160113

The

S outher n C ross

January 13 to January 19, 2016

reg no. 1920/002058/06

Gay, Catholic, chaste – and feeling fine

no 4957

Page 13

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Let Sundays beat the work stress

Joys and pains of a Perpetual Adoration parish

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Page 7

CIE: Too many matrics for struggling unis

By STuArT GrAhAM

M collecting their matric results in Johannesburg were holy rosary high School 2015 matriculants caitlyn callanan, Theané Dietrich and Taylor rattray, who indicate the six distinctions each obtained. Most independent catholic schools, including holy rosary, recorded 100% pass rates.

3,2 million people saw Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2015

By Junno Arocho ESTEVES

M

ORE than 3,2 million pilgrims visited and attended papal events, liturgies or prayer services at the Vatican in 2015, the Vatican has said.

The statistics were compiled by the Prefecture of the Papal Household, which coordinates papal events and distributes free tickets to papal audiences and liturgies. The prefecture said more than 3,2 million people attended a papal event in 2015.

The total was a significant drop from the 5,9 million visitors received by Pope Francis in 2014. It was also slightly more than half the 6,6 million pilgrims who visited the Vatican during the first nine and a half months of his pontificate in 2013.

During 2015, at least 704 000 people attended the pope’s 42 weekly general audiences; more than 408 000 attended a special group audience; at least 513 000 pilgrims participated in papal liturgies in St Peter’s basilica or St Peter’s Square; and more than 1,5 million attended the pope’s Angelus address on Sundays and major feast days in St Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis gestures to fans of his favourite Argentinian football club at a general audience in September. The Vatican has announced that 3,2 million people saw the pope at Vatican events last year.

(Photo: Günther Simmermacher) The papal event statistics do not include papal events in the city of Rome or international visits made by Pope Francis. They are also based on the number of ticket requests and estimates of crowd size.—CNS

ATRICULANTS need to realise that attending university is not the “beginning and end” for finding a job or being successful in life, the Catholic Institute of Education (CIE) said after the release of matric results.

As expected, well-resourced Catholic schools with learners who wrote matric assessed by the private Independent Examinations Board (IEB) achieved a far higher pass rate than schools writing the NSC state exams, said CIE deputy director Anne Baker.

Some 799 306 pupils wrote the matric exam in 2015, the highest number of candidates ever in South Africa.

Although the matric pass rate went down nationally from 75,9% to 70,7% in 2015, an increased number of learners made it through matric, with more than 117 000 learners writing exams.

Despite the drop in the pass rate—which has been attributed to thousands of “progressed” pupils, poor maths skills, overworked teachers and three poorly performing provinces—far more learners qualified to attend university. The problem is that universities are struggling financially and may find it difficult to cope with the number of students applying to attend.

“There were 15 500 more bachelor degree passes in 2015” than the previous year, Ms Baker noted.

“Given the problems at universities, what does that mean? Are we guiding young people to realise university is not the only option?” she asked, noting: There are many other options after matric.”

One of the significant factors influencing the drop in the results was the progression to matric of 65 100 learners who failed Grade 11 but were “progressed” to matric, said Ms Baker. Of those only 22 000, about a third, passed matric, leaving a substantial number who did not make it through.

“I understand the reasoning behind progressing the learners from Grade 11, but the questions is: what are we doing about the children who didn’t pass”, Ms Baker said.

One state-funded Catholic school that

had to progress 41 Grade 11 learners recorded a pass rate of 64,6%. Without those 41 learners, the school would have attained an 80% pass rate, Ms Baker said.

Far too much emphasis is placed on matric results while not enough attention is placed on the entire schooling system, she said.

Ms Baker said that if schools perform poorly in the regions which the CIE serves directly, the organisation will try to support principals in analysing what can be done to improve results.

“There have been a lot of changes for teachers in the past year and we find that you don’t always have the best teachers in key subjects. The challenge is a [shortage] of good teachers,” Ms Baker said.

“Our energy must go into the foundation phase: Grades R, 1, 2 and 3. We shouldn’t have all the hype around matric. We should be building and building from the foundation phase. We shouldn’t be measuring the [entire] system based on matric results.”

The Equal Education movement has suggested that the “true matric pass rate” is 42%, saying that a large number of students drop out before they reach Grade 12 to write the matric exams.

“For broader perspective and context on the overall matric pass, one should use a cohort matric pass rate,” the movement said in a statement.

Equal Education defines the cohort matric pass rate as the percentage of learners in Grade 2 who pass matric 11 years later.

Of the 1 118 690 learners enrolled in Grade 2, only 667 925 students made it to the matric final exams. This represents a dropout rate of 40%.

The 2015 cohort matric pass rate, or “true pass rate” therefore is 42,2%, according to Equal Education.

The Western Cape was the overall top achiever in the 2015 matric exams with a pass rate of 84,7%, up by 2,5% in 2014, followed by Gauteng with 84,2% and the Free State with 81,6%. KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape recorded the lowest pass rates. n See also page 3

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The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

LOCAL

Poverty and patriarchy: risks for girls Bishops pay

By STuArT GrAhAM

P

OVERTY and a deep patriarchal culture are creating a climate for the exploitation of young girls in South Africa, according to the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office (CPLO).

Girl children are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking for domestic servitude, for sexual exploitation and early marriage for financial gain on behalf of the girl’s family, CPLO researcher Lois Law said in a paper titled “The Vulnerability of the Girl Child”.

“Poverty is creating a climate for the exploitation of young girls to take place, and poverty is almost always accompanied by social alienation and apathy,” said Ms Law. In spite of progress made in legislated gender equality, South Africa remains a “deeply patriarchal society” and this pervades much of our social discourse, she added.

The spatial geography of South Africa and the distances to and from school render girls vulnerable to exploitation, she said.

The scarcity of safe public transport add to the dangers, Ms Law noted.

Poverty and a deep patriarchal system make girls vulnerable for domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and early marriage.

(Photo: Paul Jeffrey/cnS) Moreover, paths in informal settlements are poorly lit, “so the journey to and from the portable toilets at night also constitutes a danger”.

Building up girl children’s sense of self-worth is a vital cog in eliminating their exploitation, said Ms Law. However, some families may be benefiting from the exploitation of the girl child and would

do little to encourage her independence.

There is anecdotal evidence, she said, to indicate that girls who have fled forced marriages are not welcome home.

A number of important measures can help to protect girl children, including instituting a legal minimum age of marriage at 18 and curbing the practice of ukuthwala where girls as young

as 12 are abducted and forced into marriage, amending laws that exempt rape within marriage from punishment, and prohibiting female genital mutilation.

The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child requires that signatory states “shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate harmful social and cultural practices affecting the welfare, dignity, normal growth and development of the child and in particular those customs and practices prejudicial to the health or life of the child”.

The requirement and enforcement of birth and marriage registration are important as is the provision of greater access to education. Undertaking a comprehensive review, with women’s groups, of existing laws in order to identify and amend any that discriminate against women and girls, as well as those that have a discriminatory impact on women and girls, is also important.

The capacity of girls to make informed choices and exercise their rights must also be cultivated, and legislation that protects the rights of girls must be enforced, Ms Law said.

Christian Brothers College Boksburg

we congratulate all our Matriculants on their excellent results which attest to their commitment and hard work.

The dedication of the teaching staff and their support to the boys is highly commended.

The College has achieved a 100% pass rate with a 100% entrance to tertiary education. 49 learners sat for the 2015 iEB Matric Examinations and 45 (92% an increase of 2% on the 2014 results) passed with Bachelor degree entrance and 4 (8%) with diploma entrance. An additional 12 learners attained at least one distinction each.

lEo BREEdT 5 diSTinCTionS

JudE nAidoo 3 diSTinCTionS

Address: Konig Road, Boksburg

Tel: +27 (0) 11 917 9518/9

Fax: +27 (0) 11 892 1215

Enquiries: admissions@cbc.org.za

www.cbc.org.za

niKhil RugunAnAn Top lEARnER FoR 2015 wiTh 5 diSTiCTionS

BRAdlEY luCAS 4 diSTinCTionS

AnThonY holRoYd 3 diSTinCTionS

All five boys were given specific recognition by the College for their academic ability and service to the community and the school

CBC Boksburg is a leading day school for boys from Years 000 to Matric with weekly boarding for Senior boys from Year 8 to Matric

tribute to consecrated life – a ‘jewel’

By STuArT GrAhAM

C

HURCH leaders have paid tribute to the consecrated men and women who have left everything to follow Jesus.

“We rejoice in the lives lived and the wonderful activity and service carried out by so many consecrated men and women in our country and in our world,” Archbishop Stephen Brislin, president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said in a pastoral letter to mark the closing of the Year of Consecrated Life in February.

A jewel in the life of the Church is the witness of the community way of life, the archbishop said, while the witness of internationality and multicultural living counteracts the tendency to extreme nationalism.

“Caring for one another across the boundaries of age and culture and listening to each other with respect encourages all to live the Gospel by openness to the mystery of God in each other,” the pastoral letter said.

Living as contemplative or active religious, in community and ministering as community, enables people “to see and believe that today in Africa, those men and women who follow Christ Jesus find in him the secret of living happily together—mutual love and fraternal communion, strengthened daily by the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours”, the pastoral letter said.

“Sharing the gifts of the earth and human labour in the midst of a consumerist society, so conscious of wealth and status, promotes those Gospel values cherished and lived by Jesus.

“Prayer and contemplation lend credibility and value to apostolic initiatives which witness to selfless love,” the letter said.

“We are all called by our baptism to love Jesus, to follow him, to be united with him and to make him known,” it said.

The Church as a whole cannot faithfully fulfil its mission without the prophetic witness of consecrated men and women, the archbishop said.

“The special quality of their lives becomes a leaven in the Church. Their radically obedient response to grace, by which they are prompted to leave everything—wife, husband, children, family, land and possessions—leads them to embrace the life Jesus lived: a life which was poor, celibate and obedient to the Father.

“We ask that in your homes and in your parishes, especially throughout this year, you pray fervently that God will touch the hearts of many among us and inspire them to leave all things and follow Christ.”

The bishops will close the Year of Consecrated Life with a Mass at the cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Pretoria, on January 16 at 10:00. The Mass will also serve as the opening Mass of their first 2016 biannual plenary session and the launch of the new Catholic Board of Education.

Tzaneen plans for first Daswa feast STAFF rEPorTEr

T

HE diocese of Tzaneen has announced its programme for the first feast of Bl Benedict Daswa, to be observed on February 1.

On January 30 pilgrims will take tours of sites relating to the life of Bl Benedict (pictured), including his home, parish church, and place of stoning.

On January 31, Sunday Mass will be celebrated at 10:00 in the church Bl Benedict helped to build and which now holds his remains, the church of Our Lady of Assumption in Nweli.

This will be followed by the Rosary at 13:00, and a service of reconciliation with individual confessions at 14:00.

On the feast of Bl Benedict Daswa on February 1 there will be Veneration of the Relics at 7:00 in the morning, then the feast day Mass at 9:00.

Bl Benedict was beatified in September as a martyr, having been murdered by a mob on February 2, 1990 for refusing to take part in a witchcraft ritual.

All parishes are requested to do a novena of Bl Benedict Daswa from January 23-31 and report any assistance received to Sr Claudette Hiosan FDNSC, PO Box 80, Mooketsi, 0825, Limpopo; or call 076 570 8843 or e-mail bendaswa@mweb. co.za

The Southern cross,January 13 to January 19, 2016

LOCAL

3

Church to govt: poll on nuclear power STAFF rEPorTEr

T

Members of the South African Faith communities’ Environment institute protest outside parliament in cape Town. The risks of adding nuclear energy to South Africa’s power grid outweigh its economic benefits, the bishops’ Justice & Peace commission has said, calling for a referendum on the issue. (Photo: nic Bothma, EPA/cnS)

HE risks of adding nuclear energy to South Africa’s power grid outweigh its economic benefits, the bishops’ Justice & Peace Commission said as it called for a halt to nuclear procurement plans and a referendum on the issue.

South Africa is in financial crisis and cannot afford the new nuclear plants, reported to cost about R1 500 billion, the commission said in a statement signed by its chairman, Bishop Abel Gabuza of Kimberley.

The Department of Energy (DoE) formally announced the cabinet’s decision to go ahead with the procurement of nuclear energy. A government gazette released on December 21 also approved the next step, which will allow the department to call for quotes for the 9 600-megawatts new-build project.

The commission said the DoE and Treasury “have yet to produce convincing evidence to show that nuclear procurement is affordable to the country and its consumers”.

The J&P statement also raised

concerns about the project’s vulnerability to corruption.

The commission urged President Jacob Zuma’s administration to poll citizens on its plans.

“Given the enormity of the risks the South African government is asking its citizens to bear through the nuclear option, including the enormous safety risks and economic risks, it is only fair that the government directly consults its people on the matter,” said Bishop Gabuza.

The commission explained that in 2011 the Italian government conducted a similar referendum to poll its citizens on its plans to generate 25% of the country’s electricity from nuclear power by 2030. The referendum rejected government plans for nuclear procurement.

“If our government truly believes that its nuclear decision is serving the best interests of the majority of South Africans, it should not be afraid to emulate the Italian example and open up the matter to a national referendum before the formal bidding process commences,” the bishop said.

South Africa currently has two

nuclear reactors, at Koeberg outside Cape Town, generating 5% of the country’s electricity.

A study in 2007 compared five coastal sites for nuclear plant locations: Duynefontein (near the existing Koeberg plant), Bantamsklip (between Gansbaai and Cape Agulhas), Thyspunt (near Jeffrey’s Bay) and two locations on the Namaqualand shoreline.

“Although the probability of a nuclear accident is relatively low, the consequences of such an accident cause health hazards for thousands of people” and render land uninhabitable and unusable for decades, Bishop Gabuza said.

“Considering the enormity of the damage when an accident occurs, the dangers of nuclear energy to human life will always remain very high,” he said.

As well as incurring insurmountable public debt, the procurement could threaten South Africa’s sovereign control over its energy security, the statement said. The government should concentrate its efforts and fiscal resources on renewable energy, it said.

100% pass rate defied fears

By MAuricio LAnGA

T

HIS time St Francis College in Mariannhill, near Durban, did not expect to continue its proud record of scoring 100% pass rate in the national examinations, since “there were some learners considered to be too weak to pass”, according to the Catholic school’s principal Jabulani Nzama.

“But to our amazement, all of them passed,” said Mr Nzama of his school’s 100% pass rate.

Of 99 learners who set for their examinations, 87 obtained bachelor passes.

Mr Nzama attributed this achievement to the hard work and unwavering commitment from educators, parents and learners themselves.

The rector of the school, Fr Mkheseni Xulu, said it is not only about passing but also about

Relaxed golden jubilee for bishop STAFF rEPorTEr

B

ISHOP Edward Adams, retired of Oudtshoorn, celebrated the golden jubilee of his priestly ordination on January 6.

The 81-year-old, who was the bishop of the diocese of Oudtshoorn from 1983 to 2010, celebrated the jubilee with an informal gathering at Koelenhof, Cape Town, starting with Mass at 11:00, followed by a “bring ‘n share” with “no invitations, no fuss, nothing formal, nothing special”.

Bishop Adams was ordained priest in Rome on January 6, 1966, less than a month after the closing of the Second Vatican Council, by Pope Paul VI. He was one of the first priests to be ordained by a pope in modern times.

“Let us give praise and thanks to God for the 50 years of priestly ministry of Bishop Adams—most of which he spent in the diocese of Oudtshoorn as our bishop,” the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference said in a statement.

Bishop Adams is at present the temporary parish priest of Holy Spirit church in Koelenhof and lives at the convent of the Oblate Sisters of St Francis de Sales.

He still enjoys a regular game of golf.

the quality of the passes the school achieved.

“It also gives me confidence to see these matriculants leave the school, not only having achieved academically but also spiritually”, said Fr Xulu.

“It is my hope that as learners who have been formed holistically, they will add value wherever they go. I wish them all the best in their tertiary education”.

Matriculant Londeka Radebe, who obtained seven distinctions, said she is grateful to people who had supported her along the way.

“I am very surprised because I did not expect to achieve seven distinctions,” she said. She attributed her success to good time management and hard work, coupled with “good relations with my teachers—and above all prayer”.

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Matriculants at St Francis college in Mariannhill celebrate their school’s unexpected 100%% pass rate. (Photo: Mauricio Langa)

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The Marist community congratulates the 408 Matriculants from our 5 Marist Schools May the Marist values of Simplicity, Presence, Family Spirit, the Way of Mary and a Passion for Work continue to guide your lives as you begin the next stage of your journey.

ST JOSEPH’S MARIST COLLEGE

SACRED HEART MARIST COLLEGE

ST HENRY’S MARIST COLLEGE

ST DAVID’S MARIST INANDA

Rondebosch, Cape Town Est. 1918

Observatory, Johannesburg Est. 1924

Berea, Durban Est. 1929

Inanda, Johannesburg Est. 1941

MARIST BROTHERS LINMEYER (MARIAN COLLEGE)

Linmeyer, Johannesburg Est. 1966

4

The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

INTERNATIONAL

Sainthood cause launched Pope Francis: ‘I sing for martyrs of Hindu attacks like a donkey’

By ELiSE hArriS

T

HE green light has officially been given to open the cause for sainthood of the nearly 100 Christians murdered in the Indian state of Odisha in 2008.

The opening of the cause is a source of pride for the relatives of those killed, but also “for the whole Church this [brings] pride because our men, our women and our children, those who were martyred for the faith, they are not forgotten”, said Archbishop John Barwa of Cuttack Bhubaneswar in Odisha province.

Although those killed often lost their lives in gruesome ways, “their death has brought newness of life [and] newness of faith, and for this all of [the victims’ families] feel proud”.

Following the August 2008 murder of Swami Lakshmanananda, leader of the right-wing Hindu nationalist organisation Vishna Hindu Parishad, Hindu fundamentalists attacked the Christian minority in Kandhamal district of Odisha, whom they blamed for the murder.

In the months that followed, nearly 100 Christians were killed for refusing to convert to Hinduism and

hindu women cry during a burial in a christian cemetery near Kandhamal, india. (Photo: Anto Akkara/cnS) 56 000 people were displaced, taking refuge in forests where they were susceptible to starvation and deadly insect bites.

Some 6 500 houses and 395 churches were destroyed, and about 10 000 people still haven’t returned due to fear of reprisals.

Some who had converted to Christianity from Hinduism were targeted in the attacks. After the ordeal was over, some of the converts returned to Hinduism out of fear, though they continue to believe in and practise the Christian faith se-

cretly.

The families and friends of those who died have recounted stories of the brutal deaths of their loved ones, many of which include torture, the demand to renounce their faith, dismemberment and worse.

Archbishop Barwa said that the official initiation of the process “has been great” for Christians in India, given the various challenges they face as a minority, including fundamentalist threats.

“This will be a strengthening for the revitalising” of the Christians affected by the 2008 attacks, he said, adding that the cause “will be truly a strength for the Christians, especially in this region”.

In the meantime, he said that plans are moving forward to build a memorial for the martyrs. A location has already been selected for a small museum commemorating those who were killed.

While religious tensions in the area have cooled to the extent that Hindus piled into churches alongside Christians for this year’s Christmas celebrations, the archbishop said that fundamentalists will always exist, but that as Christians, “we will go ahead with building up what’s best”.—CNA

By Junno Arocho ESTEVES

S

INGING is good for one’s soul and, as St Augustine says, Christian life is not a sad path but a joyous one that is done “singing and walking”, Pope Francis said.

“Remember this: Sing and walk,” the pope said to 6 000 young choristers, their families, friends and choirmasters from 18 countries. “And in this way, your soul will enjoy more the joy of the Gospel.”

The young choir members took part in the International Congress of Pueri Cantores in Rome.

The pope took questions from several young choir members, choosing to address the youth off-the-cuff.

A young girl asked the pope what he thought about their music and if he liked to sing.

“I would much rather like to hear you all sing today,” the pope said.

“But if I sang, I would sound like a donkey because I do not know how to sing. I don’t even know how to speak well.”

Recalling his childhood, the pope said his mother would sit him and his siblings in front of the radio to listen to operas and explain the meaning of what was sung, so they

learned to appreciate music.

The next question, asked by another young girl, took a more personal turn. “How are you so good?

Do you ever get angry?” she asked.

The pope remembered Jesus’ response to the young rich man who addressed him as “good master”, saying that “only God is good”. “Always remember, only God is good. And if you want to find goodness, go to God. There you will find all goodness, all love, all mercy," he said.

He laughingly admitted, however, that while he does get angry, “I do not bite.” “Anger is poisonous, it poisons the soul,” he warned. There are people who have a bitter soul, always bitter and living angry. It’s almost as if they wake up every morning and brush their teeth with vinegar. It is a sickness.”

The final questions asked to the pope came from a young chorister who wondered what the pope dreamed of becoming when he grew up.

The pope once again recalled his childhood, saying that when asked by his mother and grandmother what he would like to be when he grew up, he told them he would like to become a butcher.—CNS

Pope’s prayers on social media By cAroL GLATz

P

OPE Francis will now deliver his monthly prayer intentions on video over social media as part of a Jesuit-run global prayer network.

The new video messages, featuring the pope asking for prayers and action on various challenges facing the world today, began on Januay 6, the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord.

Often people are inundated with so much bad news that they might feel helpless, but “to pray together with Pope Francis for these challenges will us help us a lot”, Jesuit Father Frederic Fornos told Vatican Radio.

The Jesuit priest is the head of the international Apostleship of Prayer, a Jesuit-run outreach that has given Catholics the pope’s monthly prayer intentions since 1890. The prayer intentions are discussed in The Southern Cross in Fr Chris Chatteris’ column Pray with the Pope each month.

Working with the Vatican Television Centre, the apostleship launched the monthly videos of the pope’s universal prayer intentions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

While the pope will speak in Spanish, the videos will have subtitles for a total of ten languages, Fr Fornos said.

Pope Francis’ general prayer intentions for 2016 include: greater care for creation; more support for families in difficulty; just compensation for small farmers; greater respect for women and indigenous peoples; helping sports contribute to peace; encouraging journalists to respect truth and be more ethical; greater support for countries that take in refugees; and an end to the use of child soldiers.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

5

Padre Pio relics for Rome T

By Ann SchnEiBLE

Pope Francis prays in front of a nativity scene during a surprise visit to the Franciscan shrine in Greccio, italy. Greccio, which receives few international pilgrim tours, was on the itinerary of three Southern Cross pilgrimages in 2013/14, led respectively by Archbishop William Slattery, Bishop Joe Sandri and Fr Emil Blaser oP. (Photo: L’osservatore romano, EPA/cnS)

Religious persecution worsens in China Z HEJIANG province in China has used the pretext of a charge of illegal building to bulldoze churches and remove their crosses, and by Christmas 2014, reports said 500 churches had been targeted in the province. By this past Christmas, the number had exploded to more than 1,500, reported ucanews.com.

After claiming 2014 to be the worst year for religious persecution in China since the Cultural Revolution, observers in and outside the country say 2015 saw the situation deteriorate further. Relations between China’s faithful and the Communist Party have not been this strained since the days of Chairman Mao. In an apparent clamp-down on “religious extremism” following a series of attacks, monks and nuns in Tibetan monasteries complained the Communist Party is interfering more in daily life than it has for years and in Xinjiang, burqas were banned; so too was “terrorist clothing”.

Although authorities succeeded in forcing churches to display less conspicuous crosses in Zhejiang, few doubt the provincial government’s campaign has achieved anything except harden Christian resolve, let alone curb an appetite for evangelism.

But Christians say they now face something even worse: the cross-removal campaign was all about controlling the church facades, but in recent weeks authorities have interfered inside churches.

In the city of Wenzhou, Christians reported state officials attending church on Sundays to silence

HE body of Padre Pio will be on display for veneration at next month’s Ash Wednesday Mass in the Vatican, where a group of priests will be sent out as “Missionaries of Mercy” for the Jubilee Year.

Pope Francis “has expressed his keen desire” for the relics of the Capuchin saint to be exposed during the February 10 Mass in St Peter’s basilica, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation.

These Missionaries of Mercy are priests who, during the Jubilee of Mercy, will be given the faculties to pardon sins in cases otherwise reserved to the Holy See. St Pio of Pietrelcina, colloquially known as Padre Pio, was a priest of the Order of the Friars Minor Capuchin, a stigmatist and a mystic, who lived from 18871968. He was beatified in 1999, and canonised in 2002 by Pope John Paul II. He was born in Pietrelcina, but ministered in San Giovanni Rotondo from 1916 until his death.

February’s exposition of Padre Pio’s remains at the Vatican is part

The tomb of Pade Pio in San Giovanni rotondo. The body of the capuchin saint will be on display for veneration at various rome sites in February. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) of the relics’ tour for the Year of Mercy, which will include stops in Rome and Pietrelcina.

Padre Pio’s relics, which reside in the shrine at San Giovanni Rotondo, will arrive on February 3 at Rome’s basilica of St Lawrence Outside the Walls. On February 5, the relics will be carried in procession from St Lawrence to St Peter’s basilica, where they will remain until February 11.

Various events will be held during this period, including a papal audience on February 6 with members of Padre Pio prayer groups,

workers at the Home to Relieve Suffering, which was founded by St Pio in 1956, and faithful from the Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo archdiocese.

On February 9, Pope Francis will preside over Mass with Capuchin brothers from around the world.

After Mass on February 11 for the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, presided over by Archbishop Fisichella, St Pio’s relics will be taken for three days to Pietrelcina before they return to San Giovanni Rotondo.—CNA

Attack on school’s nuns shakes South Sudan Church An altar server carries a crucifix as he leads a procession during Mass in Beijing. (Photo: Wu hong, EPA/cnS) critical voices. In other areas of Zhejiang, authorities put up propaganda notices on church pin-boards, according to state media. This is all part of a new campaign called “five entries and transformations”, which aims to make churches more Chinese—and by default less foreign— while picking and choosing Bible verses that correlate to party doctrine. However, high-ranking party officials appear to disagree about whether Christianity should adapt to China, or the other way round, according to Fenggang Yang, director of the Centre on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University in Indiana.

For China’s diverse religious communities, the future remains less certain than it has been for many years.

On China’s periphery, minority Tibetan Buddhists and ethnic Uighur Muslims appear even less optimistic.—CNS

THE HOLY YEAR OF MERCY

LIVING ORDINARY LIVES WITH EXTRAORDINARY LOVE

a morning reflection on the 20th February by Fr. Kees Thonissen OFMCap. After tea he will talk about the Damietta peace initiative, particularly in Africa.

Date Time Place

Saturday 20 February 2016 9 for 9.30 - 13.00 Koinonia retreat centre, 53 1st street, Bez Valley, Jhb (big green gates) not far from Catholic Bookshop.

Contact Sr Jacky 011 624 1002, 072 193 5413 Cost R30 - for tea and sandwiches Contemplative outreach is hosting this event, we welcome you to join us

A donation towards the Damiette peace initiative will be welcomed

By BronWEn DAchS

A

N attack on religious sisters at a teacher training college in South Sudan has shaken and saddened the Church, a Church leader said, while urging people of faith to demand the implementation of the latest peace accord to end the civil war.

Violence and fear-mongering seem “rampant in both Church and society” in the northeast African country, said Bishop Edward Hiiboro Kussala of TomburaYambio.

Five armed men, believed to be allied to South Sudan’s main rebel group, assaulted and threatened religious sisters at the Solidarity Teacher Training College in Yambio, the capital of the country’s Western Equatoria state.

After climbing the fence surrounding the college, the men confronted the nuns, who were locking up the building for the night, and demanded guns, cash, phones and computers, De La Salle Brother Bill Firman, director of Solidarity with South Sudan, said in a statement.

“Of course the sisters had no guns, but handed over the other items” and the men drove away in two cars, Br Firman said.

“It was clearly a planned attack, but the assailants were not familiar with the

comboni Sister Sandra Amado from Brazil, teaches a class at a teacher training institute in yambio, South Sudan. (Photo: Paul Jeffrey/cnS) compound,” he said, noting that it was “a very traumatic incident, but there were no casualties”.

More than 100 people have been killed since May in Western Equatoria, which until then had been relatively peaceful in wartorn South Sudan. In early December, violent battles erupted between armed groups in Yambio.

Solidarity with South Sudan is a Catholic missionary group implementing teacher and health training, agriculture, trauma healing and pastoral programmes in many parts of South Sudan, under the auspices of the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

Despite being offered the option of “withdrawing from this area

that has experienced a rapid decline in law and order”, most Solidarity members have chosen to stay “as the college is one of the few signs of hope and providers of opportunity for the people of this disturbed nation”, Br Firman said.

Bishop Kussala noted that “not a day seems to go by without a news story that sends shivers down my spine”, and said he was devastated at recent attacks, including that on the religious sisters.

A deep sense of tragedy “hangs in the air and, in addition to praying for the perpetrators, those killed, injured, harmed and all of their families, I find myself lamenting the lack of progress” in ending the attacks, he said.—CNS

6

The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

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.

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The Church can’t exclude W

T

HIS week we cover over two pages the contentious subject of homosexuality in the context of our Catholic faith.

We expect that these articles will provoke strong opinions, but also hope that they will invite judicious discernment and contribute to a lively and constructive debate.

Attitudes towards homosexuality are changing. The social taboo is diminishing, at least in urban areas. This is accelerated by increasing numbers of people stepping out of the shadows of these taboos.

Many families, including those of steadfast Catholic faith, have among them openly gay members whom they love no less for it (though, sadly, this is not the case in all families). This contributes to a wider acceptance of homosexuality even among Catholics.

At the same time, homophobia remains rife in South Africa. Violence against the LBGT community, including “corrective rape”, is not uncommon.

In one of the articles in this edition, a South African priest argues that scriptural passages that condemn homosexual acts do not refer to homosexuality as we understand it today.

Indeed, many Scripture scholars suggest that St Paul’s condemnations of homosexual acts refer to ritual acts between mostly heterosexual men and boys in the Greek culture of the apostle’s time.

There is also a growing consensus among Scripture scholars that the passages in Leviticus which address same-sex relations were addressed specifically to high priests, not to the general public.

Likewise, it is broadly accepted that the sexual sins of Sodom and Gomorrah relate to rape of men as a weapon of war, not to intimate acts between two consenting men.

The gospels don’t even refer to homosexuality at all.

The question for Scripture scholars is why there are very few Bible passages that can be applied to homosexuality in our present context. And from the answers to that question, as well as from the Tradition of the Church, there must emerge a new theology of homosexuality.

This does not mean that the Church would change its teachings on homosexuality. Indeed, the teaching that any sexual act must be open to procreation within the confines of marriage rules out sexual acts between all

people who are not married to one another, including homosexuals.

It also rules out masturbation, which is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is subject to similar language as it uses in its entry on homosexuality, which we reproduce on page 12.

While the teaching will not change, our pastoral response to it can.

The Catechism demands that homosexuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity”, adding that “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided”.

The Catholic community must take this instruction of the Church as its starting point. Homosexuals are called to chastity— the interview on page 13 shows that this is indeed possible—just as heterosexuals are called to chastity outside marriage.

It is not for us to imagine what takes place behind closed bedroom doors and arrive at potentially inaccurate conclusions. If we believe that it is possible for people—heterosexual or homosexual—to follow the Church’s call to chastity, then we cannot make presumptions about people’s sexual activities, even if they are committed to one another in a loving relationship.

Jesus warned us not to make judgments of others, for that is God’s prerogative. Our task is to make known to all the infinite love of God—the core of our evangelising mission—and we cannot do so when we exclude people from it because we believe they are greater sinners than we are.

Jesus admonished us that we may not condemn: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgments you give are the judgments you will get, and the standard you use will be the standard used for you” (Mt 7:1-3).

We may not condemn others, but we are also called to discern between wrong and right—in matters of sex as much as in matters of, say, economics or personal ethics—and point out that difference, with charity, in accordance with the teachings of the Church.

For the Church the question cannot be which sinners we invite in and which ones we choose to exclude. The Church has to open its doors to all, unconditionally and without prejudice, and provide proper pastoral care for those in need of it.

ELL done to the staff and seminarians at St Francis Xavier Orientation Seminary in Cape Town who recycle paper, glass and so on, thus putting Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si’ into action, as Mitchell M Cloete outlined in his letter “Recycling puts encyclical to work” (December 16).

We can keep the environment clean—just put litter and rubbish in dustbins. I often put old plastic bread bags over my hands and pick

Revive SA prayer

A

S far as I can remember, the “Prayer for South Africa” was said in all the churches for some time before and after the 1994 democratic election. We know that these prayers helped contribute enormously to a peaceful transition.

We can assume that 2016 is going to be a fairly turbulent year in terms of unemployment, food costs, financial survival for the country, local elections, and so on.

Therefore, I appeal to the bishops to please reintroduce this prayer in all our churches, as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I would appreciate it if any reader still has a copy of that prayer to please e-mail it to me at flick@worldonline.co.za David Borland, Johannesburg

Value for money

Y

OUR editorials and Fr Ron Rolheiser’s weekly articles more than justify the cost of The Southern Cross.

The public will happily spend R30 or R40 on magazines that consist of about 80% advertising, or on a couple of beers, and think nothing of it. So what you charge for a weekly paper that is well worth reading and food for the soul is cheap at the price.

Roy Glover, Tzaneen

Veritas, the voice of renewed joy

I

F someone had told me a year ago that I would be writing about a Catholic radio station, I would have called them daft.

I am, after all, an “nth” generation Lutheran, and a well catechised one at that (or so I like to think).

But here I am, writing to you, because I really want to share my story, especially as the station and its team are an important part of it.

A year ago, on my 40th birthday, I sat in my doctor’s office. I was a complete wreck and in a

up glass and litter in the neighbourhood and put it in our bin or public dustbins.

People can help reduce global warming by using less electricity, petrol, and so on.

For example, when cooking a roast in the oven, bake a cake or bread in a loaf-pan next to the roast; prepare a jelly when you have boiled water to make tea.

At work make sure that all lights, urns, geysers, machines and equippuddle of tears. I had hit “rock bottom” after struggling with debilitating depression for over two years.

At that point, when I heard people talking about love, joy, happiness or contentment, I felt they were all playing a cruel joke on me—I didn’t believe that such things existed.

I went back on my medication after having dropped it a few years earlier (I have been treated for depression since my late teens), and over the next couple of months the black, lead-like cape that I had worn for so long started to lift.

I found I could take an interest the people and activities around me. I could smile again and participate meaningfully in my community.

Being a parent of two children at a Catholic school means that the inextricable community of school, parents and parish church features very strongly in my daily life and it is this community, unbeknownst to them, that became my spiritual lifeline.

I married a Catholic and part of the process of having our Lutheran wedding recognised by the Catholic Church was that I promised to raise our children in the Catholic faith.

As I recovered and regained my strength, I experienced a spiritual reawakening which was nurtured within my school community.

When I heard a fellow mom talking about Radio Veritas, my interest was piqued and the following morning I tuned in for the first time.

The first voice I heard was that of Colin York as he read the 7am news. I had never heard of Vatican Radio before and I listened, enopinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in Letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the catholic hierarchy. The letters page in particular is a forum in which readers may exchange opinions on matters of debate.

Letters must not be understood to necessarily reflect the teachings, disciplines or policies of the church accurately.

Letters can be sent to PO Box 2372, Cape Town 8000 or editor@scross.co.za or faxed to 021 465-3850

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ment are turned off at the end of the day, especially before weekends and public holidays. Use solar lighting and heating where feasible.

Drive a car that suits your needs but that is as light on petrol as possible, and coast (driving without pressing your foot on the accelerator) whenever possible.

Such efforts to conserve and improve the environment at our homes, workplace, cities and countryside will have a positive effect on the environment.

Jane Thompson, Johannesburg tranced, as Colin relayed information about the pope and Vatican activities.

It was the beginning week of Lent and Radio Veritas read from the Lent reflection book written by Frances Correia and Raymond Perrier.

I was hooked on Radio Veritas and it has been my station of choice ever since.

I particularly enjoy the mornings when the station talks to Fr Russell Pollitt SJ—I find his comments and views to be well thought out and the Catholic perspective very interesting and thought provoking.

Radio Veritas and the school and parish community have sparked a new interest not just in my faith but also in social justice, history, philosophy and current affairs.

I find that I am learning to think differently, to question more, to discover and read and challenge myself.

I bet the Radio Veritas team never thought it could do that, but it touches lives in ways it might never have imagined.

While I remain a committed Lutheran, I have found a spiritual home in the parish and in Radio Veritas. In this year just past, I have become profoundly aware of God’s presence in my life and with all the benefits of hindsight I can honestly say that I am here today by his Grace alone.

Thank you, Radio Veritas, for everything that you do.

Name withheld

Cosmology slip

T

HE wonderful article “Cosmology vs Theology” by a big man, in every sense of the word, in your Christmas edition (December 16), refers.

While Archbishop Denis Hurley was a most learned man, his knowledge of astronomy may be questionable. His statement that our solar system is 500 million years old is about 4 billion years out.

It is unfair to have retained the statement in the reprinted editorial from 2003 that there are nine planets, as Pluto lost its status only after he had passed away. There are only eight official planets now!

Just for the record.

Alan Campbell, Port Elizabeth

Christmas delight

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OUR Christmas edition (December 16) was delightful, as it is every year.

I was touched by Winnie Graham’s story about picking up a hitchhiker on the way to Bethlehem—a true-life Christmas story.

I smiled when our church sang the carol “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing”, having read your article about the history of the hymn before Mass. I wonder how many in our congregation knew about the background to that song.

Some of the personal stories of “favourite Christmas memories:” warmed my heart, especially that of Sr Phutunywa Siyali HC who remembered the community spirit of Christmas so vividly.

I am already looking forward to the next Christmas issue!

Joan Howard, Durban

PERSPECTIVES

How to handle criticism I N his letter to the people of Ephesus, St Paul advised: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Eph 4:29).

Everyone encounters criticism, whether it is a manager pointing out declining performance, a bad review of your writing, a comment about your dress or even self-criticism after an embarrassing slip-up.

Your ability to digest that criticism and make use of it says a lot about who you are.

Even better is to be the kind of person who can take a sharp, verbal critique, stand up and perform even better.

Most of the time we don’t tell people what we really think of them. We either say nothing or we sugarcoat our feedback to each other. Why do we do this? Why does it hurt to be on the back-end of an honest opinion?

I believe it is because most of us have not received feedback or criticism in a way that builds us up, but rather in a way that points out how we have failed.

As a result, we haven’t trained ourselves to recognise that a criticism of our behaviours, results or efforts isn’t a criticism of ourselves. Once you train yourself to notice the separation, you can start using any criticism thrown your way to improve your future efforts.

It is a new year and most of us are gearing ourselves to improving our behaviours and performance to achieve better results.

But criticism will come our way. And we too will have opportunities to criticise others.

Here are some tips for surviving feedback

that might crash upon your ego: l Balance yourself. Whenever you get a piece of criticism, you need to balance it by recognising that this is just one tiny critique out of all feedback. l Don’t exaggerate its impact on who you are. Do not lose sight of everything else that you are doing right by focusing on this one piece of negative feedback. l There is no absolute feedback. We are so fond of speaking in absolutes, like you always do this and you never do that.

This is where part of the hurt in criticism resides.

If someone told a stand-up comedian he wasn’t funny after a show, that would probably mean he wasn’t as funny as the other comedians whom that person likes. It doesn’t mean the stand-up comedian is objectively the most unfunny person ever. l Don’t ask for honesty when you want support. When we ask someone for their “honest opinion”, we should brace ourselves for exactly that and not want to

When we are criticised we might become aggressive or overly defensive.

Judith Turner

Faith and Life

tune in only for praise. Notice how you feel inside when you ask for feedback. Do you want help or validation? Be clear on that, else you might receive an unexpected critique. l Don’t argue. What I admire in great leaders is that they do not engage in arguments with their assailants when they are criticised. Great leaders show maturity by not bringing themselves down to the level of their harshest critics, but rather redirecting the criticism into something positive thereby looking more secure and confident as a leader. l Train your ego. My ego gets bruised when I am criticised because I always want to achieve my best. And I realise that I cannot have a sensitive ego when I want to have continuous feedback on my work. Because failure is also part of life.

How can I train my ego not to feel hurt so easily? The only way is to go towards criticism. Actively seek out criticism to give your ego the exercise needed to become desensitised to hurt. It’s like forcing children to eat vegetables—they don’t enjoy it, but it’s good for them. It builds them up and makes them stronger.

St Paul writes to the Ephesians to let “only such as is good for building up” come out your mouth. In this new year, let us not run away from criticism, but welcome it, to learn from it.

And let’s always give constructive feedback that builds the other up and brings out their best.

164 hours to change my heart Fr Chris Townsend

F

OR 15 years at Christ the King church in Queenswood, Pretoria, someone has been on the bench in front of the Blessed Sacrament, every hour, every day.

Someone bringing their own life before the Lord, bringing their own joys and tears before the Mercy Seat of God. Someone ensuring our church, in a Perpetual Adoration parish, is accessible not only to themselves, but to the many others who need a place of quiet refuge, a Holy of Holies in an unholy world.

I’m often staggered at the effect this has.

I can’t quantify it. It’s not a religious community carrying a burden—it’s just a community response to a need to be open to the Lord. And that makes us all the more religious.

Our open church attracts all sorts. We are visited by over 120 people a day. People who pop in to light a candle, say a prayer, spend the night. We are able to create a space where the seeker can find a pilgrim’s house, even if it is just for a moment.

This openness hasn’t made us saints. It doesn’t fill God’s house with the Odour of Sanctity. In fact, some of our visitors have been prompted to quietly leave a can of deodorant around.

It doesn’t make us all charitable and all loving. But it does allow 164 people to take in the role of guardians of a sacred space, almost like the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament. It allows 164 people to take their lot, like the priest Zachariah, in the Sanctuary of the Lord, so that many others can find the space for sanctuary.

I am responsible as guardian of an hour on Monday morning—a horrific time for someone who doesn’t function well before coffee o’clock—and then a precious holy hour from midnight to 1am on Wednesday.

Getting to this time is a struggle. Tuesdays are very long days. I can’t sleep before the hour and sometimes I also can’t sleep after the hour.

Sometimes I just sit here, like a bored security guard. At those times I can’t wait for the hour to be done. Sometimes I fall asleep,

Retirement Home, Rivonia, Johannesburg Tel:011 803 1451 www.lourdeshouse.org

Pastor’s notebook

The Eucharist in a monstrance, used for adoration or benediction. (Photo: crosier/cnS) like Joshua in the Tent of Meeting. Sometimes I afflict my snoring on Our Lord.

Sometimes the hour has hardly begun and it’s over.

Can I say I prayed well? Most of the time, probably not. I do sometimes just waste time before the Lord. I light a candle for family and friends. Think about the parish; the joys and the hardships. Pray for the many needs written in our prayer whiteboard. Marvel.

I don’t think that being an Adoration church makes the parish any easier to manage. In fact, because of the great spiritual good done by an open church and a pilgrim group of guardians, the parish often feels under attack.

I’m not one to see the dark forces arrayed behind every bush, but I do know and acknowledge that the dark and destructive often feel like they are assaulting this place of light, like the siege on a medieval castle keep.

W

e have the prayer to St Michael here just for that purpose, because I, like many others, have to constantly battle under grace to let my light shine, rather than to be overwhelmed.

People fight. Get angry. Have spiritual crises. Toss their guardianship in a huff.

Complain about the person before or after them. Sometimes we’re the least charitable.

Frail/assisted care in shared or single rooms.

Independent care in single/double rooms with en-suite bathrooms.

Rates include meals, laundry and 24-hour nursing.

Day Care and short stay facilities also available.

Sometimes we need to move off for a while.

It’s all part of the duty to serve and serve up an open, safe space.

Perpetual Adoration isn’t for every parish, or for every person. It takes an enormous amount of dedicated patience for our incredible coordinator. People get sick, oversleep, forget, go on holiday. But somehow, we make about 160 of our 164 hours.

Sometimes I panic that there are too many gaps, that we might be forced to close down part of this time of grace. Then I’m reminded, by the fell swoop of the Holy Spirit, that this is not my programme, not my problem. It’s God’s. And God takes care of this space.

I am also acutely aware that running an Adoration parish is simpler in an urban or suburban parish, because people need to be nearby.

Then I’m reminded that so many people don’t grudge their hour. They come and spend many. Last year, Mrs Chetty died. She regularly would come in and just quietly sit in the chapel right through the night.

When she finally went home, I’m sure she was welcomed to an overwhelming familiarity. She’d been home so often.

I would love to see this blessing in every parish, but it will never be so. I would love to see an Adoration church like the Stational churches we had for the 2000 Jubilee year—one in every deanery.

But mostly, I wish I could put into words what a blessing this space is, and how humbled I am to be a guardian of the space with 162 others.

Anyone doing the maths after the last sentence is reminded that we don’t have a guardian designated during our Sunday Masses.

The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

7

Michael Shackleton

open Door

What exactly is a ‘pallium’?

The pallium, I believe, is a liturgical vestment worn by the pope and by archbishops who receive it from the pope to symbolise their communion with the Holy See. I cannot find any clear description of its origins and development. Could you tell me more about it?

P Evans

L

ET me begin in an unlikely way by referring to Mark 14:51 which describes the arrest of Jesus: “And a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked”.

This linen cloth could have been a pallium, that is, a kind of shawl commonly worn as daily wear by the Greeks and Romans before and during Jesus’ lifetime.

Think of some of the ancient statues and paintings you have seen of men with a single strip of folded cloth draped over their body, usually covering the left shoulder and then drawn around the body under the right arm and brought back over the left shoulder to hang down the back. Some old statues show famous heroes wearing nothing but this.

Usually the pallium was worn over a tunic or similar undergarment and it became the common way to dress.

By the time Christ was born, intellectuals, teachers and philosophers made a great show of their palliums by sporting them in public places to boast of their learning and status. It did not take long before the clergy wore them too, to indicate their dignity.

The way it was worn and its shape and size evolved slowly. By the 4th century it had become a narrower strip of linen or wool. It was now draped not under the right arm but around the back of the neck, then over the right shoulder.

In the same century the popes began to wear it as a symbol of their supreme jurisdiction and they reserved the right to bestow it on some but not all bishops.

This meant that the pallium had to be simpler and easier to put on and take off. It developed into a circular strip placed around the shoulders with a vertical strip, called a lappet, hanging down chest and back, making it look something like the letters Y or T. In the 9th century the pallium was made only of woollen fabric and given only to archbishops to symbolise their union with the See of Peter, and not only theirs but the union of all bishops in the metropolitan region which they headed.

The modern pallium is still a narrow circular strip worn on the shoulders. It is embroidered with crosses and its lappets are about 30cm long.

Traditionally, archbishops had to receive the pallium in Rome. Pope Francis, to avoid what he calls “airport bishops” who leave their flocks too often, has allowed the pallium to be conferred by his representative in the archbishop’s own cathedral.

n Send your queries to Open Door, Box 2372, Cape Town,

8000; or e-mail: opendoor@scross.co.za; or fax (021) 465 3850. Anonymity can be preserved by arrangement, but questions must be signed, and may be edited for clarity. Only published questions will be answered.

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The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

COMMUNITY

nine young men were ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Barry Wood oMi at St raphael’s parish, Kwa Mzimba, Pietermaritzburg. Six deacons are from the Missionaries of Africa, two from Priests of the Sacred heart and one from the Dominican order. The new deacons came from all over Africa and have been studying at St Joseph’s Theological institute in cedara, Kzn.

The AcTS (Adoration, community, Theology and Service) team and retreatants from christ the King parish in Wentworth, Durban, made a holy rosary of 59 helium balloons. The angelus and rosary were then prayed for the community while the helium rosary was released into the air.

youth and AcTS members of the university of zululand were confirmed by Bishop Xolelo Thaddeus Kumalo of Eshowe (centre back) at Sacred heart parish in KwaDlangezwa near Empangeni, Kzn. They are pictured with parish priest Fr Sibusiso Mhlongo (back left).

Four learners from Sacred heart college in Johannesburg represented South Africa at the World Scholars cup. Pictured at yale university are (from left) Jordyn Walker, Astrid Kuhn, Julia Barry and riley PamGrant.

The newly confirmed youth of immaculate conception parish in East London are pictured with Bishop Vincent zungu of Port Elizabeth (front left) and parish priest Fr Peter Whitehead.

Don Bosco parish in robertsham, Johannesburg, staged a nativity play. At the end of the play, Santa came to visit, played by an older altar boy from the chapel in Booysens. (Photo: Mark Kisogloo)

Lerato Segabutle and her team of little children from St Peter claver parish in Pimville, Soweto, dramatised the gospel of Mark 12:38-44 for parishioners. (Photo: Sello Mokoka)

The holy Doors at our Lady of Lebanon church in Mulbarton, Johannesburg, were opened to mark the start of the year of Mercy. Mass was concelebrated by parish priest Fr Maurice chidiac with Archbishop Buti Tlhagale and assisted by several other priests and deacons. (Photo: Mark Kisogloo)

Sukumani Sakhe community based care of Kevelaer mission in Donnybrook, Kzn, hosted a christmas Party for 300 children from the areas around the mission. Parish priest Fr Lungelo Mhlongo and his team of caregivers organised the event with support from sponsors chantel hardey of illovo Sugar and Patricia Swartz and cyril ndlovu from Engen.

A live nativity scene was photographed

by Judith Leonard in Sedgefield on the Garden route.

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The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

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The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

WORLD

Catholic hits and misses in the White House This year the US will be electing its new president.

PAuL SAnchEz looks at the history of presidents, vice-presidents, defeated candidates and the Catholic Church.

A

S the 2016 presidential cycle is in full swing, two viable candidates, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, both Republicans, are Roman Catholic.

Despite 24% of the US population being Catholic, John F Kennedy, who was elected in 1960, has been the only Catholic president.

Two other Roman Catholics have earned the nomination of a major party. New York Governor Alfred E Smith was the Democratic nominee in 1928 and was defeated

by Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, while US Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts won the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination and was defeated by President George W Bush.

Current Vice-President Joe Biden is the first Catholic to serve in that position. Several other Catholics were on the losing ticket for the vice-presidency: William E Miller on Barry Goldwater 1964 Republican ticket, Edmund Muskie as Democrat Hubert Humphrey’s running mate in 1968, Sargent Shriver as Democrat George McGovern’s running mate in 1972, Geraldine Ferraro on Walter Mondale’s Democrat ticket in 1984, and in 2012 Paul Ryan, who ran

From left: Paul ryan (catholic), Lyndon Johnson (Mass-goer), Jeb Bush (catholic), Geraldine Ferraro (catholic), Barack obama (ex-catholic father), ronald reagan (catholic father), Joe Biden (catholic), Marco rubio (in-and-out catholic) with Mitt Romney against Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, selected by John McCain to be his running mate on the losing 2008 Republican ticket, was baptised a Catholic, but shortly afterwards her family left the Catholic Church and began to attend nondenominational evangelical Christian churches.

President Barack Obama, who attended Catholic parochial school for two years in Indonesia, is not Catholic and never has been. However, his father, Barack Obama Sr, was raised Catholic in Kenya and was a practising Catholic before he converted to Islam while serving in foreign destinations during a stint in the British armed forces.

While he took the name “Hussein” upon becoming Muslim, the president’s father abandoned Islam prior to marrying President Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and was an atheist for the rest of his life.

Incredibly, the Disciples of Christ, a small denomination also

known as “The Christian Church”, whose 910 000 members in the US comprise only 0,33% of the American population, have had three members as US Presidents: James Garfield, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan.

President Johnson was no stranger to the Catholic Mass, though. When his daughter Luci converted to Catholicism at the age of 18, in preparation for marriage to her Catholic fiancée, Mr Johnson was known to frequently accompany her to Catholic Mass on Sundays.

Mr Johnson—who was sworn in as president just hours after the assassination of John F Kennedy on November 22, 1963, with his right hand on a Catholic bible—frequently made unreported nocturnal visits to St Dominic’s church in Washington.

After his death there were reports that Luci had urged him to pray to her “little monks” at St Dominic’s for guidance in his handling of the Vietnam War. Luci Johnson and Patrick Nugent were married in a high-profile

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ceremony during her father’s presidency at Washington’s shrine of the Immaculate Conception, later made a basilica. The wedding marked the first time that a president had ever visited the shrine in the US capital.

While at his Texas ranch, both during his presidency and afterwards, Mr Johnson would occasionally attend Sunday Mass at St Francis Xavier Catholic church in his hometown of Stonewall, and then attend a Disciples of Christ service on the same day.

The priest at St Francis Xavier, Fr Wunibald Schneider, a German who became an Irish citizen before decamping to Texas, was a close confidant and advisor to President Johnson, both on personal and political matters, during his presidency and afterwards.

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welve years after Lyndon Johnson left office, another Disciple of Christ, Ronald Reagan, was sworn in as the 40th US president, in January 1981.

Mr Reagan was the product of a Disciple of Christ mother and a Catholic father. He was baptized in his mother’s faith and remained a Disciple of Christ throughout his adult life, though he attended services at a Presbyterian church in the final 12 years of his life and became a dues-paying member of the Bel Air Presbyterian church in Bel Air, California, where his funeral service was held in 2004.

Mr Reagan’s older brother, Neil, was baptised a Catholic and although he attended a few Disciples services with his mother early on, he affirmed his Catholic faith in his youth and was a lifelong practising Catholic, becoming a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem Ronald Reagan’s first wife, actress Jane Wyman, from whom he was divorced in 1949, converted to Catholicism in 1953 and later became a Third Order Dominican and after her death in 2007 was buried in a nun’s habit.

Of the current candidates, neither Jeb Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida, nor Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who serves in the US Senate, are life-

long Catholics.

Born in Miami to Cuban immigrant parents, Mr Rubio was baptised and raised a Catholic until the age of 8 when his family moved to Las Vegas and converted to the Mormon faith. When the Rubio family returned to Florida, they returned to the Catholic Church and Marco made his First Communion at age 13.

He was confirmed and married in the Catholic Church, and all four of the couple’s children were baptised in the Church. However, in 2000 the Rubio family started attending Christ Fellowship, a Southern Baptist “megachurch” in Miami. In 2002, the family formally left the Catholic Church while attending Christ Fellowship, but returned to the Catholic fold in 2005.

Mr Rubio states that he is a Catholic in good standing, and attends Sunday Mass at St Louis church in Miami with his family.

At times, however, he states that he goes to the Saturday night service at Christ Fellowship but, he says, only for the uplifting sermons.

Jeb Bush is a convert to Catholicism as opposed to his father, former President George HW Bush who is an Episcopalian, and his brother, former President George W Bush, who is a Methodist.

Jeb Bush was raised in his father’s Episcopalian faith. As a high school exchange student in Mexico he met his future wife, Columba Garnica Gallo. They married in 1974 at the Catholic student centre at the University of Texas. He always accompanied his wife and children to mass on Sundays, but converted to Catholicism only in 1995. He later wrote: “My wife is a Catholic and we always went to Mass, so she was my principal motivation.”

He carries a rosary with him at all times and fingers its beads at moments of crisis. The former governor also retweets Pope Francis on his Twitter account.

Incidentally, George W and Jeb’s great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker, was a Catholic who was educated by Jesuits and married a Presbyterian.

FAITH

The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

11

Great church builder on sainthood trek The sainthood cause for the architect who designed Barcelona’s famous La Sagrada Familia basilica has received papal encouragement. ELizE hArriS spoke to the promoter of the cause for architect Antoni Gaudi.

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AST month Pope Francis told members of the organisation in charge of promoting the cause for canonisation of Antoni Gaudi, known as “God’s architect”, that he hopes the cause moves forward quickly.

“The meeting with Pope Francis was an unforgettable experience; he told me that ‘Gaudi is a great mystic’ and that he hopes he will be declared Venerable soon,” José Manuel Almuzara said.

Mr Almuzara, himself an architect, heads the Association for the Beatification of Antoni Gaudi. The cause for the canonisation of the architect of Barcelona’s famous La Sagrada Familia basilica was officially opened in Rome in 2003.

During the encounter with the pope, Mr Almuzara said that he recited one of Gaudi’s more famous quotes: “The Church does not cease to build and therefore its head is the pope—which means he builds bridges. Churches are bridges to reach Glory.”

Gaudi was born in 1852 in Spain’s autonomous community of Catalonia. He was a devout Catholic. Together with forms drawn from nature, his faith greatly influenced his architecture; he has

The spires of Gaudi’s unfinished La Sagrada Familia basilica are seen in a skyline view of Barcelona, Spain. inset: Antoni Gaudi, whose sainthood cause is being promoted. (Main photo: Albert Gea, reuters/cnS) received the nickname “God’s architect” due to the emphasis he placed on religion in his works.

His most famous work is the basilica of the La Sagrada Familia (Holy Family). He began his work on the masterpiece in 1883, and in 1914 stopped all other projects to work exclusively on the building, to which he dedicated himself until his death in 1926.

The church was consecrated by Benedict XVI in 2010, and named a basilica. Still under construction, it is expected to be completed by 2026, to coincide with the 100th

anniversary of Gaudí’s death.

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he basilica is known to have inspired conversions. One of them was a Japanese architect who in 1998 was sent by the South Korean government to study Gaudi’s work in Barcelona, in preparation for an exhibition on Gaudi’s works.

Given only one week to complete his work, the man—a Buddhist at the time—wrote a letter to the association several months later revealing that he was converting to Catholicism.

That same Japanese architect de-

signed a special ambo for Florence’s cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (or Duomo), which was completed and installed in time for Francis’ November visit to the Italian city.

Mr Almuzara and Silvia Correale, the postulator of Gaudi’s cause, also had a meeting with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints, and the congregation’s secretary Archbishop Marcello Bartolucci.

The cardinal encouraged them to continue working to advance the cause, especially in compiling what is called the la positio super vita, vir-

tutibus et fama sanctitatis, a book compiling “the position on the life, virtues and reputation of holiness” of the person under question.

Included in the positio, as the book is known in short, are several things: a full exposition on the history of the cause or process; the declarations of the witnesses and the documentation on the person’s life, work and the reputation of holiness of the person’s intercession; the opinion on the person’s writings; the documented biography of the person and the information on the heroic virtues they exercised.

Once the volume is completed it must be presented to the congregation, Mr Almuzara said, explaining that if they recognise the heroic virtue of Gaudi, it will then be presented to the pope, who would then authorise its publication, allowing Gaudi to be called “Venerable”.

Mr Almuzara also spoke of possible miracles attributed to Gaudi, saying that while there is “no miracle recognised as such”, certain favours have been recorded by individuals and families who have asked for Gaudi’s intercession and sent them in for study.

As of now “there is no concrete date for Gaudi to be either a venerable or a blessed”, Mr Almuzara said, adding: “Who can calculate or put a date on a miracle?”

The miracle, he said, “we put in into the hands of Divine Providence, [because] only God knows the day and the hour”.

“Therefore we remain vigilant,” he said, and, quoting a remark Gaudi had made about the amount of time needed to complete the Sagrada Familia, stressed that “our client is not in a hurry”.—CNA

12

The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

LIFE

Does the Bible condemn gays and lesbians?

Have we misunderstood biblical passages on homosexuality all along? If so, what would be the implications?

A South African priest, whom we allow to write anonymously, offers this reflection.

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AYS and lesbians, I suggest, are not homosexual, biblically speaking and as described in the Bible.

Looking at homosexuality as described in the Bible we can say that the Catholic Church is quite correct in 2 000 years of teaching and apostolic tradition, based on the seven texts of the Bible that clearly shows homosexual acts to be an abomination, inherently disordered, and to say that such acts can never be approved of and they are grave perversions.

These seven passages are: Genesis 19; Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:9-10; and Jude 1:7. Doctrine need not be changed! No one is rewriting Holy Scripture to suit modern sins.

But there is a caveat. The biblical disapproval and condemnation of homosexuality is presuming that those acts are freely chosen by persons who are born heterosexual.

In the passage on Sodom and Gomorrah it is heterosexual men who make a wicked decision to engage in homosexual rape. They want to humiliate and dominate visitors, as is often practised even today in war.

Leviticus quite correctly says that for a normal male who is heterosexual to choose to lie with a

man as with a woman is an abomination. This was often done for godless, lustful, idolatrous and deeply sinful reasons. We see also heterosexuals in prison engaging in homosexual acts for sinful reasons.

In Leviticus, the passages dealing with homosexual acts were written specifically for the priestly class. The context is temple prostitution and pederasty.

All the other verses also presume that homosexual acts are committed by heterosexual people who have given up the faith of the true God, and so God has left them to their sinful wicked devices which is a perversion of their natural state when born normally.

They have chosen this behaviour and are called to repentance and conversion. They can be healed and changed.

Gays and lesbians, the way we understand that term today, do not fall in that category at all.

While there are many debates going about the biological, psychological and sociological causes of same-sex attraction, it is clear that this is not a matter of choice.

Many gays and lesbians are aware from childhood that they are not erotically attracted to the opposite sex, and their erotic dreams and fantasies testify to this.

Many love God, love the Bible and Church, and they have a deep need to love and be loved. But they cannot do it erotically with the opposite sex, and do not feel the emotional need to.

If the Bible commented on heterosexuals having homosexual relations, and if those with same-sex attraction are not so by choice, then it follows that gays and lesbians have been suffering need-

A couple exchanges rings as they get married in the uS. The church’s teaching on traditional marriage is that it is a union between one man and one woman. (Photo: Jim urquhar, reuters/cnS) The lower steps of the stairway need to be restored, so that they can make the ascent to true love and sexual intimacy in a committed relationship if called to lifelong partnership.

If the Catholic Church’s call for homosexuals to live in chastity and continence is based on Sacred Scripture, as it clearly states, then the call must be directed to those to whom the Bible refers: heterosexual people engaging in homosexual acts which are freely chosen and unnatural, that is, going against their natural-born orientation.

Promiscuous and adulterous sexual activity—among gays and lesbians as well as among heterosexuals—is also condemned, and they are called to repentance and chastity, just as heterosexuals are.

But when they are in a permanent committed love relationship, is their love not of Divine Origin,

lessly under a false identification with biblical homosexuality! In light of so much prejudice that is based on the scriptural passages, this would be a serious case of mistaken identity.

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he Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) at its recent 16th General Synod recognised this truth— and that particular church cannot be accused of disrespecting or rewriting nor of ignoring their guiding motto of sola scriptura.

Millions of gay and lesbian Christians have been hurt for too long, and a healing process is needed. The highest level of sexual love, which can be seen as the top of the stairway to Heaven, has been inaccessible to millions of them, because the lower steps have been broken. Many in their young years have fallen at that point into the dark basement of desperate promiscuity and even suicide.

and can they not be treated as equals? They are not the biblical homosexuals but people who are attracted to the same sex as a deep part of who they are, emotionally and sexually.

Some Christians, including gays and lesbians, may be called to the ideal of sexual continence or abstinence for the sake of the Kingdom, and this call must be respected.

When we consider that Jesus, Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, John the Beloved and Paul were all living lives of virginity and continence, then the call to such a lifestyle should be considered the greatest privilege, honour and joy.

Mary and Joseph were not celibate—that term refers to being single and unmarried—but they were sexually abstinent. Jesus, John the Baptist, John the Beloved and Paul were celibate, virginal and sexually continent, and that is the way of the greatest transformation in love and beauty.

Maybe not all can accept this invitation, but let those who do accept it rejoice that the ultimate purpose of sexuality is being realised in them.

The lower steps on the stairway need to be strong and in place before the higher steps can be ascended, all with the Grace of God and the Mercy of the Good Shepherd.

Remember Galileo! n This opinion article is published in the interest of stimulating new debate on the subject of pastoral care for Catholics in the LGBT community, especially in light of discussion at the recent Synod on the Family. The views in the article do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, staff, board or shareholders of The Southern Cross.

What the Catechism of the Catholic Church says

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EXUALITY affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others. (2332) Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are

lived out. (2333) Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being.

Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. (2337) Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him,

obedience to God’s commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. (2340) The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason. (2341) Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life. (2342) Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the

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Khanya House in Pretoria, the current headquarters of the bishops’ conference, is going to be sold and the SACBC will move to Waterkloof, ten minutes drive from the city centre. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) central Pretoria.

It was the Khanya House in Visagie Street that was bombed by apartheid police operatives in October 1988. It is now the c h a n c e r y o f t h e a rc h d i o c e s e o f P r e t o r i a .

T he S ACB C’s new he adqu ar t er s wi ll be located at Santa Sophia on 129 Main Street in Waterkloof. The location is close to the national seminary, the apostolic nunciature a n d t h e r e s i d e n c e o f t h e a rc h b i s h o p o f P r e toria.

Santa Sophia was built by the Sisters of Nazareth but later became a students’ house for Franciscans.

“Santa Sophia was used by the Franciscans for several years as a community for students,” said Archbishop Slatter y, himself a Franciscan. “ N o w i t w i l l s e r v e t h e w h o l e C h u rc h i n Southern Africa as we prepare to leave Khanya House,” he added.

Mission dog Justice with Fr Matthias Nsamba of Sacred Heart mission in Qoqodala, Queenstown diocese, and parish children. Fr Nsamba adopted two dogs, named Justice and Peace, from the local SPCA, despite his long-standing phobia of dogs. “I am staying alone in a very big mission without a helper in the presbytery. I had to be humble enough and seek their company,” the priest said. The dogs been given intensive training in B&B—bark and bite.

Once they have been trained, Fr Nsamba will look for a third dog. The name has already been chosen: Happiness. “Once you have Justice and Peace, the result is Happiness,” Fr Nsamba quipped.

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dered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.

These persons are called to fulfil God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. (2358) Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of selfmastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. (2359)

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Bishops’ HQ on the move HE bishops’ Pretoria headquarters is set to move out of Khanya House in the centre of Pretoria in the new year.

The new headquarters of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference will be located at Santa Sophia, near St John Vianney Seminar y in Waterkloof, about ten minutes’ drive from the current location.

“Khanya House has become a bit large for the bishops conference,” said SACBC spokesman Archbishop William Slatter y. “ T h e C h u rc h i s i n t h e f i n a l s t a g e s o f s e l l ing the building, although none of the final doc ume nts hav e b ee n s igne d yet. We a re hoping to finalise the sale early this year.”

The imposing red-brick Khanya House, located at 399 Paul Kruger Street, was a hub for the Catholic Church’s operation during the Aids pandemic in the 2000s when thenpresident Thabo Mbeki’s government resisted rolling out an antiretroviral treatment programme for those with HIV and Aids.

But the need for an Aids operation decreased over the past 15 years as the government rolled out a treatment programme for those infected with the virus.

“Khanya House was fully operational when we were leading in the response to the Aids problem,” said Archbishop Slattery.

“Tremendous work was done in the Aids Office at Khanya House. We needed a lot of people and offices, but with the government stepping in, our Aids operation has decreased.”

Khanya House presently accommodates all offices of the SACBC, including those dealing with issues relating to Justice & Peace, liturgy, catechesis and so on, as well as the Denis Hurley Peace Institute, which works on peacemaking projects around Africa..

The building, which is marked by long, d a r k c o r r i d o r s a n d b r o a d s t a i rc a s e s , w a s i n i tially used as the Land Bank of South Africa.

The southern part of the building, designed

by Wim de Zwaan, was completed in 1915, the central part in 1922, and the northern part, designed by Gerard Moerdijk, was completed in 1932.

The former Land Bank building was renamed Khanya House when the bishops bought it in 2002 and moved from the prev i o u s K h a n y a H o u s e i n Vi s a g i e S t r e e t i n

centuries and in different cultures.

Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered”.

They are contrary to the natural law.

They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

(2357) The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disor-

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LIFE

The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

13

Catholic, gay, chaste – and feeling fine Joseph Prever, now 32, is Catholic, gay and chaste— and writes a blog on these subjects. He spoke to KErri LEnArToWicK about being homosexual and Catholic, the word “gay”, and more.

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OOGLE the words “gay Catholic” and one of the top sites to appear will be Joseph Prever’s blog, with the tagline: “Catholic, Gay, and Feeling Fine” (www.stevegershom.com).

There, the 32-year-old writer considers his own experiences as a man struggling with same-sex attraction and trying to live out the virtue of chastity.

He started to blog about three years ago under the pseudonym Steve Gershom but now uses his own name Can you introduce your blog?

The blog is about what it’s like to be a gay Catholic—a gay Catholic who is of course, celibate—and I say “of course” because that seems to me like the only option if you’re going to be both gay and Catholic.

On the blog I try to stay away from abstract discourse about spirituality and sexuality in general and more towards lived experience: that’s what I see as my niche.

Why did you start writing a blog?

I remember wishing at one point that there was somebody blogging like that—and in fact these days there are just a whole lot of people in my situation who are blogging, and that’s really great.

You blogged pseudonymously for years and then you “came out” in 2014. Why did you decide to do that?

It was one of those decisions where, by the time you make it, you realise that you’ve already made it, if you see what I mean.

It was hard in the sense that I’d actually always said that people shouldn’t be public about being gay, because it was not anybody’s business and I felt that it would lend legitimacy to this idea that being gay is a sort of a single way to identify

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yourself: I actually still sort of hold that position.

I don’t think that being gay is as essential of a way to identify yourself as say, being male is, or being Catholic, or being human. I guess my position right now is that if the cultural atmosphere were different from what it is, then I don’t know whether I would have gone public.

What response did you get when you “came out”?

On the day that I made public the post where I came out, I received just piles and piles of comments and emails and text messages. Most were from people I didn’t know—except for the text messages, obviously. I can’t think of a single friend, family member or acquaintance who did not greet this revelation with support.

I think I would have had a very, very different response were I not celibate. When I get negative feedback, which I occasionally do from people who disagree with what the Church teaches. They say that I am being made a “poster boy” and that I’m being used—which is to say, conservative Christians are super happy to have somebody to point to whom they can say, “well, look, here’s one person who agrees with us”.

Do you think being accused of being a “poster boy”‘means that people are people angered by your celibacy?

I think some people are angered on my behalf for what they perceive to be a sort of “Stockholm syndrome”, and I’ve actually heard that phrase thrown around more than once.

People see me defending the Church’s teachings on marriage, and on sexuality, and what they see is somebody who’s been taught to suppress his own nature for so long that he’s actually come to believe the things he’s been told about himself—that’s what they see.

What’s really there?

If any of the people who accuse me of being the poster boy or of having “Stockholm syndrome” or anything like that were actually to read the things I’ve said, they would see that, number one, I don’t sort of unquestioningly accept whatever I’m told about sexuality, but I always bring it

Blogger Joseph Prever, who writes a blog about being gay and catholic. back to my own experience. And number two, I very much admit the difficulties inherent in the life I live and I don’t pretend that they don’t exist. And I don’t think I would do either of those things if I had “Stockholm syndrome”.

Your blog header is, “Catholic, Gay, and Feeling Fine”, and you’ve been using the word “gay” throughout our conversation so far. Do you have any thoughts on that word, as opposed to “samesex attraction” or other terms?

Absolutely. That is another hard question, and it’s a question about which my position has been continually shifting, so I don’t feel as though I’ve found solid ground yet.

I’ve always used the word. It used to be that I would use the word in writing, but sort of in my interior monologue and in private conversation I would say “same-sex attracted”.

But I guess the shift mainly happened as I began to approach being more public about it, because as I became more public I also came into contact more openly with people who identified as gay or who struggled with same-sex attraction, or whatever. And what I found was that a lot of them had a lot of resentment towards people who insisted on not using the word gay.

Why did they have resentment?

For a few reasons. One, is that it’s of-

fensive to be told what you ought to be allowed to call yourself. And in fact, I rarely feel strongly about whether I should use the word gay or not, but the one time I do feel strongly about it is when somebody starts upbraiding me for it. Because it feels incredibly intrusive.

What do you think we should be doing as a Church, as a Christian community, to be helping people who struggle with homosexuality?

I’ll start first by saying that I’m extremely grateful for the organisation People Can Change, which is an organisation founded precisely on the idea that radical change with respect to homosexuality is possible.

I’m grateful for them not because they “made me straight” or something, but because they gave me a space in which to work out some of my issues, many of which turned out not to be related precisely to homosexuality in particular, but were just sort of emotional issues that needed dealing with.

I think a lot of gay men and women do have emotional issues that aren’t going to be dealt with if they’re told that everything is already OK. But on the other hand, this is dangerous because you have a lot of Christian people already assuming from the get-go that if somebody is homosexual, then they must have various and many emotional issues that need working on, and that’s not necessarily the case.

If the understanding in the Christian world is that homosexuality is a “disorder”, and homosexual activity is a sin, then logically it would seem like as Christians, we would want to help our fellow Christians who are “dis-ordered” to be “ordered”. Do you think there’s a problem with that logic?

I think there’s a problem with that phraseology. There’s a subtle but important difference in saying that somebody has a disordered inclination and saying that somebody is disordered.

The Church has to be clear with respect to “what is the nature of homosexuality itself”, but can’t make a pronouncement on whether it is a mental disorder, for example. Many people assume that when the Church says “homosexuality consists of a disordered inclination”,

they take that word “disorder” and assume that she means “mental disorder”. But I think the Catechism has purposely phrased it in such a way that you can’t actually conclude that if you’re reading carefully. But it takes careful reading.

The Church never changes her underlying principles, but when something new happens, it’s always a question of: “What do the underlying principles dictate in this particular situation?” And a lot of the times it turns out that it doesn’t dictate what we thought it did, but it takes a while to figure that out.

What do you think the underlying principles are that are dictating what the Church is saying about homosexuality?

That men are men, and women are women, and the two are not the same.

Do you want to expound on that at all?

Well, what I think is that one, at the bottom of it, men and women are different. Number two, that eros is different from friendship, and number three, that physical acts have spiritual meanings.

I think those things are the fundamental axioms that we have to work with here. And I think those things are precisely the things that are being argued about.

I don’t think the Church is arguing about them, and I don’t think she should, because as far as I’m concerned, those things are absolutely essential to what the Church believes about people. But those things are very much being debated in the broader culture.

I’ll tell you how I see myself and what I do, which is not only with respect to homosexuality but with how I try to live the Catholic faith in general. I try to live my life by those principles that make sense to me as a human being, and are consonant with what I know about human nature and with what the world at large has discovered about human nature.

However, I also believe that if anything is true, it is Christian: that every truth is a Christian truth, and that there can be no truth about human nature which is not consonant with what the Church teaches about human nature.—CNA

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The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

LIFE

Why we need Sundays W

E are commanded to observe the Sabbath day, keep it holy, dedicate it to God, and to rest in him.

Is this a reasonable command?

There has been debate about whether such observance or duty is still relevant today, and whether or not we should play sport, work, heal, or do anything that takes our focus off the Sabbath.

On the whole it seems reasonable to refrain from judging where and how others spend their Sabbath, and rather to think about what it means personally to ourselves and our practices.

Here are some points we could mull over.

Am I unable to rest?

Are you caught in a hamster wheel? Do you take pride in being busy, even overwhelmed?

The Bergen Work Addiction Scale, devised by clinical psychologist Dr Cecilie Andreassen and her team at the University of Bergen, Norway, found that close to 10% of that population suffer from problematic workaholism. This “seems unrelated to gender, education level, marital status, or part-time versus full-time employment”.

If you answer “often” or “always”

on four or more of the following seven statements, it may suggest you are a workaholic, and you may need to seek help. l You think of how you can free up more time to work. l You spend much more time working than initially intended. l You work in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness and depression. l You have been told by others to cut down on work. l You become stressed if you are prohibited from working. l You prioritise work over hobbies, leisure activities, and exercise. l You work so much it has negatively influenced your health.

A workaholic has gone far beyond being a hard worker or having a good work ethic, and is a “workobsessed individual who gradually becomes emotionally crippled and addicted to power and control in a compulsive drive to gain approval and public recognition of success”.

It is an addiction, impacts heavily and negatively on family life, and on the person’s perspective, behaviour (“nothing else matters”) and character (when the person is ego-driven, seeks perfection at work and their “feeling function no longer informs judgment”), according to Dr Barbara Killinger.

Workaholics are riddled with (usually unconscious) fears, tend to become control freaks, are afraid to delegate. They may develop panic attacks, depression and sleep difficulties.

Deep down they lack self-esteem.

This often results in them being unable to say no for fear of displeasing others. They are prone to a lack of

empathy, a breakdown of ethics and values, and to denying their addiction.

Do I “sharpen the axe”?

Sadly, the profit-maximisation motive, structures, cultures, roles, controls and behaviour norms in far too many organisations today still reflect machine and psychic prison metaphors.

We are reminded all too often, as the late poet Maya Angelou is reported to have said, that “making a living is not the same thing as making a life”. We exclaim that there must be more to life than to be a cog in someone else’s great machine.

It’s 2016 but we still have “line managers”, a carry-over from production lines in the machine age.

Many people are effectively nothing more than “factors of production”, “human resources” or “human capital”.

In such organisations a paradigm usually develops where individual self-interest and survival takes precedence over others and the community.

It’s interesting that the root of the Greek word mechane (machine, mechanistic) means “to trick”, an illusion. In these places, we find ourselves putting on and wearing protective armour against the fear of disapproval, conflict, loss, attachment, being hurt, judged, humiliated, punished, exposed, made vulnerable, isolated, rejected, made uncomfortable, criticised—against having our aspirations and cravings blocked (often unconsciously).

This “protective” armour may manifest in our demeanour, prejudices, withdrawal or disengagement,

observing the Sunday rest is an effective antidote to the pressures of daily work-life. arrogance, indifference, aggression, cynicism, greed, how we interact with others—again, often at an unconscious level.

Temporary escape from such situations becomes a powerful need.

A concept popularised by Stephen Covey, author of the bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, in the late 1980s was “sharpening the axe”: to find ways and means of relaxing and becoming refreshed in order to continue serving our work life (whether once or twice a week, every fortnight or month), and as a means to try and maintain a work-family-social life balance.

The “doing” part of sharpening the axe is necessary. We do need vacations, rest, pauses. But ultimately, it is about “being”, about our humanity, about what 20th-century German Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper called “a condition of the soul”.

Pieper referred to lack of leisure as being a suppression of freedom and called upon us to pay “contemplative attention to things”.

Leisure for the ancient Greeks was an ideal, and the word depicts “a state of being free from the necessity to labour”, with contemplation seen as “the key to moving from the materialistic world towards self-actualisation”.

For most of us, reality is very different. But perhaps contemplation is, as Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams said in an address to the 2012 Synod of Bishops in Rome, “the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit”.

Archbishop Williams advised: “To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly.

It is a deeply revolutionary matter.”

Is a seamless work and worship life possible?

In a wonderful section of his book titled Work as Opus, Jungian therapist Thomas Moore points to work as probably the most unconscious of all of our daily activities, yet potentially the most important soul component of our spiritual lives—which is not about religiosity but about the fundamental essence of what it means to be fully human, how we relate to others, and how we access meaning.

He sees that work can be something “that both awakens and satis-

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Are you caught up in the rat race or do you get a chance to sharpen the axe and refuel the spirit? GrAhAM WiLSon makes the case for a proper rest on Sunday.

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2016

can help in the education of South Africans for the pRiESThood at St Joseph’s Scholasticate, Cedara, KwaZulu-Natal.

Please send them to: oMi Stamps, Box 101352, Scottsville, 3209

fies the very root of our being”. It is a soul aspect that lies outside ourselves, and mirrors back to us who we are, and what we can be. When we do what we are meant to do this brings transcending intensity, passion, acceptance of self, peace. Work becomes our “opus rather than aptitude”.

Thus finding a higher purpose and meaning in our work, a reason for being, surely becomes a worthwhile quest?

This is the thrust of The Virtuosa Organisation: the Importance of Virtues for a Successful Business, a book I wrote with Dorian Haarhoff and Peter Fox which was published in 2015 (www.haloandnoose.com).

The Spiritual Leadership and Management movement (www. slam.org.au) is one of many organisations that are springing up and offer help and insight along the journey.

Consider this story: Once in an old medieval city, there were three bricklayers hard at work on the same building. A man walking past asked each of them what they were doing.

The first man answered gruffly: “I’m laying bricks.” The second man replied: “I’m building a wall.”

The third man answered enthusiastically: “I’m building a cathedral.”

There is a difference between a job, a career and a calling.

A cautionary word from the mystic Fr Thomas Merton: “We can love and be called to our work, yet not worship it nor invest our identity in it, nor obtain our security, esteem and importance from it. Rather we can recognise that all we have, all that we are, all our gifts, all come from God.”

An ‘If-Then’ proposition If we are not addicted to work, do not rely on it for our identity and esteem, have no need to constantly balance our work, family, social and worship lives, can repose in a state where these are blended and we find contentment in a higher purpose and meaning, then spontaneously observing the Sabbath day and its rhythm—keeping it holy, dedicating it to God, and resting in him—is sure to follow.

It becomes a delightful gift of freedom, an escape from being enslaved by unwanted desires, fears, institutions, and pressures. n Graham Williams is an author, executive coach and a certified management consultant active in leadership development.

NeW FOr 2016 7 To 20 JunE

PILGrIMAGe TO DIVINe MerCY AND MeDJuGOrJe

Visiting Poland - the Divine Mercy sanctuary, Kalvaria Sanctuary, the Black Madonna at Jasna Gora monastery and Medjugorje in Bosnia.

Organised by Mrs Annie Dierx Cost from R26 365 Tel: (031) 266 7702 Fax: (031) 266 8982 Email: judyeichhorst@telkomsa.net

The Southern cross, January 13 to January 19, 2016

CLASSIFIEDS

Anne Hope, anti-racism activist

A

NNE Hope, anti-racism activist and author-founder of the classic Training for Transformation books and training programmes, died on December 26 at the age of 85 in an interfaith interntional community in Claremont, California.

Ms Hope was born on February 12, 1930 in Johannesburg. She attended Rhodes University, did a degree in English literature and history, and then received her Master’s in education from Oxford.

During her university days, she immersed herself in the Catholic Student movement and became committed both emotionally and spiritually to the struggle for liberation.

In the late 1940s Ms Hope met members of the international Grail, a lay women’s Catholic movement, and joined the Grail community at their centre in Loveland, Ohio, for four years.

Ms Hope then went to teach and be the headmistress of the first high school for girls in Uganda, in Kalasizo. She returned to South Africa and was appointed president of the Grail in South Africa.

In 1969, she was awarded a World Council of Churches scholarship to study at Boston University in adult education and human relations training.

It was there that she met Sally Timmel who was on the same course. Together they developed an anti-racism course, drawing from the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire.

Ms Hope returned to South Africa in 1971 when her US visa expired, and Ms Timmel joined her in Swaziland. There they helped develop a literacy programme with a Swazi NGO supported by Unesco.

Ms Hope began working with the Christian Institute, a prophetic witness that proclaimed apartheid a sin against humanity. During this time Steve Biko, founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, asked Ms Hope to work with their leadership for six months on the participatory methods of Paulo Freire. Soon after the training, most of the movement’s leadership was imprisoned, and Ms Hope was advised to go into exile. Later Mr Biko said that there were two people who shaped his life: a nun at school and Anne Hope.

O

ne year after her return to South Africa, the apartheid government seized Ms Hope’s passport and later denied her entrance back into her homeland for 17 years. Through an Irish grandmother she could secure an Irish passport for those years in exile.

Ms Hope and Ms Timmel again teamed up in working for the Kenyan Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Working in ten dioceses, they trained over 500 community development leaders who in turn, within ten years, reached over 3 million people in multi-faceted projects from literacy, women and youth groups, agriculture and stock farming groups.

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 689. ACROSS: 5 Home, 7 Indulgence, 8 Thou, 10 Oligarch, 11 Cattle, 12 Solemn, 14 Chisel, 16 Clocks, 17 Instance, 19 Airs, 21 Created man, 22 Amok. DOWN: 1 Pict, 2 Augustus, 3 Ignore, 4 Envies, 5 Hera, 6 Matchmaker, 9 Heathenism, 13 Leonardo, 15 Lender, 16 Cheats, 18 Tuck, 20 Sand.

In 1981 they moved to Washington DC, where Ms Hope worked first with the US Returned Missionary Association and then the Jesuit Centre of Concern. She also returned to southern Africa to work with the Zimbabwe Council of Churches.

There she wrote with Ms Timmel their classic book Training for Transformation. These four volumes still sell broadly and have been translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.

When exiles were allowed to return to South Africa after 1990, Ms Hope initiated a women’s training programme, DELTA, and founded the Grail in the Western Cape.

Under her leadership, the Grail in 1999 purchased a residential retreat and conference centre in Kleinmond and developed a one-year in-service Training for Transformation diploma course for international teams of women. More than 350 have graduated and it continues to grow, with participants coming from as far as Asia and several African countries.

Ms Hope was a global citizen and activist par excellence with an ability to see a positive “way out” of injustices. Her insights and voice came from the deep core of her being as she tried to act on these essential elements of goodness, truth and beauty.

This core was nurtured by a discipline of meditation, yoga and reading for two hours before rising.

Her spirit will continue to inspire generations to come.

Liturgical Calendar Year C – Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday January 17 Nehemiah 8, 2-6, 8-10, Psalms 96:1-3, 7-10, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, John 2, 1-11 Monday January 18 1 Samuel 15:16-23, Psalms 50:8-9, 16-17, 21, 23, Mark 2:18-22 Tuesday January 19 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalms 89:20-22, 27-28, Mark 2:23-28 Wednesday January 20, Bl Cyprian M Tansi, St Fabian, St Sebastian 1 Samuel 17:32-33, 37, 40-51, Psalms 144:1-2, 910, Mark 3:1-6 Thursday January 21, St Agnes 1 Samuel 18:6-9; 19:1-7, Psalms 56:2-3, 9-13, Mark 3:7-12 Friday January 22, St Vincent 1 Samuel 24:2-20 (3-21), Psalms 57:2-4, 6, 11, Mark 3:13-19 Saturday January 23, Saturday Mass of Our Lady 2 Samuel 1:1-4,11-12,19,23-27, Psalms 80, 2-3,57, Mark 3: 20-21 Sunday January 24 Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10, Psalms 19:8-10, 15, 1 Corinthians 12:12-30, Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21,

YEAR OF MERCY 2016

Sat 16th January: Sat 20th February: Sat 19th March: Fri 4th & Sat 5th March: Mercy Thurs 31st March: Mercy Fri 1st April: Mercy Sat 2nd April: Mercy Sun 3rd April: Sat 7th May: Sat 4th June: Sat 16th July: Sat 20th August: Sat 17th September: Sat 15th october: Sat 19th november:

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IN MeMOrIAM

HerDe—in loving memory of charlotte Elizabeth, who died on 13/01/2014.

Beloved mother of Siobhan, son-in-law Gary, grandchildren Matthew and Stuart Brown and sisters Margaret and ursula.

Always in our thoughts and prayers. r.i.P. BrAAF—Eugene David. in loving memory of Eugene David, who passed away six years ago on 21/01/2010. Will always be remembered and loved by his family Daphne, Eugenie, Michael, noleen, ryan, Andrea, Wayne, Lucretia, Tehillah, carol and Amy Leigh. May his dear soul rest in peace.

PerSONAL

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about African Stigmatist reverend Sister Josephine Sul and Padre Pio among others.

PrAYerS

O MOST holy Virgin Mary, who chose to appear on the Sierra de Aire, in the cova de iria, to three young shepherds to reveal the treasures of grace held in the recitation of the rosary, impress upon our souls a fervent love for this devotion. By meditating on the mysteries of our redemption, may we learn how to use the teachings which lie therein and obtain the graces we ask in this prayer. For the Glory of God and the redeeming of our souls. Amen. novena from 5 to 13 each month. For prayers/ hymns write to jjvcamara@gmail.com

ALMIGHTY eternal God, source of all compassion, the promise of your mercy and saving help fills our hearts with hope. hear the cries of the people of Syria; bring healing to those suffering from the violence, and comfort to those mourning the dead.

Empower and encourage Syria’s neighbours in their care and welcome for refugees. convert the hearts of those who have

S outher n C ross

The annual Mass for the intentions of all our Associates and the repose of late Associates will be held on

Saturday, 23 January at 18:00 St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral, Cape Town All welcome!

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taken up arms, and strengthen the resolve of those committed to peace. o God of hope and Father of mercy, your holy Spirit inspires us to look beyond ourselves and our own needs. inspire leaders to choose peace over violence and to seek reconciliation with enemies. inspire the church around the world with compassion for the people of Syria, and fill us with hope for a future of peace built on justice for all. We ask this through Jesus christ, Prince of Peace and Light of the World, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Amen. Prayer courtesy of the USCCB. ST MICHAeL the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, o Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.

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3rd Sunday: January 24 Readings: Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10, Psalm 19:8-10, 15, 1 Corinthians 12:12-30, Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

G

OD’S word is powerful; hearing it can have a dynamic effect—and if it doesn’t, then perhaps we need to look again at the way we listen. Next Sunday’s readings, it seems, carry this message.

The first reading has Ezra the scribe responding to the people’s demand to hear the Law read to them.

This is perhaps the longest sermon in history, for “Ezra recited from the scroll of God’s law, and he explained—and they understood the reading”. And, it turns out, as they listened, they were greatly moved: “For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the Law.” Properly understood, the Law is a gift to the people, a sign of God’s mercy; and so instead of fasting and mourning, they are to celebrate, and to recognise it: “This day is holy to YHWH your God; do not mourn or weep… eat choice foods, and drink rich drinks; and send portions to those who have nothing prepared—for this day is holy to your Lord.”

The psalm for next Sunday likewise recog-

S outher n C ross

nises that the Law is not a tyrannical imposition but a merciful gift from God: “YHWH’s Law is perfect, it revives the soul; YHWH’s decree is reliable, it gives wisdom to the simple.

YHWH’s precepts are upright, they make the heart rejoice.”

It is a lovely hymn of confidence in the God who is prepared to give his people moral landmarks to feel their way through life. This sense of God as speaking effectively to us is one that we should do well to relearn from the example of our Jewish and Christian ancestors, that indeed “YHWH is my rock and my redeemer”.

The second reading for next Sunday continues Paul’s attempt to stop those Corinthians from quarrelling. To do this, he does not rely so much on the word of God, as on an ancient fable of “the body”, seen as a unit where everything belongs.

Paul manages this familiar idea with originality and a sense of humour. See how many times Paul mentions God and the Spirit, and above all his beloved Christ. And notice how

in this reading the body actually is Christ, and how it is the Spirit that tends to unite (unlike the ill-tempered letters to newspapers, where even apparently religious people seek to divide).

Paul produces a splendid touch of humour, playing with the idea that the foot or the ear might suddenly decide not to be a part of the body! The fact is, Paul is saying, that we all belong together, we all need each other, even those parts of the body with whom we have least in common, because of what God has done for us; so there are different functions that each of us exercise, because of what God is seeking to do through us for the body of Christ, which is held in unity by the Spirit.

If Sunday’s first reading was the longest sermon in history, the Gospel contains the shortest. The compilers of the lectionary have brought two beginnings together here.

The first is the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, in which he tells “Theophilus” (a name which means “God-lover”) how he came to write his version of the Gospel. He claims to

My top books for 2015 T

choice readers by showing that we not only are closer to each other than we thought, but there is a way, together, to walk out of the present political, social, religious, and legal stalemate within which we find ourselves.

• The Reluctant Disciple, Daring to Believe,

by David Wells.

Wells, a young British layman, offers us a warm, witty, and exquisitely balanced insight into how spirituality and life interface in today’s world for a person caught up in the ordinary duties and concerns of life. Among other things, it’s a spirituality for those who don’t like the word spirituality.

• Mercy in the City, by Kerry Weber.

Weber, a young writer on the editorial staff at the Jesuit America magazine, chronicles her own journey through a Lenten season. This is a warm read, a very good book, with deceptive depth.

• A Religion of One’s Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World, by Thomas Moore.

This book will upset a lot of people for its rather existential concept of community and ecclesiology, but Thomas Moore writes, as always, with a freshness, insight, and depth that brings a healthy challenge to everyone.

• The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction, by Matthew B. Crawford.

Not a spirituality book per se, but it delivers on its title. If you can wade through the philosophical parts, which are taxing,

Conrad

ASTE, as St Augustine said some 1700 years ago, is subjective. That should be acknowledged upfront whenever someone recommends a reading list.

In my case, I need to state too that I’m not a full-time critic. It’s not like I’ve read 200 books this past year and these rose to the top. I read when I can, follow book reviews, am fortunate enough to live with academic colleagues who tip each other off on good books, and I have friends who will occasionally tell me that a certain book “has to be read”.

From out of that, comes this list. These are the books that most touched me this past year: Among books on spirituality, I single out these: • The Taste of Silence, by Bieke Vandekerckhove.

They say that the book you need to read finds you at the time you most need to read it. That was the case here.

Vandekerckhove is a young Belgian writer who, 20 years ago, was diagnosed with amyothrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Her normal life ended with that sentence and, after an initial descent into darkness, she found strength by making an inner journey into the deep silence that resides inside us all. Her description of her journey is remarkable.

• Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation, by Charles Camosy.

This is an important book that will healthily shake up both pro-life and pro-

For further info or to book contact Michael or Gail at 076 352 3809 or 021 551 3923 info@fowlertours.co.za www.fowlertours.co.za/ poland-2016/

Nicholas King SJ

Hear the Word of God

have tried to “draw up an orderly account of the things fulfilled among us”, “so that you may know the infallibility of the words in which you have been instructed”.

The second beginning is Jesus’ “missionstatement”. Luke places the Nazareth episode at the start of Jesus’ ministry (note that Luke is very much the Gospel of the Holy Spirit); but he also gives a text to enable us to use God’s powerful word as a lens through which to read the whole of the rest of the Gospel.

It is the well-known and powerful passage of promised mercy from Isaiah 61: “good news to the poor…freedom for prisoners, and sight to the blind”. That is the text—and Jesus comes to the pulpit, “and the eyes of all in the synagogue were gazing at him”. And the sermon? “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

There are those who will be praying next Sunday for a sermon of equal brevity.

Southern Crossword #689

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final reflection

Crawford gives you a lot, really a lot, to think about.

In terms of novels, I particularly liked these: • The Children Act, by Ian McEwan.

A major, world-class novelist, McEwan gives us here a warm, easy-to-read story that packs a deeper metaphor.

• The Anchoress, by Robyn Cadwallader.

Did you ever wonder how people like Julian of Norwich lived? What really was an anchoress? Cadwallader gives us a fictional picture of what someone like Julian of Norwich would have lived out.

• Purity, by Jonathan Franzen. It takes 600 pages for this story to sort itself out.

But it’s vintage Jonathan Franzen. He tells a good story • Lying Awake, by Mark Salzman. The story of a young Carmelite nun who has to discern illness from mysticism. This book is 15 years old, but well worth the read.

• The Painter of Silence, by Georgina Harding. Set in Romania just after World War II, Harding sets humanity and soul into the tragedy of war and into human brokenness in general. A great read, along the lines of All the Light We Cannot See. Finally, a special category: Each year I write a column on suicide. I don’t claim any special insight. I write on this issue simply because there’s just too little out there to help anyone understand and cope with the loss of a loved one through suicide.

During the past year, I received three separate books, all written by a mother who had lost a child to suicide. The stories, while stunningly unique, bear an eerie resemblance to each other, in that in each case a grieving mother is describing a very similar kind of person, namely, a beautiful, over-sensitive young person who, in effect, is too bruised to cope with ordinary life.

All three of these books are worth the read and, read together, will scar your heart.

• Healing the Wound of My Daughter’s Suicide, by Lois Severson • Damage Done: Suicide of an Only Son,

by Gloria Hutchinson • My Daughter, Her Suicide, and God, by Marjorie Antus Happy reading!

St John Paul II Pilgrimage to Poland Southern Cross

Sunday reflections

ACRoSS

5. Where you’ll be at (4) 7. Tolerance the pope may give (10) 8. You appear in ancient English (4) 10. Rich goal of a group ruler (8) 11. The man gave names to all of them (Gn 2) (6) 12. Not a cheerful kind of procession (6) 14. Does the sculptor use it to swindle? (6) 16. Would you find these in gigantic watchtowers? (6) 17. Example of saint turning to new Church of England (8) 19. Affectation going with the graces (4) 21. God did it on the sixth day (7,3) 22The way to run uncontrollably (4)

down

1. Some depiction of ancient Scot (4) 2. The Caesar who decreed (Lk 2) (8) 3. Region to disregard (6) 4. Commits one of the seven capital sins (6) 5. Wife of Zeus (4) 6. One who may provide the means to smoke out the partnerships (10) 9. The shame in the non-religious system (10) 13. First name of Da Vinci Code? (8) 15. Borrower’s benefactor (6) 16. Acts dishonestly (6) 18. This friar has a shop (4) 20. Jesus did some writing in it (Jn 8) (4) Solutions on page 15

CHURCH CHUCKLE

T

HE Sunday School teacher is telling her class the parable of the Prodigal Son. She especially emphasises the resentful attitude of the elder brother.

As she tells the class of the feast held to celebrate the return of the wayward bother, she notes that not everybody was celebrating. “And can anyone tell me who that was?”

Little Thabo raises his hand. “I know,” he says triumphantly. “It was the fatted calf!”

A journey to the places of St John Paul II’s life and devotions, led by a Bishop who knows Poland intimately.

Led by Bishop Stan Dziuba 13 - 21 May 2016

Kraków | wadowice (on St John paul ii’s birthday) | Black Madonna of Częstochowa | niepokalanów (St Maximilan Kolbe) | divine Mercy Sanctuary | warsaw | Kalwaria Zebrzydowska (with miraculous icon) | Zakopane | wieliczka Salt Mine (with Mass!)