The Southern Cross - 120425

April 25 to May 1, 2012

Vatican wants answers to case of missing teen

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Church to Zuma: Send Secrecy Bill to Concourt

BY CLAIRE MATHIESON

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RESIDENT Jacob Zuma should use a presidential prerogative to send the Protection of State Information Bill to the Constitutional Court to review its constitutionality, according to the Catholic Church.

The overwhelming opposition from civil society to the Bill means that if the bill is passed in its current form, “it will be taken to the Constitutional Court”, said Mike Pothier of the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office.

The vast majority of constitutional experts, lawyers, academics, all predict at least some of the central aspects of the Bill will be found unconstitutional,” he said, adding that the likes of Cosatu already had their lawyers ready to stand.

“What this means is a serious degree of doubt about the constitutionality of the Bill.

Fortunately section 79 of the Constitution allows for such a situation—if the president has doubts about a bill’s constitutionality, before he signs it into law he can refer it to the Constitutional Court for a decision,” Mr Pothier told The Southern Cross.

President Zuma should avoid the extreme expense, time and effort by sending it to court himself, Mr Pothier said. “This would be an important sign of good faith—that the government wants the best possible information law, and that it is prepared to subject its provisions to the judgment of the court before it becomes and Act.” He added that it would also save the government from the potential embarrassment of having the Court overturn the Act. “It would also avoid the situation that Parliament is now facing of having to redo the whole process, which is currently happening with the South African Police Services Ammendment Bill about the independence of the Hawks.”

Mr Pothier made that point when he and Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, second vice president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC), presented the Catholic Church’s submission to National Council of Provinces Ad-hoc Committee on March 30.

“The reaction of the committee [to the Catholic Church’s submission] was very positive and the chairman expressed his gratitude and praised the presentation,” Archbishop Brislin said.

He said the committee appreciated the Church’s presentation which provided prac-

tical problem-solving proposals, and its unique suggestion of encouraging the president to act first was hailed as extremely important.

Archbishop Brislin said that the Church is not opposed to the Bill in its entirety.

“But the Bill in its current state does erode democracy and freedom and any erosion on these fronts is bad.”

He said it was worthwhile to take a stand on this issue, and noted that once again South Africa has shown it has a strong civil society. “It’s good to see people letting their opinions be known.”

The archbishop said it is also good that Catholics know where the Church stands on the matter. “This Bill is of ongoing concern to the bishops. The ordinary man on the street can be proud of where we stand and the action we’ve taken.”

The presentation followed a call to the public to submit their thoughts on the Secrecy Bill before it is signed into law. Of the 260 submissions received, all but one were opposed the bill.

The Catholic Church in its submission called for President Zuma to act lawfully, practically and in good faith—a call which was hailed by those at the hearing.

Both Archbishop Brislin and Mr Pothier said the Church understands the need for the state to have secrets and not much in the Bill needs changing, but there are some areas of great concern, which is why the Church is taking a stand.

“The right to information is a vital part of the promotion of these core values in society. If information is unduly withheld from us, we do not really have the freedom we need in order to exercise our other rights. And if some in society are unable to exercise their rights fully, then there is a situation of inequality between them and others,” the Church’s submission said.

Mr Pothier told The Southern Cross that there are aspects of the bill that threaten these values.

“It allows too much to be hidden from the public; unintentionally, it may allow corruption and maladministration to be covered up; it will create a situation of inequality between well-placed people who have access to important information and others who lack access.

“This law will have a cross-cutting effect on all other rights. If you can’t access information, it will become difficult to exercise all other rights,” said Mr Pothier.

Church offers protection training

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HE Catholic Church is initiating community protection groups in Karachi, Pakistan to safeguard minorities in a city where political violence has claimed more than 100 lives in recent weeks, the Asian Church news agenct UCA News reports.

The Justice and Peace Commission Major Superiors Leadership Conference of Pakistan (MSLCP), which organised the programme, said the first ecumenical group in the southern archdiocese consists of lawyers and other professionals.

The Catholic Church is already oversee-

ing ten such other teams across the country.

Rasheed Gill, the regional MSLCP animator, said the worsening security situation in Pakistan’s most populous city has prompted the need to support and protect marginalised minorities.

“We shall record human rights violations and provide legal aid to victims especially workers and women,” he said.

“Fear has driven me to join this group,” said Zafar Malik a former Caritas worker.

“We can not afford to have clashes based on religious or political affiliations. However training helps us to understand the need for basic rights and necessities.”

Pope Benedict prays with his brother, Mgr Georg Ratzinger in his private chapel at the Vatican during the monsignor’s visit from his home in Regensburg, Germany, to Rome.

(Photo: L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters/CNS)

Reds celebrate 100 years in SA STAFF REPORTER

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IVE bishops, including a Vatican official, stood at the altar of Holy Redeemer church in Bergvliet, Cape Town, at a Mass to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Redemptorists in South Africa.

The Mass in the packed church was celebrated by Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg, a Redemptorist, while the order’s former general superior and present secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Consecrated Life, Archbishop Joseph Tobin, preached the sermon.

Concelebrating with them were Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, his predecessor Archbishop Lawrence Henry, and retired auxillary Bishop Reginald Cawcutt, as well as Redemptorist and visiting priests.

The prelates and priests met with parishioners at a function in the parish hall after the Mass.

To celebrate the centenary, Redemptorists from communities in Johannesburg, Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and Rustenburg gathered in the Bergvliet monastery for a Province Assembly, which was also attended by confreres from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Britain, the United States and Rome.

“The Province Assembly began by a day devoted to the past. This was led by the provincial, Fr Larry Kaufmann, and involved an exercise in ‘family memories’ of the lives and works of Redemptorists down the years,” said Fr Seán Wales CSsR, current parish priest of Bergvliet.

The next two days were led by Archbishop Tobin, with discussions on crucial issues in religious life today.

“He highlighted questions surrounding the identity of religious, the primacy of God in religious life and the meaning of fraternal life in community,” Fr Wales said.

“He also spoke about obedience as an axial vow in the consecrated life,” Fr Wales said. “He made an interesting claim about the difficulty of being an obedient religious in a disobedient community. A disobedient community would be one which did not listen to the Word or God or to the presence of Christ at the heart of the community. The importance of the community context in living the vow of obedience became evident.”

On the last day of the assembly, looking

(From left) Archbishop Lawrence Henry, Archbishop Joseph Tobin CSsR, Bishop Kevin Dowling CSsR, Archbishop Stephen Brislin and Bishop Reginald Cawcutt give a blessing at a Mass celebrating the centenary of the Redemptorists in South Africa. (Photo: Sibyl Morris) to the future, Archbishop Tobin led his confreres “in a Redemptorist reading of the postsynodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus, stressing the place of reconciliation, justice and peace in the Redemptorist charism”, Fr Wales said.

“Put in its simplest form, he summed up Africae Munus in two imperatives: ‘Stay Spiritual’ and ‘Stay Catholic’! By the former he meant that while we engage at all levels of human interest we do not become an explicitly political movement; by the latter he meant that we should not succumb to a form of inculturation which baptises heterodox beliefs and practices,” Fr Wales said.

The final presentation focused on hope.

“Archbishop Tobin presented a biblical profile of hope, stressing confidence, expectation, patience and commitment. With Jesus our hope and the Church a sacrament of hope we can continue the work of redemption, liberation and transformation,” Fr Wales said.

In 1912 three Redemptorist priests—Frs Thomas Creagh, John Burke and Leo Kirk— stepped off the boat in Cape Town and moved to Pretoria where they settled and began their apostolic outreach.

“Over the years Redemptorists have laboured in many parts of the country and have preached parish missions not only in South Africa but in many neighbouring countries as well,” Fr Wales said.

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The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

LOCAL

How camps helped mourning family STAFF REPORTER

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EN years of community intervention through the Edmund Rice Camps (ERC) has been proven positive for one family which is now returning the favour by serving the community.

Jennifer Fredericks, Edmund Rice Camps coordinator in the Western Cape, said that the ERC met up with the Jooste family who in 2002 lost their mother to a heart attack. Ms Fredericks said the family was crippled by the loss and children Noel, Nina and Stacey “could have ended up like many other vulnerable children who do not have the support they need to get through their situation”.

Sandra Leukes, programme manager of the Community Development Centre of Catholic Welfare and Development (CWO), connected with the family and began counselling sessions to help them deal with their trauma.

“The whole family came for counselling. Their mother was the bedrock of the family and it was very difficult for them to adjust to that loss. I referred Noel and Stacey to the Edmund Rice Camps, which I felt would benefit them” said Ms Leukes.

It was then that ERC became an essential part of their lives, said Ms Fredericks.

Situated in Stellenbosch at the Christian Brothers Centre, ERC offers opportunities for vulnerable children and youth to build self-esteem and confidence and have meaningful relationships with their peers and young adults through recreational and lifeskills camps.

ERC works closely with organisations in various communities across the Western Cape where children are referred to the camps. CWD Tafelsig was one such agency.

At the heart of an ERC is the relationship that is built between a child (known as a “buddy”) and a young adult or leader, whom the child is paired with for the duration of the camp.

“Over time, there were subtle changes in Noel and Stacey’s demeanour. The shy and withdrawn pair became more outgoing, playful and creative,” said Ms Fredericks.

Their counsellor, Ms Leukes, said the two were able to communicate better. “I sent them on every camp. That one-onone relationship with a mentor on camps made them feel special and loved, eliminating what feelings they had of not being special. I knew it was what they needed.”

“For Winston, the dad, their being away on camps relieved the pressure that was on him to

play both parental roles,” said Ms Fredericks.

Mr Jooste said ERC took a strain off his shoulders. “It was a very challenging time for all of us. We all had to find a way to work together. Noel, being the only boy, was silent and unable to express his grief. The camps gave both of them something I couldn’t give them.”

ERC’s core purpose is to provide a safe and vibrant environment for children and young adults to develop their full potential. This support continues, where needed, after camps through the mentorship offered to them by the leaders they had whilst on camp. ERC also runs follow-up sessions.

“Today, Noel and Stacey are budding teenagers. Stacey is 17 and has fond memories of bonding with her leader on camp. She is currently gearing up for matric in the coming year and is in confirmation class,” said Ms Fredericks. Noel has volunteered with different organisations such as CWD and Youth Unlimited with the experience gained from ERC. Currently, Noel is coordinator of the altar servers at his parish.

Both will be returning to Edmund Rice Camps to serve as leaders. n For more information contact info@edmundricecamps.org.za, visit www.edmundricecamps. org.za or call 021 880 0795

Tanzanian for Winter Theology STAFF REPORTER

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HIS year’s Winter Living Theology, presented by the Jesuit Institute, will be taught by Fr Laurenti Magesa (pictured) from the diocese of Musoma in Tanzania.

Fr Magesa is a well-known moral theologian whose writings on inculturation, African Christology, ministry, women, and so on, have been translated and published all over the continent and the world.

He teaches at Hekima Jesuit College of Theology in Nairobi.

“Fr Magesa’s teaching style is conversational, and over three days he will discuss changing mission in changing times; the persistence of African religions

and their relation to the official churches; the role of the Church in situations of conflict and the participation of the Church in the search for justice and reconciliation,” said Raymond Perrier, director of the

Jesuit Institute.

“He hopes to stimulate personal reflection and lively debate.”

Winter Living Theology will be held in Port Elizabeth (July 3-5), Cape Town (July 10-12), Durban (July 17-19), Bloemfontein (July 24-26) and Johannesburg (July 31 to August 2).

“The course is strongly recommended for ongoing formation for priests, deacons and religious and for laypeople who are interested in changes in the African Church since the Second Vatican Council,” Mr Perrier said. n For more details including cost and to receive a registration form call 011 482 4614 or e-mail admin@jesuitinstitute.org.za.

You are invited to the Annual Life in the Spirit Seminar held in preparation of the Pentecost celebration.

NIGHT

“Come Holy Spirit”

1

DATES

SPEAKER

FRI 18

(OPENING) YOUR GRACE ARCHBISHOP STEPHEN BRISlIN

2

SAT 19

FR. HUGH OCONNOR

3

SUN 20

FR. RAPHAEl THOMAS

4

MON 21

FR. RAlPH DE HAHN

5

TUES 22

FR. PAUl TAYlOR

6

WED 23

FR. ANDREW COX

7

THURS 24

FR. BRANDON WEST

8 9

FRI 25 SAT 26

FR. IVANHOE AllIES FR. EMMANUEl SIlJEUR FR. PETER-JOHN PEARSON

CONTENTS

GOD THE FATHER lOVES YOU PERSONAllY JESUS SAVES YOU AND SETS YOU FREE JESUS IS THE lORD OF YOUR lIFE YOU ARE CAllED TO BE HIS DISCIPlES JESUS SENDS YOU HIS HOlY SPIRIT YOU WIll RECEIVE HIS HOlY SPIRIT YOU THEN ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST YOU SHAll BE MY WITNESSES PENTECOST MASS

Venue: Bloubergrant School, 6 Curlewis Road, Tableview Dates: Fri 18 May to Sat 26 May 2012 Time: 7.30pm Directions From CT take the R27. Pass Bayside Centre on the RHS. At the next set of robots turn left into Porterfield Road, and first left in Curlewis Road. From N1 & N2 take the N7 turnoff. Take the Plattekloof exit. (Caltex refinery in front of you).

Turn left into Plattekloof Road and drive straight down to Koeberg Road. Turn right. Drive to next big set of robots and turn left in Blaauwberg Road. Drive straight down to West Coast Road. (Bayside Centre on RHS). At West Coast Road turn right. At the next big set of robots turn left into Porterfield Road, and first left into Curlewis Road.

“Fill us with your Love”

LOCAL

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

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Dominican Sisters leave Brakpan STAFF REPORTER

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FTER 80 years in Brakpan, the King William’s Town Dominican Sisters will leave Ekurhuleni and move to Johannesburg.

The King William’s Town Dominican Sisters first came to Brakpan in January 1932 and opened a small private school.

As the private school grew, so did the Imelda convent, which eventually accommodated 22

Dominican Sisters.

After nearly 40 years of educating Brakpan pupils, the school closed down and the convent served as a novitiate for the training of young sisters. The Filicitas Centre rented the school buildings for 12 years.

In 1987 these school buildings were demolished and a new landmark appeared next door to Imelda convent when in April 1988 Bethany convent was officially opened as a retirement home for

up to 25 retired, senior Dominican Sisters who had spent years in the mission fields, teaching, nursing or doing other apostolic works.

“In these tranquil, comfortable surroundings the sisters enjoyed each other’s company in peace and serenity. Many an hour has been spent in the lovely chapel where they continued their ministry of praying for the needs of people, known and unknown,” said Sr Berna van de Waarsenburg OP.

Over the past 24 years, some 51 retired sisters have gone from Bethany convent to their eternal reward, but more recently numbers of residents have been shrinking.

“With a decrease in the number of sisters, it was decided that it would be more economical to move the present community to our St Mary’s Retirement Home in Johannesburg at the end of April, early May,” said Sr van de Waarsenburg.

“Since the 12th century the Dominican Order has always been on the move, hence we are also willing to continue this tradition,” she said “Before we move, we wish to thank all our Brakpan friends who supported us, the past pupils who were educated at our school, the parishioners of the St John the Baptist church and especially the priests who cared for our spiritual needs for so many years,” Sr van de Waarsenburg said.

Have any local news? Send your local news to news@scross.co.za or call 021 465 5007

St Joseph’s parish in Mayfair, Johannesburg, turns 120 on May 6 and will celebrate with a special Mass followed by a flea market and activities for children.

120 years in Mayfair

BY CLAIRE MATHIESON

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T JOSEPH’S parish in Mayfair, Johannesburg will celebrate 120 years with a special Mass on Sunday May 6.

Parish secretary and event organiser Regina Sookayee said the parish especially hoped to see former parishioners return for the celebratory day.

She said this was a commemoration of the community and all who have had a part in building it should join in the celebration as it holds “lots of wonderful memories for all of us”.

Ms Sookayee said the parish is an important heritage site in the area and many in the community have been baptised, confirmed and married in the church. “We have people that have left and keep coming back whenever they feel

the need to visit and pray with the existing parishioners,” said Ms Sookayee, adding that she hoped many of these people would return for the celebration.

The church was on the brink of closing but has been kept open as long as the community can maintain the building—which has been “a struggle”. Every weekend the church is cleaned by teams of parishioners who work hard to keep it open.

The special day will kick off with Mass at 08:00 followed by a cultural food festival, flea market and activities for children at 10:00.

All funds raised and donations received (including clothes and second-hand goods) will contribute to the maintenance and upkeep of the church buildings. n For more information contact 011 837 2625

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The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

INTERNATIONAL

After 30 years, Vatican seeks answers to teen’s abduction

BY CINDY WOODEN

A A soldier wounded as South Sudan took control of the Heglig oil field rests at a military hospital in Khartoum, Sudan. Catholic leaders have appealed to the international community to step up efforts to prevent a full-scale war over disputed territory. (Photo: Reuters/CNS)

Fears over Sudan war

BY DENNIS SADOWSKI

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AYING civilian lives are at risk, Catholic leaders have appealed to the international community to step up efforts to prevent fullscale war from erupting over disputed territory along the tenuous Sudan-South Sudan border.

Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Adwok Kur of Khartoum, Sudan, said that tensions between Sudan and South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, could be defused if the United Nations and the African Union would mediate the differences and attempt to determine the proper border between the two countries.

Bishop Adwok, who is from the South, said civilians in the disputed area around Heglig, a small town in Southern Kordofan state

on the edge of rich oil fields, are being victimised by attacks from both sides.

South Sudan seceded from Sudan after a referendum in January 2011. It officially became an independent nation on July 9.

South Sudanese troops overran the Sudanese army in Heglig on April 9, claiming the area for its Unity state under a 1956 agreement that the South believes set the border north of the town. Heglig had been used as a staging ground for military assaults by Sudan on South Sudan, particularly in the nearby city of Abyei, since May 2011.

Sudan maintains that Heglig is within its territory and charged the incursion by South Sudan amounts to an act of war.—CNS

LMOST 30 years after the still-unexplained disappearance of a teenage girl who lived with her family at the Vatican, the Holy See continues to be willing to cooperate with efforts to solve the mystery, the Vatican spokesman said.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi has issued a three-page statement recalling how often Pope John Paul II appealed for the release of Emanuela Orlandi after her presumed kidnapping in 1983 and how top Vatican officials formally answered investigators’ questions then and in subsequent investigations carried out in the late 1980s and mid-’90s.

The Vatican, he said, even allowed the Italian intelligence service to monitor calls to the Vatican switchboard and gave it access to the Orlandi family’s Vatican telephone line and to their apartment.

The girl’s father was a papal usher.

Because she lived inside the Vatican and no trace of her was ever found, Emanuela’s case has been an obsession for Italian conspiracy theorists, some of whom have tried to link the case to the Freemasons, the Soviets or to victims of the 1982 collapse of Italy’s Banco Ambrosiano, which had close ties to the Vatican Bank.

Italian authorities recently began looking into the possibility that the girl’s disappearance had something to do with a Romebased organised crime group.

Fr Lombardi repeated the Church’s offer to allow the

Emanuela Orlandi who mysteriously disappeared on June 22, 1983 at the age of 15. exhumation and transfer of the body of Enrico De Pedis, boss of the Magliana crime group. He was shot to death in 1990 and, several years later, it was discovered that he was buried in Rome’s basilica of St Apollinare, which is considered Vatican property.

Whatever connection De Pedis might or might not have had to the Orlandi case, Fr Lombardi said the Church has no objection to the inspection of the tomb and the reburial elsewhere of the De Pedis’ body “to reestablish the correct serenity corresponding to a sacred environment”.

But the prevailing theory of the crime has long held that Emanuela was kidnapped by a group connect-

ed to Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk captured in St Peter’s Square moments after shooting Pope John Paul II in 1981 and later convicted of attempted murder. The suspicion was strengthened by several letters signed by the “Turkish AntiChristian Turkesh Liberation Front”, which said Emanuela would be freed if Agca were released from prison.

Fr Lombardi’s statement said that because of those messages and because investigations into Agca’s actions were ongoing at that time, Vatican authorities “shared the prevailing opinion that the kidnapping was being used by an obscure criminal organisation to send messages or exert pressure in relations to the incarceration and questioning of the pope’s assailant”.

“There was no reason to think of any other possible motives for the kidnapping,” Fr Lombardi said.

Fr Lombardi also said that while the Orlandi case has been reopened several times and keeps garnering media attention, people should show some concern for other Italians who disappear without a trace each year.

The renewed attention to Emanuela’s disappearance should not be an occasion to blame the Vatican for something it is not guilty of, he said, but should be “an occasion to become aware of the terrible and often forgotten reality of disappearances—particularly of the young—and for everyone, with all their strength, to oppose all criminal activity” connected to kidnappings.—CNS

Vatican treasures to be scanned

BY CINDY WOODEN

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N collaboration with the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford, England, and thanks to a grant of about R25 million, a million pages of material from the Vatican Library will be digitised over the next five years.

“Digitising means better conservation of cultural goods, less arduous consultation, guaranteeing a high-quality reproduction before the original can deteriorate and making them immediately accessible online to many more people,” said Mgr Cesare Pasini, prefect of the Vatican Library.

The project, funded with a grant from the London-based Polonsky Foundation, is expected to digitally reproduce a total of 1,5 million pages of manuscripts and ancient books from the Vatican Library and the Bodleian Libraries.

Mgr Pasini told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that about two-thirds of the total pages would be from the Vatican Library’s holdings. The project will be a huge leap forward in the Vatican Library’s digitalising process, which began in 2010 and has produced an online

catalogue describing its 8 900 incunabula, which are books printed in the 15th century.

The new project will allow the library to make available online complete copies of 800 of the incunabula, he said, including Johann Gutenberg’s Latin Bible, which was printed between 1454-55 and was the first book printed using movable type.

The Vatican Library’s Greek manuscripts include works by Homer, Sophocles, Plato and Hippocrates, manuscripts of the New Testament and of the early Church fathers.— CNS

Priest awarded environment prize

BY SIMONE ORENDAIN

A

PRIEST from the Philippines has been named one of six winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, which carries a $150 000 award, for his long work in preventing a nickel mining operation from starting up in the island of Mindoro.

“My first question was, ‘Is this really real?’” Fr Edwin Gariguez (pictured) laughed. “With all the scams going around on the Internet, I thought it was not true.”

Starting in the late 1990s, Fr Gariguez, 49, led protests by Mindoro’s indigenous people, environmentalists, church organisations, local officials and numerous other activist groups.

Their argument: Mining waste would pollute the abundant sea and endanger a watershed, both of which

are crucial to this island, one of the country’s top producers of fruits and vegetables.

Working with the indigenous people” said the priest, known locally as Father Edu, “you see the divinity everywhere, you do not go to church to feel God. It’s everywhere; the sacredness is everywhere. The whole ecology is their cathedral.”

Fr Gariguez said he has already planned a budget for the award, which will mostly go towards funding the anti-mining campaign, advocacy and scholarships, and individual donations for people in need of medical care or tuition.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

Pope ‘wants faith to shine’

BY CINDY WOODEN

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OPE Benedict does not want to undo the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, but he is working to ensure that “the foundation and heart of the Christian faith shines again,” Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch wrote in a book published to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the pope’s election.

“The theological and pastoral thought of Pope Benedict XVI continually is exposed to serious misunderstandings,” the cardinal wrote in the preface of the Italian edition of The Mystery of the Mustard Seed: Foundations of the Thought of Benedict XVI. Cardinal Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the two most common misunderstandings are that the pope is concerned only about a small, active portion of the Catholic faithful, and that he wants to take the Church back to the

time before Vatican II. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the pope had spoken on more than one occasion about his belief that the Catholic Church would get smaller and smaller, but that eventually the world would discover the hope and joy present in the small community of true believers and be attracted again to the Christian faith.

Cardinal Koch wrote that “the pope is convinced that the true renewal of the Church cannot begin with the masses, but only with small movements” inspired by the Holy Spirit and acting as leaven for the rest of the Church.

Responding to the “frequently repeated criticism” that Pope Benedict wants to return to a time before Vatican II, the cardinal wrote: “Pope Benedict absolutely does not want to turn back, but to go deeper just like the mustard seed that grows only from the depths of the

earth. The individual reforms don’t matter to the pope, what matters is that the foundation and the heart of the Christian faith shine forth again,” which requires a return to basics about love, faith and truth, the cardinal wrote.

Invoking the Gospel parable about the miniscule mustard seed that grows into a great tree, the cardinal argues that the core of the pope’s thinking and teaching rests in his conviction that great things always begin with small steps and that from the moment of creation God has chosen something seemingly small and insignificant to demonstrate his love and carry out the work of salvation.

“The mustard seed is not only a parable of Christian hope, but also demonstrates that the great is born of the small, not through revolutionary changes,” but in a process that is slow, gradual and requires patience, he said.—CNS

With St Louis cathedral in the background, Dominican nuns enjoy ice cream during the 29th annual French Quarter Festival in New Orleans. (Photo: Sean Gardner, Reuters/CNS)

Cardinal regrets comment on Jews

Sainthood on track for archangel A in Nazi ‘hell’ camps?

BY VALERIE SCHMALZ

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HE Vatican is working to authenticate whether the 1997 healing of a Californian man with incurable cancer came about through the intercession of Fr Franz Stock, a German Army chaplain to Paris prisoners of the Nazis.

Such authentication is needed before the priest’s beatification can be approved.

Fr Stock was “the last human face” hundreds, perhaps thousands, saw before their execution.

He is a symbol of reconciliation in France and Germany, where streets and schools are named for him and national leaders have honoured him. A French postage stamp commemorating Fr Stock was issued in 1998 for the 50th anniversary of his death from pulmonary oedema. He died on February 24, 1948, at age 43, and his sainthood cause was opened decades later.

Three months after doctors told a 33-year-old San Francisco resident he had incurable gastric cancer and had at most three

months to live, he was declared cancer free in October 1997.

Medical tests continue to show no traces of cancer.

“The doctors were flabbergasted because he was diagnosed with stage-four cancer and they sent him home to get his affairs in order and die,” said Robert Graffio, notary for the investigation.

If the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes authenticates that a miracle occurred and his beatification is approved, Fr Stock would be declared “blessed”.

The man, who recovered unexpectedly, became the object of prayers to Fr Stock through family members who knew of the priest’s story.

The man, who has not been named, received the diagnosis of incurable cancer just days before his wedding. After they wed, his healing began and by October 1997, he was cancer-free. The couple has two children, 7 and 9.

The man said that although his family prayed to Fr Stock, he did not do so.

The wartime French called Fr

Fr Franz Stock, who worked as a chaplain to prisoners in a Nazi camp in Paris.

Stock “archangel in hell” because of his heroic mercy and kindness as chaplain to the inmates of the German armed forces Paris prisons of Fresnes, La Santé and Cherche-Midi and the execution fields of Mont-Valérien.

The officiating bishop at Fr Stock’s funeral was Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII. n For more on Fr Stock visit www.franz-stock.org

USTRALIAN Cardinal George Pell of Sydney (pictured) has apologised for comments he made in a televised debate with atheist author Richard Dawkins about ancient Jews and German suffering during World War II. The cardinal said in a statement to the Jewish online news service J-Wire that his comments during the Australian Broadcasting Corporation programme Q&A “did not come out as I would have preferred in the course of the discussion”.

“My commitment to friendship with the Jewish community and my esteem for the Jewish faith is a matter of public record, and the last thing I would want to do is give offence to either,” Cardinal Pell said.

In one exchange with the programme’s host, Cardinal Pell referred to the ancient Jews as people who were “intellectually” inferior to ancient Egyptians and Persians. He also described ancient Jews as “morally inferior” to their pagan neighbours.

He said in his statement that he should have described the ancient Jews as “‘historically’ or ‘culturally’ unequal”.

“My reference to ‘morally’ was interrupted,” he explained, “but...I would never describe the Jewish people at any stage as morally inferior to their pagan neighbours. I was attempting to establish a counter poise to my earlier comment when interrupted.”

He also said during the programme in response to a question about suffering and the Holocaust that, referring to World War II, “probably no people in history have been punished the way the Germans were”.

The cardinal said he was attempting to cite the work of Jewish writer David Berlinski, whose “thoughts point us to the mysterious ways in which great crimes are sometimes brought home to those who have committed them”.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry welcomed Cardinal Pell’s clarification. Peter Wertheim, the council’s executive director, told the Australian Jewish News the council had discussed its concerns with the cardinal’s office and expressed concern about “some of the statements...which are deeply problematical from a Jewish perspective.”

“We welcome as a first step Cardinal Pell’s clarifying statement that he did not intend any offence and his expression of continuing friendship with the Jewish community and esteem for the Jewish faith,” Mr Wertheim said.—CNS

Salesians of Don Bosco

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Maybe you are called by God to help realise Don Bosco’s dreamof helping teens grow happier, healthier and holier!

If so, contact: Fr Alberto ypt@salesians.org.za 076-9359442 www.salesians.org.za

6

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Hear Christ’s call to follow him

T

HE state of vocations to the priesthood in South Africa has yet to reach the point of crisis experienced in Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, North America.

Not too long ago, the Church in Ireland produced too many priests to deploy to the country’s pastoral ministries. Many young Irish priests followed the call to be missionaries in far-away lands, animated by a selfless zeal for evangelisation and, perhaps, a sense of adventure. Many of them still serve the Church in Africa today. So it is all the more discouraging to note that the flow of seminarians in Ireland has been reduced to a trickle.

The situation is more hopeful in South Africa, where the national seminary, St John Vianney in Pretoria, is experiencing shortages of space. For those concerned with the statistics of vocations, that is good news.

We rightly rejoice in every new vocation, and we invest our trust in those charged with their training and formation that when these young men arrive at the day of their ordination, they will begin a happy journey in the priesthood to serve God and his people as fine pastors, evangelisers and ministers of the sacraments.

Most will live a fulfilled sacerdotal life, even as they may struggle with some of the realities of the clerical vocation.

Most will soldier on in spite of these challenges, others will eventually leave the priesthood.

And some might come to regard the priesthood as just a job.

Experts in the field of formation say that numbers of vocations tend to be strong in environments of economic uncertainty, such as in South Africa.

To some, the priesthood represents an avenue towards a secure future. It may be a poorly paid job, but nevertheless one that offers material security.

Such a priest may not embody the ideal, but it does not follow that he will be a bad priest, or one who is lacking in faith. Nonetheless, if a vocation is predicated primarily on pragmatic calculation rather than on a genuine commitment to serve,

then the outcome of formation is likely to be compromised.

Addressing the priests of the diocese of Rome in 2011, Pope Benedict pointed out that “the priesthood is not a profession, to be engaged in part-time, but a full-time and perpetual vocation”. He said that “this being with Christ and being an ambassador of Christ, this being for others is a mission that penetrates our being and must penetrate ever more the totality of our being”.

In the past decade, dioceses worldwide have adapted and fine-tuned the processes by which candidates to the priesthood are selected or rejected.

The criteria usually include the applicant’s physical and mental health, his capacity to live a life of celibacy, and his commitment to the Catholic faith and its teachings. It is more complicated to discern whether an applicant in fact has an authentic calling to the consecrated life.

We must have high expectations of our priests. Quality must trump statistics. We should not settle for mediocrity in our future priests.

And, as Pope Benedict reminds us in his message for Vocations Sunday this year, at the very root of the vocation to the consecrated life (indeed, one may add, all human endeavour) must be love.

“It is in this soil of self-offering and openness to the love of God, and as the fruit of that love, that all vocations are born and grow. By drawing from this wellspring through prayer, constant recourse to God’s word and to the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, it becomes possible to live a life of love for our neighbours, in whom we come to perceive the face of Christ the Lord,” Pope Benedict writes.

On Vocations Sunday, the Church must pray that families, parishes and communities create the conditions in which the vocation to the consecrated life are nurtured, and that Christ’s call to young people to follow him may be heard above the din of modern life, and discerned fruitfully for the good of the Church.

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.

Let us go beyond all earthly odds HE modern society we live in under our noses in our communiT is characterised by self-centred ty.

The victims are “the guys next attitudes, isolation and protectionism towards outside world and strangers.

Among those strangers we overlook and hate, are refugees and asylum seekers.

South African society has been branded with xenophobia towards refugees and asylum seekers of African descent. The saddest part is that we, as Christians, are put in the same pot as the perpetrators of these inhumane acts, and perhaps not unustly as xenophobia happens

Not an example

R

ADIO presenter Gareth Cliff is very detrimental to society.

Everything that is good and wholesome, he has a derogatory remark about. He is very cynical and rude to many people, especially the underdog. What kind of role model is this for the youth who may listen to his radio show?

The media bosses always seem to ignore it and therefore he has a stronger podium.

He never passes an opportunity to ridicule the Catholic Church, its leader, its beliefs and so on. He speaks freely about anything and anyone, not caring in the least whom he hurts.

He even went as far as “conducting an interview with Jesus” leading to his suspension. With all the wrongdoings in the world, someone like him who has such a large audience should be setting a good example. But, it’s a pity the poor man is in such great need of attention. If you want a role model, look up—all the way up.

EA Khouly, Senderwood, Gauteng

Crusade for conversion

A

CRUSADE, a new crusade!

Not with swords and bucklers, siege engines and knights on horseback, or weapons of mass destruction: nothing so messy.

But a crusade of prayer for the conversion of Dr Richard Dawkins following his remarks, to a gathering of atheists and agnostics to do specifically to Catholics for their beliefs: “Mock them. Ridicule them! In public.”

Bl John Henry Newman’s prayer to Our Lady, seems, contemporaneously, appropriate: “May that bright and gentle Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, overcome you with her sweetness, and

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door” whose shops are looted, whose shacks are burnt to ashes, whom we hate as they agree to work hard for a mediocre salary and so on.

Does the biblical verse “I was a stranger and you took me in...” mean anything to us? If we believe that God created man in his image, then the stranger with shabby clothes, funny language and with a different culture is God’s ambassador in our lives who deserves respect, dignity and

revenge herself on her foes by interceding effectually for their conversion!”

Adrian Kettle, Cape Town

Archbishop Henry info please

I

AM currently writing a biography of Archbishop Lawrence Henry, retired of Cape Town, and would love readers to contact me with any personal stories or recollections which could be added to the biography.

These could be from during the time when he was a parish priest, when you were confirmed, what you like about him, some anecdote or message that struck you from a sermon.

I would also like to hear from people who were at school with him or who knew him when he was growing up in Athlone.

I would like to do a chapter on his association with the various religious communities in the archdiocese and would also like to obtain a personal account from all the diocesan priests and deacons as well as Eucharistic ministers.

I also intend to document his association with the Portuguese, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish and any other communities and would love members of these communities to contact me with, for example, memories of the annual blessing of the fleet.

I would be grateful if people who were at his ordinations (as 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.

love. Otherwise there would be not much to be desired in Christian life.

Welcoming them and offering hospitality should be of paramount interest in Christian communities. Let us remember the simple verse and important commandment from our Lord Jesus Christ in our daily deeds: “Love one another.”

Indeed, one may be financially unable to provide any assistance but to give the refugees and asylum seekers back their dignity, sense of self-worth and hope during their stay in our midst would do wonders in their lives.

Jean de Dieu Kayinamura, Johannesburg

priest, bishop and archbishop) would share memories of these events.

I would also like to hear from people who were at the World Youth Days that he attended in Manila, Toronto and Sydney, and about his association with the local Catholic schools, especially his attendance at the annual inter-schools athletics day.

If you could let me have your contributions of any of the above, or anything else of relevance, at your earliest convenience I would be very grateful.

I can be contacted at telephone/fax (021) 551 1747; or dpaarman@mweb.co.za Dorothy Paarman, Cape Town

Food supply takes priority

R

EFERRING to your article and editorial on land reform (March 7), drive through South Africa and you will notice that there is no shortage of land, and hardly anybody works on it.

Since the change-over in 1994, about 40% of farmers have gone out of business or have moved “up north”. It appears farming has become a liability instead of an asset, mainly through the downwards slide of the infrastructure of the country.

This affects everybody, whether in central Johannesburg on the 15th floor, the rural-area around Port St John in the Transkei, or the man who lives in Lone Hill.

Land redistribution (to whom?) is certainly not a priority, but food supply is. Any decent state should protect their citizens against anarchy (such as land take-overs). If it does not, then that state will fall apart and the warlords will take control.

John Reilman, Ramsgate, KwaZulu-Natal

PERSPECTIVES

Africa, evangelise yourself

E

ARLIER this year eight Sisters of the Immaculate Conception congregation made their profession in Matola in Lichinga diocese in Mozambique, where I am based.

Their congregation was founded by Italian Consolata Father Oberto Abondio in 1948. Today it is the fast growing one in Mozambique.

The Sisters are mainly engaged in diverse parish ministries, such as marriage counselling and caring for orphans, the aged, widows, and those living with HIV/Aids. They also work as nurses in government hospitals and in tertiary Church and government institutions.

Their motto is “All to Jesus through Mary!”

Imagine eight newly professed sisters being told by Jesus: “Go and work in my vineyard” (Mt 20:7). Our sisters are called to live their baptism in a more radical way. What struck me was the phrase: “Senhor, Aqui, Estamos, EnvieNos” (“Lord, here we are, send us”). This is the readiness that all of us ought to have.

These young sisters will work in the rural areas where access to the communication networks are not always assured and travelling is mainly on foot.

We collaborate in the ministries of the Church through our charisms. The Church welcomes us and sends us as coworkers in the new evangelisation.

Looking at the eight newly professed sisters, we may hear the echo of Vatican II’s decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church: “By now, you Africans are missionaries to yourselves. The Church of Christ is well and truly planted in this blessed soil” (Ad Gentes, 6).

These words reflect the vision of St Daniel Comboni (1831-82): “The regeneration of Africa by means of Africa itself seems to me the only possible way to Christianise the continent.” He insisted on training indigenous apostles, priests,

teachers, catechists and craftsmen to advance into the interior and spread the Christian faith.

This vision of indigenous apostles was also encouraged by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie (1825-92), the founder of the White Fathers, and Francis Libermann (1804-52) founder of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart.

N

on-Catholic advocates also made that point. For example, in the 1840s the German Protestant missionary J F Schön wrote in Niger: “Africa must be converted by Africans.” The Anglican 19th century missionary Henry Venn came with the concept of “self-supporting, self-governing and self-extending church”. This was in Ethiopia. A little later, James Johnson (who was known as Holy Johnson) in Nigeria and Sierra Leone advocated the evangelisation of Africa by Africans.

Dr Majola Agbedi, who in 1914 founded the Native Baptist Church, wrote: “To render Christianity indigenous to Africa it must be watered by native hands, pruned with native hatchet and tendered with native earth... It is a curse if we

Eight newly-professed Sisters of the Immaculate Conception with their mother superior (back far left) and Bishop Elio Greselin of Lichinga, Mozambique.

Simeon Banda FMS

Point of Reflection

intend for ever to hold on to the apron strings of foreign teachers.”

All these speak of the indigenisation of the Church.

We cannot forget the vision of Bl Anne Mary Javouhey (1779-1851), foundress of the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny in Senegal, of priests who would bring Christian civilisation to Africa and form an indigenous clergy. Today, when we see the fruits of such prophetic visions, our hearts rejoices to see Africans being the bearers of the Good News.

They have with them the power of language, their work becomes easier than the European pioneer missionaries who had to struggle in learning a new language before becoming successful too in their work.

Missionary work is like the baton stick we use in a relay race. Once your turn is over, you hand over to the next one.

Our continent in many ways lacks hope, peace, joy, harmony, love and unity and the results stare us in the face with misery, wars, famine, refugees, tribalism and despair. As religious we can collaborate to give our rural people hope.

In the second Synod on Africa, the bishops called us all to cooperate in the following theme: “The Church in Africa at the service of reconciliation, justice and peace.” We must be evangelisers of hope to the people suffering in poverty, ethnic divisions, political instability, social disorientation, and the tragic mismanagement of available scarce resources.

We must be the bearers of the Good News to them. Our prayers will always follow. Courage, the Lord will be there in our midst to energise us in our apostolic efforts. n Br Simeon Banda FMS is a missionary in Matola, Mozambique.

C

and competently.

If the bishops mess up, the whole Church will be messed up; if lay Christians adopt the view that the responsibility of building up the body of Christ is reserved for the pope and priests and bishops only, the Church will function like the proverbial tail struggling to wag the dog. What a heavy task for the poor tail!

The second meaning of the phrase “each part” has to do with how each individual Christian responds to his or her calling. For the various categories or groups to be effective in building up the body of Christ, each individual member must play his or her part effectively.

P

aul’s idea of each part doing its work is clearly demonstrated in 1 Corinthians 12, where he explains the workings of the human body. We sometimes do not realise the importance of some parts of our bodies. When all is well with me, I can completely forget about the importance of, say, my little finger, my little toe, my ear drum or a wisdom tooth.

But once something goes wrong with such a part, then I am forced to wake up to the fact that if that little part is painful, my whole body cannot function properly. I may, for example, find myself taking sick leave when I am suffering from toothache or middle ear infection.

The same is true of the Church as the body of Christ. If any part is ignored, the Church can easily become a sick Church.

This is, in fact, part of the malady that the Church is struggling to recover from

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Chris Chatteris SJ

Pray with the Pope

For family values General Intention: That initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society.

E desperately need initiatives which enable young people today to earn enough money to get married. Love may be blind, but only up to a point because it has always also been the case that a young suitor needed to have some financial prospects if he was to impress both his intended and her family.

Today, both the young man and the young woman need to have prospects, since the days of being able to survive on a single salary appear to be over for everyone except the very rich.

Not only is employment a problem, but in addition, our money-mad society has inflated the price of all the things necessary for marriage—a house, the reception and lobola—to the point where unless the family can come to their rescue, the bride and groom have to go deep into debt.

An initiative which sorely needs to be taken in the Church in South Africa is to open up a serious debate about lobola inflation. If a young man is faced with paying off lobola for 20 years, this is hardly calculated to encourage him to marry.

Rather he is more likely to opt for cohabitation.

Would it be possible for the Catholic parents of young women to take a lead here and be willing to ask for a lobola which is within the realistic earning capacity of a young suitor?

But none of these measures will mean much if youth unemployment continues to blight young lives. We need economic policies which spread the wealth of our land to the young through more employment.

Many observers have noted that youth unemployment and the consequent inability to marry and settle down, are important drivers of the socalled Arab Spring. This problem is a worldwide sign of the times and it is therefore fitting that the Church should put it before us as matter for prayer and practical action.

W

Mary’s language

Every Christian has a role to play in the Church ONTINUING with St Paul’s vision of the Church, this column in the series focuses on every Christian’s responsibility.

Paul uses a number of symbols to describe the Church’s relationship to Christ, including that of the body or a building. In both 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, he refers to the various vocations and functions to which members of the Christian community are called: some to be apostles, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors, some to be teachers some to be administrators, and so on.

All of us in our different stations, must work together to build the Church as a building or a body, with Christ as the head. As we work together, motivated by the spirit of unity and love, we become the supporting structures that help the body to grow and become firm, united to Christ its Head: “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph 4:16).

I have highlighted the words “as each part does its work” because they are central to the theme of this column. I see the words “each part” as having a double meaning.

First, every Christian is called to a particular vocation—such as that of the priesthood, women religious, lay Christian leaders, bishops, administrators and so on. For the body of Christ to grow and become firm, each category or group of Christians must do its work faithfully

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

Emmanuel Ngara

Christian Leadership

since Vatican II. For centuries, lay Christians had been marginalised and become spectators while the clergy saw themselves as the only group that was entitled to evangelise. To this very day, the idea that lay Christians are “less important than the clergy”, and that consequently their views do not matter much, still holds sway. But Paul warns us that “there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other” (1 Cor 12: 25).

For each Christian to be an effective participant in the task of building up the body of Christ, they must discover two things: their calling and their gifts.

All of us are called. It is unfortunate that we are taught to associate the word “vocation” with the clergy and religious only. Every Christian must work to discover the purpose for which God created him or her. In addition, we should know that when God calls us, he gives us gifts so that we can successfully fulfil the purpose for which he created us. These are the gifts that Paul talks about in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4.

This, then, is the challenge for all Christians: to discover their calling and their gifts, and to use both for building up the body of Christ and serving humanity.

Missionary Intention: That Mary, Queen of the World and Star of Evangelisation, may accompany all missionaries in proclaiming her Son Jesus.

WATCHED some of the Vigil Mass of Holy Saturday from St Peter’s basilica on television this Easter. A young deacon was doing a fine job of chanting St Mark’s gospel in Latin.

I mused on whether, in the spirit of the “new evangelisation”, the Vatican liturgists might one day consider having the Easter gospel proclaimed in, say, Mandarin, the mother tongue of hundreds of millions of Chinese. Or perhaps in Arabic for the sake of the embattled Christians in the Middle East, who would surely find that a mightily comforting gesture from Holy Mother Church in their time of trial. New evangelisation requires a fresh imagination.

Our mother tongues remind us of Mary, our universal mother. Mothers teach their children to speak and then to pray in their home language.

Mary is surely the patroness of the great army of mothers who pass on the faith to their children in their mother tongues.

She is surely there beside the vast number of catechists throughout the Church who, Sunday after Sunday, communicate the message of the Gospel to children in words they have learned from their mothers.

She is assuredly with those missionaries who struggle to learn local languages so that they can communicate the Gospel of God’s incarnate love in the mother tongue of the people. She is surely pleased with those scholars who translate the scriptures and the liturgy into the vernacular.

Mary was in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came upon the infant Church at Pentecost.

It must have gladdened her heart of a mother to witness the diverse people present in Jerusalem hearing the disciples “preaching in their own language about the marvels of God” (Acts 2:11).

Let us pray with her as she prayed with the spirit-filled, missionary Church of Pentecost.

I

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The Southern Cross, April 18 to April 24, 2012

HOPE&JOY

Claire Mathieson

Giving in faith

P

OPE John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint (1995) that the building of a better world requires Christians to speak with a united voice in working to inculcate “respect for the rights and needs of everyone, especially the poor, the lowly and the defenceless”.

The Christ-mandated preferential option for the poor is also reflected in the Church’s canon law, which states: “The Christian faithful are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources.”

Responding to the poor is to do as Jesus did.

Cabrini Sister Barbara Staley from Manzini, Swaziland, says that as Catholics we are called to help the poor because it responds to our Gospel mandate.

“We must continually exercise the corporal works of mercy, namely, to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit prisoners, clothe the naked (Mt 25:31-46). It is also part of our response and carrying out the social teaching of the Catholic Church, which holds the same imperative as the moral teachings of the Church, but often is less attended to by the Church at all levels.” She says on a purely human level we innately know it is right.

The Cabrini Ministries are located at St Phillip’s mission in Swaziland, a poor rural drought-stricken part of the country, heavily affected by HIV/Aids and TB. “It is a community-based organisation whose mission is to restore life and rekindle hope through com-

A Church of Hope and Joy

prehensive and integrated health care to more than 3 000 HIV positive people and cares for about 600 children impacted by those diseases,” says Sr Staley.

The nun says the situation does not change as the economy fluctuates, so Catholics should not stop giving during tough times. “One can never outdo God’s generosity; giving is giving and the obligation to do so remains constant, and may actually be heightened when times are tough because it is the poor who must fully feel the impact on day-to-day living.”

Fr Aloysius Abone of St Mary’s cathedral in Cape Town says Jesus made it clear in the gospels that assisting the poor is a priority.

“He said we shall all be judged by how we treat our neighbour, and [promised that] what you give shall be given back to you.”

Fr Abone says when we give, we must do so as if giving to the Lord. “When the Lord said ‘give’, he was also aware of economic downturns—but giving to the poor is an investment. Give to the poor and you give to the Lord.”

Sr Staley says outreach and development programmes must work within the constraints of realities in society, but “economics cannot and should not be the driver behind programmes and responses to the poor. Need should be the driver. Economics are only a tool to be understood and utilised for the greater good of the human family.”

Stan du Plessis, professor of economics at Stellenbosch University, says there are benefits beyond our Christian endeavour to help

the poor.

“When one is stuck in the poverty trap it is difficult to participate in the labour market.

It’s hard to get an education. It’s hard to stay healthy. All these contribute to being a nonproductive part of society,” says Prof du Plessis, adding that this reality is then passed down to the second generation because of the lack of education. “The poverty trap is perpetuated.”

Prof du Plessis points to a broad consensus that there is an urgent need to address poverty. Government does have programmes in place to address the issue, he says. These include old age pension plans, child care subsidies and free health care. But there is enormous scope for the private sector to step in and contribute to the effort.

“Typically, South African churches are large and have knowledge of local communities in need—something which government does not have,” Prof du Plessis says. While some parishes might not have the funds, they could easily partner with wealthier parishes or the private sector—and with the value of local knowledge, make a huge difference.

“It is extremely important for the likes of government to team up with civil society. We don’t just need money thrown at the situation—we need local insight.”

Prof du Plessis believes that it is important to invest in projects that would encourage the impoverished to engage in society and give back. “There is a private benefit to the person who can now receive funds, but there is also a public benefit,” says the parishioner of St

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Similarly Sr Staley says that since most of the world’s people live in poverty, all activities that elevate the dignity of the human person is an example of living out the Gospel message.

“Giving people skills to enhance their changes at independent living and self autonomy is dignifying. All of us are more whole and complete as we master skills and become more fully who it is that God created us to be,” she says.

Fr Abone agrees: “It is important to give to the poor, but it is of far more value to teach the poor to fend for themselves and work towards better lives.”

T

he Church teaches to include the poor in our words, prayers and deeds. We are called to show solidarity with and compassion for the poor. The Church also calls on us to exercise the preferential option for the poor as a priority when instituting public policy.

Fr Mokesh Morar has worked extensively in the area social justice in De Aar, Aliwal North and now in Bethlehem. He has served as the director of Sekwele Centre for Social Reflection, the brainchild of the diocese’s former Bishop Hubert Bucher, which promotes social reflection on critical issues affecting society, including socio-economic transformation.

Fr Morar says that it is not enough to just help immediate needs; the root causes of the situation of poverty must be addressed through both analysis and action.

He believes that the local Church can learn from our South American counterparts. “The best examples of living the Gospel of siding with the poor are the bishops in Latin America where they even were willing to invade large land holdings that were standing idle or kept for speculation.”

The Church has been on the frontline of the battle to help the poor in South America.

At times this has led to martyrdom.

For example, in 2005 an American nun, Sr Dorothy Stang SND, was murdered in the Amazon Basin because of her outspoken efforts on behalf of the poor and the environment in Brazil. Leading up to her death, she had received numerous death threats from loggers and landowners.

Fr Morar says there are many examples where the South African Church has taken a stance but has “fallen into the trap of ‘leaving economics to the experts’, as advised by the former minister of finance, Trevor Manuel”.

“Sure, the Church needs to assist those who not able to help themselves, but the Church must also address the root causes of poverty and start looking at poverty as part of structural sin, both locally and internationally. Otherwise it will find itself on the wrong side of history,” Fr Morar says.

“It is wrong to stop giving money to families and individuals when times are tough as there are no alternatives for the poor for survival. But it should be part of a bigger strategy and not something done perpetually, else people will become dependent on the Church and lose their dignity,” he says.

“Part of that bigger strategy is to ask the critical question: why are the times tough?

Are there not enough resources in this world to support all the people? Why is the gap between the haves and the have-nots growing in places like South Africa?” He believes a critical course of action is necessary.

Fr Morar has an ally in Pope Benedict, who has effectively called for a redistribution of the wealth when in his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate he condemned the “scandal of glaring inequalities” and demanded that all people should be liberated “first and foremost, from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy”.

For Sr Staley, everybody can contribute towards the immediate alleviation of crises of poverty and bring about societal change through funding, time, talent, influence and prayer— “as long as we give”.

VOCATIONS

Getting to know God is like dating Daniel Horan is a young journalist, photographer, public speaker and published author—and a Franciscan brother who will be ordained to the priesthood in May. He explains to BETH GRIFFIN how he found his way to the priesthood, and how getting to know God is like dating.

G

ETTING to know God is akin to entering a dating relationship, according to Franciscan Brother Daniel P Horan.

When two people already like one another, they devote copious amounts of time and energy to learning everything they can about each other and joyfully anticipate spending time together,

he explained.

“Dating requires intentionality, planning and effort,” Br Horan said.

Br Horan, a member of the Order of Friars Minor, is the author of Dating God: Live and Love in the Way of St Francis.

At 28, he is not very far removed from the more traditional understanding of dating.

The oldest of four boys, Br Horan attended Catholic schools and was an altar server, lector, eucharistic minister and sacristan at Our Lady of Lourdes in Utica, in the diocese of Syracuse, New York. He felt drawn to the priesthood in high school and studied theology and journalism in the honours programme at St Bonaventure University, a Franciscan school in Olean.

“Over the course of four years, I got to know the friars’ intellectual traditions and spiritual life and to develop personal relationships with the friars themselves,” he said.

St Patrick’s Missionary Society Be a Priest An ambassador of Christ for God’s People Contact Fr Terry Nash on 011 918 5243 or 072 668 2705

St Patrick’s Missionary Society P O Box 139489 Northmead 1511

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

T

Franciscan Brother Daniel Horan holds a copy of his book, Dating God: Live and Love in the Way of St Francis (Photo: Bob Roller, CNS).

In college, Br Horan ran a photography business, specialising in sports and news coverage. He called it “a hobby that got out of control”.

His freelance clients included Catholic News Service, Associated Press and Getty Images.

After graduation in 2005, Br Horan entered the Franciscans. He is one of five men from his parish who became Franciscans.

He earned a master’s degree in systematic theology at Washington Theological Union and will complete a master’s in divinity in May. He expects to be ordained on May 19 in Silver Spring, Maryland. After a summer assignment in a New Jersey parish he will begin studies for a doctorate in systematic theology.

Is God calling you to the Religious Life in the Franciscan Family?

he dating imagery occurred to him during a Franciscan workshop on the writings of Ss Francis and Clare during his novitiate.

“Their expressions of their relationship with God, while not quite love letters, evoked images of the tenuousness, ambivalence, excitement, energy and passion of dating,” Br Horan said.

“Like other images for the human-divine interrelationship, it won’t be helpful for everybody. Any language to talk about our relationship with God always falls short, but this one is shocking and startling enough to get people thinking about their relationship with God in a new way.”

Traditionally, God has been referred to as parent, companion, friend, even lover, in the Song of Songs, Br Horan said. “I like the dating metaphor, because it’s an active verb.”

“Christian tradition has always emphasised making a date with God, but you won’t find it in the gospels that way. It’s a focus on solitude and the distinction between loneliness and being alone. The idea that we would set aside time to be alone with someone in order to get to know them better and allow ourselves to be known” is common to both dating and prayer.

“We can learn about who we are and our relationship to God by looking at our relationships with people. This is off-putting to some who want to make God removed from creation,” Br Horan said.

“We bring our entire selves to all our relationships,” including fears, joys, emotions, anxieties and happiness, he said.

9

All relationships require work.

Early on there is energy, intensity and effortlessness “and you might change because of the other person”, he said, but the ease does not continue. Friends, couples and believers need to devote time to reconnect and be alone with one another in shared experiences.

“We still need to go on dates with God. There has to be an intentionality to our prayer life,” he said.

“Going to church once a week in a crowd doesn’t cut it. It’s good, but it’s not enough. You can’t have a relationship if you don’t spend time alone together.”

He cautioned the dating image is only a starting point for a new way to see things.

In addition to his studies and service as a deacon, Br Horan delivers talks on topics as diverse as Franciscan spirituality and “The Digital Christ: Communion in a Technological Era”. And he knows he must make the time himself to maintain his relationship with God. Br Horan is eagerly anticipating his ordination and recommends that other young people consider whether they have a religious vocation.

“I love this way of life and I would encourage others to give it a try,” he said. “There’s so much competition for our attention that religious communities get drowned out by the noise. I’m grateful that the spirit has led me to this way of life and I’d encourage others not to write it off.”—CNS n Dating God: Live and Love in the Way of St Francis is published by St Anthony Messenger Press (catalog.franciscanmedia.org).

St Francis

We Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception strengthen our relationship with God by prayer in order to serve Him and His people. We work with all age-groups and where the Church needs us.

If you wish to know more about us, contact:

The Vocations Directress at PO Box 2912, Middelburg, 1050.

Tel (013) 243 3410, 072 213 4671

Do you feel called to the Franciscan way of life?

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The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

VOCATIONS

Joys and trials of a vocation Fr Guy Cloutier CMM of Mthatha, Eastern Cape is a father to many youngsters who otherwise would have no opportunities. He tells CLAIRE MATHIESON about his vocation.

D

EVOTING your life to a particular area of work is something Catholic clergy are familiar with. Doing so through hardships and accusations can be a challenge, but for one man, it’s an indication of how much of a difference needs to be made.

Mariannhill Missionary Father Guy Cloutier has dedicated his life to the upliftment of youth, but was unjustly accused of abuse by a boy whom he had tried to help, and then fully cleared.

French-Canadian Fr Cloutier arrived in Mthatha, having previously worked in Nicaragua and for many years in Papua New Guinea.

He was immediately involved with the people living in informal settlements and was interested in those who wanted a further education but had no means to do so.

“Poor mothers, many siblings, no real employment: all these forced them to get on the streets and forgo education and thus a real future,” said Fr Cloutier.

In 1999, a house owned by the diocese became vacant. The house was to become Sabelani—a home to provide hope, personal and spiritual development to underprivileged male youths who have been recognised as having the potential to succeed at senior secondary school, technical colleges and beyond. By that route they hopefully become role models, family leaders and proud citizens positively contributing to society and the Church.

Founder, St Eugene de Mazenod

Diocesan pastoral workers, social workers and law officials have referred youngsters to Sabelani.

These youngsters, explained Fr Cloutier, “all had one thing in common: a desire to study but no money to do so”. Today, the home provides care and support to 16 boys who are in high schools, universities and technical colleges.

Residents are not only expected to achieve on an academic level, but also to get involved in challenging negative tendencies in society. Each resident is engaged in a an upliftment project, ranging from sports tournaments to youth groups and serving local homes for abandoned babies, old age homes and patients at the local hospital.

“In all of these commitments, we aim at creating a greater awareness among the residents that everything they do has an impact on other people’s lives for better or for worse.

The main lesson gained through such involvements is that the pains and joys of other people change them and motivate them to avoid the pitfalls they witness all around them, and also, to be examples of a full and happy life among their peers,” Fr Coultier said.

He said it is important to groom the youth to actively participate in creating a better society. “As a Mariannhiller, inspired by the concrete examples of my forefathers, I cannot ignore the stumbling blocks that create ‘monsters’ in our society because of dysfunctional families and because of an absence of family,” Fr Cloutier said. “I cannot simply indicate the stumbling blocks. I have to do something to counteract them and to promote exactly the opposite of what they propose.”

But working closely with the youth has not come without its challenges. In late 2010, Fr Cloutier was falsely accused of child abuse, a charge that was dropped on April 8, 2011 when he walked away a free man, as The Southern Cross reported

“Come and learn who you are in the eyes of God.”

at the time.

Despite the emotional and physical setback of being put on “administrative leave” during the investigation and trial, Fr Cloutier returned immediately after being cleared to work at the home, both at the request of Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Mthatha and of his own desire to make a difference in the lives of the local youth.

Fellow Mariannhill Missionary Father Cas Paulsen said there was great rejoicing from the locals.

There was even a Mass of thanksgiving following Fr Cloutier’s acquittal.

“It was easy to return. I am surrounded by a ton of people who know me, who know the work that we do and who support me,” Fr Cloutier said.

I

n years gone by, Sabelani home would accept boys according to the space available. “The boy who accused Fr Guy came to him in 2009 asking for financial help for studies. Fr Guy gave him a place to stay, but the other boys soon discovered that things began to go missing,” said Fr Paulsen. It was later discovered the boy had a criminal record. As a result, the home now conducts background checks on the youth.

“It was a bad experience, but I have been cleared. We have had plenty of good experiences, that is why we continue,” said Fr Coultier.

“I think I have become a better priest through the residents of Sabelani. They have helped me to understand better what it means to serve. The Sabelani Home project has made me much more aware of the enormous generosity of simple people by the way that they support the project through their donations.”

Many of those living at Sabelani are not Catholic, but it is a basic regulation of the home that residents are involved in Church activities. They do so at the cathedral,

Fr Guy Cloutier (back and inset) with (from left) science honours graduates Musa Ngalwa and Setabata Mafereka, and law graduate Busani Mandla. being involved in preparing Sunday services and by giving a hand in Small Christian Communities in the informal settlements. “The residents also witness the steady flow of people coming to Sabelani for counselling or simply to share their problems and they get involved with these people,” said Fr Cloutier, pointing out that he wants to provide a balanced life for the residents.

Fr Paulsen called Fr Cloutier “the surrogate father to these boys”. He said Fr Cloutier institutes routine with strict regulation and a healthy spiritual life. “Fr Guy makes sure that there are other social involvements to keep [the residents] aware of social needs as they grow up. He is a real father to them all. He is also known in the neighbourhood, and he is loved and respected for who he is and what he does for the neighbourhood.”

Fr Cloutier believes the opportunities he affords the local youth create a real chance to discover a special meaning in their lives. “Our commitment to the less fortunate fulfills our ideal of Christian life and provides us with the tools to have a real life and a real future,” he said.

Former residents of Sabelani have gone on to graduate from university. “They came from the streets and now we have a lawyer and students who are studying towards their masters in science,” Fr Coultier said.

Musa Ngalwa describes himself as the “first son of Fr Guy and Sabelani”. He arrived at the home in 2000.

“I have a very good but very poor family. So, having no chance to complete my high school, I asked Fr Guy to help,” Mr Ngalwa said.

Fr Cloutier helped him become a different person who is able “to guide others and able to involve myself in society to transform it. Fr Guy motivated me to go on with education and so now, I am completing my MA in Zoology at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha.” This would not have been possible without Fr Guy and the donors “who have transformed my life,” Mr Ngalwa said. “Sabelani is my home and base: from there I can transform society.”

Busani Mandla, another former resident, said: “Without Sabelani and Fr Guy, I would not be, today, what I am. I have graduated with a LLB at Walter Sisulu University and I am now working in King William’s Town, preparing myself to write my exam for the bar and become a fully-fledged lawyer. Having no mom and no dad, Sabelani has been and is everything for me.”

Mr Mandla said that at Sabelani he learnt to be a better person. “I cannot but help other poor whom I meet on the streets. Sabelani has opened my eyes to charity and to honesty.”

It is these positive results, and not one false accusation, that reinforce the value of Fr Cloutier’s work.

He is motivated by the possibility of shaping men to make a difference in the lives of others. And he is motivated by the love and support that his community has shown him during even the hardest of times.

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Oblates choose to live in community, sharing their life in faith and prayer, working in solidarity with those who are poor, excluded or searching for meaning.

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VOCATIONS

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

11

Nun called to be fruitful Nuns live out their vocation in many different ways. Sr Priscilla Katase’s vocation is located on a farm. She spoke to THANDI BOSMAN.

T

HERE are many times when God calls us more than once to fulfil his work on earth. When we are blessed twice, we are able to bless people more than once.

Sr Priscilla Katase is a Franciscan nun who has devoted her life not only to God and prayer but also to animals and nature—and has won a national award for her agricultural work with animals.

Growing up with animals in Lesotho, Sr Katase is used to working and being around animals. She said that as a young girl and the fourth child in her family, she used to help her father with the animals when her brothers were not around.

Three years after she transferred to South Africa in 1996, Sr Katase joined the Assisi mission farm in Marseilles, Bloemfontein. Sr Katase says that when she first arrived at the Assisi mission farm there were only religious brothers working there. Before she could work on the farm she had to ask for permission from her order, which was granted.

At the time Oblate Brother Anton Raab ran the farm and when he left, Sr Katase took over. Now she manages the farm with a few people helping her with the work.

Earlier this year, Sr Katase and Sr Winifred Mosololi, who collaborates with her, won the Emerging Farmers prize at the Master Dairy Association of South Africa awards, which was held in Bloemfontein.

Sr Mosololi currently works full time at the crèche of St Joseph’s Children’s Centre in Bloemfontein, but helps Sr Katase with the administration of the farm.

“I help Sr Priscilla to computerise reports and other paper work. I attend meetings with her most of the time,” Sr Mosololi said.

Since she lives and works in Bloemfontein, she works on the farm only on Saturdays or during

school holidays.

Sr Katase said that the Sisters no longer buy milk because it is too expensive. Instead the farm provides milk for the Sisters as well as for a nearby school.

But Sr Katase has bigger dreams than simply local produce. In 2010 Sr Katase decided to try and sell milk to Montic Dairy, one of South Africa’s biggest milk products companies. She was told that the farm would have to produce a minimum of 400 litres every second day before Montic Dairy would buy Assisi farm’s milk. Sr Katase said that she was confident that she could produce the milk for them. Today a truck collects milk every day, with more being sold to villagers at a discount.

Sr Mosololi said that Assisi farm not only provides milk and meat for the Sisters, but the proceeds are used to pay the Sisters’ daily travel expenses to schools, to hospitals or doctors.

Sr Katase said that she looks after 13 cows, and also plants mielies. The farm is currently experiencing a drought which is not good for the mielies. It affects the fodder for the cows. “At the moment I have to buy the fodder,” she said.

The nun stressed that “to farm you need to have a passion”. It is her task to “see that the cows are happy”.

Sr Mosololi said that Sr Katase’s passion for farming moves her to teach other people how to farm.

“Sr Priscilla works with less skilled people and she helps them to gain some skills on the farm so that people can manage to do things by themselves. She makes sure that the day may not pass without producing something valuable. She has organised workshops and retreats for the people who are working with her, to make sure that their work should always be according to God’s guidance. She employs a few young men and teaches them to drive”.

Apart from being able to farm and work with animals, Sr Mosololi said the Sr Katase is “also a jack of all trades”, fixing electrical problems and even cars.

Sr Katase’s eventual dream is to be able to pasteurise her own milk and to supply people with fresh milk directly from the farm.

Pray that AFRICA may draw closer to the HEART OF CHRIST

Do you desire a life that proclaims God’s goodness to the world?

BLIND READERS OF

If you are a courageous woman, strong in faith and generous in love then perhaps you have a vocation as a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur

2 Chron 7:14 Matthew 7:7-12

A group of readers is preparing audio tapes of excerpts from The Southern Cross, including editorials, selected articles, and regular features, as well current affairs in the Church. Anyone wanting to receive tapes as part of this service, available for an annual subscription fee of only R50, is invited to Mr

Len Pothier, ‘High Timbers’, 13 Bisschop Road, Hout Bay 7806 or phone 021-790 1317

The Post Office will deliver and return tapes without charge. Should you know of any interested blind person, please inform them of this service.

For more information: Contact Sr. Marie McLoughlin +27 (0)56-215-1003,

Sr Priscilla Katase (left) of the Franciscan Sisters of Season received the award of National Emerging Farmer of the Year 2011 at a function held in Bloemfontein. She is pictured with Sr Winifred Mosololi (right) who works with her in managing Assisi farm in the Free State.

STIGMATINE FATHERS AND BROTHERS

Vocation is a chain of graces: if we do not cooperate with God, the chain soon breaks. We remain faithful through fixing our eyes on the Glorious wounds Our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you want to know more about us write to: Vocation Promoter, Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers, P.O.Box 16239 Pretoria North,0116. South Africa Cell: +27799627116, Tel. +27125464619, or Box 43 Gaborone Botswana or P.O.Box 65 Msolwa- Morogo Tanzania.

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12

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

VOCATIONS

Deacon’s truck-stop ministry: meeting of souls A vocation can lead to unexpected ministries. For one deacon, the mission field is a truck-stop on the US highway, as JOSEPH KENNY reports.

T

HE truck driver sat at the restaurant counter, happy to have someone to talk with at the end of a long day.

A Protestant, he goes to church about five times a year, mostly because he’s not at home very often.

He works for a good company, one that is concerned for his safety and will pay him if the weather is too bad for him to drive. Once, when working for another company, he was in an accident in freezing rain that involved 110 trucks and 11 deaths. It’s difficult for many truckers to put safety first, with pressures on them to go as many miles as possible and be on schedule, he noted.

The trucker’s conversation with Deacon Richard Seveska also touched on how the challenges of being away from home made his personal life much more difficult.

A while back, his mother had fallen, and there was no one there to help her. He eventually had to find a nursing home for her.

Making medical decisions for her

w as comp oun de d b y h is lon g absences.

“So how do you handle all this?” Deacon Seveska asked, listening and later handing the man a prayer card as he patted him on the back.

Deacon Seveska and his wife, Kathleen, moved to the small town of Foristell in Missouri from the Chicago area in 2010 and he has a part-time parish assignment.

His passion the last dozen years has been what is known as truckstop ministry.

The deacon spends evenings saying hello to the truck drivers, identifying himself as a chaplain and asking basic questions.

“I just say, ‘Hey, let’s sit down and talk’, and before long they are talking. It’s just amazing the conversations they get into. It’s a tough life that they live,” he told the St Louis Review, newspaper of the St Louis archdiocese. “They realise, here’s a minister who’s taking the time to listen and is not judgmental. Then they’ll talk about their faith and what they really believe.”

He called the visits a two-way sharing, “and we both walk away fulfilled. I had a trucker one night say, ‘Rich, this is not a meeting of two people. It’s a meeting of two souls.’”

There’s no stereotypical truck

Deacon Rich Seveska talks with trucker Abdi Rizak from Minneapolis at a truck stop parking lot. Deacon Seveska is a chaplain at the truck stop, where he spends the evening saying hello to truck drivers, identifying himself as a chaplain and asking basic questions. (Photo: Lisa Johnston, St Louis Review) driver, he said, though they are almost always male, with some couples out on the road together.

An increasing number of truck drivers had jobs in “corporate America” and left to seek a job where they have a little more freedom.

“There’s a lot more depth to them than I thought,” Deacon

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Seveska said. “I didn’t know anything about the trucking industry.

But it’s about people. When you sit down and shut up and listen, it’s amazing what you learn.”

T

ommy Gee, a truck driver from Oxford, Alabama, who has been on the job 20 years, noted that he appreciated visiting with Deacon Seveska. “I’ve been in a truck all day listening to the radio and talking to myself. I can talk your ears off,” he said.

Bernie Czebatul, who drives throughout the United States and western Canada, said his only opportunity to converse with someone is when he is in touch with a dispatcher. “I will talk to the Lord in my private time,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges truckers face is their role as a

long-distance parent or spouse.

Deacon Seveska has met truckers who have been away from home as long as two years, while it’s common for them to be gone three months at a time. Also not surprising is to find truckers who have been married three or four times.

“There’s a number of problems you run into. It could be money, kids, spouse, drugs, alcohol, suicidal thoughts, you name it.

They’re quick to tell you what’s really going on, even when they don’t have much of a religious background,” Deacon Seveska said.

Sometimes he will pray with people, and sometimes they will take the lead. One time a guy at the counter said, “Hey, Rev, you want to say a prayer?”

Assured by the man that it was a serious request, Deacon Seveska began to pray and “everybody at the counter got into it”, the deacon said.

The truck-stop ministry follows a similar ministry at airports and hospitals, which routinely have chaplains. The Catholic truckstop ministry is supported by the US bishops’ Committee on the Diaconate and Committee on Migration, with the approval of the local bishop.

Deacons see the ministry as “being church to people on the move”, those who have little or no time to be part of a typical faith community. The aim is to offer comfort, understanding and support to truckers in a difficult job.

The ministry is a natural one for followers of Jesus, Deacon Seveska said. “A couple thousand years ago there was a guy who just spent time with people.

We’re just doing the same thing.”—CNS

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communities, dedicated to contemplative prayer and the study of God’s message, with the aim of communicating it to the world, so that all people may benefit.

Contact: The Vocations Promoter PO Box 100150, Scottsville, 3209 or email us at vocations@zaop.org Check our website www.zaop.org

FAITH

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

13

The rosary can transform society In the second part of his reflections on the power of the rosary, Dominican Brother DAMAZIO NGOMA discusses how prayer can transform not only the individual, but also society.

V

ISITING Naples in 2007, Pope Benedict said: “Prayer, not politics, is what transforms the world.” Prayer is indeed a most powerful means to change things in the society.

The rosary is designed to create room for trust in the loving mercy of God. The rosary is composed of 20 decades. Each decade is recited in honour of a particular mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ and Mary his mother. The customary recommendation is that we recite the five decades at a time while meditating on a particular set of the mysteries.

The “Hail Mary” is recited repeatedly, emphasising the request to Mary, the mother of God, to intercede for us. It brings about an atmosphere of trust in God’s providence. God will always be on our side if we consistently ask for guidance and direction through our mother Mary.

The rosary is designed to create this attitude of asking God continuously by repetitively reciting the “Hail Mary”.

It is through prayer that we can bring about change and conversion in people’s lives and society as a whole. Change through prayer is long-lasting and beneficial to all people. The problem is that often people forget to include God in their plan to transform the world.

Pope Benedict’s statement in Naples was an invitation to us all that God has a major role to play through us.

God uses people in any salvific

work. We can meet God through prayer. The rosary is one of the powerful prayers where we meet God and face the reality of life with courage. The mysteries we meditate on through the prayers of the rosary will help us to understand our situation on the ground.

In his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (2002), on the most holy rosary, Pope John Paul II added five new mysteries: the Mysteries of the Light.

In one of these mysteries, we celebrate Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God and conversion. In view of the current achievements in the different fields of human life, the human person has surely been enlightened. God’s kingdom is becoming more and more meaningful to so many people.

The word of God in the context of modern scientific technology is becoming available and accessible to almost everybody. It has become a strong tool for the restoration of peace and justice.

We therefore have enough reason to celebrate this time—the Mysteries of the Light.

Besides all these positive developments, the 20th century came with unique challenges too. There is a new way of hegemony known as neo-colonialism. African nations are becoming subjects of rich nations of the West not through armed occupation, but through the economy.

Neo-colonialism has created a new enslavement whereby people are haves or have-nots. There is unequal distribution of national wealth which has provoked national revolts.

S

uch situations reflect the sorrowful moments of human life.

It is then that we turn to the sorrowful mysteries. Contemplating the passion of Jesus Christ, the element of sorrow in biblical terms started with the conspiracy against Jesus in which the disciple Judas Iscariot betrayed him. The betrayal

went further when Peter denied him three times.

Jesus was arrested, mocked, tried in court, flogged and led to Calvary. The climax of the sorrowful crisis was his crucifixion and death. The historical testimony of the Passion of Christ included so many other personalities who played a part in the whole episode.

Applying such a testimony in today’s life, there are so many people who have played a major role in the misery of most poor people and nations. The political-economic misery of many nations today can be attributed to greed, dictatorial regimes and many other injustices. The implication is that we are still betraying Jesus Christ when we contribute to the misery of innocent people.

Reflecting on the sorrowful mysteries is one way of looking at the current situation in our countries, families and personal lives.

Sadly even those who profess Jesus Christ as their Saviour contribute to the betrayal of innocent people, in various ways and without feelings of guilt or remorse. This is a contradiction of what we believe and profess as Christians.

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he current situation in many nations is bleak. Many people are still languishing in poverty which none of us who are not afflicted by it can comprehend.

There is still political turmoil in many African nations. The rate of unemployment is very high. Most regimes lack the political will to be at the service of their citizens.

In some areas, people have resorted to violence as a means to transform such unjust structures.

It is in this context that we witness the deaths of innocent people.

There are reports of merciless shootings in some big cities as a means of curbing down crime and to stop people from conducting their peaceful demonstrations.

How do we carry on loving with that? One of the solutions to all these problems is to include God

A woman prays the rosary beside a statue of Christ and Mary at Notre Dame cathedral in Cotonou, Benin. In his second reflection on the rosary, Br Damazio Ngoma OP says that prayer, especially the rosary, is a powerful weapon of peaceful transformation. (Photo: Finbarr O’Reilly, Reuters/CNS) in our plan of action.

We can meet God through prayer and in this case, let us resort to the sorrowful mysteries where Jesus himself will talk to us through the intercession of his mother Mary. Prayer is so powerful and it can change the world. The crosses we are carrying as human beings will be light if we include God who will ease our problems.

People of good will on various occasions have intervened, but things seem not to change. Sin is so prevalent in our society and it continues to affect so many innocent people.

Fr Albert Nolan OP in his book Jesus Today: A Spirituality of Radical Freedom talks at length about the different structures of sin. He is more concerned with those who are sinned against, implying those who suffer do so not because of their own making, but because

they are the victims of certain structures and ideologies. They are the most vulnerable group of people in the society.

This is the biggest group in our society. They are simply victims of circumstances. In trying to address the problems facing the majority of the poor people, we often tend to forget God. We trust so much in our own potential, and yet experience shows that the efforts that have been made fail to meet the basic needs of the sufferers.

And so we must return to prayer. Prayer is powerful. Prayers of the rosary have changed the lives of so many people. It is a powerful weapon that could transform the world and a powerful tool that can help us solve our problems in life.

Mary mother of God, pray for us and manifest to us the power of your prayers of the rosary.

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BOOK REVIEWS

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

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YOU’RE AWESOME: Living a Fulfilled Life, by Di Smith (with photographs by Terrence Mtola). Awesome SA Publishers, 2011. 131pp.

Reviewed by Paddy Kearney HE back cover of Di Smith’s You’re Awesome announces that the book is “about overcoming adversity and embracing life. It is about love, compassion and friendship. It is about communities standing together and how through the philosophy of ubuntu...we can all lead happier and more fulfilling lives. It is a book for people who want to transform their own lives and influence the lives of others around them.”

There are 52 chapters, one for each week of the year, but do not let that put you off, because none is longer than three pages and there are lots of bright and attractive photos by Terrence Mtola.

Smith urges the reader to work systematically through the whole book, analysing how each chapter could be applied to your own life, and then trying out these new ideas for a week before moving on to the next chapter.

There is much good advice in these 52 chapters, but I came away with four ideas that struck me as important.

The first is that, as in the title of one chapter, “Forgiveness is the Key to Freedom”, in which Smith quotes Nelson Mandela’s reply to Bill Clinton’s about

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why he invited his jailers to his inauguration.

“I was angry. And I was a little afraid. After all I’ve not been free [for] so long. I realised that if I hated them after I got outside that gate, then they would still have me.” And smiling, Mandela added: “I wanted to be free and so I let go.”

The second striking idea could be paraphrased, “You become what you think”, so if you want to change yourself, then the place to start is by continuously monitoring the way you think.

Part of this is to re-interpret every situation as a potential source of fascination rather than of frustration. It’s helpful to deal creatively with the unexpected, says Smith, looking at it as a challenge rather than gnashing your teeth with disappointment, anger and dissatisfaction because your plans have been

derailed. Ephesians 4:26 is also very wise: “Let not the sun go down on your wrath”—probably a recipe for good sleep as well.

The third idea that I came away with relates to how one develops positive thought.

If you are going to change how you think, avoid getting into a rut. Find ways of shaking those neurons. If you get home feeling flat and tired, try dancing wildly to your favourite music for a few minutes and see what that will do to your mood.

Be adventurous and take up a new hobby or learn a new skill.

Fill your life with as much laughter as possible. Regular exercise and nutritious food can also do wonders.

And, finally, you will need a new way of relating to people, especially those you live or work with.

Start by believing that building relationships is as important as building projects, and (another Mandela tip), if you want the cooperation of people around you, be humble and make them feel important.

What a splendid example Mr Mandela has given us of that approach to life.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in the foreword: “We all have choices. We can live a life of significance or move on from this world without having achieved our full potential. We are created to be so much more than we realise.”

In fact, as Di Smith’s title tells us, we are awesome.

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A LAYMAN’S THEOLOGY, by Bernard Straughan. Coppinger Press, Cape Town, 2011.

132pp.

Reviewed by Michael Shackleton N his preface the author says: “It is sincerely hoped that the questions that are to be asked here, and therefore the views that will be expressed, will add in some way, however small, to our understanding of, and our wonder at, the marvels of a Creator God and, specifically, to our understanding of the nature and teachings of Jesus Christ.”

His sincerity must be taken seriously. Bernard Straughan is a well educated cradle Catholic who has seen the Church evolve in his time from pre-Vatican II conservatism to its present more accepting attitude to the modern world. He has struggled with his dilemmas and perceived inconsistencies in the Church’s teachings and conduct, and his frustrations are poured out vividly in this short volume.

In effect, he wants his readers to sympathise with him as he sets out a “layman’s theology” to help simplify doctrine and render it less incomprehensible to the man and woman in the pew.

He examines the immortality of the soul, drawing the conclusion that the good and the bad will be immortally in the divine presence for eternity because God and immortal souls will be the only realities. The good will be happy to be with God and the bad will not, and this explanation does away with any complicated conventional theories of the nature of heaven, hell and purgatory. He ignores the consequences for this opinion in regard to the resurrection of the dead.

Following his own line of reasoning, Straughan concludes that the distinction between mortal and venial sin is outdated. Less logically, he dumps the practice of canonisation because all souls are already with God, so the Church cannot infallibly say

I

that any particular saint is with God. He forgets that canonisations are not infallible decrees about God’s revealed truths.

From here on Straughan disposes of certain other elements of doctrines such as original sin, the nature of the Mass and sacrifice, the indissolubility of sacramental marriage, divorce and remarriage and the nature of the Trinity.

He distinguishes what he calls the Church’s monolithic structure from the “true Christians” who care for their neighbours and then break bread together.

He does not explain sufficiently how the Church is structured in a way that makes it not truly Christian.

Fair enough, but even a “layman’s” theology must come to terms with contemporary theological studies. His brief few pages of personal opinions quote no authority to support his contentions, and the references he provides are not sufficiently relevant to the enormous doctrinal reformation that he has in mind.

When we consider that traditional Christian theology is the methodical and disciplined elaboration of the truths of divine revelation by reason enlightened by faith, we appreciate that even the greatest theological minds cannot question what they

believe in faith, despite their attempts to comprehend it and fine tune it logically and clearly.

Though it has the word “theology” in its title, this book is not a theological treatment of what the Church takes on divine faith. Instead of defining each doctrine that he wants to criticise and then setting out logically his precise proposals to amend it or ditch it, Straughan dwells only on his personal logic, completely ignoring what even the catechism says. It should not have been a problem for him as a layman to start with the catechism’s basic teachings.

Any theological presentation may not deviate from the corpus of theological doctrines and theories that has been constructed laboriously and set out by the teaching authority of the Church and experienced and well informed experts. Attempting to simplify this for the lay person to absorb clearly is not the same as re-inventing our understanding of the mystery of God and the Catholic faith.

Faith is the humble intellectual and willing acceptance of divinely revealed mystery. Theology is our attempt to understand the immensity of that mystery and its implications for us. Straughan’s approach is nothing like that.

Instead of sweeping away teachings that are at the basis of Christian tradition in the liberal way he does, he should have chosen just one that he thinks needs to be simplified for the ordinary Catholic. Then he could have defined exactly what the Church teaches, presented his difficulties with it, weighed this against traditional and current theological thought and presented a coherent synthesis of where he stands.

Irrespective of Straughan’s sincerity, his arguments fail to add to “our understanding of the nature and teachings of Jesus Christ”. Instead, they are too introspective to be called theology in the proper sense.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

The political tale of two popes called Pius HITLER, MUSSOLINI AND THE VATICAN: Pope Pius XI and the Speech That Was Never Made, by Emma Fattorini, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2011. 220pp Reviewed by Paddy Kearney RCHBISHOP Denis Hurley once described Pope Pius XI as the second most important pontiff of the 20th Century (the first, in his view, being Pope John XXIII).

The archbishop had been a seminarian in Rome in the 1930s when Pius XI was on the throne. Like another famous seminarian of that time, Óscar Romero, who was also studying at the Gregorian University, Archbishop Hurley much admired Pius’s outspoken opposition to the “Great Dictators”: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, whom he castigated in successive encyclicals.

So opposed was Pius to Nazism that when Hitler came to Rome on a state visit in 1938, as Hurley recalled, Pius went to Castel Gandolfo so that he would not be able to receive the Nazi leader and gave instructions that the Vatican Museums be closed to any members of the dictator’s entourage.

Having heard about Emma Fattorini’s book when it first appeared in Italian four years ago, I was delighted to discover that it had been translated into English and most eager to read it. My high expectations were fully realised.

What makes this book particularly fascinating is that it is based on documentation newly made available by the Vatican’s Secret Archives. Now for the first time it is no longer simply rumour or legend that Pius XI’s opposition to fascism grew substantially in his last few years and that on his death

A

bed he had composed his most trenchant indictment of Nazi tyranny, a message that would not see the light of day.

Fattorini carefully examines the Vatican’s newly released archival material and focuses in particular on Pius’s last year when he openly broke with Nazism and in many ways also with fascism, and experienced ever-increasing disillusionment even with Mussolini whom in earlier years he had described as the man “whom providence has sent us”.

Make no mistake, Pius XI was no lover of democracy. In the words of Richard Bosworth, an Australian reviewer of Fattorini’s book, he “was an authoritarian to his bootstraps”. Pius also believed that the Catholic Church was the only institution that could legitimately define itself as “totalitarian” going so far as to say, in 1938, “if there is a totalitarian regime— totalitarian in fact and by right—it is the regime of the Church, as man belongs wholly to the Church, must belong to it as man is the creation of the good Lord.”

A

s Hurley was quick to point out despite his great admiration for this pope, Pius XI’s opposition to the Great Dictators was generally not because they trampled on human rights, but because they spurned the rights of the Church.

Nevertheless, it is highly significant that in Pius XI’s last few months he said with great emotion in a radio broadcast: “Anti-semitism is inadmissible. Spiritually we are all semites”, a statement which would clearly put him on a collision course with the Nazis.

Ever-present in the story of Fat-

torini’s account of Pius XI’s papacy is Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the Vatican’s secretary of state who would be his successor, Pius XII. Fattorini outlines the extraordinary relationship between these “two tragic individuals so different in character and so indissolubly linked together”, describing them as “ the prudent and diplomatic Pacelli and his impetuous pope”.

It is worth quoting Fattorini at length on this topic because her insights are the essence of good biography: “The make-up of their personalities, their family backgrounds, and their spiritual dimensions were almost diametrically opposed. And yet they were irresistibly attracted one to the other, perhaps because of those very differences and in keeping with the rule that opposites attract in search of complementarity, a complemen-

Living the consecrated life MINISTERIAL JOURNEY: Unveiling the Joys and the Challenges of Priestly/Religious Life Today. By Fr Innocent Mabheka SCJ. Published by the Bombay Saint Paul Society, Mumbai, 2011. 93pp.

Reviewed by Michael Shackleton N four brief chapters, Fr Innocent Mabheka undertakes a serious reflection on the difficulties young priests experience in the first phase of their priestly or religious ministry.

A well trained theologian, Fr Mabheka examines this methodically and sets it out clearly. He understands that a young priest or religious often begins the ministerial life with a sense of selfimportance, desiring to show one and all of his or her personal talents and abilities.

This can develop into expressing itself in pastoral or similar work, possibly wanting praise for one’s efforts.

Important though it is to care for oneself and for others, Fr Mabheka points to a stage in which one tran-

I

scends these and finds “godly realisation”. Here, one surrenders one’s ministry to God and becomes God’s instrument. There is no self-dependence because this yields to surrendering oneself to divine love, strength and grace.

Quoting pointedly from the New Testament and spiritual writers, the book’s theme is systematically unfurled with many case studies to illustrate how the priest or religious, aspiring to be good and holy, can find obstacles and challenges that are almost unbearable. These are treated sympathetically and positively.

Despite the negative publicity surrounding the priesthood and religious life today, Fr Mabheka adopts a positive and optimistic stance with total confidence in God’s grace and support.

Concise and attractive, his little book should give a boost to those in the ministry who need to experience more joy and effectiveness in their work.

More book reviews at

www.scross.co.za/category/reviews/books/ OMI STAMPS

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tarity for which both men felt a strong need. The sanguine Ratti [Pius XI’s civil surname] would never have allowed himself to make such strong attacks had he not known that the diligent and faithful Pacelli was there to smooth things out and heal the diplomatic wounds.”

But Pius XI would not have realised just how diligent Pacelli would turn out to be—after his death on February 10, 1939. This was on the eve of the anniversary of the Lateran Pact, the agreement reached between the Vatican and Mussolini’s Italy. In his last days and hours, Pius was preparing his address for this occasion which was to be anything but a celebration of the Pact—rather it was to be the occasion for his strongest ever condemnation of fascism.

His message represented the views of an increasingly isolated and intransigent pope reaching an extraordinary clarity of thought about the evil political systems dominating Germany and Italy at that time. He had passed through an initial phase of surprise at fascism, followed by disappointment, now he was deeply angered.

P

acelli, who was elected camerlengo (a sort of caretaker/administrator) on Pius XI’s death, moved swiftly to remove the document that Pius had been writing on his deathbed. Effectively he made it disappear, giving instructions that no copies were to be made.

This was probably not difficult to achieve because there seemed to be an air of relief in the Vatican about the pope’s death. His strongly anti-fascist views apparently made top Vatican officials fearful

15

about the price that would have to be paid once Pius’s views became fully known.

Fattorini is careful not to use Pacelli’s deliberate suppression of Pius XI’s last message as further evidence of Pius XII’s controversial silence about the continuing Jewish holocaust. She sidesteps that issue, saying that more careful research is needed to determine the truth about that silence.

But she does allow herself this conclusion: “It is right and legitimate to regret that Ratti’s papacy was interrupted too suddenly by his death, just at that moment when, rather than coming to an end, it seemed about to begin anew. It was an end filled with hopes and expectations that rather than being taken up were instead and definitively cancelled out.”

Perhaps the reader can be forgiven for regretting that while Pius XI had Pacelli to temper his prophetic outspokenness, Pius XII did not have a Ratti to give more prophetic edge to his voice—except perhaps, to a limited extent, in his relationship with Archbishop Clemens von Galen of Münster.

Von Galen was one of the few German bishops who took on the Nazi regime with any vigour, but it was a vigour that Pius XII thought inappropriate for a pope.

“During those terrible years of war, a saddened pope seemed to be asking that his combative archbishop maintain that hard opposition in which he, as pope, was unable to engage,” Fattorini observes. “A sense of complicity suffused their relationship as they [Pius XII and von Galen] played complementary roles reminiscent of those played

by Pius XII and his predecessor.”

16

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

COMMUNITY IN FOCUS

Send photographs, with sender’s name and address on the back, and a SASE to: The Southern Cross, Community Pics, Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000 or email them to: pics@scross.co.za Edited by Lara Moses Grade 7 learners from Marist Brothers Linmeyer in Johannesburg spent a day visiting Soweto and learning about the historical significance of the township. Highlights of the tour included a visit to Freedom Square, Nelson Mandela’s house and the Hector Peterson Museum. (Submitted by Tracy Edwards)

Bessie Brown (bottom left), the most senior parishioner at Regina Coeli parish in Belgravia, Cape Town, celebrated her 91st birthday with a Mass. She is pictured with her son Daniel Brown, his wife Joyce and friends Barbara Odendaal and Amelia Fester. (Submitted by Eveline Heugh)

Fr Sebastian Joseph Rossouw OMI was ordained to priesthood at St Eugene de Mazenod parish in Eldorado Park, Johannesburg. He is photographed with Steven van Wyk and Alwyn Wroots.

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Newlyweds Mark Botes and Dawn Alice Soares with their son Griffin who was baptised on the same day as their wedding by Fr Mathibela Sebothoma at St Joseph the Worker in Pretoria West

During the Easter Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Fatima parish in Durban North, Fr Desmond Nair sat below the altar chatting to the children about new life and whether the Easter Bunny came to their house, while in the background Deacon Peter Venter imitated a rabbit. (Submitted by Anna Accolla)

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

17

The Stations of the Cross was prayed on Good Friday during a procession through the streets of Kempton Park in Johannesburg, by parishioners of Our Lady of Loreto. The procession was led by parish priest Fr Mari Joseph OCD. Fr Joseph carried the cross and invited parishioners to come forward to take the cross to the next station. By the 11th station young children were asked by Fr Joseph to take up their cross which they did joyfully. (Submitted by Berniece Eales)

Blessed Sacrament parish in Virgina-Umhlanga, Durban, distributed lunchboxes to children at Addington Primary School through the parish EDGE Group Outreach Programme. (Submitted

by Maggie Fuller)

18

VOCATION

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

Nun who once was a film star on her cloistered life A nun who once kissed Elvis Presley and has voting rights in the annual Oscars is the subject of a documentary film.

Mother Dolores Hart speaks to JACK SHEEDY.

O

N Hollywood’s red carpet at this year’s Oscars, actress Michelle Williams wore Louis Vuitton. Cameron Diaz wore a Victoria Beckham design.

Black-habited Mother Dolores Hart, prioress of the abbey of Regina Laudis, told reporters she was wearing a seventh-century Benedictine St Telchilde.

“They didn’t know what I was talking about,” Mother Dolores said in an interview at the rural Connecticut abbey with The Catholic Transcript, newspaper of the Hartford archdiocese.

“I think maybe that’s why they didn’t take many pictures of me on the carpet, because they didn’t know what to do with me,” she laughed.

That February evening Mother Dolores stood incongruously on the red carpet wearing the habit of St Telchilde, or Theodichildis, first abbess of the Benedictine Jouarre abbey in Seine-et-Marne, France.

Mother Dolores was in Hollywood because a short documentary titled God Is the Bigger Elvis, which features her and other cloistered nuns at Bethlehem’s abbey, was up for an award.

While it didn’t win, the nun’s presence at the Oscars brought back memories for her fans.

Yes, this mother prioress has a fan base. Known for sharing Elvis Presley’s first on-screen kiss, in the 1957 movie Loving You, Dolores Hart was a promising young stage and screen star and also appeared in films with Montgomery Clift, Anthony Quinn, Marlon Brando and others. She appeared with Elvis again in the 1958 movie King Creole.

But, in 1963, she shocked her family, friends and fiancé by kissing Hollywood goodbye and entering the community of Benedictine nuns.

God Is the Bigger Elvis, which premiered this month on US television, began as an idea of the late Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who as apostolic nuncio to the US invited Mother Dolores to the nunciature in Washington two years ago.

“When I went in to see him, he said, ‘Madre, I want you to do a film on consecrated life.’ And I said, ‘But, Your Excellency, I’m an enclosed Benedictine nun. I

Mother Dolores Hart, who as a movie star starred with the likes of Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift.

can’t do that sort of thing. I have no access any longer to this sort of thing and I don’t know anyone in California.’”

He insisted that the Holy Spirit would guide her. She returned to the abbey and told her superior, Mother Abbess David Serna. They decided to pray about it.

“It was three days after that that [TV channel] HBO called us,” Mother Dolores said. “They had had no commission from [Archbishop Sambi]. They didn’t know him. So I know it’s no set-up. The

choreographer was...,” Mother Dolores said, casting her sky-blue eyes heavenward.

The 36-minute documentary is a revealing peek behind the walls of the abbey, the only one of its kind in the United States, founded in 1947 by Mother Benedict Duss.

We see Mother Dolores caring for birds in her aviary, entertaining them with recorded music.

We meet Mother David, who already had taken her vows when young Dolores became a novice in 1963. She thought the newcomer was “a lightweight” and was not always kind to her. “Who would have thought the actress was going to stay? I mean, really!”

Besides her career, the actress also gave up her engagement to architect Don Robinson, who took it hard but never lost contact with her. “It was just impossible to explain,” Mother Dolores says in the film. “How do you explain God? How do you explain love?”

Life in the abbey means singing seven times a day, silence three times a day, frequent periods of prayer, strict obedience, caring for livestock, cultivating a garden and sharing a bathroom with up to ten other nuns.

A scene near the end shows a

visit by Mr Robinson and his emotional leave-taking. “God bless you,” Mother Dolores says.

“You, too,” he says and walks out the door, leaving it open as he goes. Mother Dolores gazes after him in silence, then turns away, crosses herself and gazes at a crucifix on the wall.

“That scene was amazing to me,” Mother Dolores said, “because that day when Don left and I saw him go, something hit me and said, ‘I wonder if I’m going to see him again. I think I might not.’”

That was near Easter last year.

In November, Mother Dolores had a fall that resulted in a mild concussion. Days later, she learned Mr Robinson had fallen, hitting his head in the same place. He died on November 29.

When God Is the Bigger Elvis was nominated for an Oscar, director Rebecca Cammisa and producer Julie Anderson invited Mother Dolores to accompany them to the awards ceremonies.

The mother prioress is still a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and votes on the nominated films each year, based on DVDs she screens at the abbey.

She hopes the documentary will generate interest in the project to renovate the abbey.—CNS

NOAH OLD AGE HOMES

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For further information, please contact St Jude Society, Box 22230, Fish Hoek, 7975 Telephone (021) 552-3850

The Southern Cross, April 25 to May 1, 2012

CLASSIFIEDS

UNAIDS chief discusses HIV prevention with pope

BY CINDY WOODEN

M

ICHEL Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids), met with Pope Benedict and other Vatican officials to seek greater collaboration to prevent HIV infection among children by 2015.

Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV and keeping children free from HIV is an achievable goal, Mr Sidibe told the pope, according to a press release from UNAIDS. “Millions of people around the world living with and affected by HIV are being supported by Catholic health care organisations,” said Mr Sidibe, who is from Mali.

“The full engagement of the Catholic Church in efforts to achieve zero new HIV infections

among children is of paramount importance.”

The UN agency noted that the Vatican has estimated Catholic agencies provide about 25% of all HIV treatment and care throughout the world. And the World Health Organization has estimated that perhaps as much as 70% of all health care in Africa is provided by faith-based organisations.

In addition to his brief meeting with Pope Benedict, Mr Sidibe also met with Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and with Michel Roy, secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis.

After the meetings, he told Vatican Radio the influence and reach of churches and other faith-based groups have a huge potential “to fight stigma and discrimination and also to inform people that being sexually responsible is

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO #494. ACROSS: 4 Obtrude, 8 Strays, 9 Plenary, 10 Assent, 11 Elated, 12 Indolent, 18 Son of God, 20 Parish, 21 Senior, 22 Moronic, 23 Hasten, 24 Settler. DOWN: 1 Islamic, 2 Crusade, 3 Hymnal, 5 Bulletin, 6 Rental, 7 Darken, 13 Enshrine, 14 Egoists, 15 Adoring, 16 Capone, 17 Dig out, 19 One day.

Liturgical Calendar Year B

Sunday, April 29, Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 4:8-12, Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28-29, 1 John 3:1-2, John 10:11-18 Monday, April 30, feria Acts 11:1-18, Psalms 42:2-3; 43:3-4, John 10:110 Tuesday, May 1, feria Acts 11: 19-26, Psalms 87: 1-7, John 10: 22-30 Wednesday, May 2, St Athanasius Acts 12: 24, 13: 5, Psalms 67: 2-3, 5-6, 8, John 12: 44-50 Thursday, May 3, Ss Philip and James 1 Corinthians 15: 1-8, Psalms 19: 2-5, John 14: 6-14 Friday, May 4, feria Acts 13: 26-33, Psalms 2: 6-11, John 14: 1-6 Saturday, May 5, feria Acts 13: 44-52, Psalms 98: 1-4, John 14: 7-14 Sunday, May 6, Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 9: 26-31, Psalms 22: 26-28, 30-32, 1 John 3: 18-24, John 15: 1-8

“DIVINE MERCY”

important when you want to prevent new infections”.

He said Catholic parishes also can encourage women to get tested for HIV, offer support to those who are positive, let them know treatment is available and encourage them to get the antiretroviral drugs when pregnant to prevent passing the virus on to their children.

The last UN High-Level Meeting on HIV/Aids pledged to focus on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, particularly by stepping up the offer of antiretroviral treatments to pregnant women in the 22 countries that together account for 90% of all new infections of children worldwide—of those 21 are in Africa, including South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland.

Mr Sidibe told Vatican Radio: “You can save the mother and at the same time avoid the baby being born HIV-positive and give that child a chance to grow without being an orphan.”—CNS

Community Calendar

To place your event, call Lara Moses at 021 465 5007 or e-mail l.moses@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: 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 Sr Rosemarie of the Holy Cross Sisters is looking for musical instruments (new or used) for the elderly and adult patients of the psychiatric ward to help make a “holy noise to the Lord”.

Contact Sr Rosemarie at the Holy Cross Convent, Modderdam Road or call 021 934 6006. You can leave your gift at reception

at Nazareth House, Upper Mill Street, Cape Town.

DURBAN: St Anthony’s, Durban Central: Tuesday 09:00 Mass with novena to St Anthony. First Friday 17:30 Mass. Mercy novena prayers. Tel: 031 309 3496.

JOHANNESBURG: Rosary at Marie Stopes clinic, Peter Place, Sandton. First Saturday of every month, 10:30-12:00. Also Gandhi Square, Main Rd. Third Saturday of every month, 10:30-12:00. Tel: Joan 011 782-4331

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

Births • First Communion • Confirmation • Engagement/Marriage • Wedding anniversary • Ordination jubilee • Congratulations • Deaths • In memoriam • Thanks • Prayers • Accommodation • Holiday Accommodation • Personal • Services • Employment • Property • Others Please include payment (R1,15 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

DEATH

CONNELLAN—Hazel Marion. Dearly loved wife of Ray, mother of Beryl, Lyn, Sandra and Barbara, died peacefully on March 14, 2012. Eternal rest grant to her O Lord. May she rest in peace. Sadly missed by Norah.

ERASMUS—Sylvia. A parishioner of Holy Family, Manenberg, aged 79, passed away on Holy Saturday, April 7 at Victoria Hospital. A mother, grandma, great-grandma, friend and community leader will lovingly be remembered by her family and friends.

From Bernadette Adams.

PERSONAL

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YOU CAN have no culture of life until you have a culture of Christ. See www.abort73.com/end_ abortion

PRAYERS

HOLY ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. To you I

Pilgrimage to Poland September 2012 Visit Warsaw, Czestochowa, Krakow Wadowice and more Follow the footsteps of Blessed Pope John Paul II And Saint Faustina

have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. Help me now in my urgent need and grant my petitions. In return I promise to make your name known and publish this prayer. Amen.

John.

EMPLOYMENT

MATURE kind loving lady seeks live-in position. 074 315 3381.

ACCOMMODATION

COOLOCK HOUSE, Melville: South Coast KZN overlooking Indian Ocean.

Beach five minutes walk.

Quiet holiday, Retreat and Conference Centre. Contact 039 684 6358, email coolock@intekom.co.za

ACCOMMODATION OFFERED

CAPE TOWN, Cape Peninsula: Beautiful homes to buy or rent. Maggi-Mae 082 892 4502, AIDA Cape Lifestyle Homes, 021 782 9263 maggimae@aida capelifestyle.co.za

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

CAPE TOWN: Fully equipped self-catering, 2 bedroom apartment with parking, in Strandfontein @R400 or R480 (low/high season) (4 persons per night ) Info: Paul 021 393 2503, 083 553 9856, vivilla@telkomsa.net

BALLITO: Up-market penthouse on beach, self-catering. 084 790 6562.

BETTY'S BAY: (Western Cape) Holiday home sleeps six, three bathrooms, close to beach, R800/night. 021 794 4293 marialouise@ mweb.co.za

FISH HOEK: Self-catering accommodation, sleeps 4.

Secure parking. Tel: 021 785 1247.

GORDON’S BAY: Beautiful en-suite rooms available at reasonable rates. Magnificent views, breakfast on request. Tel: 082 774 7140. bzhive@telkomsa.net

Call Elna at 082 9750034 e-mail: elna@holysites.co.za Website: www.holysites.co.za

KRUGER PARK VIVA SAFARIS (Member of SATSA)

SCHEDULED DAILY SAFARIS TO KRUGER PARK Fly-in and overland tours. See www.vivasafaris.com

Reservations:

KNYSNA: Self-catering accommodation for 2 in Old Belvidere with wonderful Lagoon views. 044 387 1052.

KZN SOUTH COAST: Honeywood: Luxury chalets & The Cellar boutique restaurant. 7 x 4-sleeper luxury chalets. Quiet urban forest retreat opposite Sea Park Catholic Church. Ideal for retreats & holidays www.honeywoodsa.co.za honeywood@honey woodsa.co.za Tel 039 695 1036 Fax 086 585 0746.

LONDON: Protea House: Underground 3min, Piccadilly 20min. Close to River Thames. Self-cater-

Viva Safaris is engaged with 4 projects aimed at the upliftment of the Acornhoek community, including the COMBONI MISSIONARIES’ OUTSTATION

www.volunteersafaris.co.za

19

Father Xico with partially completed church building

082 450 9930 Trevor 082 444 7654 Piero 082 506 9641 Anthony

To advertise in this space call Elizabeth Hutton 021 465 5007 or e-mail advertising@ scross.co.za

ing. Single per night R300, twin R480. 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 PENNINGTON: Accommodation still available for July school holidays. A two bedroom, two bathroom, six sleeper maisonette. Contact Barney on 082 266 3614 or 039 975 3842.

SEDGEFIELD: Beautiful self-catering garden flat sleeps four, two bedrooms, open-plan lounge, kitchen, fully equipped. 5min walk to lagoon. Contact 082 900 6282.

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

Countryside vineyard/forest/mountain walks; beach 20 minute drive. Affordable.

Christian Brothers Tel 021 880 0242, cbcstel@gmail.com STRAND: Beachfront flat to let. Stunning views, fully equipped. Garage, one bedroom, sleeps 3-4. R450 p/night for 2 people-low season. Phone Brenda 082 822 0607

RETREATS

PLETTENBERG BAY: Sat Chit Anand Interfaith Spiritual Retreat Centre.

Make space in your life for Spirit. Enjoy a peaceful holiday with optional meditation, mass, theology classes, yoga. Interfaith chapel, library, and healing centre. Self-catering cottages. Priests stay free.

See www.satchitanand.co.za for more info, Phone 044 533 0453 or email satchi tanand@global.co.za

PO Box 2372, CAPE TOWN, 8000 Tel: (021) 465 5007 Fax: (021) 465 3850

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Website: www.scross.co.za 5th Sunday of Easter: May 6 Readings: Acts 9: 26-31, Psalm 22: 26-28, 30-32, 1 John 3:18-24, John 15:1-8

O

NE question that we need to reflect on, as the Easter season moves towards its end, is this: can God really lead us out of disaster?

In the first reading Paul is nervously introduced to the disciples in Jerusalem. We, the reader, know that he has encountered Jesus on the Damascus road, and that he has turned from persecutor to apostle. The Jerusalem community is far from convinced: “They were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.” Barnabas, however, acts as a middle man: “He took him and led him to the apostles, and explained how he had seen the Lord on the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had been quite open in Damascus about the name of Jesus.”

Slowly though, a companionship develops: “He was with them, going in and coming out into Jerusalem, and quite open about the name of the Lord.” But his work among the Greek-speakers puts his life at risk (“they tried to exterminate him”), so Paul is smuggled out to Caesarea, and onwards to the safety of his home town of Tarsus.

Despite these murderous attempts and the need to cope with them, God is in charge, and therefore “the Church had peace

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the disasters that threaten us all the time, reappears in the gospel for next Sunday, the lovely image, offered to those lonely disciples in the room where the Last Supper takes place, of the “vine and the branches”.

It must be admitted that as well as “lovely”, this image is a rather uncomfortable one, as Jesus tells us that “I am the real vine, and my Father is the farmer.” And what this farmer does is to cut off branches that fail to bear fruit; and even those that do bear fruit are “pruned, in order to bear more fruit”.

We wince at the thought, but then we hear, with a slight sense of relief, Jesus’ next words: “You are pruned, because of the word that I have spoken to you.”

Then comes the real heart of the matter, that idea of “remaining”: “Remain in me, and I shall remain in you”, and Jesus makes the point (obvious, once you think about it), that “no branch can bear fruit if it does not remain on the vine”; and so it is with us, in our relationship with Jesus, which is the only way that we can avoid the disaster of death: “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”

The alternative to “remaining” in Jesus is to be “thrown out like the branch, and withered and gathered, and thrown into the fire and burnt”.

But that is not the fate in store for us; Jesus’ intention, and that of his father, is “that you should bear much fruit and become my disciples”. That is our way out of disaster.

Triumph over disaster Nicholas King SJ

Sunday Reflections

throughout the whole of Judea and Galilee and Samaria, being built up, and journeying in the fear of the Lord, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And it multiplied”. God is slowly but surely building up the people of God, despite everything that the opposition can throw at us.

The psalm-reading for next Sunday is from the psalm of lament that Jesus quotes on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”, a clear intimation of disaster. In fact, however, our bit of the psalm comes from the less bleak second half of the psalm, when the person lamenting seems to have received a happy answer to his complaint: “I shall fulfil my vows before those who fear him; the poor shall eat and be satisfied...may your hearts enjoy life forever.”

And the effect that the psalmist foresees is that not only Israel but also the Gentiles will

Donations and volunteers and prayers always welcome

turn to God: “All the families of the gentiles shall worship before you.” And this includes those who have had a great deal to suffer: “Those who have gone down to the dust will pay homage.” The message will go out: “They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to the people not yet born, what he has done.”

For the author of 1 John in the second reading , the answer is always a matter of love, “not just with your tongue, but in deed and truth”. The point is that we have to recognise that “God is greater than our heart, and knows everything”.

As a sign of this approach to triumph over disaster the author insists, “Beloved—if our heart does not condemn us, we have openness to God”, and the word for “openness” comes from the same root as the word for “open” in the first reading. It carries with it the certainty that “whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what is pleasing in his sight”. Then we are told what “keeping his commandments” implies: two things, it appears, namely “believe in the name of his Son Jesus Messiah” and, secondly, “love each other”. If we do that, then we shall “remain” in him and he in us.

That idea of “remaining”, as a way out of

The ten major faith struggles Southern Crossword #494 S

OMETIMES the simple act of naming something can be immensely helpful.

Before we can put a name on something we stand more helpless before its effects, not really knowing what’s happening to us.

Some of us, for example, are familiar with the book, The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church, by John Allen. The things he names in this book, even when they don’t affect us directly, still help shape us for the better.

As a journalist who travels the world as the Vatican analyst for both CNN television and the National Catholic Reporter, John Allen is able to provide us with a wider, global perspective on Church issues than is generally afforded to those of us whose vision is more emotionally mired in our own local and national issues.

Heartaches at home can make us blind to the wider concerns of the planet; just as seeing the concerns and pains of others first-hand can put our own concerns and pain into a healthier perspective. John Allen’s global frame of reference, as outlined in the mega-trends he names in his book, helps us keep our own ecclesial concerns in a healthier perspective.

So here is my own attempt to name some things. Several years ago in an interview, John asked me to draw up a list of what I considered to be the ten major faith and Church struggles of our time. I took this as a healthy challenge and the list that follows, no doubt less global in perspective than Allen’s ten trends (My vision, I fear, speaks more for Western and secularised cultures than for the world at large), is my own attempt to name the key faith and ecclesial struggles we deal with today.

What are the ten major faith and Church struggles of our time, at least as manifest within the more highly secu-

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

larised parts of our world?

1. The struggle with the atheism of our everyday consciousness, that is, the struggle to have a vital sense of God within a secular culture which, for good and for bad, is the most powerful narcotic ever perpetrated on this planet—the struggle to be conscious of God outside of Church and explicit religious activity.

2. The struggle to live in torn, divided, and highly-polarised communities, as wounded persons ourselves, and carry that tension without resentment and without giving it back in kind—the struggle inside of our own wounded selves to be healers and peace-makers rather than ourselves contributing to the tension.

3. The struggle to live, love, and forgive beyond the infectious ideologies that we daily inhale, that is, the struggle for true sincerity, to genuinely know and follow our own hearts and minds beyond what is prescribed to us by the right and the left— the struggle to be neither liberal nor conservative but rather men and women of true compassion.

4. The struggle to carry our sexuality without undue frigidity and without irresponsibility, the struggle for a healthy sexuality that can both properly revere and properly delight in this great power—the struggle to carry our sexuality in such a way so as to radiate both chastity and passion.

5. The struggle for interiority and prayer inside of a culture that in its thirst for information and distraction constitutes a virtual conspiracy against depth and soli-

Classic Conrad

tude, the eclipse of silence in our world— the struggle to move our eyes beyond our digital screens towards a deeper horizon.

6. The struggle to deal healthily with “the dragon” of personal grandiosity, ambition, and pathological restlessness, inside of a culture that daily over-stimulates them, the struggle to healthily cope with both affirmation and rejection—the struggle inside of a restless and over-stimulated environment to habitually find the delicate balance between depression and inflation.

7. The struggle to not be motivated by paranoia, fear, narrowness, and over-protectionism in the face of terrorism and overpowering complexity—the struggle to not let our need for clarity and security trump compassion and truth.

8. The struggle with moral loneliness inside a religious, cultural, political, and moral Diaspora—the struggle to find soul mates who meet us and sleep with us inside our moral centre.

9. The struggle to link faith to justice— the struggle to get a letter of reference from the poor, to institutionally connect the Gospel to the streets, to remain on the side of the poor.

10. The struggle for community and church, the struggle inside a culture of excessive individuality to find the healthy line between individuality and community, spirituality and ecclesiology—the struggle as adult children of the Enlightenment to be both mature and committed, spiritual and ecclesial.

What’s the value in a list of this sort?

It’s important to name things and to name them properly; although, admittedly, simply naming a disease doesn’t of itself bring about a cure.

However, as the American psychologist James Hillman used to quip, a symptom suffers most when it doesn’t know where it belongs.

ACROSS 4. Doubter who will come in an unwelcome way (7) 8. They wander from the flock (6) 9. Kind of indulgence at bishops’ session? (7) 10. Acquiesce (6) 11. With raised spirits (6) 12. Nine told they are lazy (8) 18. Jesus Christ (3,2,3) 20. Capital hospital where your pastor is (6) 21. Elder who sounds like a Spaniard (6) 22. Feeble-minded change on micro (7) 23. Holds a decade and will be quick (6) 24. Colonist who is comfortable? (7)

DOWN 1. Claim is made by Muslim world (7) 2. Expedition with the cross to Holy Land (7) 3. Praise songbook (6) 5. Kind of board for public notices (8) 6. Your tenant owes it (6) 7. Who will do it to your door is unwelcome (6) 13. Put relic into hallowed place (8) 14. For example, I toss out the self-centred (7) 15. Worshipping rain god 7) 16. Gangster Al can pace on (6) 17. Excavate (3,3) 19. Future time for procrastinator (3,3) Solutions on page 19

CHURCH CHUCKLE

A

FATHER was reading Bible stories to his young son.

He read: “The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city and not to look back even once, but his wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.”

His son asked: “But, what happened to the flea?”

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