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October 23 to October 29, 2013

Corruption: Why take a stand?

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Pope entrusts the world to Mary

Bishops pay tribute to families

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Aids programme a shining light BY CLAIRE MATHIESON

The entire Brescia House School from Grade R to12 assembled in the format of their school badge in the spirit of building unity across the school. This entailed co-ordinating over 1 200 learners and staff from a nearby rooftop.

Vatican comes in to bat BY CAROL GLATz

HE Vatican is about to launch its own cricket club and will field a women’s squad if it finds enough players. “It may be that instead of watching players who go out to play with cricket caps on, we’re going to have a series who play with veils on as they bat up,” said John McCarthy, a former cricket player and Australia’s ambassador to the Holy See. “We are looking for Sri Lankan, Indian and Pakistani sisters who have played cricket, and if they’re found, they certainly will be invited to join the cricket club. There is certainly no intention not to have a women’s cricket team at the Vatican,” he told reporters . The New South Wales native came up with the idea for an official Vatican Cricket Club before he began his post at the Vatican in 2012. The idea, he said, is to field a team of international players who are priests, seminarians, religious and lay Catholics working or studying in Rome or at the Vatican. There are many seminarians in Rome who not only want to play cricket while they’re here, he said, but they also want to give the game an added ecumenical or interreligious dimension. “There are many players who are here in Rome who would like to see, for instance, the Vatican play the Church of England at cricket,” he said.

The Dominican Sisters of Mary in Anne Arbor, Michigan, US, playing basketball in their convent’s gymnasium.(Photo:sistersofmary.org) Because it is so popular in such a diverse array of countries—like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Africa and Australia—cricket “covers many religions and ethnic groups,” the ambassador said. Cricket, therefore, can offer a unique opportunity for positive interreligious encounters with groups that are not as devoted to other sports, he said. A competitive cricket series will kick off in mid-November and be similar to the Clericus Cup football tournament, which involves teams of priests and seminarians studying in Rome. The ambassador hopes that a team representing the Vatican could begin playing others next year.—CNS

VISIT to Rustenburg’s Tapologo Aids programmes—run in the midst of shack settlements and villages around Rustenburg’s mines—has left a high-level delegation of government and the South African National Aids Council (SANAC) “filled with emotion” and has shown an effective example of how government and the Church can work together. The programmes, called Tapologo—a Setswana word meaning peace and rest—were the brainchild of Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg in response to the high infection rate of HIV and Aids in the North West. The delegation was in the region for the second SANAC conference, following which, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, as chairman of SANAC requested to visit the Aids project. Along with the North West Premier Thandi Modise, the National Minister of Health, Aaron Motsoaledi, and MEC for Health in the North West, Magome Masike, the delegation was taken on a tour of the Tapologo programmes with Bishop Dowling. “We went on the tour and seeing and meeting the very ill patients was a very touching and painful experience for them,” said Bishop Dowling of the delegation’s experience. “One woman whom we have saved after more than four months told of her terrible experience of being discharged from the Rustenburg hospital covered in bedsores and smelling, ending up at one of the Tapologo clinics in a shack settlement, being immediately transferred to our in-patient unit, and how our staff never once referred to the smell, how they cared for her with such love and compassion, and how our doctor treated her to the point that she is waiting for skin grafts. The Premier was deeply touched and almost in tears.” The delegation was told about the long history of the mission during struggle times when Bishop Dowling gave permission for the liberation movements to meet on the mission and how 680 farm workers were given refuge by the mission when they came off the farms due to the very bad treatment by right-wing AWB farmers. “These were the people we resettled in a new RDP township and where one of our religious sisters followed them and opened a clinic in a shack. From there I received money from the Belgian government and we opened a 24-hour clinic which ran for four years and served this massive township until the Government built its clinic in the township, and we closed down.” But in 1992 the bishop encountered the ravages of Aids in the government clinic. It was a time when little attention was being paid to the disease. “I knew as a Church leader I would have to respond to this crisis.”

Bishop Kevin Dowling is pictured with (from right) National Minister of Health, Aaron Motsoaledi, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, North West Premier Thandi Modise and MEC for Health in the North West, Magome Masike. In 1997 when the Church opened a clinic in a small shipping container, more than 49% of pregnant mothers visiting the clinic were HIV positive. The infection rate was so alarming that the project developed into training local women how to nurse sick people in the shacks. “We got them further training in counselling skills by LifeLine, and so the first Tapologo programme started—the model of teams of community carers from the affected communities supervised by a professional nurse to ensure both a high level of nursing care and the ethos of holistic care of the patient with great love, incorporating the spiritual, emotional and physical dimensions of their life,” said Bishop Dowling. New teams in 11 communities were developed before the time of ARVs. A hospice was also opened to meet the needs of the terminally ill. “Since then over 1 300 people, including 19 children, have died in the hospice,” but many more have been saved thanks to the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference’s Aids Office ARV treatment plan which chose Tapologo as one of the 22 church sites in South Africa. At its peak we were caring for 1 850 ARV patients, and initiated over 4 000,” said Bishop Dowling. Mr Motlanthe said he remembered the stories of Bishop Dowling allowing meetings for the liberation movement, and remembered how the church was bombed in 1992 when the bishop refused to back down. He said it was clear that this place, the mission and now Tapologo had “cared for the suffering and the poor for many, many years”. “The feedback was very positive, and I hope this visit gave these VIPs a positive experience of how a partnership between government and community organisations like Tapologo can really deepen the quality of health care. I hope their impression of the Church’s engagement in the lives of the suffering will also be remembered,” Bishop Dowling said.

CANONISATION PILGRIMAGE Join The Southern Cross and Radio Veritas on a pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi to witness the canonisation of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII in the Vatican

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The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

LOCAL

Bishops to pay tribute to families BY STAFF REPORTER

HE 10th plenary assembly of the Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa (Imbisa) will see 80 bishops from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Sao Tomé e Principe, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe focus on family. Fr Oskar Wermter SJ, head of Imbisa’s pastoral department, said there was a “gender protocol” signed by all heads of state of the Southern African Development Community region committing themselves to bringing about complete gender equality in their various countries. “The protocol contains many laudable statements. But there is not much the protocol has to say about the family. The terms mother and father are not found anywhere in that lengthy

document. The Church which we call ‘our mother’ will have to correct this imbalance,” he said. The Jesuit said the family of father, mother and children needs much support. The single-parent family is a fact, and single mothers or fathers must not be sidelined. “A South African government paper in which the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office took great interest warns that the number of fatherless families is on the increase. There is a crisis of masculinity.” It was in 1995 that the bishops last discussed the family at Imbisa level. “Since then the crisis of masculinity has become more obvious. More men just run away from wives and children, or seek employment in faraway places and never come back,” Fr Wermter said. During the session Ranga

Zinyemba, rector of the Catholic University of Zimbabwe, and his wife Alice Zinyemba, also an academic teacher, will facilitate the bishops’ debate on family life. “South Africa has taken many initiatives to support and promote family life which are threatened by a culture indifferent, if not actually hostile, to the family,” said Toni Rowland, of the Family Desk at the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference. She is preparing rich educational material available in South Africa, print and electronic, for the bishops to see. Fr Wermter said the small staff of the Imbisa secretariat in Harare, Zimbabwe was in the last stages of preparing for the meeting from November 11-15. “All the working papers are to be prepared for the bishops to give them up-to-date in-

formation on the many problems besetting family life at present,” said Fr Wermter. Imbisa has two official languages, English and Portuguese, and all papers have to be translated accordingly. “Fr Carlos Gabriel, perfectly bilingual, the parish priest of the Portuguese-speaking community in Johannesburg, will play a key role,” said Fr Wermter. Fr Gabriel will also be the simultaneous translator during the deliberations of the bishops. Smooth communication between the bishops from the different language groups is essential. “The Church in Angola, the island state Sao Tomé e Principe, and in Mozambique may differ from the Church in Botswana and South Africa: all the more reason for the bishops to have a lively exchange about their various problems,” said Fr Wermter.

Family life will be the focus of the bishops’ 10th plenary assembly.

Cathedral welcomes new acolytes

Centurion open air Mass

BY ATTA MAGADLA SIBETTA

RETORIA’S Sacred Heart cathedral experienced a busy month as the parish celebrated many anniversaries including the 80th anniversary of the cathedral itself. But the parish is looking forward as well as back, with five new acolytes installed. Retired Bishop George Daniel outlined in his homily the consequences of man worshipping wealth. He pointed out that wealth blinds us to the suffering of others, and makes us deaf to the ways in which our acquisitions come at others’ expense. “Money is not the root of all evil,” he said. “It is the love of money by man that is evil. Those of you today who have promised to spread the word of God as acolytes must strive not to succumb to wealth, but seek gentleness, steadfastness, humbleness and love, while proclaiming the word of God.” Deacon training coordinator Mgr Vincent Hill explained the significant role of those pursuing the deacon ministry, and added that acolytes should get involved in the cathechism of the Church, visit the

Ernest Matsei, George Moir, Lino Bakaba, Samuel Manyokuli and Tshepiso Mathle are installed as acolytes in Pretoria. sick, and help with conducting of funerals, while working together with the parish priest. “An acolyte is a permanent service position within the Church. It is a commitment to serve the Lord through their own communities. It is not renewable as that of a eucharistic minister,” Mgr Hill told the congregation. The number of permanent dea-

cons continues to grow strongly worldwide with more than 41 000 deacons ordained in 2012. However, 95% of the world’s permanent deacons live in Europe and the Americas—leaving a big demand in Africa. The archdiocese of Pretoria will be installing its next group of deacon graduates on December 16 at Sacred Heart cathedral.

BY ATTA MAGADLA SIBETTA

ARIA Regina church in Centurion, Pretoria, will be celebrating an open air Mass on Sunday, November 3. The Mass will be celebrated by its parish priest Fr Arsene Muhau and will be held at the Zwartkop lapa in Centurion starting at 10:00am. In 2011, the parish celebrated a succesful open air Mass at the same venue and recieved overwhelming support from the parish. This year, the theme is “people to build the family church” within the parish. “The parish will be celebrating the open air Mass in an effort to bring people together in building the Church. People are the Church and they need to know each other well, and share the Church as one big family,” said Fr Muhau. “Some people come for Mass and after the celebration want only to greet the priest and nobody else. That is not good. We need to see and treat everyone in the same light that God sees us and treats us, as equal,” he added. Maria Regina has parishioners from as far as Lesotho, Zimbabwe, England, Nigeria, China, Ireland and Portugal.

Thus, Fr Muhau emphasised his message to the parish was unifying in the name of God and not choosing anyone as a friend by virtue of their skin colour, language or nationality. “Jesus mixed and ate with people from various backgrounds and nationalities. Families and individuals should carry on mixing with others after the open air Mass. They should take it beyond the parish and into their homes and lives, “ he added. Arrangements for this special family event are in their advanced stages. Deputy chair of the parish Celeste Smit has been working in overdrive to draw more parishioners, their families and friends to attend. A number of entertainment activities have been lined up for the day. These include music, sports and the traditional South African braai. “One feels it is such a wonderful idea, celebrating an open air Mass, all drawing us back to when Jesus would proclaim the word to people out in the open. Indeed it is a brilliant idea of getting people together to share in the word of God,” said Ms Smit.

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ST. KIZITO CHILDREN’S PROGRAMME St. Kizito Children’s Programme (SKCP) is a community-based response to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children, established through the Good Hope Development Fund in 2004 in response to the Church’s call to reach out to those in need. Operating as a movement within the Archdiocese of Cape Town, SKCP empowers volunteers from the target communities to respond to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) living in their areas. The SKCP volunteers belong to Parish Groups that are established at Parishes in target communities. Through the St. Kizito Movement, the physical, intellectual, emotional and psycho-social needs of OVCs are met in an holistic way. Parish Groups provide children and families with a variety of essential services, while the SKCP office provides the groups with comprehensive training and on-going support. In order to continue its work, SKCP requires on-going support from generous donors. Funds are needed to cover costs such as volunteer training and support, emergency relief, school uniforms and children’s excursions. Grants and donations of any size are always appreciated. We are also grateful to receive donations of toys, clothes and blankets that can be distributed to needy children and families.

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The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

LOCAL

SA tour operator starts German volunteers pilgrimage world first build township theatre BY CLAIRE MATHIESON

OR the first time, an international group of pilgrims will join thousands of local Christians in the Holy Land when they partake in the long-standing tradition of hiking up Mount Tabor to celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration where the transfiguration is traditionally believed to have taken place—and the group will be from South Africa. Gail Fowler, owner of Fowler Tours, first had the thought of a hiking pilgrimage when she led a youth pilgrimage in 2000. “There was a lot of hiking involved in that tour simply because the younger crowd was happy to do extra walking. I started thinking that something similar would make a great pilgrimage,” Ms Fowler told The Southern Cross. The 2014 world first will be led by Fr Chris Townsend, former communications officer of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, and parish priest of Christ the King parish in Queenswood, Pretoria. “Outside of the local Christians, no international group has taken part in this tradition,” said Ms Fowler. “It’s a unique opportuinity to see how the locals, a religious mi-

nority in the area, celebrate this feast. We’ll be joining them, seeing how they celebrate and joining in on the Mass which will be celebrated in their language. “It will definitely be a unique experience and something very special for the people from South Africa,” said the tour operator. Ms Fowler said she wanted to offer unique and out of the box pilgrimages. “It’s not easy to sell different pilgrimages. South Africans can be very hesitant when they are offered something new,” she added. Pilgrims will set off at midnight on August 6, 2014 from Nazareth and will hike 21km to Mount Tabor where they will celebrate Mass. “This is a spiritual pilgrimage, but definitely one for regular walkers and hiking enthusiasts. It’s for the fit,” said Ms Fowler adding that she hoped avid walkers and youth would be interested in the spiritual tour. “Younger people tend to think pilgrimages are only for people who have retired. I want to change their way of thinking. I want a younger generation to start taking pilgrimages and this hiking pilgrimage is exactly the kind of thing that we hope to see take off.” n For more information contact Gail Fowler on 076 352 3809 or visit www.fowlertours.co.za

Diocesan priests of the archdiocese of Durban at their recent annual clergy retreat at Mariannhill Retreat Centre, preached by Fr Barney McAleer (centre)

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NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Notice is hereby given of the Annual General Meeting of Catholic Welfare and Development (CWD).

BY CLAIRE MATHIESON

GROUP of German architecture students and professors have forgone their summer holiday to build a community theatre in a Cape Town township. The sustainable project, completed using predominantly recycled materials, will form part of the existing arts and culture centre Guga S’Thebe in Langa. Travelling from schools in Aachen and Dusseldorf, the volunteers tackled the Cape winter and finished the structure that will become the township’s theatre. The group will return in February next year to complete the interior and to see the official opening of the theatre. The new development will also form part of the World Design Capital Cape Town 2014. For the past few years, the universities have integrated practical work into the curriculum which also has a social impact; to help develop cultural and educational facilities in townships throughout South Africa. Students and professors then apply to volunteer to work on site during their summer break. The projects have no shortage of volunteers who pay their own way as well as help fundraise. The project, which ran from July 18-October 5, started with just four students and four teachers. Initially, the group had to meet with local companies and arrange donations. Where the group was unable to find donations, funds were raised to cover the costs of the building which uses 11 shipping containers. Masters student Virginia Clasen said while the group had done much of the design and planning before coming to the country, there were many factors that had to be decided on on-site. The students, she added, were also not trained in building skills, so getting hands-on experience was of huge benefit to the students. The team was adamant that they were not in the township to do something for the locals but rather

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ADVENT LECTURES 2013

The Book of God. The Qur’ân for First Time Readers FR ChRIsTOPhER CLOhEssy PhD

DATE: Thursday 31st October 2013 TIME: 3.30pm (the AGM will be followed by Holy Mass)

VENUE: 37A Somerset Road, Green Point, Cape Town, 8001

Refreshments will be served after Holy Mass. For catering purposes please RSVP to phathuxolo.maqavana@cwd.org.za or by calling +27 21 425 2095 before Friday 25th October, 2013.

Tuesday 5th November, 19h30 – Meanings and Manuscripts: A Textual Biography Tuesday 12th November, 19h30 – Messengers and Models: Major Qur’ânic Themes Tuesday 19th November, 19h30 – Maidens and Mothers: A Chapter About Mary Tuesday 26th November, 19h30 – Monks and Malcontents: Christians in the Qur’ân st Bernard’s Church, cnr Protea & Buchan Rds, Newlands, Cape Town 19h30 to 20h30, Donation: R20 per lecture

German architects Virginia Clasen and Nora Müller stand inside the future theatre the group of volunteers has built in Langa. to work with them. “People are very excited in the community. They greet us every day and they love coming to see the progress,” said Ms Clasen. “We had a tight schedule. We all need to return to classes in October. We also have a very small budget so every day is different and every day brings a different challenge,” Ms Clasen told The Southern Cross.

he experience has had benefits beyond learning building skills. “When we first came, we were warned of the dangers of working in a township and we were intimidated. But after a couple of days, we became familiar with the locals and began to understand and respect each other,” said Ms Clasen. “It’s been a great experience to plan, work and build this project, but also to spend time in South Africa and work with the people.” The theatre has been built predominantly with recycled materials in an effort to show the local community what is possible. Shipping containers have been used as the main structure but will also be used for storage and classes. “They’re affordable, secure and safe and makes building a steel structure quick and easy,” Ms Clasen said. The containers will be insulated to handle the cold and the heat and

will be covered with a façade—a protective layer to help keep maintenance down. “We wanted to build something that people will be able to run and care for themselves.” Building during a Cape winter also proved difficult. “We’ve had flooding and the soil has been muddy. Also, welding can’t take place when it’s wet. It’s been an adventure,” said Ms Clasen. “These factors have meant some things change on site and we’ve had to change our plans.” Assistant architecture professor at Aachen University Nora Müller said the project had been “complicated but we’ve been able to fix problems as we go along. Many people have been supportive and helpful and we’ve been able to get around big issues with special help.” Master carpenter Franz KleinWiele, a Catholic from the diocese of Essen, who gives workshops to students at the School of Peter Berends Architecture in Dusseldorf, spent four weeks on the construction site working on preparing the land, the steel and preparing the walls. He will return in February to work on the interior. He called it a “very beautiful experience and a fulfilling time” and looks forward to seeing the people of Langa enjoying their new theatre.

HOLY CROSS CHILDREN’S HOME

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To apply for this position, please send a comprehensive C.V. with a covering letter to: Sr Cheryl-Anne Ziervogel Holy Cross Child and Youth Care Centre: Vacancy-Child and Youth Care Worker by fax 021 934 1146 or email: holycross@mweb.co.za Closing Date: 7 November 2013

Should you not receive any feedback within 2 weeks after the closing date please consider your application as unsuccessful.

The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

Nazi war criminal’s SSPX funeral stopped by protests BY CINDY WOODEN

HE traditionalist Society of St Pius X offered to celebrate a funeral for convicted war criminal Erich Priebke after the diocese of Rome said the service would be allowed only in a private home, but violent protests outside the chapel forced cancellation of the Mass. Some 500 protesters had gathered outside the SSPX district headquarters in Albano, south of Rome, when a hearse carrying Priebke’s body arrived. People shouted “murderer” and beat on the hearse. Violence broke out after the arrival of a small group of people described by witnesses as neo-Nazis. Riot police intervened and two people were taken into custody, but the protesters remained and, according to Priebke’s lawyer, made it impossible for friends and relatives of the former Nazi SS officer to get to the chapel. The lawyer, Paolo Giachini, told reporters outside the SSPX head-

quarters that the funeral Mass had not taken place, but that he had fulfilled his obligation to arrange a funeral. “Now it’s up to the authorities to decide what to do with the body,” since he was unable to find a city where Priebke could be buried. Priebke died October 11 at the age of 100. A former captain in the Nazi elite force known as the SS, he was convicted of carrying out a 1944 massacre of 335 Italian civilians in the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome. At the time of his death, he was serving his sentence under house arrest. Priebke continued to claim he was only following orders when he took part in the Ardeatine Caves’ massacre and, shortly before he died, he affirmed his belief that the Holocaust was an invention. The diocese of Rome had refused Giachini’s request to allow a funeral to take place in a church or chapel. In a statement, the diocese said, “Considering all the circumstances of the case, the ecclesial authorities

Convicted Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke. believed that prayer for the deceased and entrusting him to the mercy of God—the aims of a religious funeral—should take place in

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the strictest privacy.” “Prayers for the dead were never denied,” the diocese said, but the Church had a right to insist the rites be “reserved and discreet”. Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano, secretary of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals, told Rome’s Corriere della Sera newspaper that the Church would never prohibit prayers for someone, but canon law does allow a bishop to deny a public funeral to a “manifest sinner” when it would scandalise the faithful. In Priebke’s case, he said, “the crime was public and notorious, the lack of conversion was public and notorious, and the scandal it would have raised in the Christian community was public and notorious.” After agreeing to host the funeral, the Italian district of the Society of St Pius X issued a statement on its website saying, “A Christian who was baptised and received the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist, no matter what his faults and sins were, to the extent that he

dies reconciled with God and the church, has a right to the celebration of the holy Mass and a funeral.” The statement said the SSPX condemns “every form of antiSemitism and racial hatred, but also hatred under all its forms. The Catholic religion is one of mercy and forgiveness.” The SSPX has a history of comments by its leaders expressing suspicion or hostility toward Jews. In 2009, after now-retired Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the society’s bishops, there was widespread outrage at revelations that one of the four, Bishop Richard Williamson, had denied the gassing of Jews in Nazi concentration camps. The SSPX later ousted Bishop Williamson. The New York-based AntiDefamation League, which combats anti-Semitism, issued a statement saying it was “shocked” that a “fringe Catholic sect” would agree to host the funeral of a “notorious Nazi war criminal”.—CNS

Catholic newspaper cannot use “Allah”

MALAYSIAN court said a Catholic newspaper may not use the word “Allah” to refer to God in its Malay language edition. A judge in the three-member appeals court said use of “the word Allah is not an integral part of the faith in Christianity...the usage of the word will cause confusion in the community”. Jesuit Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, a Kuala Lumpur-based Catholic weekly, expressed disappointment in the ruling. Kuala Lumpur Archbishop Murphy Pakiam, the paper’s publisher, said the Church would appeal the ruling. In late 2009, the High Court in

Kuala Lumpur ruled that the Herald could use “Allah” to refer to God and that the Home Ministry’s order banning certain uses of the word was illegal. The court also said the word “Allah” is not exclusive to Islam. The Court of Appeals ruling overturned the lower court. Catholic and other Christian leaders have argued that “Allah” is the Malay word for God; thus, the Herald uses it in its Malay edition. Archbishop Pakiam told Fides, the Vatican’s missionary news agency, that the ruling would not affect church services or Bible readings in the Malay language. Some Muslims claim Chris-

Fr Lawrence Andrew SJ, editor of the Herald, a Malaysian Catholic weekly. (Photo: Bazuki Muhammad, Reuters/CNS) tians using “Allah” could be used to convert Muslims to Christianity. The majority of Malaysia’s 29 million people are Muslim.—CNS

Pope meets Rome Jews to commemorate Auschwitz BY FRANCIS X. ROCCA

T a meeting with members of Rome’s Jewish community, Pope Francis denounced anti-Semitism and recalled the 1943 deportation of more than 1 000 of the city’s Jews to the most notorious Nazi death camp—an incident that has proven a major source of tension between the papacy and Jewish leaders. “It’s a contradiction for a Christian to be anti-Semitic, his roots are in part Jewish,” the pope said. “May anti-Semitism be banished from the heart and the life of every man and woman.” Pope Francis gave a delegation led by Rabbi Riccardo Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, a message commemorating the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Rome’s Jews on October 16, 1943. Of the more than 1 000 people sent to Auschwitz by the German occupiers that day, just 16 eventually returned. “While we return in memory to those tragic hours of October 1943, it is our duty to keep before our eyes the destiny of those deportees,” the pope wrote. “To imagine their fear, their pain, their desperation, so as not to forget them, to keep them alive in our memory and in our prayer, along with their families, their relatives and friends who mourned their loss and who remain disheartened by the depths of barbarity to which humankind can sink.” Pope Francis voiced hopes that memory of the atrocity would inspire “new generations not to allow themselves to fall

Handwritten notes appear on the railroad tracks outside the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland. (Photo: Peter Andrews, Reuters/CNS) into line, not to let themselves be caught up by ideologies, never to justify the evil they encounter, and not to lower their guard against anti-Semitism and against racism, regardless of where they are from”. Jewish leaders and a number of historians have criticised the wartime Pope Pius XII for not speaking out against the deportations. When Pope Benedict XVI visited Rome’s main synagogue in January 2010, he heard the president of Rome’s Jewish community lament the “silence of Pius XII”. A prominent Italian rabbi boycotted that event to protest Pope Benedict’s decision to make Pope

Pius eligible for beatification. But Pope Francis noted that the “papal basilicas, in accordance with the wishes of the pope”, were among the Church institutions that “opened their doors to provide a fraternal welcome” to Jews fleeing the Nazis. The pope recalled his own warm relations with Jews as archbishop of Buenos Aires, where he celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah in local synagogues and co-authored a book with a prominent rabbi. Pope Francis said he hoped to “contribute here in Rome, as bishop, to this closeness and friendship”.—CNS

The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

Venerating Fatima statue, pope entrusts world to Mary BY FRANCIS X. ROCCA

EFORE a congregation of more than 100 000 in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis formally entrusted the world to Mary. “We are confident that each of us is precious in your sight,” the pope said, facing the statue of Mary that normally stands in the shrine at Fatima, Portugal. “Guard our lives in your arms, bless and strengthen every desire for goodness.” The short ceremony was the culmination of a special Marian Day organised for the Year of Faith. In his homily during the morning’s Mass, Pope Francis celebrated Mary as a model of docility, fidelity and gratitude to God. “Let us invoke Mary’s intercession,” he said. “May she help us to be open to God’s surprises, to be faithful to him each and every day, and to praise and thank him, for he is our strength.” Many in the crowd held small replicas of the crowned statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which had arrived in Rome the previous afternoon on a TAP Portugal airlines flight from Lisbon. An Italian air force helicopter transported the statue, inside an ivory-colored triangular container resembling a musical instrument case, to Vatican City. The statue was then

brought to the residence of retired Pope Benedict XVI at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, where he briefly venerated the statue in the monastery’s small chapel. Afterwards, Pope Francis welcomed the statue at the Vatican guesthouse where he lives. At the beginning of a prayer vigil in St Peter’s Square, four attendants carried the statue on a litter through the crowd and brought it up to the front of the basilica. Pilgrims waved white handkerchiefs in a traditional gesture of devotion as the statue passed. Pope Francis led the vigil, which included a recitation of the seven sorrows of Mary. In a catechetical talk, the pope said that all believers can emulate the mother of God by giving “human flesh to Jesus” when they assent freely to his call. “Believing in Jesus means giving him our flesh with the humility and courage of Mary, so that he can continue to dwell in our midst,” the pope said. “It means giving him our hands, to caress the little ones and the poor; our feet, to go forth and meet our brothers and sisters; our arms, to hold up the weak and to work in the Lord’s vineyard; our minds, to think and act in the light of the Gospel; and especially our hearts, to love and to make choices in accordance with God’s will.”

Later that night, Pope Francis sent a video message to faithful gathered at ten Marian shrines around the world, stressing Mary’s role as a bridge to her son. “Mary points to Jesus,” he said. “She asks us to bear witness to Jesus, she constantly guides us to her son Jesus, because in him alone do we find salvation. He alone can change the water of our loneliness, difficulties and sin into the wine of encounter, joy and forgiveness. He alone.” Pope Francis has signalled his strong devotion to Mary from the first morning of his pontificate, when he made a brief pilgrimage to the basilica of St Mary Major, Rome’s principal Marian shrine. He later asked the bishops of Portugal to dedicate his pontificate to Our Lady of Fatima. October marks the anniversary of the last apparition of Mary to three shepherd children at Fatima in 1917. Two of the visionaries, Blessed Jacinta Marto and her brother Blessed Francisco Marto, were beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 2000. Their cousin, Sr Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, died in 2005, and three years later Pope Benedict exempted her from the usual five-year waiting period between a death and the start of a beatification cause.—CNS

Pope Francis touches the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima after entrusting the world to Mary at the end of a Mass in her honour in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. (Photo: Paul Haring/CNS)

More than 500 Spanish Civil War martyrs beatified BY MIKE BILLINGTON

VATICAN official moved more than 500 Spanish Civil War martyrs, including 74 De La Salle Brothers, closer to sainthood during a special beatification Mass in Tarragona, Spain, the archdiocese that suffered most under “the Red Terror”. An estimated 20 000 people from throughout Spain as well as small contingents from Portugal and France attended a special outdoor Mass celebrating the beatification of 522 members of Catholic religious orders as well as laypeople. Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, celebrated the Mass. Archbishop Jaume Pujol Balcells of Tarragona and Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela of Madrid concelebrated. The ceremony was held in Tarragona because nearly 150 people, including Auxiliary Bishop Manuel Borras Farre, and 66 diocesan priests, were murdered there during the war. Many of those who attended the Mass did not have a direct connection to those being beatified. “This is a very special occasion in the history of the Church in Spain,” said Josep Maria Ibanez, 49, a resident of Sitges. “If you are Catholic, it is important to be here to show your support for the Church and for those who were killed for their faith.” The altar was set up on a massive stage at the educational complex of Tarragona, not far from the city’s port facilities. In a televised message, Pope Francis urged those in attendance to join “from the heart” in the celebration to proclaim the beatified martyrs. The pope said those martyrs were “Christians won over by Christ, disciples who have understood fully the path to that ‘love to the extreme limit’ that led Jesus to the Cross.” He noted that popes always tell people, “Imitate the martyrs.” “It is always necessary to die a little in order to come out of ourselves, to leave behind our selfishness, our comfort, our laziness, our sadness, and to open ourselves to God, and to others, especially those most in need,” he said. Cardinal Amato added that “Spain is a land blessed by the blood of martyrs,” given that more than 1 000 Spaniards have been beatified, a step toward canonisation. Spain was in a state of chaos throughout most of the 1930s, beginning with the exile of King Alfonso XIII in 1931. Anti-Catholic leftists, communists and anarchists were prominent in the government and began a wave of terror by burning churches in Madrid and Andalusia. That was followed by the murders of 37 priests,

FRANCISCAN NARDINI SISTERS

Seventy-four De La Salle Brothers are among the 500 Spanish Civil War martyrs who were beatified at a ceremony held in Tarragona, Spain. brothers and seminarians in the small mining town in Asturias in 1934. When nationalist forces tried to seize control of the country the civil war continued until 1939, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands on both sides, including several thousand more members of the clergy. Seventy-four De La Salle Brothers and one lay teacher were among the 155 martyrs beatified. This is the largest beatification celebrated until now of those martyred during the Spanish persecution between l934 and l939. Their deaths took place in different places and times and they have been grouped together for beatification. During those years of persecution, it is estimated that 2 000 were martyred including bishops, priests, male and female religious and lay Catholics. They have been beatified in groups in recent years. All-in-all 155 martyred De La Salle Brothers have been declared “Blessed”.—CNS and additional reporting by the De La Salle Brothers.

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The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher Acting editor: Michael Shackleton

Francis of Rome

HEN he was interviewed last month for the Jesuit publication La Civilta Cattolica, Pope Francis admitted to its editor, Fr Antonio Spadaro SJ, that he did not know Rome very well. This was, of course, a mutual sentiment. Rome did not know Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio very well. The new pope is not a native of Europe, nor did he do his studies in Rome, like so many of his predecessors. While the city and the Catholic world are attempting to take the measure of the man, it is evident that even before he and the other cardinals had gathered to elect Pope Benedict’s successor, Cardinal Bergoglio had a clear idea of what kind of papacy he would like to see in future. Coming from Argentina’s vast archdiocese of Buenos Aires where many people exist in the poverty trap, the cardinal lived frugally, cooking for himself in a modest dwelling, avoiding the trappings of his status whenever possible. He used public transport and mingled with people on the streets. He was hardly touched by the “engine room” feel of Vatican officialdom and had no career aspirations there. If Rome had known more about this unpretentious prelate, it might not have been taken aback, as it was, by his choice of the name Francis. He appears to have intended to present the Church with a forceful reminder that St Francis of Assisi and his impoverished lifestyle should be the model for the Church today. This was his first salvo, hinting how he intended to recast the image of the Church. Shortly afterwards, in another interview, with Eugenio Scalfari for Rome’s newspaper La Repubblica, he admitted that love for temporal power is still very strong within the Vatican walls and in the institutional structure of the whole Church. By means of interviews Pope Francis is showing his hand gradually. He is not declaring any formal teaching or discipline. It is as if he is presenting points of view that have made him restive, and

been on his mind for some time. In the interview with Fr Spadaro he commented that the first reform he desired was in attitude, meaning that the Church’s frame of mind has to be that of simplicity and compassion. The ministers of the Gospel, he said, must be men who can warm the hearts of the people. He wanted these ministers to descend into their people’s night, but without getting lost. “The people of God”, he said, “want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials”. His determination to reform the Roman curia was plain when he told Fr Spadaro that the curia was at the service of the pope and the bishops, and its offices must not run the risk of becoming institutions of censorship. “The Roman congregations,” he said, “are mediators, they are not middlemen or managers.” The implication is that attitudes must improve in this respect and a sense of a people-friendly service prevail. There ought to be a mentality of rejuvenation, repositioning the Church again as a caring and welcoming community of love. This innovative “man-onthe-bus” style of communicating the Bishop of Rome’s opinions and asides is so different from what the Church has been used to. All at once, we are warming to the Holy Father as a person more than as Supreme Pontiff. He is identifying himself with ordinary Catholics, calling himself a sinner in a conversational and open way. Clergy and faithful have begun to understand that Pope Francis is looking forwards and not backwards, to the future and not to the past. We can expect him to make his views more explicit and authoritative as his papacy settles down. We can expect bishops and theologians to be energised by a new fervour and the Church to be led by a Franciscan spirit to discover new paths of simplicity and care for humanity and creation.

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.

Right to protest at offensive play E must be careful in being too hire, but we still oppose its availW “careful in how we protest” a ability). Not because it is our perblasphemy such as the immodest sonal belief. Not because we are and vulgar play The Testament of Mary, a vile defamation of Our Blessed Mother (October 9). While praying in reparation for this offensive blasphemy, it would be illogical not to call for its immediate end. True charity endeavours to stop the sin and convert the sinner. If not possible, it seeks at the very least to halt the evil being committed. This was the sentiment of well over one thousand signatories to the petition calling for the play’s closure. We protest not because we might encounter it arbitrarily (we might not encounter pornography for

Meeting halfway on evolution

LTHOUGH it is generally accepted that our solar system evolved from interstellar dust, Mr Sokolic (September 25) says the theory of evolution is dead. Needless to say, our bodies are made up of this very same interstellar dust. The illuminating creation story in the first book of Moses (Genesis) describes a series of events that occurred. From nothing, a void, God created something—stars, a sun, a planet, water, plants and vegetation, birds and fish, animals and finally humans. With little data to go on, the Hebrews relied on logic, imagination and inspiration in describing their creation story. The sequence of the biblical narrative ties in almost exactly with an evolutionary process. One only needs to envisage the Hebrews’ “one day” occupying billions of years. Mr Sokolic says no fossils have been found to support Darwin’s theory. Our very country is regarded as the birthplace of mankind. In the early 1900s the Scot Robert Broom was responsible for finding many fossils, mainly dinosaurs, in the Karoo. He was later appointed by the then Transvaal Museum to search for proto-human fossils in and around Sterkfontein Caves in what is now Gauteng. His many discoveries of prehuman fossils supported Raymond Dart’s (dean of anatomy, Witwatersrand University) hypothesis that the Taung skull (found in 1924 in the northern Cape) was an intermediate between chimpanzees and humans. Is it not time to take a lesson from our pope, Francis? His message to the atheist was: “We can meet halfway by doing good deeds”, which is a very practical and non-judgmental way of approaching people with differing beliefs. Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg

offended or threatened. Rather, we protest because it offends God directly, and does so in public, irrespective of how limited the exposure. If the theatre were empty at every performance, it would still constitute an offence against Almighty God, worthy of protest. We cannot “engage with the world” on its terms, dictated by militant secularism and open mockery of God and the Church. It hides behind the sophistry of “artistic licence” or man-made “rights” which generally favour anti-religious elements, seldom real freedom for the Church.

Abortion response

REFER to the letter from Patricia Foster ,the “Abortion Question” (October 9). “Thou shall not kill” is one of the ten commandments. An innocent unborn baby is alive and is killed by abortion. Watch the video on www.abortioninstruments.com and then scroll down to see the instruments used. Contraception is against God’s law (not the Catholic priest). Love between a man and a woman is only supposed to be consummated after marriage and between man and wife. You say you have put your daughters on the pill. Have you ever taught them that it is a sin to have sex before marriage? This is not a Catholic law, but God’s law. For all mankind. I concede there are Catholics who practise contraception against God’s law but that sin is between them and God. There are no “grey” areas in God’s eyes. “He who is not with Me is against Me...” Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23. Terry Throp, Cape Town

Feeble support

AM disappointed in the lacklustre response to the archbishop of Cape Town’s appeal for money to build or support churches in the poorer areas (October 2). Our Somerset West congregation is not enormous but we have enthusiastically espoused the cause and 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. Letters can be sent to PO Box 2372, Cape Town 8000 or editor@scross.co.za or faxed to 021 465-3850

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God’s rights precede man’s. His rights impose on us, his creatures, obligations. The first commandment tells us this. It is both licit and necessary to use every legal and peaceful means to defend them. Experience shows that one blasphemy ignored invites another. Anti-religious hatred is neither stopped nor softened with compromise. Strong resistance from good people is effective. New York’s ongoing protests reduced this play's show time from six weeks to two! We can never hope to “convey the beauty of our faith and the joy of meeting Christ” if we are to care so little as not to protest vigorously wherever it is attacked, especially with such vulgarity. David Nash, Cape Town have had various projects going, including a very successful Festival of Flower and Song, the brainchild of one of our most go-getter congregants, Barbara Ramsden. A coffee morning or afternoon tea is an idea, with friends gathered together and each contributing what they can. I appeal to the churches and priests of other congregations: each little bit helps, and together we can do it. Think of how you would like to hear Mass in a container which is an oven in summer and a freezer in winter. If you can even get in, that is. Gillian Graham, Somerset West

New liturgy

WAS glad to read your editorial on women in the Church with its quotations from Pope Francis (October 2). However, I am sceptical of any change occurring when something so basic as the use of sexist language in the liturgy by most bishops and priests persists. No bishop or priest would address a congregation with the words “Brethren” or “My dear brothers”, yet they happily use St Paul’s words in the gospels without thought or correction. The new liturgical translation made no changes either, so we have to put up with such phrases as “for us men and our salvation”. For years, I was fortunate to be in a parish where we had two priests, one after the other, who always used inclusive language but even they did not instruct the readers or choir leaders to use it. This issue has been discussed in The Southern Cross before without any kind of change occurring. The argument that states that the words “men” and “mankind” are universal in use, no longer holds (see the Concise Oxford Dictionary) and “brethren”, “brothers” and “sons” never did! Etheen Lowry, Germiston

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PERSPECTIVES Raymond Perrier

Join hands for strength O VER the past few weeks, The Southern Cross has been part of an international ecumenical movement called Exposed. I hope that you have not failed to notice the number of articles, reflections and discussion materials in this paper focusing on the question of corruption and what we can do about it. I am pleased that the Jesuit Institute too has played its part in developing ideas and writing materials. It fits, of course, with our wider mandate to create links between faith and society. But we have not been working alone. The creation of the materials, and their translation into multiple languages would not have been possible without the SACBC Justice & Peace Department; affordable and efficient printing and distribution by Mariannhill Press; the reproduction of articles to reach a wide Catholic audience was due not only to The Southern Cross but also to Catholic Link and the Johannesburg and Cape Town archdiocesan newspapers. These organisations collaborating behind a common theme was reminiscent of the Hope&Joy project in which many dozens of Catholic organisations worked towards a common goal—a deeper appreciation of Vatican II. In the case of Exposed, the network has been cast even more widely. Since the movement is ecumenical, it has drawn in organisations and individuals from a range

of Christian denominations, in particular key players in the Methodist and Anglican communities in South Africa. And since it is international the campaign is also drawing on the resources of the American Bible Society, the Salvation Army and Micah Challenge to name a few. Such collaboration would seem to be not only appropriate but obvious. After all, corruption is a worldwide phenomenon which affects all parts of the community whatever their religious background. What is more, we can take a stronger stance, and make a clearer impact, if the voice against corruption speaks from many sectors of society and not just one or two. So, while we might create specific material with a Catholic slant to inspire Catholics to act; we would be hard-pressed to find a “Catholic response” which was not also appealing to other Christians (and indeed people of other faiths). But why do I remark on this? Because it is still so unusual! Most of the time, each of the parts of the Catholic community seem determined to act not only independently of, but in fact, ignorant of the activities of fellow Catholics. And it becomes worse when we look at the wider Christian community—even more sections doing their own thing, separately from each other and sometimes even competing with each other: for donor funding, for attention, and for a finite supply of time, energy and resources. Having worked for years in the corpo-

Faith and Society

rate sector I know what it is like when organisations compete rather than collaborate. That is not so surprising in the free market, but even then, I have often seen cooperation when companies realise that they can each achieve more if they work together. But the Church world should have no reason to compete and indeed would—in accordance with the Gospel of love—have a good reason to work together with as many like-minded people as possible. After all, we are not concerned about status or getting credit or being “top dog” – are we? When Catholic groups, and even more excitingly Christian and interfaith groups, work together so much more can be achieved. And history proves that: the abolition of slavery; the rebuilding of Europe after the Second World War; and, closer to home, the struggle against apartheid! If faith groups could combine their energies and their forces in South Africa today, who knows what we could achieve together: an education system that works, accountability of elected officials, fair distribution of wealth, a way of challenging corruption. We can work together to achieve more. And by working together we can model a better way of being South African.

Avoid violent thoughts and actions Judith Turner N EWLY released South African crime statistics indicate that crime and violence is on the rise, with security experts saying these are the “worst figures seen in 10 years”. I was very sad to read that there was no significant decrease in violence against women and children. Most violence takes place between people who know each other and live in the same neighbourhood. This kind of violence takes place for a number of reasons, including the fact that we accept violence as a normal and reasonable way to solve problems, at home, at school and in our neighbourhoods. Why has violence become normal? If something is normal and acceptable it means we do it without much thinking, because it is already part of our psyche and therefore a normal response to situations. Violence is also in our language. We can easily talk about “I’ll kill two birds with one stone”. Or when it is time to have serious negotiations we’ll talk about “We’ll have to bring out the big guns now”. This is how we think and speak, and for me, that is where the violence starts. I once heard a man saying to a woman, “You must be careful, one day you will get a fist in your face”. I felt a nauseating feeling in my stomach, just listening to the words. No fist has landed in anyone’s face, yet the words were enough to scare me. Just to picture a fist landing on a woman’s face is so violent. Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, once said: “… Your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions”. I remember years ago we loved the song by Boney M By the Rivers of Babylon, and I particularly loved singing the words “Let the words of our mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in Thy sight, here tonight...” At that time I did not know that these words were taken from Psalm 137—I just loved singing the song, it had such a catchy tune. In the psalm it is stated much more radically: “Let my tongue cleave to my mouth, if I remember you not”. Imagine what would happen if every time we spoke vio-

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lent words our tongues cleaved to our mouths. Lao Tzu’s wisdom is a good guide for us. Life happens and we get pushed into thinking things that we would rather not implement. This happens to us all the time. When we are hurt and angry we might think of doing something violent, we speak violently and then, most unfortunately, we act out violence. Don’t be fooled by thinking that violence is only in a physical act. The violence of non-affirmation, of underappreciation, of no acknowledgement, of subtly insulting and degrading comments, is rife. Violence hurts. Every time we do one of the above we make a decision to hurt. We decide not to affirm, we decide not to acknowledge, that this is violent: “Your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions.” The solution to a deep history of violence, especially against women and chil-

Faith and Life

dren, lies in our own thoughts, words and actions. Nowhere else. Every year in the Budget speech we hear about how much funding has been allocated to the police department and to the department of women and children to bring an end to violence. The services offered by these departments are crucial but we cannot just throw money at the problem and rely on government departments and other organisations alone to solve the problem. There is a much more simple, sweet and easily affordable solution and that is to make the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts acceptable to Him.

The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

Chris Chatteris SJ

Pray with the Pope

Pray for our priests General Intention: That priests who experience difficulties may find comfort in their suffering, support in their doubts, and confirmation in their fidelity.

PPARENTLY many priests devoured Graham Greene’s 1940 novel The Power and the Glory, about a personally dysfunctional priest who is somehow still a channel of grace. Although an extreme portrayal of priestly brokenness, it rang very true. Suffering is part of the human condition and the priest’s role is to immerse himself in that suffering as a healer. The image of a “field hospital” used by the Pope in his recent interview is most apt for the priestly ministry. Working in this “field hospital” requires compassion—the healing quality of being able to suffer with someone. Every priest knows that crushed and helpless feeling that comes upon him when someone offloads what seems like an insoluble problem and effectively says: “Here, you deal with this; I can’t.” The experience of being overwhelmed by the pain of the human condition can test the most robust among us. But if the priest is himself struggling—if he is depressed, or battling with a crisis of vocation or struggling with a personal shortcoming—how much greater is the difficulty of functioning. Or so it seems; for there is a mighty paradox here in the life of the priest. It is that he must know weakness in himself in order to appreciate, understand and ultimately heal weakness in others. The classic precedent for this is the ministry of St Paul. Many have been the speculations about his “thorn in the flesh”, but our guesses here can distract us from the grace-filled message his self-revelation offers: that somehow in his weakness he could be strong for others. In other words, it is possible to be a wounded healer. In the recent interview with Pope Francis we have a more contemporary example. Asked bluntly who he is, Pope Francis says: “I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” Here is a consoling word indeed, a word which we pray will encourage priests and confirm them in their fidelity.

Send missionaries Missionary Intention: That as fruit of the continental mission, the Latin American Church may send missionaries to other Churches. T’S not as though South America has produced no missionaries. I can think of at least two South American religious who are missionaries to this country, including one bishop. The pope’s missionary intention is most likely a reflection of the Latin American Catholic Church’s concern about its decline relative to evangelical and Pentecostal churches and the need to find new energy and dynamism. The paradox is that the generous sending of missionaries to other Churches, despite being a loss of talent, eventually enriches and enlivens the sending Church. A mission abroad often strengthens A Latin American misand encourages the missionary at work sion at home. Ultimately there is no distinction between the internal and external missions. The Lord’s call to be ready to go to other towns and villages stands for all times and places. As Pope Francis so simply puts it: “God is to be encountered in the world of today”. Of course, the most celebrated South American missionary at the moment is the Holy Father himself, currently engaged in a mission to the people of Rome and to all people everywhere—urbi et orbi one might say. We pray for him in this mission and that his example might encourage ever greater missionary activity to emanate from his native continent.

Violent thoughts lead to violent words and actions, and we need to make sure, starting in the home, that we make the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts acceptable to God. (Photo: Debbie Hill/CNS)

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The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

COMMUNITY

Sixteen candidates were confirmed at St Theresa’s parish in Welcome Estate, Cape Town. They are pictured with Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town (centre), parish priest Fr Nicklos Anthony Pathayapurakel OFM Cap (left) and Deacon Herbert Carolissen (right). Nazareth House in Port Elizabeth installed a donated statue of Our Lady of Fatima, one of 50 statues sent from Portugal to parishes and Catholic institutions around Southern Africa. Pictured are Nazareth House sisters and residents with chaplain Fr Vales Dania. Also present at the ceremony were resident priests Frs Ignatius Ou, a Chinese priest who spent his life ministering to the Chinese community in Port Elizabeth, Martin Brennan and Tom McGuinness.

Archbishop William Slattery of Pretoria was taken by surprise while broadcasting for Radio Veritas. It was the eve of his 70th birthday and, while presenting his regular show, Radio Veritas deputy-director Olinda Orlando (left) and Raymond Perrier from the Jesuit Institute (right) interrupted him on air with a birthday cake. Archbishop Slattery has special responsibility for communications and has stressed how important it is that Catholics use all the media available to us to promote the Gospel. Fr Francis Ngadi CMM is pictured with a destitute family in his outstation in Mthatha, Mariannhill diocese, where food parcels are frequently handed out by him together with the Franciscan Clarist sisters. “...they call it Mkuku (shack) but it is our home”, one of the little girls said. (Photo by Sr Lioba: Mother superior)

Sr Sizakele Mbeje CPS, coordinator of youth programmes (centre) and Fr Raphael Phiri CMM (fourth left), the diocesan youth chaplain of Umzimkulu diocese, are pictured with the diocesan youth team and parish youth teams of the northern deanery at Sacred Heart parish in Mahobe, Umzimkulu, for a team-building workshop.

ROMAN UNION OF THE ORDER OF ST URSULA

St Dominic’s Priory received the PMR Africa Diamond Arrow Award for the top independent school in the Eastern Cape. (From left) Kevin Hustler (CEO of NMB business chamber), Rohini Pillay, Greg Stokell, Sajal Gerdharee, and Sindi Ndwalaza (Transnet regional corporate affairs manager).

St Angela Merici founded the Ursulines in the 16th century, naming them after St Ursula, leader of a company of 4th century virgin martyrs.

“Let Jesus Christ be your one and only treasure – For there also will be love!” (St Angela – 5th Counsel)

For more information: The Vocations Promoter P O Box 138 KRUGERSDORP 1740

website: ursulines.org. za Tel: 011 953 1924 Fax: 011 953 3406 e-mail: ursulinekdp@vodamail.co.za

St Henry’s Marist College alumni visited the Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape, to work with the Marist Brothers and Sisters of Mercy, helping the poor and sick in the formal and informal townships and in four schools in the area. The alumni cleared thick bush and constructed new playground apparatus for the over 100 children who attend the school. Clothes and toys the alumni had collected were distributed to families or will be used in the schools. Seen here with Sr Martha O’Connor are (from left) Mthimkulu Pamla, Adam Watson and Jason Grieve.

The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

FOCUS

Corruption: why take a stand? What reasons could we as individuals have to take a stand against corruption? asks JOHN MOFFATT SJ

GOOD, respectable parishioner once described to me his experiences in North London in the sixties, when he was trying to get on to the first rung in the haulage business. Life could be tough—especially if you had the wrong accent—and he and his brother did odd jobs using a van they had got hold of cheap though they had no licence. Every so often, the police would stop them. The policemen would give them an option. They could lose the use of the vehicle on which they depended for their livelihood, or they could hand over some of the cash they had made that day. Needless to say, they handed over the cash and carried on. At one level this example of corruption can seem fairly harmless. It cuts out the expense and time of court proceedings, but still administers a slap on the wrists. Even though he did not have a licence, my friend was actually driving without endangering lives. Such a local solution allows life to carry on. Indeed, it seems almost fairer. After all, the low-paid policemen need the money more than the courts. This thought reveals one thing that makes corruption of any kind so difficult to tackle. The machinery of the state and its laws are impersonal and unwieldy. We have no control over them and we can have

no personal relationship with them. We can bargain with the official on the spot. But that impersonal, unwieldy, remote mechanism is not going to come to our aid if we do not. The barrier to action is this: we cannot see the laws and the state as our state and our laws. Socrates, the philosopher, was unjustly condemned to death by his fellow citizens in Athens. While on death row he had the opportunity to escape. He refused. To explain his reasoning, he holds an imaginary conversation with the laws of Athens. The laws have educated him. They helped him to flourish as a human being. How could he now, at the end of his life, flout them, just because he didn’t want to die? Socrates shows an extraordinary preference for principle over convenience. Nevertheless, the example highlights something vital for democracy and the rule of law. We citizens need to recognise our dependence on one another and on the system under which we live together. We do not need to believe that our state and all its laws are perfect, but we do need to recognise behind the structures and the personalities a deeper purpose. Our democratic structures are there to make society liveable for all—indeed to make our own lives liveable. If we can begin to see this, then renewing the state and challenging corruption is not a remote concern, but our responsibility as citizens. But there is also the practical barrier of the costs and benefits of resisting corruption. My firm is best fitted to perform this public contract, but will not get it unless a

Paying a bribe seems to be the easy, even the best route, but there is another option. government official receives some money. If I do not pay, my firm loses and the public who would have benefited from its expertise lose. One complaint from a disappointed contractor is unlikely to be enough to remove a well-networked official. Time, money, convenience, duty to the firm and duty to the public line up to mean that for one person, or one firm to resist, is not worth it. The individual bears a huge cost, but the public benefit, if there is any, will be small. This is, however, what is sometimes called an “each-we” dilemma. Each of us on our own achieves lit-

CORRUPTION SCENARIOS: YOUR CHOICE

tle by resisting corruption, but we, in numbers, can turn the cost-benefit analysis upside down. If every firm refuses to pay, the game is indeed changed—provided everyone plays by the new rules. For such change to take place we need to work together, in targeted, collective action, supporting each other—if necessarily practically and materially—in the movement to create a new, more deeply democratic culture. And we should not underestimate the far-reaching power of the individual stand. Last winter I presented the case of being pulled up for drinkdriving in a discussion group and we

ThE JOURNEys OF A LIFETIME!

Attorneys • Notaries • Conveyancers

PILGRIMAGEs FOR 2014

ELECTION DILEMMA UR mayor has a terrible reputation. She appoints friends and party loyalists to key positions in the administration, despite their complete lack of ability. She has managed to manipulate her way out of three charges of misuse of public money and one of theft. My contacts in the Traffic Department tell me she’s twice been arrested for drunk driving—but the charges were quietly quashed by well-placed cadres in the provincial government. Now it’s rumoured that in two years she’s going to be deployed to parliament. Today, however, she faces another mayoral election. Her opposition from the Libertarian Union is everything that I, as a long-time member of my party, should hate: pale male, former policeman too. But everyone admits that he’s honest, efficient, fair and completely dedicated to the interests of all of us in our town.

were discussing the cost of refusing to bribe a policeman. But one man challenged my analysis of the outcomes for the single individual. I can choose to refuse to bribe as just one person. I can choose the night in jail and risk the criminal record. I can suffer for it. But my friends and neighbours will all talk about it. People will be challenged to think differently about principles. A precedent has been set and something new can begin. Not everyone will be able to take this brave step alone, but together we can work to renew the democracies that sustain us, if we can see them with the eyes of citizens.

Call Shari on 011 029 6050

www.ohagan.co.za

hOLy LAND CAMINO: hIKING PILGRIMAGEs

Two exciting hiking tours of the Holy Land, designed by and for Fowler Tours: 4 - 12 Aug Led by Fr Chris Townsend 5 - 14 Sept Led by Fr Russell Pollitt

holy Land • Jordan

11 -20 Aug Led by Fr Mbulelo Qumnto

holy Land • Rome

31 Aug to 11 Sept Led by Fr Emil Blaser OP

Fatima • Lourdes • Paris • Avila 14 - 24 Sept Led by Fr Modisa sekao

We have the power to elect our leaders. Why do we regularly elect corrupt politicians? Do we want to be exploited? If we don’t vote for clean government, aren’t we endorsing the corrupt?

Dominican Pilgrimage to holy Land • Jordan

18 -27 Oct Led by Fr Tom Tshabalala OFM

Well, we’ll see how the town election turns out. In two years, when the national election happens, and the mayor is on the party list (high up no doubt, given her close friendship with the bigwigs), how shall I vote?

Contact Gail at 076 352 3809 or 021 551 3923 info@fowlertours.co.za • fowlertours.co.za

In a party-list proportional representation system, our ability to elect honest politicians is limited by the degree to which the lists are ethically managed. If the governing party does nothing to keep its politicians honest, are we morally bound to elect a party that is committed to honesty? Even if we vote against our traditional political loyalties? How might a political system contribute to the climate of corruption in a country? Should we be calling for electoral reform to make parliamentarians more directly accountable?

MONK?

YES!

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For more information contact:

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The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

REFLECTION

The scandal of grace as an act of faith Where does grace come from, and how do we receive it? SARAH-LEAH PIMENTEL reflects on the nature of grace.

N his book Begin With the Heart (2009), Fr Daniel O’Leary speaks about the “sacramental vision” which is seeing the sacramental presence of Christ in every moment of our daily lives. He goes on to explain that this view of the sacraments is an experience of grace. And then Fr O’Leary says something that on the surface seemed to me to be outrageous, scandalous even: “Grace is the innate capacity to relate, forgive, overcome suffering, create, sacrifice, imagine, explore— indeed anything which is a positive option for love and growth. It is more than that. It is what makes us who we are. Properly speaking, we do not receive grace, we do not possess it as something foreign to us, or as something entering from the outside; no, we are our grace.” We are our grace. What? Surely that seems almost blasphemous, especially as I remember being taught in catechism that grace is a gift from God. So if grace is a gift from God, how can I be my grace? I found an answer in a rather unexpected place: the movies. The 2009 film Agora describes the destruction of the culture of learning in Alexandria during the

last days of the Roman Empire. One of the characters, Davus, a recent convert to Christianity, watches appalled as members of his community go on a killing spree, murdering all the Jews in Alexandria for the “crime” of having crucified Christ. His dialogue with Ammonius, possibly a reference to the thirdcentury Christian philosopher who lived in Alexandria, goes as follows: Davus: I was forgiven, but now I can’t forgive. Ammonius: Forgive who? The Jews? Davus: Well, Jesus pardoned from the Cross. Ammonius: Jesus was God, and only he can show such clemency. Christian bystander: How dare you compare yourself to God? Perhaps the question Davus is really asking is this: If I have accepted Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Saviour, shouldn’t I do for others what he has done for me? If I have been graced by God, should I also not extend that grace to others? The bystander misinterprets Davus’ searching question and accuses him of comparing himself to God, and implicitly accuses him of blasphemy. But perhaps the real blasphemy is that the bystander’s imagination of who God is and who he is becomes so limited that he cannot see grace as an outpouring of God’s mercy. It is easy to judge the bloodthirsty bystander, but are we also not sometimes guilty of the same lack of imagination when we separate our faith from our real life? We go to church and partake in the sacraments. We set aside time for prayer and charitable works.

Max Minghella in the 2009 film Agora. His dialogue as the character Davus offered the author of this reflection an insight into a passage on grace in Fr Daniel O’Leary’s book Begin With the Heart (inset). But is Christ present in every moment of our day? Or are there times when we forget that God lives in us—when we curse the driver who has just cut us off, or speak in anger with our colleagues, or engage in activities that do not give honour to God? But Christ is present in us. In a very real way, Jesus is fully present in his humanity and divinity when we receive him in the Eucharist.

f we believe that Christ becomes present in the bread and wine— things made from our hands—then why is it so hard for us to imagine that Christ fully human and fully divine is present in us, his creation, and acts in and through us? Grace is precisely those mo-

ments where God’s love reveals itself, but he chooses to reveal himself through us, his instruments. Why are we so uncomfortable with God’s grace in us? Is it because we are obscured by our own egoism? Or are we so consumed by the age in which we live where our technological advances have made us the makers of our own miracles, that we have closed ourselves off to the eruption of the divine? Or is it born of an unspoken fear that we—created in the image and likeness of God—have somehow disappointed God? Are we like Adam and Eve, hiding in the dense forests of our despair at our own sinfulness and hoping that we will not be touched by God’s gaze? In time, we have

come to believe our own halftruths and end up forgetting that grace can break through, even in the midst of the deepest human suffering. Fr O’Leary tells us that “like the disciples in the Emmaus story, we tend to forget. The heavy clouds of original sin forever obscure the clarity of the divine presence all around us…it is in the fog of this blindness that we sin…we miss the mystery too…sin is blind”. Perhaps as we prepare to close the Church’s Year of Faith we’re being invited to look inwards and examine our personal faith. At Mass, we recite the Creed and say: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” By allowing God’s mercy to lift the veil on our sin, we begin to see grace more clearly, even in what appears to be invisible. Where are the invisible spaces in my life? Have I allowed God’s grace to enter that space in which all my doubts reside? What would happen if I were to invite God into the loneliness I never speak about or into all those broken relationships that seem beyond repair, into those deeply buried fears that only come to life in my uneasy dreams? Perhaps a true act of faith is to set aside our ego and allow God’s grace, which is already present in us, to transform even those dark and unspoken places into an ocean of grace. If we allow that grace to permeate our everyday lives and those we encounter along the way, then the idea that “we are our grace” becomes an act of faith instead of a scandalous statement.

ST LUCIA RETREAT AND TRAINING CENTRE Would you like to help us make it possible? Vicariate Apostolic of Ingwavuma

One simple way to do it is through the “Buy a brick project”:

• donating R150 for 10 bricks, • R 300 for 20 bricks, • R1500 for 100 bricks! The total project would take about 600,000 bricks. All donors receive a certificate attesting to their contribution, their names are registered in the Memorial Book of the Centre and will be remembered in every Eucharist celebrated in the St Lucia Church.



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Account name: St Lucia Centre Bank: First National Bank Account Number: 62 285 445 807 Branch: Mtubatuba Branch number: 220330

FIRST NATIONAL BANK MTUBATUBA BRANCH Cnr Jan Smuts & St Lucia Avenue Mtubatuba, 3935, South Africa SWIFT: FIRNZAJJ

CONTACT DETAILs

vicariate Apostolic of Ingwavuma, PO Box 23, Mtubatuba 3935, South Africa Tel: 035 550 1051 e-mail: ingwavuma@gmail.com

The Southern Cross, October 23 to October 29, 2013

Fr Matthew McDonald OFM

RANCISCAN Father Matthew McDonald died on September 24 in his native county Wexford in Ireland, where he was born on April 6, 1924. Fr McDonald joined the Franciscans in September 1942 and took his simple vows in 1943. He graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from Galway university in 1946 and made his solemn profession at St Anthony’s College the same year. He completed his theological studies in Rome in 1952 and was sent to St John Vianny seminary in

Pretoria as a lecturer in 1953. Fr McDonald was appointed as the first Catholic chaplain for the university of Pretoria. He returned to Rome for his doctorate in theology in 1964 and was fortunate to be a student in Rome during the Second Vatican Council. His doctoral thesis Approaches to Intercommunion was published in 1967. In 1968 Fr McDonald was appointed parish priest of St Pius X in Waterkloof, Pretoria, and served there until 1988. He served as an assistant priest in Boksburg and celebrated his golden jubilee of ordination in ford and took up residence at Law2000. Liturgical Calendar Year C After his son House in Enniscorthy. Weekdays Cycle Year 1 He was laid to rest at the friary health declined Sunday, October 27, 30th Sunday he returned to in Wexford, Ireland. Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18, Psalm 34:2-3, 17-19, 23, 2 Fr Hyacinth Ennis OFM county WexTimothy 4:6-8, 16-18, Luke 18:9-14 Monday, October 28, Ss Simon and Jude Ephesians 2:19-22, Psalm 19:2-5, Luke 6:12-16 Tuesday, October 29 Romans 8:18-25, Psalm 126:1-6, Luke 13:18-21 Wednesday, October To place your event, call Claire Allen at 021 465 5007 30 or e-mail c.allen@scross.co.za (publication subject to space) Romans 8:26-30, Psalm 13:4-6, Luke CAPE TOWN: month at Holy Redeemer 13:22-30 parish in Bergvliet. Mimosa Shrine, Bellville Thursday, October 31 (Place of pilgrimage for the Helpers of God’s Precious Romans 8:31-39, Year of Faith) Tel: 076 323 Infants meet the last SaturPsalm 109:21-22, 268043. November 7: 7:00pm day of the month except in 27, 30-31, Luke 13:31Rosary, 7:30pm Holy Mass December, starting with 35 for deceased relatives and Mass at 9:30 am at the SaAll Saints icon Friday, November 1, All friends. November 9: Dedicred Heart church in SomerSaints cation of the Lateran basilset Road, Cape Town. Mass Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14, Psalm 24:1-6, 1 John 3:1-3, ica, 9:00-10:00am Holy is followed by a vigil and Hour and Benediction, conMatthew 5:1-12 procession to Marie Stopes fessions available, NovemSaturday, November 2, All Souls abortion clinic in Bree ber 21: Presentation of Our Wisdom 3:1-9, Psalm 27:1, 4, 7-9, 13-14, Romans Street. For information conLady 7:30pm Rosary, 5:5-11, John 11:17-27 tact Colette Thomas on 083 7:30pm Holy Mass Sunday, November 3, 31st Sunday 412 4836 or 021 593 9875 Wisdom 11:22, 12:2, Psalm 145:1-2, 8-11, 13-14, 2 or Br Daniel Manuel on 083 Padre Pio: Holy Hour 15:30 every 3rd Sunday of the 544 3375. Thessalonians 1:11, 2:2, Luke 19:1-10

Community Calendar

Southern CrossWord solutions

SOLUTIONS TO 573. ACROSS: 4 Wedlock, 8 Nimbus, 9 Abigail, 10 Opined, 11 Lemuel, 12 Cherubim, 18 Barefoot, 20 Daniel, 21 Stooge, 22 Dialect, 23 Denial, 24 Chorale. DOWN: 1 Invoice, 2 Imbibed, 3 Bureau, 5 Embalmer, 6 Legume, 7 Chisel, 13 Biblical, 14 Robotic, 15 Steeple, 16 Parish, 17 Killer, 19 Esther.

TOWARDS Vatican 3? Google: Sine-glossa. blogspot.com

sAFE, sECURE, CAThOLIC RETIREMENT Nazareth House, Johannesburg

is an oasis of peace and safety in Yeoville and has a variety of accommodation available right now. From double rooms to a penthouse and ﬂats in the Larmenier Retirement Village, Nazareth House has everything you would wish for. Holy Mass twice daily, safe and spacious gardens, free parking and many other amenities.

For further information please contact The social Worker: socialworker@nazarethhousejohannesburg.org Tel: 011 648 1002 GOD BLESS AFRICA Guard our people, guide our leaders and give us peace. Luke 11:1-13

REMEMBERING OUR DEAD

“It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins” (II Macc XII,46) Holy Mass will be celebrated on the first Sunday of each month in the All Souls’ chapel, Maitland, Cape Town at 2:30pm for all souls in purgatory and for all those buried in the Woltemade cemetery.

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

MICASA TOURS

Pilgrimage to Poland & Medjugorje led by Fr Victor Phalana 4-18 May 2014 Pilgrimage to Fatima and Italy led by Fr Thulani Gubula 1-12 Sep 2014

Pilgrimage to Poland led by Fr Stanislaw Jagodzinski 3-17 June 2014 Pilgrimage to Israel led by Fr Jerome Nyathi 29 June-9 July 2014

Pilgrimage to Italy & Medjugorje led by Fr Sammy Mabusela 31 Aug-13 Sep 2014 Pilgrimage of Thanksgiving to Italy & Medjugorje led by Fr Maselwane 7-20 Sep 2014

Pilgrimage to Medjugorje led by Fr Donovan Wheatley 21 Sep-9 Oct 2014

Pilgrimage to Fatima, Santiago de Compostela and Lourdes, Paris & Nevers 28 Sep-11 Oct 2014 Pilgrimage of Healing to Lourdes led by Fr Emil Blaser 11-19 Oct 2014

Contact: Tel: 012 342 0179/072637 0508 (Michelle) E-Mail: info@micasatours.co.za

CLASSIFIEDS

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 (R1,25 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

IN MEMORIAM

OLSEN William—In loving memory of my husband, Bill, whose anniversary is on October 20th. Holy Mass will be offered for him that he may rest in God’s peace and joy. Sadly missed and always prayed for—from his wife Elaine (Shani)

PERSONAL

ABORTION WARNING: The pill can abort (chemical abortion) Catholics must be told, for their eternal welfare and the survival of their unborn infants. HOUSE-SITTER/ PET-LOVER: Based at Benoni Parish, will travel/with references. Phone Therèse 076 206 0627. NOTHING is politically right if it is morally wrong. Abortion is evil. Value life! www.abortion instruments.com is the graphic truth that will set you free.

PRAYERS

O MOST beautiful flower of Mount Carmel, fruitful vine, splendour of Heaven, blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me where you are, Mother of God. Queen of heaven and earth I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succour me in my necessity. There is none who can withstand your power, O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands. Say this prayer for 3 consecutive days and then publish. Special thanks to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Ss Jude and Daniel for prayers answered. ALMIGHTY eternal God, source of all compassion, the promise of your mercy and saving help fills our hearts with hope. Hear the cries of the people of Syria; bring healing to those suffering from the violence, and comfort to those mourning the dead. Empower and encourage Syria’s neighbours in their care and welcome for refugees. Convert the hearts of those who have taken up arms, and strengthen the resolve of those committed to peace. O God of hope and Father of mercy, your Holy Spirit inspires us to look beyond our-

selves and our own needs. Inspire leaders to choose peace over violence and to seek reconciliation with enemies. Inspire the Church around the world with compassion for the people of Syria, and fill us with hope for a future of peace built on justice for all. We ask this through Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace and Light of the World, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen. Prayer courtesy of the USCCB. YOU, O eternal Trinity,

are a deep sea into which, the more I enter, the more I find. And the more I find, the more I seek. O abyss, O eternal Godhead, O sea profound, what more could you give me than yourself? Prayer of Awe— St Catherine of Siena. MY most loving Father, You have promised, “I am the God who heals you” (Exodus 15:26) I place in your loving care my sick body, worried mind, my emotional wounds and sinful nature. I believe that only You have the power to heal me completely. Loving Father, I trust in Your love for me, Help me to love You more. Help me to increase my faith in You. I surrender to you (here mention your illness or emotional hurt) Cleanse me with the precious blood of Jesus, purify me and set me free from anger, resentment, hatred, unresolved hurts and greed. Help me to remember that the power of the Holy Trinity dwells within me and all power to forgive and overcome sin is in me. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit and Your peace. Amen. Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary, please protect us.

THANKS

GRATEFUL thanks to Our Blessed Lady, St Anthony and St Jude for all their help always. PVE.

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lounge, TV, DVD, fully equipped kitchen, shower. R300 per night, maximum five people. Attached to Catholic church. Responsible people only and no pets, please. Email Liza McGregor at liza@tutors forafrica.co.za, phone 082 535 9097.

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

LONDON, Protea House: Single R350, twin R560 per/night. Self-catering, busses and underground nearby. Phone Peter 021 851 5200. BALLITO: Up-market penthouse on beach, self-catering, 084 790 6562. CAPE TOWN: Fully equipped self-catering, 2 bedroom apartment with parking, in Strandfontein R400 or R480 (low/high season) (4 persons p/night) Paul 021 393 2503, 083 553 9856, vivilla@telkom sa.net FISH HOEK: Self-catering accommodation, sleeps 4. Secure parking. Tel: 021 785 1247. KNYSNA: Self-catering accommodation for 2 in Old Belvidere with wonderful lagoon views. 044 387 1052. 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@gmail.com SEDGEFIELD: Beautiful self-catering garden holiday flat, sleeps four, two bedrooms, openplan lounge, kitchen, fully equipped. 5 min walk to lagoon. Out of season specials. Contact Les or Bernadette 044 343 3242, 082 900 6282. STELLENBOSCH: Christian Brothers Centre. 14 suites (double/twin beds), some with fridge & microwave, others beside kitchenette & lounge, eco-spirituality library. Countryside vineyard/forest/mountain views/walks; beach 20 minute drive. Affordable. 021 880 0242. www.cbcentre.co.za Email: cbc stel@gmail.com STRAND: Beachfront flat to let. Stunning views, fully equipped. One bedroom, sleeps 3. Seasonal rates. From R600 p/night for 2 people—low season. Garage. Ph Brenda 082 822 0607. The Southern Cross is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations of South Africa. Printed by Paarl Coldset (Pty) Ltd, 10 Freedom Way, Milnerton. Published by the proprietors, The Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Co Ltd, at the company’s registered office, 10 Tuin Plein, Cape Town, 8001.

The Southern Cross is published independently by the Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Company Ltd. Address: PO Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000. Tel: (021) 465 5007 Fax: (021) 465 3850 www.scross.co.za Editor: Günther Simmermacher (editor@scross.co.za), Business Manager: Pamela Davids (admin@scross.co.za), Advisory Editor: Michael Shackleton, News Editor: Claire Mathieson (c.mathieson@scross.co.za), Editorial: Claire Allen (c.allen@scross.co.za), Mary Leveson (m.leveson@scross.co.za) Advertising: Elizabeth Hutton (advertising@scross.co.za), Subscriptions: Avril Hanslo (subscriptions@scross.co.za), Dispatch: Joan King (dispatch@scross.co.za), Accounts: Desirée Chanquin (accounts@scross.co.za). Directors: C Moerdyk (Chairman), Archbishop S Brislin, P Davids*, S Duval, E Jackson, B Jordan, M Lack (UK), Sr H Makoro CPS, M Salida, G Simmermacher*, z Tom

Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, staff or directors of The Southern Cross.

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All Saints: November 3 Readings: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14, Psalm 24:1-6, 1 John 3:1-3, Matthew 5:1-12

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EXT Sunday, we in South Africa are celebrating the Solemnity of All Saints. That feels a bit odd, the day after All Souls, but it is such an important feast that we should be the poorer if we did not celebrate it together. And the importance is that it is our celebration, a reminder that God’s heart is bigger than ours, and that all are invited into his kingdom (even those terrible people who you are sure could not possibly be there). Look at the first reading: it pictures God’s angel, “with the seal of the Living God”, to hold back the forces of destruction until the “slaves of our God” have been sealed on their foreheads. Then we hear the number “of those sealed from every tribe of the children of Israel”: a hundred and forty-four thousand. Now it is no use getting out your computer and working out that this means a maximum of 12 000 from each tribe, for this number means “a very great many”. And it does not stop there, for “look! A great crowd, which nobody could count”, and this is the non-Jews, “from every nation and tribe and people and language”, and they are “standing before the Throne and before the Lamb”. That is to say that these outsiders are in God’s presence, and in the presence of Christ. We learn that they are wearing “white stoles”

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Sealed as blessed by the living God Nicholas King SJ

Sunday Reflections

and carrying “palms in their hands”; and they form part of a heavenly liturgical choir singing a liturgical song, to God and to the Lamb. They are, moreover, in excellent company, along with the “elders and the four living creatures”, and everyone is worshipping God, and singing yet another liturgical refrain. Finally we learn precisely who they are: “Those who come from the great tribulation, and have washed their clothes, and made them white with the Lamb’s blood.” Don’t ask how this works; simply notice that heaven is open to all those unimportant people who have suffered for the faith. The psalm for the feast-day gives us a further indication of the people who are invited to be among God’s saints. The main point is that God is in charge: “To the Lord belongs the earth and what fills it—the world and those who dwell in it; and God placed it on the seas (of which the Is-

raelites, who were not good navigators, had a healthy distrust). Only when this is established do we look at the quality of those who are to be admitted into God’s kingdom: “Who is going to go up on the mountain of the Lord?” And the answer comes. They have to be people of God-given integrity: “The person with clean hands and pure of heart, who have not sworn a false oath.” This is not their doing, we notice, but God’s: “They will receive blessing from the Lord, and justice from the God of their salvation.” These are the people (and it could be us) “who seek [God]”. That is what we celebrate next Sunday. The second reading is from 1 John, a lovely letter, all about love (though the idea only surfaces twice in our excerpt, you will notice). Notice what this love does, by the way. It is God’s gift, and it enables us to “be called God’s children—for that is what we are”. This is not our doing, but something given to us, and it is unavailable to “the world”, which in this letter means those who are opposed to God’s project. Astonishingly, though, “we shall become like God, for we shall see God as God is”; and that’s because God’s purity makes us pure. It

Are we saints or sinners? W

HAT are we ultimately, saints or sinners? What’s deepest inside us, goodness or selfishness? Or, are we dualists with two innate principles inside us, one good and one evil, in a perpetual duel with each other? Certainly, at the level of experience, we feel a conflict. There’s a saint inside us who wants to mirror the greatness of life, even as there is someone else inside us that wants to walk a seedier path. I like the honesty of Henri Nouwen when he describes this conflict in his own life: “I want to be great saint,” he once confessed, “but I don’t want to miss out on all the sensations that sinners experience.” It’s because of this bi-polar tension inside us that we find it so hard to make clear moral choices. We want the right things, but we also want many of the wrong things. Every choice is a renunciation and so the struggle between saint and sinner inside us often manifests itself precisely in our inability to make hard choices. But we don’t feel this tension only in our struggle to make clear moral decisions; we feel it daily in our spontaneous reaction to situations that affect us adversely. Simply put, we are forever bouncing back and forth between being petty and being big-hearted, spiteful and forgiving, whenever we are negatively impacted by others. For instance, we all have had this kind of experience: We are at work and in a good emotional state, thinking peaceful and patient thoughts, nursing warm feelings, wish-

Classic Conrad

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

ing harm to no one, when a co-worker comes in and, without good reason, slights or insults us in some way. In one instant, our whole inner world reverses: A door slams shut and we begin to feel cold and spiteful, thinking anything but warm thoughts, seemingly becoming different persons: moving from being big-hearted to being spiteful, from being saints to entertaining murderous feelings. Which is our true person? What are we really, saints with big hearts or petty, spiteful persons? Seemingly, we are both, saints and sinners, since goodness and selfishness both flow through us. Interestingly, we don’t always react in the same way. Sometimes in the face of a slight, insult, or even positive attack and injustice, we react with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. Why? What changes the chemistry? Why do we sometimes meet pettiness with a big-heart and, other times, meet it in kind, with spite? Ultimately, we don’t know the reason; that’s part of the mystery of human freedom. Certain factors obviously play in; for ex-

ample, if we are in a good inner-space when we are ignored, slighted, or unfairly treated, we are more prone to react with patience and understanding, with a big heart. Conversely, if we are tired, pressured, and feeling unloved and unappreciated, we are more likely to react negatively, and return spite for spite. But, be that as it may, ultimately there’s deeper reality at work in all of this, beyond our emotional wellbeing on a given day. How we react to a situation, with grace or spite, for the most part depends upon something else. The Church Fathers had a concept and name for this. They believed that each of us has two souls, a big soul and a petty soul, and how we react to any situation depends largely upon which soul we are thinking with and acting out of at that moment. Thus, if I meet an insult or an injury with my big soul, I am more likely to meet it with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. Conversely, if I meet an insult or a hurt while operating out of my petty soul, I am more likely to respond in kind, with pettiness, coldness, and spite. And, for the Church Fathers, both of these souls are inside us and both are real; we’re both big-hearted and petty, saint and sinner. The challenge is to operate more out of our big soul than our petty one. But we must be careful to not understand this dualistically. In affirming that we have two souls, a big soul and a petty soul, the Church Fathers are not teaching a variation of an old dualism, namely, that there are inside us two innate principles, one good and one evil, perpetually fighting for control of our hearts and souls. That kind of struggle in fact does go on inside us, but not between two separate principles. The saint and sinner inside us are not separate entities. Rather the saint in us, the big soul, is not only our true self, it’s our only self. The sinner in us, the petty soul, is not a separate person or separate moral force doing perpetual battle with the saint, it’s simply the wounded part of the saint, that part of the saint that’s been cursed and never properly blessed. And our wounded self shouldn’t be demonised and cursed again. Rather it needs to be befriended and blessed—and then it will cease being petty and spiteful in the face of adversity.

is an awesome mystery, this of all the saints. More awesome yet is the gospel chosen for the solemnity. It is the breath-taking opening to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, a text that has inspired so many saints (whether canonised or not). Watch and listen. It starts with Jesus going (like Moses before him) “up into the mountain”, except that Moses went up to receive the Law, and Jesus goes up to give it. He takes up the sitting position of a teacher, and then his disciples approach, just as good disciples should; we are expectant, but have to hold back for a while as Matthew slows the story down: “He opened his mouth; and he began to teach them; he said...” So we are really concentrating now. And then we get the most tremendous shock. For what comes out is a list of “congratulations”; and they are all the wrong people who get congratulated: “The poor, those who are in mourning, the meek, the hungry and thirsty (for justice), the merciful, the pure in heart, the peace-makers, and those who have been persecuted.” It sounds crazy; but just sit back for a moment, and think of those people you have known whom you regard as saints, and ask “Were they not like this?” If so, then celebrate the feast with gusto.

Southern Crossword #573

ACROSS 4. A secure state of marriage? (7) 8. Luminous cloud above saint’s head (6) 9. Nabal’s wife (1 Sam 25) (7) 10. Held a point of view (6) 11. King of Massa (Prov 31) (6) 12. Rub Miche the wrong way to see the chubby angels (8) 18. How you may see the discalced Carmelite (8) 20. Interpreter of dreams from 23 ac (6) 21. Goes to comedian who may do subordinate work (6) 22. Regional language at Pentecost? (7) 23. Refusal to admit the truth (6) 24. Cholera makes changes to the oratorio (7)

DOWN 1. Bill for when you’re singing well (7) 2. Absorbed by having drunk (7) 3. Writing desk for the office (6) 5. He preserves the corpses (8) 6. Mule, eg, of the pea family (6) 7. It gets a hammering from the sculptor (6) 13. Scriptural (8) 14. Crib too mechanical, it turns out (7) 15. Kind of chase to church feature (7) 16. Capital hospital where the priest may be (6) 17. Assassin (6) 19. There’s the Jewish heroine (6) Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

KINDERGARTEN teacher was observing her classroom of children while they drew. As she came to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. The girl replied: “I’m drawing God.” The teacher paused and said: “But no one knows what God looks like.” Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied: “They will in a minute.” Send us your favourite Catholic joke, preferably clean and brief, to The Southern Cross, Church Chuckle, PO Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000.