150520

The

S outhern C ross

May 20 to May 26, 2015

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

No 4925

www.scross.co.za

Priest’s book on his deaf-blind friend Fr Cyril

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R7,00 (incl VAT RSA)

Lessons from Oscar Romero for SA today

Why Africa is a cradle of Christianity

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Priests bless room of nun’s murder

BY STUART GRAHAM

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“Peace of The Holy Spirit: Pentecost” is depicted in a painting by Stephen B Whatley, an expressionist artist based in London. The feast of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, is celebrated this year on May 24. (CNS photo/Stephen B Whatley)

wo priests have blessed the room at the Sacred Heart convent in Ixopo, near Durban, where 86-year-old Sr Gertrud Tiefenbacher was murdered last month.

Fr Stefan Hippler, who performed the blessing and cleansing ritual at the convent with resident priest Fr Simon Rodenburg CMM, told The Southern Cross that the Precious Blood Sisters there remained strong in faith. He said his visit was to give encouragement and show solidarity.

“The sisters have to work through [the murder] and it will take time,” he said.

“They are strong in faith and with each other. There is a lot of work to do to come to terms from a spiritual point of view to what happened.”

Sr Tiefenbacher, who was known as Sr Stefani, was sexually assaulted and murdered by intruders in the night of April 19.

“Sr Stefani dedicated her life to helping people and it ends up so...,” Fr Hippler said, his voice trailing off. “It is incomprehensible.

This is something you can only work through with prayer and by sticking together.”

Sbongiseni Phungula, 25, and Mondli Michael Shozi, 26, have pleaded guilty to charges of murder, rape and theft in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

Austrian-born Sr Tiefenbacher, who had served in South Africa for 65 years and administered the rent for the houses the teachers live, had been tied up with the cord of her typewriter.

According to News 24, the two men explained to the court through their advocate, Zina Anastasiou, that they had known each other by sight, but that the night of April 18 was the first time that had socialised at a tavern in Ixopo.

Phungula said in his statement that he

Sr Stefani Tiefenbacher’s grave. (Photo: Fr Stefan Hippler) had drunk a bottle of cane spirits and a bottle of brandy before he and Shozi decided to head into the nearby woods to find wood to build a shelter.

On their way to the forest, they passed the Sacred Heart convent and decided to enter the kitchen and steal food.

Sr Tiefenbacher disturbed them while they were walking down a passageway in the convent. Shozi said in his statement that Sr Tiefenbacher shouted at them before the assailants grabbed her, dragged into her room and tied her up. He then assaulted her.

According to Ixopo district surgeon Dr Yusuf Suleman Bhana, the nun was strangled with a wet towel.

The killers stole a vacuum cleaner, groceries and a watch.

Both asked the court for mercy and said that they had admitted to their involvement in the crime when they were caught by the police.

Sr Tiefenbacher worked at the Little Flower School as a teacher and secretary for about 40 years until 1992. She had lived in the same room for the past 60 years.

Wine helps Dutch NGO put roofs over people’s heads

BY DYLAN APPOLIS

I

N an innovative fundraising campaign, a Dutch NGO that is building houses for orphans in partnership with the SACBC Aids Office has teamed up with Stellar Wineries, near Vredenburg in the Western Cape, to market a range of wines called “No House Wine”.

Proceeds from the sale of the wines will go to the NGO, Homeplan, to fund the

construction of houses in South Africa for orphans The range is organically produced and includes red, white and sparkling wines. It will be marketed and sold in the Netherlands, Germany, Britain and Finland.

“The name of the range is an intended pun: firstly the quality of the wines is good, therefore it is ‘no house wine’. And secondly, proceeds from the sale of the

wine will benefit people with ‘no house’,” Sr Alison Munro OP, director of the Aids Office, told The Southern Cross.

Homeplan and the Aids Office are currently building houses for orphans in the diocese of Tzaneen, in Pomeroy in Dundee diocese, and in Malindza, Swaziland.

A scriptwriter and a professional photographer from the Netherlands visited the Pomeroy project to film and take photo-

graphs for an advertising campaign.

“The advertising campaign shows Zulu matrons presenting their favourite traditional dishes,” Sr Munro said.

The wines will be sold with a small book containing the recipes of dishes featured in the advertisements. n More information on www.nohousewine. nl or contact Sr Munro at 012 323 6458 or email AMunro@sacbc.org.za

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The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

LOCAL

Pityana honours Naudé and Hurley M

AY 10 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Dutch Reformed minister and struggle activist, Beyers Naudé. This year is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rev Naudé’s great friend, Archbishop Denis Hurley.

The Denis Hurley Centre in Durban marked the Naudé centenary with a special lecture by Anglican theologian Rev Professor Barney Pityana.

The event saw an audience of religious leaders from across the Christian family: the opening prayer was given by a Dutch Reformed dominee, the vote of thanks by a Lutheran pastor, and the closing prayer by an Anglican woman priest.

In introducing the speaker, Paddy Kearney, who had known both the centenarians very well, recalled an incident when the Dominican theologian Fr Albert Nolan was trying to organise a meeting between the two men.

When Rev Naudé, who was under surveillance by the apartheid security forces, heard that Archbishop Hurley wanted to meet him, he apparently said: “That man gives me hope.” When hearing that he would be able to meet Rev Naudé, Archbishop Hurley replied with the exact same words: “That man gives me hope.”

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ev Pityana—a commissioner of the World Council of Churches, vice-chancellor of Unisa, chair of the Human Rights Commission, and rector of the Anglican seminary—spoke eloquently of the contribution both Rev Naudé and Archbishop Hurley had made to South Africa, pointing out how despite their many differences they shared a similarly strong faith and an ability to discern.

He added that while Archbishop Hurley sometimes struggled to bring fellow Catholics to his point of view, Rev Naudé suffered even

more by being expelled from the Dutch Reformed Church. Yet he remained determined to work with the Afrikaans community and provided the breakthrough thinking that enabled Afrikaners, including FW de Klerk, to abandon the dubious theological basis of apartheid.

In 1990 the newly released Nelson Mandela, going to meet then President de Klerk at Groote Schuur, insisted that Rev Naudé be among the delegation. This was, Rev Pityana said, like the quote from Isaiah: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the corner stone.”

Rev Pityana quoted from Pope Francis’ document Joy of the Gospel in which the pope presents a Church that is “bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been on the streets”.

This, he said, was the vision of Church that both Rev Naudé and Archbishop Hurley shared and tried to present to their fellow Christians—a Church that is courageous,

that takes risks, that is not tied to comforts and privileges.

Rev Pityana urged the audience to follow the example of these two men when leading the Church in South Africa. Both Rev Naudé and Archbishop Hurley knew that they could not proclaim the Gospel until they lived the Gospel, and all the risks that entailed.

S

imilarly, the Church today has to be willing to challenge the real powers in the country. Until there is such a challenge, it is not surprising that those who feel unheard end up targeting vulnerable people or inanimate objects even though they are not the real source of power—a reference to the recent violence against foreigners and statues.

In the “season of discontent”, where there is a “culture of demand, anger and greed”, we live in “an economy of exclusion and privilege” where all that has changed is that the people with privilege are

no longer just white, Rev Pityana said.

In this context, the Church cannot yearn simply to be a safe place surrounded by certainties and rules or looking in on itself. If it is beholden the Church ends up compromising with evil, as it had done in the days of apartheid, he said, adding that the ecumenical witness that Rev Naudé and Archbishop Hurley provided against apartheid should now inspire all Christians to be similar ecumenical witnesses to social justice today.

The talk was organised in partnership with the Diakonia Council of Churches and the Ujamaa Centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Earlier in the day Rev Pityana, at the invitation of Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, also preached at all the Masses at Emmanuel cathedral. nE-mail news@denishurleycentre. org for details on how to download a recording of Rev Pityana’s talk.

Southern African conference on communicating in new media STAFF REPORTER

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Sr Agnes Grasböck was joined by Abbot Emeritus Godfrey Sieber OSB of Inkamana, Fr Stefan Hippler of Cape Town, Fr Ludwig Sperrer of Munich, and Comboni Father John Maneschg of Pretoria as she celebrated her golden jubilee as a Sister of the Precious Blood in Mariannhill. They are seen here with altar servers after a thanksgiving Mass. For many years Sr Agnes provided pastoral care for the German-speaking Catholic community of Durban. Meanwhile, Fr Maneschg, who has lectured at St John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria, is leaving South Africa for new assignments at the end of May. (Photo: Radio Khwezi)

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CONFERENCE for Church officials and formators tasked with communication from across Southern Africa will be held in July in Pretoria.

“The new media must be seen as an instrument for making the Good News known,” said Jesuit Father Oskar Wermter, head of the pastoral department of Imbisa, which comprises nine bishops’ conferences in Southern Africa.

“We need priests and pastoral workers who are computer-literate and able to take advantage of these new tools with which to reach especially young people,” said the Harare-based priest, who is also a veteran journalist.

Fr Wermter is making contact with the seminaries in the region, meeting with rectors, academic deans, spiritual directors and Church communicators personally, saying that “electronic communication, though a terrific asset, cannot replace face-toface communication”.

“The pulpit is not the only means by which we reach people,” Fr Wermter said. “In the 16th century the Church was very quick in picking up a new tool of communication: the

Members of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Catholic community at a workshop in East London. Fr Peter Whitehead at the centre is flanked by community coordinator evangelist Hailu Adalo and Peter Neo.

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“Today the world of the media is almost exploding, so many new social media are conquering the market. In what way do we use them for spreading our Good News, the ‘reason for the hope that is in you’ (1 Peter 3: 15)? To what extent do we find that people may abuse them, so we approach them with discernment?”

Imbisa is producing a small book, Work and Image—Communication and the Media, which will be made available to all participants so that they can prepare for the conference, Fr Wermter said.

The conference will be bilingual, in English and Portuguese. Odette Amaral of Johannesburg will do the simultaneous translation. An experienced translator, she did the same job for the Imbisa bishops at their assembly in Gaborone in November 2013.

The conference is made possible by funding from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ solidarity fund for the Church in Africa, which also allows for travelling expenses to be covered. n The Imbisa Formation Conference will take place from July 20-25 at the Padre Pio Conference Centre in Pretoria.

To book contact Fr Wermter at owermter@ymail.com

‘We are all Africans’

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EMBERS of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Catholic community from King William’s Town and East London came together for a two-day workshop on the theme of unity of community while worshipping in the Catholic faith with local communities in a foreign land.

The workshop, led by the community’s national coordinator evangelist Hailu Adalo and group leaders, was held at St Pius Pastoral Centre in East London.

The community has been supported by Fr Peter Whitehead of Immaculate Conception parish in East London, who celebrated Mass with the group in the centre’s St Pius chapel, in English with the Word pro-

claimed in Amharic, the community’s native language.

In his homily Fr Whitehead said that “we are all Africans”, therefore migrant communities must integrate with South Africans “as a Catholic family to be supported and loved by them”.

“I attended the holy Mass with the Ethiopian and Eritrean Catholic community, and it was a great privilege for me to experience the Mass in a different language,” said Peter Neo Khasoane of East London.

“It showed me that God created us to be united humans, as God’s family.

Therefore we must love and care for one another, opposing xenophobia attacks in Africa,” Mr Khasoane said.

The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

LOCAL

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Viewing disability as a gift STAFF REPORTER

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NEW book by a Redemptorist priest gives an insight into how severe disability can be a “gift from God” and inspire others in their faith.

Fr Larry Kaufmann wrote his book Perhaps God: Wisdom Through the Gift of Disability about his friendship with fellow Redemptorist Fr Cyril Axelrod, who is deaf and blind.

Fr Axelrod was born profoundly deaf into an Orthodox Jewish family in Johannesburg in 1942. At the age of 23 he converted to Catholicism and in 1970 became a priest for the diocese of Port Elizabeth, only the second deaf-born priest in the world. He became a Redemptorist five years later.

After gradually losing his sight he was declared legally blind in 2000.

He ministers to people all over the world, hearing and sighted as well as deaf, blind, and deaf-blind.

He usually travels on his own.

Fr Kaufmann and Fr Axelrod have been friends for 40 years, and Fr Kaufmann often acts as his friend’s “comm-guide”, the term for an interpreter, communicator and guide.

In Perhaps God, which is illustrated with several colour photographs, Fr Kaufmann outlines the experiences and spiritual lessons he has benefited from in that friendship through anecdotes and reflections.

He wrote the book while on sabbatical retreats at the Sea of Galilee and with the Benedictine monks of the Order of the Holy Cross at Grahamstown.

Fr Kaufmann and Fr Axelrod will also lead a pilgrimage to the Holy

Land in October 2016, which is also open to hearing and/or sight-impaired people.

The pilgrimage will be aimed at celebrating the gift of disability as well as drawing from Fr Axelrod’s insights into Christianity’s roots in Judaism.

The 10-day programme for what the priests have titled “Pilgrimage of Light” has been designed to allow for extended time for reflection, prayer and contemplation at holy sites.

Perhaps God is published by Redemptorist Pastoral Publications and can bought at R80 by e-mailing orders@rpp.org.za or by phoning 087 808 2369. n For more information on the pilgrimage e-mail info@fowlertours.co.za, call 076 352-3809, or visit www. fowlertours.co.za

Fr Larry Kaufmann (left) communicates with Fr Cyril Axelrod, who is deaf and blind, through finger-signing. Fr Kaufmann has published a new book, titled Perhaps God, about his four decade-long friendship with his fellow Redemptorist. Frs Axelrod and Kaufmann will also lead a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in October 2016.

Lawyer to head up St Augustine

BY STUART GRAHAM

A New logo for Family Life

A Mass of thanksgiving was celebrated at St John Bosco parish, Robertsham, Johannesburg, for Deacon David Lavers. It was on the day 30 years ago that he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Reginald Orsmand. The Lavers family have been in the parish for 43 years. Deacon Lavers (left) is presented with a gift from the parish by PPC chair Martin Rathinasamy (middle), while Marlene Lavers (right) looks on.

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Bishops’ foundation donates to aid victims of xenophobia

BY DYLAN APPOLIS

HE Johannesburg archdiocese’s Family Life department has introduced a new logo.

Radio Veritas’ marketing consultant Mahadi Buthelezi believes the logo is more warm and welcoming.

“We did not actually change the logo but enhanced it so that it becomes a homely and more welcoming logo,” Ms Buthelezi said.

She explained what the overall logo means to a Catholic: “There is a crucifix at the top of the house/hut which stands for the Church. The colours are bright and earthy, the colours of hope. The heart shape depicts love. The logo signifies a place of love, refuge, a home to go to when happy or sad.

“A home is where a family meets, talks, laughs, cries, and most importantly prays together. That is what the logo encompasses and I believe the new logo appeals more to Catholics because families are the Church,” Ms Buthelezi said.

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HE bishops of Southern Africa have donated R100 000 to the victims of xenophobic attacks.

The money, donated through the Catholic Bishops’ Foundation, was handed over to the archdiocese of Durban’s Refugee Pastoral Care.

The bulk of the money will be used at the Durban inner-city shelter for the displaced people run by the Denis Hurley Centre.

Project coordinator Makusha Hupenyu thanked the bishops for the donation, saying it will go “a long way to provide missing basic commodities”.

Mr Hupenyu said a portion of the money will be used for the reintegration packages for the disabled.

Cardinal Wilfrid Napier (left) symbolically receives R100 000 from Fr Barney McAleer, director of the Catholic Bishops’ Foundation.

HIGH Court attorney has been appointed president of St Augustine College in Johannesburg, South Africa’s Catholic university.

Garth Abraham has a history in humanitarian law and has done “important work” for the International Committee of the Red (ICRC).

He was appointed as St Augustine’s new president to succeed Sr Madge Karecki who resigned last year due to illness. He will start his duties on August 1.

Professor Nicholas Rowe has been acting president of the university since Sr Karecki’s departure.

“Garth Abraham comes with a strong academic record from Wits University where he was an associate professor of law,” said Brian Scallan, the chairman of the board of directors of St Augustine College.

“He has practised as an attorney at Bowman Gilfillan and has done important work for the ICRC in humanitarian law,” he added.

“St Augustine has a number of challenges as it rebuilds itself but the board is confident that Prof Abraham’s experience and leadership as CEO of the college will see that those challenges are met with distinction,” Mr Scallan said.

Sr Karecki, a former St John Vianney Seminary lecturer, took the reins at St Augustine in November 2013, a time when the university’s future was uncertain.

She secured financial assistance for the college from the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Confer-

ence and the Knights of Da Gama, which enabled the college to remain in operation at its current location in Victory Park.

At the time of her departure, Sr Karecki said one of her achievements at the university had been to establish a reliable and committed board.

“We formed a good active board who are working to bring about a new level of sustainability,” she said. “They are getting it right.”

P

rof Abraham teaches public international law, international trade law, foundations of South African law and jurisprudence at undergraduate level, and is involved in the presentation of courses in public international law and the law of armed conflict in the LLM (Master of Laws) programme.

He also supervises a number of PhD students on topics within public international law.

He is a graduate of the University of Natal, where he completed a masters in history, the University of Cape Town where he completed an LLB (Bachelor of Laws), and the University of the Witwatersrand where he completed an LLM in labour law.

He is currently completing a PhD thesis through Leuven, Belgium, that deals with the origins of African boundary disputes.

Prof Abraham was in the employ of the Pretoria delegation of the ICRC for ten years, where he was responsible for developing relations between the organisation and universities in the region.

He is married and has three children.

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The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

INTERNATIONAL

Pope Francis speaks on African Church

BY CINDY WOODEN

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ROMOTING dialogue, education and strong families, the Catholic Church in Africa fulfills its mission to proclaim God’s love and to work for the common good, Pope Francis said in separate meetings with the bishops of Mozambique and of Togo.

The bishops were making their ad limina visits to the Vatican to report on the situations in their dioceses in meetings with the pope and Vatican officials.

“Jesus asks only one thing of you,” Pope Francis told the bishops of Mozambique: “Go out, seek and encounter those most in need.”

Although Mozambique’s civil war ended more than 20 years ago, he told the bishops that “tensions and conflict have undermined the social fabric and destroyed families and, es-

pecially, the future of thousands of young people”.

“The most effective way to tackle the mentality of arrogance and inequality, as well as social divisions, is to invest in an education that teaches young people to think critically and helps them mature in values,” the pope said.

To truly understand what their people need, he said, bishops must spend time with them and must listen to the priests’ council, the pastoral council and the finance council of their dioceses. The bodies are there “to advise and help you”, the pope said, and “it is unimaginable that a bishop would not have these diocesan organisations”.

Meeting the bishops of Togo, Pope Francis focused on the family.

He encouraged the Togo bishops to share with the wider Church the

positive aspects of family life in Africa, particularly the openness to new life and the respect shown to elders.

In a country where half the population follows traditional African religions, close to 30% are Catholic and about 20% are Muslim, polygamy is still widespread.

The pope told the bishops: “I encourage you to persevere in your efforts to support families in their difficulties, including through education and social work, and prepare couples for the demanding but beautiful commitment of Christian marriage.”

Togo, he said, has not been “spared the ideological and media attacks that have spread everywhere today, offering models of union and families incompatible with the Christian faith”.—CNS

Court orders removal of St John Paul II statue

BY ELLIOT WILLIAMS

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(Photo: Reuters/CNS)

FRENCH court has told authorities in Ploermel, France, to remove the small town’s statue of St John Paul II on claims the statue’s placement in a public square violated the separation of Church and state.

While the court said the statue’s location and size are “ostentatious” in nature, the main issue was not with the image of the pope, but rather, the public display of the statue under a cross.

The bronze statue, which stands 9m tall, displays St John Paul praying under an arch that supports a cross, and reads “Do not be afraid”, the late

pope’s famous words from his papal inauguration in 1978.

Ploermel Mayor Patrick Le Diffon said he will appeal the court order because “it wasn’t for the man of the Church, but for the man of state that the monument was dedicated in a public square”.

When the statue was unveiled in 2006, the mayor at the time, Paul Anselin, said that St John Paul was “a giant of the 20th century who participated in the fall of the Iron Curtain”.

Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, who made the statue, said he will not approve of changes to any part of the monument, including removal of the cross.

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Cuban President Raul Castro talks with Pope Francis during a private audience at the Vatican. (Photo: Maria Grazia Picciarella, pool/CNS)

Castro: Pope makes me believe again A

BY CINDY WOODEN

FTER spending close to an hour with Pope Francis, Cuban President Raul Castro told reporters he is so impressed by what the pope does and says that he might start praying and could even return to the Church.

“I had a very agreeable meeting this morning with Pope Francis. He is a Jesuit, as you well know. I am, too, in a certain sense because I was always in Jesuit schools,” Mr Castro said.

“When the pope comes to Cuba in September, I promise to go to all his Masses and will do so happily,” the president told reporters at a news conference he held later in the day with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Mr Castro said he left his meeting with the pope “very much struck by his wisdom, his humility and all the virtues that we all know he has”.

“I read all the speeches of the pope,” Mr Castro said. “If the pope continues to speak this way, sooner or later I could start praying again and return to the Catholic Church.

I’m not kidding. I’m a communist, [a member] of the Cuban Communist Party. The party has never admitted believers.”

Today, he said, the country allows people to hold important positions even if they are not members of the party. “It’s a step forward,” he said, although many of the reforms he would like to make are still being implemented.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said that during their private meeting in a studio of the Vatican audience hall, Mr Castro thanked Pope Francis for “the active

role he played in improving relations between Cuba and the United States of America”.

In December, Mr Castro and US President Barack Obama announced that their nations were working towards re-establishing official diplomatic relations. Both leaders credited Pope Francis with helping to secure the deal through his letter-writing and by hosting a secret meeting at the Vatican between Cuban and US representatives last year.

Mr Castro also relayed to the pope the expectations of the Cuban people for his upcoming trip to the nation and outlined how the preparations were going, Fr Lombardi said.

During the traditional exchange of gifts, Mr Castro gave Pope Francis a commemorative medal featuring Havana’s cathedral and, in honour of Pope Francis’ concern for migrants, a contemporary painting of a cross made up of migrants’ boats with a migrant kneeling before it in prayer.

The Cuban artist known as Kcho, who made the painting, was present at the audience and told Pope Francis he was inspired by the pope’s expressions of concern for the thousands of migrants who risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea seeking security and a better life in Europe.

Pope Francis gave President Castro a copy of his apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, and a large medallion featuring St Martin of Tours covering a poor man with his cloak. Fr Lombardi said Pope Francis told Mr Castro the medallion is a reminder not only of the obligation “to assist and protect the poor, but also to actively promote their dignity”.—CNS

German bishops’ change employment rules

BY CAROL GLATz

C

ATHOLIC organisations in Germany welcomed changes to their Church’s employment rules, so staffers will no longer face being fired for remarrying without an annulment or for forming gay unions.

The German bishops’ conference announced that it had adjusted the Church’s labour law to reflect “multiple changes in legal practice, legislation and society”, and would no longer require the Church’s 750 000 employees to reflect Catholic teaching in their lifestyles.

“It’s good the Church will now see people as individuals, rather than just generically,” said Theodor Bolzenius, spokesman for the Central Committee of German Catholics.

“But it’s also positive that people working for the Church will be treated differently, depending on their positions, rather than all being required to follow the same rules,” he said.

Mr Bolzenius said current Church rules had posed “major problems”, especially for non-Catholic employees at German hospitals, half of which are Church-owned. He added that all Catholic institutions depended heavily on non-Catholic workers and had frequently been taken to court for alleged discrimination under German civil law.

The Church’s Freiburg-based Caritas organisation, whose 590 000 staffers make it one of Germany’s largest employers, also welcomed the reforms.

“The bishops’ decision shows how intensively our Church is now dealing with people’s real lives,” said Fr Peter Neher, Caritas president.

“There will now be attempts to find a balance between the Church’s ministry and the individual situation of Church employees, at a time when the Catholic Church’s handling of people who divorce and remarry or commit to registered civil partnerships encounters public incomprehension,” he said.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

5

What will happen Palestinian saints can be to Romero’s relics?

intercessors for peace

BY OCTAVIO DURAN OFM

BY JUDITH SUDILOVSKY

T

HE chapel of Divine Providence Hospital in El Salvador is one of the most visited places by local and foreign pilgrims. They come wishing to learn more about Archbishop Oscar Romero, the controversial archbishop who has become a Salvadoran icon.

In 1966, the Congregation of the Carmelite Missionary Sisters of St Thérèse built this hospital under the leadership of Sr Luz Isabel Cuevas Santana, a Mexican missionary who saw the need to care for cancer patients. It was in the small chapel of the hospital that on March 24, 1980, Archbishop Romero was killed, shot near his heart, just as he prepared to consecrate the host.

The day before, the archbishop challenged army soldiers for killing their own brothers and sisters. Afterwards, some said the bishop was advised to go into hiding, but he refused. He believed he had not done anything wrong by asking the soldiers not to kill, and he was already committed to celebrate a memorial Mass at the hospital’s chapel for the mother of one of his friends.

When Archbishop Romero was shot, the vestments he wore were bathed in blood. After the attack, the Carmelite nuns kept them with the greatest possible care. For a while, the sisters hid his belongings for fear that the murderers would return to eliminate any form of evidence.

“Some of the sisters who were there at the moment of his death rushed out and washed their habits because they were stained with blood,” said Sr Maria Julia Garcia, Carmelite superior and director of the hospital. “They feared for their lives since they had been witnesses of the crime. From then on, things have never been the same at this small dwelling place.”

For 35 years, the congregation and the sisters running the hospital have taken care of the relics. Sr Garcia expressed some disappointment at the lack of interest by the Salvadoran hierarchy in preserving the relics during all these years.

“There are not too many things left by Archbishop Romero. This indicates the simplicity in the way he

C The bloodstained clerical shirt that Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero wore the day he was killed is pictured in 2006. (Photo: Octavio Duran/CNS) lived,” Sr Garcia said.

“Now that the pope has recognised his martyrdom, everyone is interested in Romero, including those who disagreed with his message. We, as the moral owners of these relics, fear that they will be taken away from us and relocated to another place where they would not be treated with respect,” she said.

Archbishop Romero will be beatified in San Salvador on May 23. Sr Garcia said she is happy that the beatification is just around the corner and is also aware that the government might declare the chapel a National Cultural Heritage. But that would put the sisters in a very awkward situation, because they would have no say in the care of the relics.

“Today, everyone who could benefit with a personal or financial gain is Romero’s friend or follower,” she said.

Sr Elvia Elizett Cazun Penate is currently responsible for the archbishop’s small house, known as Oscar Arnulfo Romero Historic Centre. She is also concerned about the future of his relics.

“Now these relics have become the most precious treasures left by the archbishop. But for 35 years, no one here in El Salvador offered us any help to preserve them; not even the hierarchy of the Salvadoran Catholic Church.—CNS n See also Page 9

A group of readers is preparing audio tapes of excerpts from The Southern Cross for interested people who are blind, sight-impaired, unable to hold a newspaper or illiterate.

Anyone wanting to receive tapes as part of this service, available for an annual subscription fee of only R50, may contact Mr Len Pothier, 8 The Spinney Retirement Village, Main Rd, Hout Bay, 7806 or phone 021-790 1317.

HRISTIAN leaders in the Holy Land hope two new Palestinian saints will become intercessors for peace and a bridge among faiths.

“I am sure they follow our situation from heaven and will continue to intercede for peace and reconciliation in the Holy Land,” Auxiliary Bishop William Shomali of Jerusalem said. “Their intercession is strong and efficacious.”

He said not only should Christian Palestinians be proud of the two saints, but also Muslims and Jews “can be happy because two persons from our country joined the highest degree of human righteousness, spiritual wisdom and mystical experience of God”.

“They are models for all and intercessors for all. Interceding for the Holy Land, they do not segregate among Christians and non-Christians,” he said. “By coincidence both are called Mary—Mariam. It is extraordinary: This name is common to Jews, Christians and Muslims.

May they become a bridge between us all,” Bishop Shomali said.

“We are having a very big celebration now. Especially now that we are living a very difficult time in the Middle East, to have two Palestinian saints is wonderful,” said Sr Ferial of the Infant Jesus, a member of the Carmelite convent that Mariam Baouardy of Jesus Crucified founded in Bethlehem.

Thirteen sisters are members of the cloistered convent, with Sr Ferial the only Palestinian among them.

Having joined the order four years ago after renouncing her previous life as a store owner and physiotherapist, she is also the only exterior member who serves as a connection between the sisters and the outside world.

Bl Marie-Alphonsine, born Soultaneh Maria Ghattas in Jerusalem in 1843, is the founder of the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Rosary of Jerusalem, the first and still the only Palestinian women’s religious congregation. She died in 1927.

ON TAPE

Carmelite Sister Ferial of the Infant Jesus stands in front of images of Bls Mary of Jesus Crucified and Marie-Alphonsine at the Carmel of the Child Jesus Convent in Bethlehem, West Bank. (Photo: Debbie Hill/CNS) The Rosary Sisters are well-known in the Holy Land and the Middle East for their numerous educational institutions and were the first to open schools for girls in the villages visited by Mother Marie-Alphonsine, as she is known.

Mariam Baouardy, a Melkite Catholic, was born in 1846 in the Galilee village of Ibillin and died in 1878 in Bethlehem after having travelled to Egypt, France and India. She founded a Carmelite convent in India and one in Nazareth. Also known as the Little Arab, or the Flower of Galilee, she was granted a series of gifts such as ecstasy, levitation, the stigmata, transverberation of the heart and the gift of poetry.

A

t a ceremony in Ibillin consecrating St Mary of Jesus Crucified Chapel, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal noted the importance of the two women in the formation of two religious orders in the Holy Land.

“This Holy Land, which is suffering a lot, where there are so many soldiers, where there is occupation, war and violence, has produced two examples of holiness,” he said. “The example of the two Palestinian women will hopefully be able to gal-

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Mother Iness Al-Yacoub, superior general of the Rosary Sisters, said: “The canonisation gives us hope and determination to continue our mission in this blessed land.” Mother Marie-Alphonsine “inspires us and gives us her message that holiness is not so far...hold your cross with joy and love despite the difficulties. Walk with Jesus so you will not fall down”.

Sitting behind a grated window in the Carmel of the Child Jesus Convent in Bethlehem, Sr Anne Francoise, mother superior, said Bl Mary’s message was one of “simplicity and love without limit, and to live with the Holy Spirit”.

Mother Marie-Alphonsine is credited with saving at least two girls from drowning, one during her lifetime in 1885 in the city of Jaffa, and another 12 years ago by a miracle, in Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighbourhood. She was among five girls rescued from a collapsed septic tank.

The girl’s mother had prayed to Mother Marie-Alphonsine earlier in the morning on a premonition, asking her to protect her daughter, and the rescue was credited to the late nun’s intercession.—CNS

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The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

A Church that is poor

F

OR all the financial reforms which Pope Francis is instituting, all his calls for greater simplicity, and all his engagement for the poor of the world, the critics of the Church will continue to perceive the institution as being beset by corruption and hypocrisy, not always fairly.

Of course, it is legitimate to interrogate whether the financial reforms that are being instituted go far enough (or, as some within the Roman curia aver, too far), and to examine the levels of accountability and transparency regarding past instances of financial mismanagement by Church officials in the Vatican.

There is no denying that even until recently, the Vatican was the setting for cases of fiscal irresponsibility and, in at least one instance, illegal activity. Over the years Vatican officials neglected to take strong action against this.

Indeed, when Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, then secretary general of the Vatican City Governatorate, raised the issue, he was summarily transferred to the nunciature in Washington— a hollow promotion he did not want.

There were those in the Vatican who saw financial shenanigans and were dismayed by them. Many believe that the papal butler, Paolo Gabriele, who leaked confidential documents to the press, did not act alone.

The so-called VatiLeaks and the concerns these raised motivated the cardinals in the conclave of 2013 to mandate the new pope to institute reforms of the curia, including and especially in the area of finance.

Pope Francis has acted decisively in meeting that mandate.

For that welcome progress, the Church owes Mr Gabriele a vote of gratitude, even if in blowing the whistle he broke the law, for which he was convicted (and later pardoned by Pope Benedict XVI).

The actions of Pope Francis should also find an echo in dioceses and parishes that are falling short in their fiscal responsibilities.

Since the funds of dioceses and parishes are dependent on the money the faithful give the Church through planned giving, collections at Mass and other forms of donation, they have the right to be fully accounted to.

And yet, even when the concerns about curial corruption and the Vatican Bank are resolved, and when the abundance of silk and lace has diminished, the Church’s critics will still pull their trump card: why, they’ll demand, does the Vatican not sell off all its fabulous wealth to help the poor?

If these artworks were to be sold, they might go unto private ownership and thus out of reach for the public.

More importantly, selling off its patrimony—all its art, its real estate, investment and gold reserves—would leave the Church fiscally unsustainable and its future uncertain.

Especially without the treasures in the basilicas of Rome and in the Vatican Museums, the Holy See would raise very little revenue. The Vatican’s treasures are its lifeblood.

It must also be noted that the Catholic Church is active on the ground to alleviate poverty around the world, even in remote areas where Catholics, or even Christians, are in a minority. In many regions, even in South Africa, healthcare and education systems would collapse if Catholic agencies were to withdraw.

It is therefore not true, and even a calumny, to claim that the Catholic Church fails to serve the needs of the poor.

At the same time, Pope Francis’ call for a poor Church must be heeded.

By this the pope does not mean that the Church must divest itself of all material possessions. What the pope wants is a Church that is rooted in humility, in total submission to Christ.

The call for a poor Church does not require the parish priest to trade his automobile for a donkey-cart, for he needs reliable transport to perform his ministry. But to do so he does not need a luxury sedan.

Likewise, the celebration of the Eucharist does not require ostentatious vestments. Humility is not expressed in opulent chasubles, never mind the magna cappa.

The Church which Pope Francis seeks therefore does not need to wear ashes and sackcloth, but it must be financially reproachless and present itself to the world with material simplicity.

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.

National debate needed on poverty

C

ONGRATULATIONS on The Southern Cross’s first-class, hardhitting editorial “Trauma Shakes Nation” (May 6). Why should it not be the official stance of the whole of the Catholic Church in this glorious land of ours?

For the poor, all 12 million of them, according to the latest government statics, nothing has changed. They are still poor, with inadequate housing, a worse than Third World education system, almost non-existent access to real human protection and justice, no

Follow Jews and Muslims on feasts

I

N response to the article “Bishops apply to shift feast days” (May 6), I thank God that the feast of Easter always falls on a Sunday. If the State were to declare that Christmas was no longer a public holiday, would we also water it down by transferring it to a Sunday?

I would recommend that if the bishops were very concerned about people living in rural areas, inter alia, they should approach the Holy See to change the heavy law of the obligation regarding Holy Mass attendance. Jesus did say to the people they should listen to the Scribes and Pharisees, but also criticised these for laying heavy burdens on the people. (Mt 23:4) Maybe we should take a leaf from the Jewish and Muslim religions. They believe that their most important feast days must be celebrated on that day and they are ready to make big sacrifices to do so. Let us not water down our major feast days. (Catechesis should be looked at.)

I thank the bishops for opening this debate and bringing it to the people for further discussion.

Bishop Edward Adams, Emeritus of Oudtshoorn

Feast days matter

I

T was with sadness that I learned that the Southern African bishops have applied to Rome for permission for the solemnities of the Ascension of Our Lord and of the Assumption of Our Lady to be transferred to the nearest Sunday.

If permission is granted, this will leave only Christmas observed on its proper day.

The observance of at least a few of the ten universal Holy Days of Obligation, on their customary days, is a vital part of our Catholic identity and is liturgically and spiritually important to many of us. The transferal of the feasts would seriously dilute their significance for us—no longer a special day when, united with our

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national political champion to promote the upliftment of these folk by providing secure, ongoing employment to support their dignity as human beings.

In a country with its small very rich elite and huge number of the poor, the wealth should be distributed so that everyone has the opportunity to attain a dignified standard of living. If we had such a system, then those who do not want to work would only have themselves to blame.

Perhaps we need a national de-

fellow Catholics around the world, we make the effort during the week to attend Mass and observe the solemnity.

Having the readings on Sunday is simply not the same thing! The feast would in practice become “just another Sunday” for most people.

The argument is advanced that it is difficult for people to get to Mass during the week—this is true, but many people make the effort. Our churches are full, and our priests are creative with Mass schedules to ensure that as many as possible can attend, whether on the Vigil, early in the morning, at lunchtime, or after work and in the evening. It is not a burden to us, but a joy, even for my wife and me, who are busy working people with five children age 11 and under!

Those who cannot attend Mass— owing to work or family commitments, health reasons, great distance to a church, or lack of transport, for example—are automatically exempt from the obligation.

Perhaps the better solution is for rural communities or priestless parishes which cannot have weekday Masses to receive permission to observe the feast liturgically on Sunday, but the general rule—and the holy day—kept on the proper day?

I am also unaware of any real consultation with the laity as to their views on the matter—how unfortunate. A similar decision was taken by episcopal fiat in England a few years ago (transferring three of their seven Holy Days), and there was uproar as to the lack of meaningful consultation with the laity.

Please, dear bishops, while we understand the application is motivated by pastoral concern, I believe this is a negative and demoralising step. There are solutions, such as those mentioned.

Reconsider, please, and keep our feast days!

Nicholas Mitchell, Port Elizabeth

No ‘liberal bias’

I

REFER to Deacon Mike Harrington’s letter “No to liberal bias (May 6). Deacon Harrington has clearly been misinformed or followed very little of the work and actual process that has been in motion for the Synod on the Family in October 2015.

After the extraordinary synod in October 2014, the Vatican sent out a series of questions in a document called the Lineamenta. These questions were to be distributed worldwide as it was the Holy Father’s express desire that the whole Church be consulted. The Lineamenta contained questions that came from the Fathers of the extraordinary synod itself.

The Jesuit Institute took that document and, after a lengthy study and discussion of it, designed a survey based on what was asked in it for South African Catholics.

The document was long and dense and so considerable work was done to maintain its integrity while making it more-user friendly for South African Catholics.

The questionnaire elicited answers and at no point in the original document sent by Rome was it said that we should ask questions and then enunciate the teaching of the magisterium.

The question of bad catechetical

bate to clearly define the difference between standard of living and quality of life, with particular focus on how we manage to sustainably use our very limited natural environment in its totality.

The world economic system pays scant regard to the value of the environment.

The fact is that it is priceless, because without it, quite frankly, there is no life. Let us humbly admit that we have not, from time immemorial, taken full responsibility for our only home, Planet Earth. Action is needed now.

Antonio G Tonin, East London formation is quite clearly a huge concern. It is precisely surveys like the one being critiqued which indicate that we need to rethink the way we educate people in the faith.

On the other hand, many Catholics in South Africa do know what the Church teaches and, despite that, choose to ignore the teaching of the Church, and yet selfidentify as “committed Catholics.”

This too has implications.

It would be very helpful if we entered into informed dialogue and did not make inaccurate and sweeping statements about the Jesuit Institute or The Southern Cross based on a lack of understanding of the process initiated by the Vatican and carried out as requested.

Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, director of Jesuit Institute South Africa

Airman on video

F

URTHER to your publication on the front page (April 29) of a photograph of the victory brooch made by Max Martin, the “timekeeper of Johannesburg”, interested readers might like to follow up the story of the maker’s son, John Martin, an alumnus of St Aidan’s College, Grahamstown.

After he left school John Martin joined the South African Air Force in 1942 and served as a Spitfire pilot in the Italian campaign. He can be viewed recalling his training and time in action in a moving YouTube interview at www.saafww2pilots. yolasite.com/john-martin.php Mr Martin, now in his 90s, displays a powerful awareness of how fortunate he was to have lived in a country which was not part of the actual theatre of World War II and how, therefore, he went off to fight in Italy without any anger in his heart.

The interview also contains a number of interesting spiritual reflections on the role of prayer in the life of a soldier on the battlefield.

Fr Chris Chatteris SJ, Cape Town

Joyous Jesus

L

IKE John Lee (“Beautiful Jesus”, April 29) I too believe in the awesome charisma and beauty of Jesus, which was only marred for our sake during his passion and crucifixion.

To the idea that “no one has seen him laugh” I would like to suggest that Jesus was, however, full of joy, as he said in John 15:11: “I have told you this [to love one another] so that you will be as joyful as I am, and your joy will be complete.”

Bl Mother Teresa certainly had the joy of Jesus, and she wrote this gem: “I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”

Heather Withers, Johannesburg 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

The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

PERSPECTIVES

Africa: A cradle of Christianity L IKE last month’s column, this article is part of a series that is intended to suggest how we can develop stronger leaders for tomorrow’s Church.

This article seeks to show the role played by Africa in the development of Christianity. I would like to base my argument on three themes: the contribution of African intellectuals to the development of the Church; the involvement of North Africa in the highest office of the Church; the papacy; and the persecution of African Christians by Roman emperors.

Stuart Donaldson, a great Western scholar, quotes one authority as saying: “In the development of Christianity Africa plays the very first part: if it arose in Syria, it was in and through Africa that it became the religion of the world.

“If Christianity was by the destruction of the Jewish Church-state released from its Jewish basis, it became the religion of the world by the fact that in the great world-empire it began to speak the universally current imperial language: and those nameless men, who since the second century Latinised the Christian writings... were in part Italians, but above all Africans” (Church Life and Thought in North Africa A.D.200).

Donaldson attributes this contribution of Africa in part to the work of three great thinkers: Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine of Hippo.

Of Tertullian, Donaldson says: “There can be no doubt that the Church at large and particularly the Western Church owes him a debt of gratitude which is quite inestimable.”

Tertullian was most probably born a pagan in Carthage, modern-day Libya, in about 160 AD, possibly converted around 197, and was subsequently ordained a priest.

He was a prolific writer who vigorously defended the Church against paganism, and argued against the persecution of Christians and in favour of what he thought was right.

The influence of Tertullian can be seen from the fact that he is credited with being the first Christian author of eminence to write in Latin which subsequently became the language of the Church. Previous to that all writings were in Greek.

St Augustine of Hippo, referred to in

my previous article, is undoubtedly one of the most towering figures of the Christian faith. The author of Confessions, City of God and other books, St Augustine has had a decisive and lasting impact on Western theology and philosophy. It is significant that while Catholics and Anglicans regard him as one of the most prominent fathers of the Church, many Protestants see him as one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation.

F

rom the great thinkers let us go even higher in the leadership of the Church and look at the see of St Peter.

We begin with Pope St Victor I, who reigned from about 186-198. Gregory Elder, the prominent American historian, states categorically that Victor was born and raised in Africa.

An interesting fact to note is that if Tertullian was the first eminent author to write in Latin, the first Latin-speaking pope was none other than Victor I. What this means is that Africa played a significant role in the shift made by the Catholic Church from Greek to Latin as the official language of the Church.

Scholars give us the names of two other popes who were from Africa: St Miltiades (311-314) and St Gelasius (429496).

Of the three thinkers named by Donaldson, I have so far not referred to Cyprian.

St Cyprian was born in Carthage in

Christian Leadership

200 AD and was educated there. After his conversion to Christianity, he soon rose in the Church and eventually became bishop of Carthage.

He had strong pastoral and leadership skills which he used to guide both his flock and other leaders through the difficult period of the persecution of Christians under Emperor Valerian I. Cyprian produced numerous books and letters against heresy and about persecution. He firmly refused to sacrifice to Roman gods and boldly professed Christ.

He was finally sentenced to execution by beheading and had his head severed by the sword in 258.

Thus Cyprian joined his fellow African martyrs, Ss Perpetua and Felicitas who, along with several other African Christians, were martyred in 203.

Far from being a newcomer to the Christian religion, Africa has in fact played a major role in the development of Christianity.

The challenge for African Christians of today is to own the faith, defend it with their lives, champion it and spread it as the early African Christians did.

Representations of three African leaders who helped shape the early Church: Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine.

Woman, who are you?

M AY is the month of Mary, a time when we reflect on Mary as Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church and our mother too.

There are some beautiful qualities of motherhood that are displayed in the many Marian icons and liturgical texts dedicated to Mary. But I sometimes wonder whether we look to Our Lady’s attributes only as a mother that we forget the many other roles that she played as an ordinary woman living an extraordinary life in first-century Galilee.

I wonder whether our own modern view of womanhood has made Mary’s womanliness appear to be somewhat unattractive.

I know that the following is an overly simplistic view of the modern woman but allow me to use it as a comparison.

The last hundred years have seen the emancipation of women from being mostly confined to domestic and childrearing activities in the home to becoming leaders in just about every aspect of social life.

Women’s increased public visibility has also placed a lot of pressure on their physical appearance: the need to look good and remain “forever young”.

Women’s role as the nurturers of relationship has, to a certain extent, given way to an unhealthy focus on their physical attributes.

As a woman, I feel that we have gained a great deal in the last century, but we have also compromised on who God made us to be.

So who did God make woman to be?

One of my favourite Marian passages gives a great description of God’s vision of womanhood: “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head” (Rev 12:1).

Notice that she is clothed with the

Emmanuel Ngara

Mary, with her 12-star crown and the child Jesus in a statue on top of the new Santa Maria della Grazie church in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) sun. Light shines on her and she radiates light. Light attracts.

Think of the women you know who are filled with light. They attract others to them. Their personalities are warm, compassionate, caring. But it’s not a light that they keep to themselves. They share themselves with others, in the stories they tell, the wisdom and counsel they share, the way they build up those who have been crushed. Because they themselves are light, they refuse to be sucked into the darkness of self-pity or a lack of self-worth.

M

ary stands on the moon. The moon is a symbol that for centuries has been linked to womanhood. The moon determines the cycles of the oceans and

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The Mustard Seeds

tides, and that same cycle also applies to women’s bodies.

When I see this image of Mary standing on the moon, I see a woman who is comfortable with her womanhood through all of its natural rhythms of youth and old age, child-bearing and menopause, being daughter, wife, mother, friend, companion, disciple.

She wears a crown. She is a queen. She is royalty, and rightly so because she is the mother of Christ. But notice that her crown is made of twelve stars, which represent the Twelve Tribes of Israel. This is a symbol for God’s chosen people. Her queenship is bound to her relationship to an entire people.

A woman’s strength is her ability to relate to others. Mary is recognised as the queen among all women because she is the one who was willing to give herself entirely in a relationship with God as his handmaid and Mother (the Annunciation) and with us as our mother (John 19:26) down all generations.

She tells us that being women is not just about us. Women are important, yes, and each woman bears the mark of royalty, for she is a daughter of the heavenly King.

But they don’t exist only for themselves and their own gratification.

Women are because of others. I am because you are. This is the heart of our South African principle of ubuntu. This is the heart of our womanhood.

During this May month, as we reflect on Mary, we can perhaps ask ourselves how we view ourselves as women, or, if we are men, how we see the women in our families, the women we work with, the women we encounter in social situations.

Woman, who are you?

Fr Larry Kaufmann CSsR

7

Point of Debate

Where mercy and faithfulness meet

P

OPE Francis’ Misericordiae Vultus, which proclaims the Jubilee Year of Mercy for 2016, is truly a word of hope.

I was able to share some of its message of hope recently while preaching a mission in the Eastern Cape. I visited a woman, severely disabled, who was widowed after 49 years in a second marriage.

Her first “marriage” ended within one year, thanks to a philandering “husband” who today has several children by several women (the inverted commas obviously declare my belief that the first marriage was not a marriage). Yet this poor woman was told, after she married again, that she was “excommunicated”.

When I pressed her on this, since divorced and civilly remarried are not “excommunicated”, she was adamant that a certain priest had used exactly that word and nothing else, and that she would remain so as long as she “lived in sin”.

When she explored the possibility of an annulment, she was told that it would be a waste of time.

The second marriage by all accounts seems to have been marked by deep love and devotion.

They had a child, whom she decided not to have baptised a Catholic as she did not want him to suffer the humiliation of his mother not receiving Communion when he did. In fact, she raised him to decide for himself what spiritual path he would like to follow. Today he is a Muslim.

In my pastoral encounter with this truly loving and open person, I begged of her forgiveness for the way she has been so alienated from the Church. Her response was to say that she had never for one moment lost her faith, continuing all the Catholic devotions she had learned as a child, even though the Church was punishing her for her “sin”.

I could not help feeling that the real object of God’s mercy in this entire narrative should be the institutional Church, not that faithful and misinformed woman, who was never far from the mercy of God. It still pains me to recall the time when a certain bishop approached me while I was giving a mission, and asked me to provide a “pastoral solution” to a request he had received from a woman in a 30-year second marriage, but which he felt he could not give himself—”since I am a bishop”.

I did so, and the result was that in due course her husband, her four children, and five grandchildren were all baptised Catholic.

Some people are anxious that a more merciful pastoral approach to very human situations will lead to a compromise in or change of Church teaching. I do not believe that. Truth is indivisible. In God, “mercy and truth; justice and peace have embraced” (Psalm 85:10).

The genius and gift of St Alphonsus Liguori as a Doctor of the Church is that he was so able to harmonise compassionate pastoral ministry to doctrinal fidelity that over time his moral teaching, particularly on conscience, was to become part of the official teaching of the Church (see Gaudium et Spes 16).

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The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

COMMUNITY

The Catholic Women’s League of Our Lady of Fatima parish in Durban North welcomed its new executive members. (From left) Carol Price, Jenny Davis, Margaret Larkins, Alisande Bradshaw, Anna Accolla and Rita Abraham are pictured with Fr Desmond Royappen (third from right).

Bride Biruk Woldeyesus and groom Teshome Kebede of the Ethiopian and Eritrean community held a wedding celebration at Yeoville Recreation Centre in Johannesburg. Deacon Woldeyesus Menedo preached the homily at the celebration.

Confirmands from Holy Family parish in Newlands East, Cape Town, are pictured with RCIA programme leader Walter Petersen (centre).

The choir from Dominican Convent School in Belgravia, Johannesburg, went on a tour of the UK where they had the opportunity to perform at the house of buisness tycoon Richard Branson (centre). To view the performance see www.bit.ly/1JGWQGw Vasco Gabriel, son of Walter and Samantha de Jesus, was baptised by his greatuncle, Fr Kevin Reynolds, at Our Lady of Portugal church in Pretoria West.

Lynn and Douglas Pitter celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary at Holy Rosary parish in Krugersdorp. They are pictured with Fr Ignatius Fidgeon OMI. (Photo: James Florens)

Graduates of the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics of the University of KzN. (From left) Sue Rakoczy IHM (supervisor), Fr Nkosinathi Ngcobo (Honours), Michael Ndau SAC (honours), Mark Mapaketi CSSp (honours), Paul Decock OMI (supervisor) Laureen Confait (honours, cum laude) and May Miller (MTh, cum laude)

Gigi Giminiane received a Bene Merenti papal medal and scroll for over 25 years of service to St Augustine’s cathedral in Port Elizabeth, presented by Bishop Vincent zungu (left). Mr Giminiane celebrated his 90th birthday on the same day. They are pictured with Mgr Brendan Deenihan.

Grade 3 pupils from Brescia House School in Johannesburg collected food, warm clothing and books for the D Hani crèche in Doornkop, Soweto, as part of the school’s outreach programme.

Send your photos to pics@scross.co.za along with the names of the people and the event The children’s liturgy group at St Dominics church in Boksburg made cards for Mother’s Day.

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The Salesian Youth Movement in Cape Town reflected and prayed the Via Lucis (Way of Light) along Muizenberg beach early in the morning. The Way Of Light is a reflection on the events that took place after the resurrection of Jesus. They are pictured with Fr Francois Dufour SDB (second right).

The Eastern Cape ABCD rally was hosted by Rhodes University’s Association of Catholic Tertiary Students (ACTS) at St Patrick’s church in Grahamstown. Mass was celebrated by ACTS national chaplain Fr Mthembeni Dlamini (centre), Port Elizabeth diocese youth chaplain Fr Peter Chungu, and assistant parish priest Fr Nkosana Nhlapo.

The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

FOCUS

The lessons of Oscar Romero for SA today Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was martyred in 19809, will be beatified on May 23. RAYMOND PERRIER looks at the relevance of the Salvadoran archbishop to us in South Africa today.

W

hen I visited El Salvador in 2008 I had the great pleasure of speaking to many of the people who worked with Archbishop Romero and knew him intimately, including his vicar-general, Mgr Urioste, and Jesuit Father Jon Sobrino.

In a similar way, I never knew Archbishop Hurley, but now as the director of the Denis Hurley Centre, I have the great privilege of meeting many people here who knew him extremely well.

Julian Filochowski, the former head of CAFOD, the Catholic development charity for England & Wales, worked with both archbishops. When he lectured in Durban a few years ago he spoke of many similarities between the two men.

There is of course one striking difference: Romero was archbishop for three years before being assassinated at the age of 63; Hurley was archbishop for 45 years and was aged almost 90 when he died.

But the similarities are great. Both were born into a world scarred by the First World War, both were traditional Churchmen whose lives were turned upside down by Vatican II (though Archbishop Romero did not attend it), both stood up for justice against oppressive regimes, both continued even when faced with intimidation and death threats, both found support but also hostility from their fellow bishops and from Rome, neither was a Jesuit but both were influenced by Jesuit friends and theology, both had fine intellects but also made time for ordinary parishioners and especially the poorest and most marginalised, both spoke eloquently but understood that a religious leader also has to listen.

One of my favourite quotes from Archbishop Romero is this: “It is not enough to pray and wait for God to act. Praying and doing nothing is not holiness—it is laziness.” I would not have been surprised if Archbishop Hurley had said something very similar.

There are also striking parallels between the two places. El Salvador is similar to KwaZulu-Natal in terms of territory, size of population, landscape (mountains, beaches and pasture), and economy. In both places you can find suburbs and shopping malls that rival the best in America; and then, not far away, villages that could come from an aid and development brochure.

Both have governments that either cannot or

The martyr’s progress

BY FR ANTHONY EGAN SJ

O

T

HERE is an inspiring but gruelling film, available from the Paulines bookshop, of the life of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who is being beatified by the Church on May 23.

In one scene, a group of soldiers of the military regime march into a square, surround the unarmed villagers, and announce: “You have five minutes to disperse or we shoot.”

I recall showing the film to a group of Catholic educators in their 40s and 50s—and a shudder went through the room as that scene played.

Chris Jones, who runs the Catholic Institute of Education office in the Northern Cape explained to me: “Those were the exact same words that the apartheid army used to intimidate us when we were protesting.”

Many parallels have been drawn between the old South Africa and the military regimes of Latin America. In turn it is not surprising that the liberation theology that inspired and mobilised many bishops, priests and lay people to fight against injustice there also had an influence on the Church here.

Thus, the beatification of Archbishop Romero is being met by South Africans, both Catholics and Protestants, with joy and excitement. For many, he is already the unofficial global patron saint of justice and peace—and as of this weekend he is a step closer to official recognition.

It is clear that Archbishop Romero’s history has parallels with South African history—but what is his relevance for South Africa and the Church today?

Archbishop Romero’s death in 1980 was not the end of the struggle in El Salvador. In fact the civil war in which tens of thousands were killed, including many more priests and religious, went on for another decade; it was only a few years ago that a government was finally elected that was willing to admit the atrocities of the past—and confess that Archbishop Romero had been assassinated under orders. In that sense, Archbishop Romero is like Steve Biko: his death was a trigger and a touchpoint for an ongoing struggle.

The other parallel that is sometimes drawn is between Archbishop Romero and our own late Archbishop Denis Hurley. In a quirk of history they were both studying in Rome at the same time in the late 1930s, though there is no record of them meeting.

For a brief biography on Archbishop Romero see www.scross.co.za/2015/05/archbishop-romero-beatification For Tony Magliano’s view on Romero’s political growth see www.scross.co.za/author/tony-magliano/

Men sit in front of a mural of Archbishop Romero in Guarjila, El Salvador. His image is seen everywhere in the country. (Photo: Raymond Perrier)

Below: A nun kisses the forehead of Archbishop Romero at the Hospital of Divine Providence in San Salvador. The archbishop was taken to the hospital with bullet wounds in the chest after being shot as he celebrated Mass in a chapel on March 24, 1980. (Photo: CNS)

will not address underlying inequality and which have succeeded in making life better for a small middle class while the majority population continue to receive empty promises.

And in both places Christians, whether Catholic or not, are divided between those who are poor, those who stand alongside the poor, those who see the poor as an occasional project of charity, and those who do not even notice the poor so focused are they on increasing their own wealth.

T

here is one way in which we can learn from El Salvador. Amidst the McDonald’s arches and the BMW dealerships and the dusty bus stations, everywhere—and I mean everywhere—you see images of Archbishop Romero. He is remembered not just for what he did in his life but also for his role as the ongoing conscience to the people today. The president calls him the “Spiritual Guide of the Nation”.

Archbishop Romero foresaw this. When asked if he was afraid of death, only a few weeks before he was killed, he remarked: “They may kill an archbishop but they cannot kill my spirit which will rise up again in the heart of the Salvadoran people.”

So ordinary Salvadorans are challenged to judge their own actions, and those of their neighbours and of their rulers, against the standard that Archbishop Romero set for them.

Many people—politicians and Church leaders— have tried to neutralise the memory of Archbishop Romero, to make him a plaster saint safely locked away in school books. But it is the ordinary people of El Salvador, for whom he was the voice of the voiceless, who will not let this happen.

We face a similar challenge in South Africa. We can let the sacrifices of Mandela or Biko or Hurley or so many others remain a pious memory that we venerate; or we can allow their witness to be a challenge that, very uncomfortably, we try to emulate.

And we don’t even need the paintings all over the walls of our towns and villages as they do in El Salvador. We have an image in our pockets that can prick our consciences. So next time you take out a bank note, notice the face of Nelson Mandela and, as you spend the money, pause to ask yourself: “Does the spirit of his struggle and the struggle of so many others, live on in my actions today?” n Raymond Perrier is the director of the Denis Hurley Centre in Durban.

9

N March 24, 1980, a great, holy man was martyred. Oscar Romero, the Catholic archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador, was shot by agents of a right-wing death squad while celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel. On May 23 he will be formally beatified.

A cautious, quite conservative bishop when he was appointed to the largest diocese in El Salvador in February 1977, Arcbishop Romero had always spoken about Catholic Social Teaching and the need for justice, albeit vaguely—some might call it diplomatic, others simply timid or appeasing.

In the month of his appointment the ruling elite had “stolen” a general election by ballot fraud. Civil society, including progressives in the Church, had protested. Then, on March 12, 1977, Jesuit Father Rutillo Grande and two laypeople were murdered. This changed Romero. Radically.

Archbishop Romero knew Fr Grande and respected Fr Grande’s opinions and, above all, his integrity.

When the government tried to suggest that Fr Grande and his companions been armed and had tried to fire upon security forces, Archbishop Romero’s response was blunt: “You are liars!”

From that moment on, and despite a Salvadoran bishops’ conference that was predominantly politically cautious to reactionary, Archbishop Romero became the most consistent, vocal and public voice of resistance to economic injustice and human rights violations in the country.

He also became a beloved figure among fellow activists, progressive clergy who had previously dreaded his appointment, and the poor majority

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of Salvadorans.

Within days of his violent death he was being proclaimed “Saint Romero of the Americas” throughout Latin America and many other parts of the world.

In the Middle Ages this would have been called canonisation by acclamation. But in the contemporary Catholic Church, not altogether unknown for fast-tracking sainthoods, the process has taken more than 35 years. One may ask: why?

One argument has been that since his death has been “politicised” there had to be a “cooling-off” period. This does not work. Almost all martyrdoms have a political dimension to them. In Romero’s case it was simply that he has become a hero of the secular left, as much as a hero of those in the Church who struggle for social justice.

Others suggest that since he was murdered by people who were, at least nominally, Catholic, he could not really be called a martyr. Nonsense! By killing Romero for his Catholic Social Teaching-based advocacy, they were in effect attacking a central dimension of faith itself.

Some have also said that it’s because he was close to many who embraced liberation theology, which was unpopular in Vatican circles. It is certainly true that many politically conservative Catholics had denounced him for that in his lifetime. His orthodoxy was questioned.

But a more than cursory analysis of his speeches and writings reveal rather a consistent, contextual application of Catholic Social Teaching—just like Pope Francis who unblocked the canonisation process.

Whatever the case, we have now officially caught up with the sensus fidelium. And it’s about time too!

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10

The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

FOCUS

The roots of Boko Haram’s terror Nigeria’s Islamic fundamentalist terror group Boko Haram is not a new phenomenon. MATT HADRO finds out more about its background.

B

OKO Haram gained worldwide notoriety in April 2014 when it kidnapped some 300 girls from a boarding school in north-east Nigeria. But the militant Islamist group had been active for years, killing thousands since 2009.

With Boko Haram having pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS), one scholar is questioning whether the West adequately understands the group and how to counter it.

Fr Patrick Ryan has spent a total of 11 years in Nigeria on and off since 1964. He lived in Ghana for 15 years, during which time he made multiple visits to Nigeria. He has seen the country change over the decades—including the rise of Boko Haram, which he says is not a brandnew phenomenon.

“I think the thing that the press and the media generally misunderstand is the poverty of the situation in which this phenomenon has arisen,” said Fr Ryan, professor in religion and society at the Jesuit Fordham University in New York.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful”, launched an uprising in 2009 and hopes to impose sharia law on Nigeria. It has targeted security forces, politicians, Christian minorities, and moderate Muslims in Nigeria’s pre-

dominantly Muslim north.

Several bombings of churches with high fatalities have terrorised Christians.

In order to effectively counter the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram, one must understand its ideological origins and the social and political unrest of Nigeria.

Nigeria is a major oil producer, but as in most of the developing world, “the money does not filter down to the lower levels”.

The country traditionally produced and exported peanuts and cotton but now lives off of oil revenue as the largest oil producer in Africa. That wealth is concentrated at the top and very little of it reaches the lower classes.

The numbers are “very few” of those who “reach the top levels of the military and the civilian regime” and do not “enrich themselves and remain sort of a permanent wealthy elite”, Fr Ryan explained.

And he thinks Boko Haram is not a new phenomenon, as some might think, but a reincarnation of a fanatical Northern Nigerian movement from three decades ago.

The 1980 riots in two northern Nigerian cities, Maidougouri and Kano, were led by Mohammed Maroua who whipped up “almost Millennialist fervour” and railed against what he saw as the excess wealth and luxury of the oil boom at the time, Fr Ryan explained.

It was possibly steeped in radical crypto-Kariji Islamic ideology and manned by unemployed youth and students of the Koran.

Maroua died in the 1980 riots but several other riots developed in his wake. The government forcefully put down the movement and was

A girl displaced as a result of Boko Haram attack in the north-east region of Nigeria rests her head on a desk at a camp for internally displaced people in Yola. A former missionary priest in West Africa believes that the roots of the terror movement can be traced back at least 35 years. (Photo: Afolabi Sotunde, Reuters/CNS) never fully clear about everything that occurred.

“I think this movement has come back,” Fr Ryan said, noting that the current heads of Boko Haram were at that time “the children who begged for a living in order to receive their Koran school education in the early mornings”.

T

he recent pledge of allegiance of Boko Haram to the Islamic State has caused rumblings about how powerful the terror merger might be but Fr Ryan thinks it’s “mainly symbolic”.

North-east Nigeria is extremely remote so there’s little chance of actual physical supply lines between

the two terror groups. However, “it’s possible” that ISIS forces in North Africa could geographically link up with Boko Haram in Nigeria in the future.

“I think it’s a matter of people who have been affected by the typically rigorous interpretation of Islam that has been promoted by Saudi Arabia for generations now bearing fruit in various places where it has been present,” he explained of the allegiance between the two.

One of these places was the Sokoto caliphate from the early 1800s in north-west Nigeria, and where Saudi-funded groups tried to spread their crypto-Kariji ideologies in the 1960s. It is this region where

Fr Ryan says the extremism continues today.

The structure of Nigeria is in a shambles and if any progress is to be made in the future, education and building infrastructure must be at the forefront. If the country’s economy revolves around its petroleum industry, “things will just simply get worse”, Fr Ryan said.

Young men not in school and not working are ripe for recruitment by extremists.

Nigeria’s education system is poor and the government is largely to blame. They wrested control of the schools from churches and Muslim groups after the Biafra civil war that ended in 1970.

“It was a cooperation between government and various Christian churches and Muslim educational groups as well,” he said of the previous education system, “and that whole thing was broken down in the name of trying to prevent sectarian identification.”

The end result has been ugly.

“Basic education is the thing that the government has not proven very talented and able to affect,” Fr Ryan said.

The former Nigerian presidency of Goodluck Jonathan was largely unable to control the military. Disenchanted soldiers, particularly those not well compensated by the current government, sold equipment to Boko Haram.

With the new government of Muhammadu Buhari, a foirmer military dictator who has vowed to take a hard line on Boko Haram, it remains to be seen if that problem will end—along with the terror group currently ravaging the country.— CNA

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The Southern Cross, May 20 to May 26, 2015

CLASSIFIEDS

Fr Steuart Chancellor F

ATHER Steuart Chancellor of Durban died on April 17 at the age of 91.

Steuart Alexander Maconochie Chancellor was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on August 13, 1923. He was baptised in the Scottish Episcopal Church and later became an Anglican priest.

Decades later he was received into full communion with the Catholic Church.

He joined the Royal Navy and spent most of the Second World War stationed out of Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). On his return from active duty he enrolled in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, where he read theology and later trained at Muirfield Seminary.

He was ordained an Anglican priest and served for a short period as a curate in Edinburgh.

However, he had always been interested in missionary work, joined one of the missionary societies, and was sent to Malawi (then Nyasaland) where his parish consisted of the various islands on Lake Nyasa.

Later on, at the request of Bishop Stradling, who had been his bishop for some years in

Nyasaland, Fr Steuart took up a position of rector in a parish in Johannesburg. There he celebrated his silver jubilee of ordination but shortly afterwards decided to enter the Catholic Church, and was accepted by Archbishop Denis Hurley as a student for the diocesan priesthood.

He studied at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, which is a seminary for older men, often converted clerics. He was ordained to the priesthood on April 23, 1979 in Our Lady of Lourdes parish, Westville.

He then spent some months learning Zulu at Montebello—and retained a special affection for and interest in the Zulu people, a

Word of the Week

Acolyte: One who assists in the celebration of Mass. They are male-only adult servers.

Magisterium: The official teaching office of the Church.

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 655. ACROSS: 4 Vicious, 8 Awaits, 9 Avarice, 10 Salver, 11 Iberia, 18 Absolved, 20 Baruch, 21 Mirror, 22 Radical, 23 Lepers, 24 Godlike.

DOWN: 1 Passage, 2 Gallery, 3 Athena, 5 Invoices, 6 Israel, 7 Uncoil, 13 Noah’s Ark, 14 Ivories, 15 Address, 16 Lavabo, 17 Burial, 19 Olivet.

Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: May 31: Emeritus Bishop Patrick Zithulele Mvemve of Klerksdorp on his 74th birthday.

number of whom were educated through high school at his personal expense. He was appointed parish priest at St Patrick’s, Bellair, in 1980 where he remained until his retirement in 1989.

During his retirement he readily made himself available for locum ministry in various Durban parishes, and was a popular confessor at various penitential services for many years.

Eventually poor health necessitated his residence at Nazareth House. There he died during the night of April 1, a week before he would have celebrated the 36th anniversary of his ordination as a Catholic priest.

All in all he gave 41 years of his life to ministry in the Lord’s vineyard.

Fr Steuart was an eccentric who disliked cant and pretension of any sort. He was able to cut to the chase with a sharp humour, a churchman to his core and, always, a missionary at heart.

His requiem was celebrated at Nazareth House on April 30. May he rest in peace.

By Bishop Barry Wood

Liturgical Calendar Year B Weekdays Cycle Year 1 Sunday, May 24, Pentecost Sunday Acts 2:1-11, Psalms 104:1, 24, 29-31, 34, 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13, John 20:19-23 Monday, May 25 Sirach 17:20-24, Psalms 32:1-2, 5-7, Mark 10:17-27 Tuesday, May 26, St Philip Neri Sirach 35:1-12, Psalms 50:5-8, 14, 23, Mark 10:28-31 Wednesday, May 27 Sirach 36:1, 4-5, 10-17, Psalms 79:8-9, 11, 13, Mark 10:32-45 Thursday, May 28 Sirach 42:15-25, Psalms 33:2-9, Mark 10:46-52 Friday, May 29 Sirach 44:1, 9-13, Psalms 149:1-6, 9, Mark 11:11-26 Saturday, May 30, St Joan of Arc Sirach 51:12-20, Psalms 19:8-11, Mark 11:27-33 Sunday May 31, Trinity Sunday Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40, Psalms 33:4-6, 9, 18-20, 22, Romans 8:14-17, Matthew 28:16-20

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IN MEMORIAM

LOVATT—Graham John.

Always in our thoughts and prayers and sadly missed

by Mom and all the family.

Rest in peace.

POTHIER—Bernard. Died May 24, 2011. With us in spirit and still part of our daily lives, watching over us. We pray to him to intercede on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable. Greatly loved and never forgotten by his wife Margaret, children Dominic and Siobhain, Nicholas and Heide, Rosanne and Tiernan and their families, his siblings and extended family. May he rest in peace.

POTHIER—Bernard. Died May 24, 2011. Four years later still missed and fondly remembered by the staff of The Southern Cross and his colleagues on the board of directors.

WINDVOGEL—(née Ackerman) Magdalene. In loving memory of my sister and our aunt called home two years ago on May 24, 2013.

There’s a gift in life you cannot buy. It’s very rare and true. It’s a special gift of memory. Like the one we have of you. Rest in Peace.

Remembered by your sister Catherine, her children and their families.

PRAYERS

HOLY ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. To you I have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. Help me now in my urgent need and grant my petitions. In return I promise to make your name known and publish this prayer.

Amen. In thanksgiving Leon and Karen.

HOLY ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. To you I have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. Help me now in my

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urgent need and grant my petitions. In return I promise to make your name known and publish this prayer.

Amen. Thank you for prayers answered. Stenio Fabre.

PRAISE AND THANkS to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and to Mary Mother of the universal church and to Franciscan Father Christopher Neville, for the inspirational talks and lectures given during Holy week and the Easter retreat given at the Mariannhill Monastery Retreat House. May the good Lord continue to give you the grace and strength to bring his word to others; may you continue to touch the lives of many men and women through your inspirational talks and lectures in the spirit of St Francis. Thank you Father, may the good Lord continue to give you good health of mind and body. Br Daniel David Ambrose Manuel SCP.

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the

Trinity Sunday: May 31 Readings: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40, Psalm 33: 4-6, 9, 18-20, 22, Romans 8:1417, Matthew 28: 16-20

N

S outher n C ross Nicholas King SJ

Rich mystery of Trinity

EXT Sunday, we pick up the rhythm of ordinary time by celebrating the Solemnity of the Trinity; and there is good sense in thinking about the Trinity at just this moment, as we finish the excitement of Lent and Easter, and revert to everyday life.

This is because only if God is a community of love can we perform our God-given task of proclaiming God to the world; and the reason for this is that our God is different.

At the heart of the matter is that God has chosen his people (we did not choose God): “Did a people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of a fire”, asks the author of our first reading, “as you heard and lived?”

This is a God who “went to take a nation for himself, out of the midst of another nation”; that is something we are not to forget: “And you are to know, and to place it in your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below—there is no other.”

This is a God who is personally involved; and only a God of the inner richness that we ascribe to the Christian God can possibly be involved in this way.

The psalm for next Sunday is intoxicated

with the realisation that our God is different: “For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his deeds are done in truth; God loves justice and judgment; the Lord’s steadfast love fills the earth”; and the Lord is attentive to all his beloved human race: “Look! The eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him, to hope in his love”; and he even has power over the ultimate enemy: “to deliver their souls from death, and to give them life in famine”.

There is a quiet confidence here that God is faithful, a God of love. You see, this richness of God, to which we give that tricky name of “Trinity”, reaches out to humanity.

So in the words of the second reading, where Paul is explaining to the Romans what their ground for confidence in what God has done is, we read that “those who are led by God’s spirit are God’s children”.

Each of the three “persons” whom we detect in this loving God of ours are somehow there in this reaching out: “You did not receive a spirit of slavery, to go back into fear; no—you received the Spirit of adoption-assons, by which we cry, “‘Abba, Father’.”

Here, of course, we recognise the words of

Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, the intimacy with God, and the certainty that God is listening.

So the rich mystery of the Trinity brings us too into itself: “If we are children, then we are also heirs—we are heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ, given that we suffer with him, in order also to be glorified with him.”

Because our God is One-in-Three, precisely for that reason he can reach out to embrace us.

The Gospel for the solemnity is the remarkable ending to Matthew’s gospel; once again we are invited to taste the rich mystery of God, reaching out to and embracing our frail humanity.

It starts with the “eleven” (a number which reminds us that the Twelve have not all got it right, for one of them has betrayed Jesus and is no longer with the group) obediently proceeding to Galilee (they had, according to Matthew, lacked the courage to remain in Jerusalem after Jesus’ arrest).

And then we see that, very properly, “they worshipped him” (this verb is code in Matthew’s gospel for the correct attitude to Jesus); but that at the same time, and in the same breath, they still retained their frailty:

Walk in the light of the Lord W

human desire, a god made in our own image and likeness, and a god that we can forever manipulate to serve self-interest.

Belief in such a god, they say, is adolescent in that it is predicated on a certain naiveté, on an intellectual blindness that can be flushed out and remedied by a hard look at reality.

An enlightened mind, it is asserted, sees belief in God as self-interest and as intellectual blindness.

There is much to be said, positively, for this criticism, given that much of atheism is a parasite off bad theism. Atheism feeds off bad religion and, no doubt, many of the things we do in the name of religion are done out of self-interest and intellectual blindness.

How many times, for instance, has politics used religion for its own ends? The first prong of the criticism that the Enlightenment makes of Christian belief is a healthy challenge to us as believers.

B

ut it’s the second prong of this criticism that, I believe, stands like a lantern, a weak light, dwarfed in the noonday sun.

Central to the Enlightenment’s criticism of belief in God is their assertion (perhaps better called prejudice) that faith is a naiveté, something like belief in Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny, that we outgrow as we mature and open our minds more and more to knowledge and what’s empirically evident in the world.

What we see through science and honest

Classic Conrad

HAT’S the use of an old-fashioned, hand-held lantern? Well, its light can be quite useful when it’s pitch-dark, but it becomes superfluous and unnoticeable in the noonday sun.

Still, this doesn’t mean its light is bad, only that it’s weak.

If we hold that image in our minds, we will see both a huge irony and a profound lesson in the gospels when they describe the arrest of Jesus.

The gospel of John, for example, describes his arrest this way: “Judas brought the cohort to this place together with guards sent by the chief priests and Pharisees, all carrying lanterns and torches.”

John wants us to see the irony in this, that is, the forces of this world have come to arrest and put on trial Jesus, the Light of the World, carrying weak, artificial light, a lantern in the face of the Light of the World, puny light in the full noonday sun.

Also, in naming this irony, the gospels are offering a second lesson: when we no longer walk in the light of Christ, we will invariably turn to artificial light.

This image, I believe, can serve as a penetrating metaphor for how the criticism that the Enlightenment has made of our Christian belief in God stands before what it is criticising. That criticism has two prongs.

The first prong is this: The Enlightenment (modernist thought) submits that the God that is generally presented by our Christian churches has no credibility because that God is simply a projection of

“but they doubted”.

But that does not cause any hesitation, for Jesus’ rich love reaches out beyond their failures, and reminds them that God has given him “all authority in heaven and on earth”; and then they are given a job: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them.”

Then the mission is placed into the context of the Threeness of God that we celebrate next Sunday, as he continues, “into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

Then comes the vital bit, as we are instructed to teach all these nations (not just Jews, you see—the idea of God’s people has grown wider), “to keep all the things that I commanded you”.

And how are we to fulfil our mission? It is simple: “Look: I am with you all the days until the end of time.”

Only if it is true about this richness of God that we celebrate next weekend do we have the possibility of performing our task, and living with this God.

Southern Crossword #655

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

observation, they believe, eventually puts to death our belief in God, exposing it as a naiveté. In essence, the assertion is that if you face up to the hard empirical facts of reality without blinking, with honesty and courage, you will cease to believe in God. Indeed, the very phrase “the Enlightenment” implies this. It’s only the unenlightened, pre-modernist mind that still can believe in God. Moving beyond belief in God is enlightenment.

Sadly, Christianity has often internalised this prejudice and expressed it (and continues to express it) in the many forms of fear and anti-intellectualism within our Churches. Too often we unwittingly agree with our critics that faith is a naiveté. We do it by believing the very thing our critics assert, namely, that if we studied and looked at things hard enough we would eventually lose our faith.

We betray this in our fear of the intellectual academy, in our paranoia about secular wisdom, in some of our fears about scientific knowledge, and by forever warning people to protect themselves against certain inconvenient truths within scientific and secular knowledge.

In doing this, we in fact concede that the criticism made against us is true and, worse still, we betray that we do not think the truth of Christ will stand up to the world.

But, given the penetrating metaphor highlighted in Jesus’ arrest, there’s another way of seeing this. After we have conceded the truth of the legitimate findings of science and secular wisdom and affirmed that they need to be embraced and not defended against, then, in the light of John’s metaphor (worldly forces, carrying lanterns and torches, as they to arrest the Light of World to put it on trial), we should also see how dim are the lights of our world, not least, the criticism of the Enlightenment.

Lanterns and torches are helpful when the sun is down, but they’re utterly eclipsed by the light of the sun. Worldly knowledge too is helpful in its own way, but it is more than dwarfed by the Light of the Son.

ACROSS

4. Little Victor has debts. That’s immoral (7) 8. Looks forward expectantly (6) 9. Capital sin I carve a way out of (7) 10. Tray that is almost silver (6) 11. Spain and Portugal share it (6) 12. Teutonic creaming (8) 18. Sacramentally freed (8) 20. Son of Neriah (Jer 36) (6) 21. Reflector (6) 22. Car dial for the fanatical (7) 23. Jesus cleansed them (6) 24. Divine appearance? (7)

Led by Fr EMIL BLASER OP

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DOWN

1. Way to find text in the Bible (7) 2. Where art is displayed up in church? (7) 3. Capital Greek goddess (6) 5. Bills to be paid by the choir?

(8) 6. Your name shall not be called Jacob but ... (Gn 32) (6) 7. Unwind like the serpent (6) 13. Shark on a biblical vessel (5,3) 14. Tusks on the keyboard? (7) 15. Abode from which oration is given (7) 16. Washing from the Latin Mass (6) 17. Inhumation (6) 19. Mount to which Jesus went (Jn 8) (6) Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

A

CATHOLIC priest, a Protestant minister and a rabbi take a bet at who can convert a bear. So they go in the woods to find bears to proselytise.

A week later they share their experiences. The minister is first: “I found a bear by the stream, preached from the Bible, laid my hands upon him and baptised him in the water.”

The priest reports: “I read my bear the Catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. He’ll make his first Communion next week.”

They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a gurney in a bodycast. “Looking back,” the rabbi says, “maybe I shouldn’t have started with the circumcision.”

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Sunday Reflections

Rome, Assisi, Florence, Siena, Padua, Milan, Venice and more 6 - 18 September 2015