebrating. And so we are, but the process is a subtle one, as the readings for next Sunday remind us.

The first reading was addressed in the first place to the decidedly impoverished people who had come back from exile, but found to their surprise that they were asked to help create God’s new world.

This text is, later on, going to be used by Jesus in Luke’s gospel as his “mission-statement”: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”, and it is a very odd task that the Messiah is to be given: “To bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom to prisoners.”

Are you up for it, this Christmas? There is a good deal of (slightly artificial) celebration about just now, but the reading makes it clear what kind of celebration we should be going

Sunday Reflections in for, “because God has clothed me in a robe of salvation”. There is indeed going to be a party, but the reason for it is that “the Lord, the Lord is going to make justice spring up, and praise before all the peoples”. That is the mystery which we are approaching in these days.

The mystery gets deeper when we turn to the psalm, which turns out to be Our Lady’s great song, the Magnificat, in the gospel of Luke. It is, once more, a joyous celebration, but, again, the reasons for the celebration are not those that are given on the television, but “because the Lord has looked upon his slavegirl’s humiliation...The Powerful One has done great things for me”.

And, as the media invite us to more and

more extravagant drinking and food beyond anything that we could desire, Mary reminds us of God’s order of priorities: “He filled the hungry with good things, and sent the affluent away empty.”

The second reading comes from almost the very end of the first document to be written in the New Testament, and it is instructions on how to get through this Advent time of waiting: “Rejoice always”, it begins, and then, just in case you were thinking “party time!”, he adds, “pray without ceasing, give thanks in every respect”, and adds some warnings about taking the Spirit, and prophecies, seriously.

We are also to test everything, and “hang on to what is noble”, and to “stay away from every appearance of evil”. And, we have to remember, again and again, it is all about what God (“the God of peace”) is doing, so that we can be “kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Advent is not about anything we are to do, only about what God is up to.

Don’t hate the cruel world T HERE’S a story told, more legend perhaps than fact, about a mayor of a large American city in the late 1960s.

It wasn’t a good time for his city: It was facing financial bankruptcy, crime rates were spiralling, its public transportation system was no longer safe at night, the river supplying its drinking water was dangerously polluted, the air was rife with racial tension, and there were strikes and street protests almost weekly.

As the story goes, the mayor was flying over the city in a helicopter at rush hour on a Friday afternoon. As the rush-hour bustle and traffic drowned out almost everything else, he looked down at what seemed a teeming mess and said to one of his aides: “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a plunger and we could flush this whole mess into the ocean!”

He was being facetious, but I worry that we sometimes subtly think the same thing about our world. Too often we and our churches tend to see the world precisely as a mess, as caught up in mindless trivialisation, as self-indulgent, as narcissistic, as short-sighted, as no longer having values that demand self-sacrifice, of worshipping fame, of being addicted to material goods, and of being anti-Church and anti-Christian.

Indeed, it is common today in our churches to see the world as our enemy.

And, far from feeling heartbroken about it, we feel smug and righteousness as we gleefully witness its downfall: The world is getting what it deserves! Godlessness is its own punishment! That’s what it gets for not listening to us! In this, our attitude is the antithesis of Jesus’ attitude towards the world.

Jesus loved the world. Really? Yes. Is this what the Gospels teach? Yes. Here’s how the gospels describe Jesus’ reaction towards the world that rejected

Conrad

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

him: As Jesus drew near to Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it saying: “If you, even you, had only recognised on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Jesus sees what happens when people try to live without God, the mess, the pain, the heartbreak, and, far from rejoicing that the world isn’t working, his heart aches with empathy: If only you could see what you’re doing!

Looking at a world that’s breaking down because of its self-absorption, Jesus responds with empathy, not glee; with understanding, not judgment; with heartache, not rubbing salt in the wounds; and with tears, not good riddance.

Loving parents and loving friends understand exactly what Jesus was feeling at the moment when he wept over Jerusalem. What frustrated, heartbroken parent hasn’t looked at a son or daughter caught up in wrong choices and selfdestructive behaviour and wept inside as the words spontaneously formed: If only you could see what you’re doing! If only I could do something to spare you the damage you’re doing to your life by this blindness! If only you could recognise the things that make for peace! But you can’t see, and it breaks my heart!

The same is true among friends. True friends don’t rejoice and become gleeful when their friends make bad choices and their lives begin to collapse. Instead there are tears, mingled with anxious empathy, with heartache, with pleading, with prayers. Genuine love is empathic and

empathy is never gleeful at someone else’s downfall.

We are asked by our Christian faith to have a genuine love for the world. The world isn’t our enemy. It’s our wayward child and our loved friend who is breaking our heart.

That can be hard to see and accept when in fact the world is often belligerent and arrogant in its attitude towards us, when it’s angry with us, when it wrongly judges us, and when it scapegoats us. But that’s exactly what suffering children often do to their parents and friends when they make bad choices and suffer the consequences of that. They impute and scapegoat. This can feel very unfair to us, but Jesus attitude towards those who rejected and crucified him invites us to an empathy beyond that.

The poet and novelist Kathleen Norris suggests that we look at the world, when it opposes us, in the same way as we look at an angry 17-year-old girl dealing with her parents. At that moment of anger, her parents become a symbolic lightning rod (a safe place) for her to vent her anger and to scapegoat. But absorbing this is a function of adult loving. Good parents don’t respond to the anger of an adolescent child by declaring her their enemy. They respond like Jesus did, by weeping over her.

Moreover a genuine empathy for the world isn’t just predicated on mature sympathy. Mature sympathy is itself predicated on better seeing the world for what it is.

The 17 year-old adolescent standing belligerent and angry before her parents isn’t a bad person, she’s just not yet fully grown up.

That’s true too for our world: It’s not a bad place; it’s just far from being a finished and mature one.

The gospel is a strange one, for the time of year. Our attention is not, apparently, on the Jesus who is coming, but on “a man sent from God, his name John”. The odd thing about this John character is that he points away from himself: “to bear witness to the light” (repeated twice) and that when asked to identify himself, he instead proclaims who he is not: He is not the Messiah, not Elijah, not “the prophet”.

The only identification he is prepared to give is from Isaiah: “The voice of one crying in the desert.” Then, as the interrogation continues, he points once more away from himself: “I am baptising in water—but in the middle of you there stands someone whom you do not know, the One Who Is Coming After me, the one whose sandal-thong I am not worthy to bend down and untie”.

Who is this One? That is the mystery that the Church invites us to contemplate, to enter more deeply, in the days, packed though they seem, between now and the astonishing end of Advent.

Southern Crossword #473

ACROSS 5. Restrain the tongue (4) 7. Hundredth anniversary (10) 8. Not any (4) 10. Cardinal with debts may dress this way (2,3,3) 11. Presented performance in parish hall (6) 12. He’s an outcast (6) 14. Christ received them painfully (6) 16. Box with deadweight (6) 17. Quite enough (8) 19. Status in the Salvation Army? (4) 21. Prime dunce displays indiscretion (10) 22. Few hitches hide very small amount (4)

DOWN 1. Capri conceals sacred image (4) 2. Love the Lord God with all your... (Mk12) (8) 3. Not very charitable (6) 4. ... ... your hearts (Lit) (4,2) 5. Detective may find it in the crossword (4) 6. Eat liver on last biblical book (10) 9. Should I tan? It’s bizarre (10) 13. Original Protestant (8) 15. Strongly puts your foot down (6) 16. Chubby angel? (6) 18. Tender your resignation (4) 20. Eager to wail in grief (4) Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

T

HE priest visits the local school’s Grade 4 religion class, and wants to see how much the children know about the Bible.

He asks: “Who knows who broke the walls of Jericho?” Silence. Father asks: “Anyone?” Eventually Johnny raises his arm and says: “Father, I don’t know who broke the wall of Jericho, but it wasn’t me.”

Puzzled by the answer, the priest looks at the teacher. She says: “Well, if Johnny says he didn’t do it, then I believe him.”

Shocked at such ignorance, the priest goes to the headmaster and is told: “Father, I know the teacher well enough to know that if she believes Johnny, then the boy is telling the truth.”

Fed up, the priest phones the minister of education, a former parishioner, and relates to her what had happened. The minister sighs and says: “I don’t know the boy, the teacher or the principal, but get three quotes and we’ll have the wall fixed.”

Send us your favourite Catholic joke, preferably clean and brief, to The Southern Cross, Church Chuckle, PO Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000.