160330

The

S outher n C ross

March 30 to April 5, 2016

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

No 4970

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R8,00 (incl VAT RSA)

Are the robots taking over?

Kevalaer: A KZN shrine to Our Lady

Page 9

Page 2

Jesus and the Sea of Galilee

Page 10

Bishops: ANC must act on Gupta crisis

BY MANDLA ZIBI

T

HE Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) and Jesuit Institute called for “bold” action and “unambiguous” leadership from the African National Congress’ national executive committee in the wake of March’s explosive allegations of the Gupta family’s meddling in the appointment of senior government ministers.

The SACBC said in a statement signed by its president, Archbishop Stephen Brislin, that it was “profoundly disturbed” by Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas’s allegation that he was offered the post of finance minister by members of the Gupta family, a charge the family has denied.

“It is vital that high offices of state should not be compromised by the involvement of parties with commercial or personal interests.

There are no circumstances which would justify this kind of interference; no one outside the most senior leadership of the government and the governing party should be in a position to make such offers,” the bishops said.

“South Africa is passing through a difficult period, politically and economically, and it is only by adhering to fundamental values of good governance and integrity in public life that we will be able to face up to and overcome our challenges,” the SACBC said.

“We wish to stress that this is a matter of vital interest for the common good of all South Africans; it is not a question of party politics, in which, we as a church denomination, have no specific interest,” the bishops said.

“These allegations are serious because they are a gross violation of President Zuma’s oath of office in which he promises to devote himself to the wellbeing of the Republic and all of its people,” a statement from the Jesuit Institute said.

The institute also called for independent investigations into these allegations and that “should prima facie evidence emerge, prosecutions must ensue”.

But both statements reiterated their confidence in the ability of the ANC to navigate tough times.

The SACBC said: “We call upon President Jacob Zuma and the leadership of the ANC to demonstrate unambiguously that such alarming improprieties in the conduct of high government business will no longer be tolerated.”

The Jesuit Institute hailed Mr Jonas and former MP Vytjie Mentor for admitting that the Gupta family had offered them cabinet posts.

“The recent revelations by senior members of the ANC suggest that the party still has bold and courageous members who have both integrity and the capacity to deal with the challenge it faces,” the institute said. “That capacity counts in a time of crisis like now.”

The institute cautioned opposition parties to act wisely and resist the temptation to use the current crisis for “conceited political gain”.

The Dominican order in South Africa called for the public protector to investigate the circumstances surrounding the December dismissal of Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister, in light of allegations that the Gupta family interfered in that process.

In a statement, the Dominicans also challenged all the political parties in the country “to reconsider their stance on the need to regulate corporate funding of political parties”.

South Africa has no reporting requirements for corporate donations to political parties.

“The current crisis and allegations about the Gupta family point to the need for such transparency mechanisms,” the Dominicans said. “Corporate funding of political parties always comes with some strings attached. The poor are the ones that suffer most when such strings are pulled.”

Mike Pothier, research director of the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office said that South Africa is paying dearly for the moral cowardice of its senior leadership. Whether Mr Zuma falls or not, he said, there is no substitute for transparency in government.

Mr Pothier was cautiously upbeat about South Africa’s political and socio-economic prospects.

“I am personally positive about the fact that more and more powerful voices are beginning to speak out about things that are wrong and which are not in the interests of the country,” he said.

“Some commentators might take a bleaker view and say there is no sense of direction and all this in-fighting within the ruling party is increasingly taking us closer to the brink,” Mr Pothier noted. “I prefer to think that we still are on the right track and our current pain is a necessary part of the journey to a more stable, open, transparent country.”

A poster of Bl Mother Teresa and Missionaries of Charity is seen in Kolkata, India. Pope Francis will declare her a saint at the Vatican on September 4. The Southern Cross and Radio Veritas are headlining a pilgrimage to the canonisation, which will also include a weekly papal audience, visits to many sacred and historical sites in Rome, and a trip to Assisi. See page 3 for details. (Photo: Jayanta Shaw, Reuters/CNS)

Pope Francis ‘is a true Jesuit’

BY MANDLA ZIBI

A

NOTED US theology professor told a Johannesburg audience that “Pope Francis is a true Jesuit, he is not afraid of

risk.”

Professor Patrick Hornbeck, chair of the of theology faculty at Fordham University in New York, summed up his view of the pope at a public lecture titled “A Journey of Mercy: The Papacy of Pope Francis from 2013 till today”, hosted by the Jesuit Institute of South Africa.

Pope Francis, Prof Hornbeck noted, was different right from the beginning of his papacy, “when the largely unexpected yet newly elected pontiff stepped out on the balcony on St Peters Square. The way he spoke, the way he was dressed was highly symbolic.”

Prof Hornbeck said that there were three lenses through which Francis can be analysed: humility, risk and collegiality.

“Right from the beginning he avoided the ‘trappings’ of the papacy. He dressed simply, he travelled on a bus with his brother cardinals, he paid his hotel bill and—most significantly—he described himself as a sinner in need of God’s mercy. This is a very profound thing to say: ‘I am a sinner’.”

Prof Hornbeck said that Pope Francis’ “revolution of mercy” and invitation to a new pastoral approach is a risk.

“People generally don’t like something new, in any sphere of life. Pope Francis is inviting us to something new and there is always a risk when this happens.”

Pope Francis with children during a general audience in St Peter’s Square in March.

(Photo: Paul Haring/CNS) The theologian reminded his audience of how people once were burnt at the stake for having new ideas. “[Pope Francis] has new ideas, and this is always prophetic and risky.”

Speaking of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, which paved the way for Pope Francis’ election in 2013, Prof Hornbeck said that Pope Benedict would probably be remembered for his “great humility and freedom to let go when he realised he could not continue. He has also opened the door for popes to resign again, this is not insignificant.”

Addressing the gathering, Jesuit Institute director Fr Russell Pollitt SJ described Pope Francis as a leader who had captured the global imagination for all the right reasons.

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The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

LOCAL

SA shrine counts on Our Lady’s protection

BY MANDLA ZIBI

‘T

HERE is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass covered and rolling and they are lovely beyond any singing of it.”

These opening lines from Alan Paton ‘s literary masterpiece, Cry the Beloved Country, could have easily been written at Kevelaer, the pilgrimage site of Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted, situated in the same area that Paton was writing about way back in the 1940s.

As a mission station, Kevelaer was founded in 1888 by Abbot Francis Pfanner of Mariannhill, near Durban. He named it, at the behest of a German benefactor, after Kevelaer in western Germany, a popular pilgrimage site since 1642. Drawing a million pilgrims from Germany and the Netherlands a year, it is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in north-western Europe.

It was a custom of Abbot Pfanner to name his new foundations in Africa after famous places of pilgrimage scattered all over Europe in honour of Our Lady, and so he did with Kevelaer in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Since 1947 pilgrims from all walks of life and every racial group in South Africa have made their way to this shrine to place their petitions before her. They have also come from as far afield as Lesotho, Swaziland and other neighbouring countries,” said Fr Lungelo Mhlongo, priest in charge at Kevelaer.

A number of high-profile leaders, including President Jacob Zuma, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier and government ministers, have been to Kevelaer. It is also officially both a national heritage and tourism site, as designated by the National Heritage Council and Tourism Board of KwaZulu-Natal.

According to Fr Mhlongo, Kevelaer continues to attract increasing numbers of people, which might

Pilgrims at Kevelaer shrine in KwaZulu-Natal and (right) the print of Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted. necessitate more structural expansion. “We have had to find more space behind some of the buildings to accommodate the multitude of people who come to Kevelaer, especially during the August grand pilgrimage,” said Fr Mhlongo.

But the story of Kevelaer really begins in 1641 in Europe, when Henrick Busman, on three separate occasions while praying at a crucifix in a field outside Kevelaer, heard a voice calling to him: “Build here a little chapel for me.”

Shortly afterwards, his wife had a vision in which she saw an image similar to the one she had seen on two small copper prints in the possession of two soldiers from the same town.

The soldiers were fighting in the Thirty Years’ War between France and Germany and had visited the shrine of Our Lady of Luxembourg to pray for their captured captain. Before leaving, they had bought the prints of a picture known as Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted.

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Measuring 75 x110mm, the prints are inscribed with the words: “True copy of the picture of the Mother of Jesus Comforter of the Afflicted—as it is well known through the many miracles and venerated by many in the neighbourhood of the City of Luxembourg.”

The following year, 1642, a chapel was built in Kevelaer, in which one of the pictures was kept.

F

ast forward to 1932 when Fr Vitalis Fux of the Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries went to Switzerland to raise funds to build a larger church at Mariannhill. While there, he made a pilgrimage to Kevelaer in Germany to place before Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted all his worries about his people back in Africa.

For the first time he saw the miraculous picture of Our Lady and got to know the history of the many miracles wrought at the shrine. He also learned that the second picture was still in the posses-

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sion of the descendants of the second soldier. Because of the miracles associated with it, the picture had been handed down through the family for 300 years.

The last owner, an elderly lady, refused to donate the picture when asked to do so by Fr Vitalis. Her family fortunes had taken a dip after the First World War and the heirloom was her only treasured possession.

The following year, in 1933, Fr Vitalis was fortunate to receive a considerable sum of money from a lady to whom he had been kind during a pilgrimage to Lourdes in France.

He once more visited the elderly lady of Kevelaer and tried to persuade her and her husband to part with the picture by showing them colour slides of the missions in South Africa. It touched their hearts and the lady brought out the treasured picture.

With a last kiss she gave it to Fr Vitalis to take back to Natal.

On his way back to Switzerland from Germany, Fr Vitalis paid a visit

to the famous mystic and stigmatic Therese Neumann in Konnerseuth in Bavaria. She was completely blind, with two streams of blood coursing down her face from her eyes.

As soon as the picture was held in front of her, she placed her finger on the spot where the year 1640 was printed and then slowly moved to the face of Our Lady, saying: “This is the Mother of Our Redeemer, Consoler of the Afflicted.”

There was no doubt in Fr Vitalis’s mind about the authenticity of the picture.

But his return to South Africa could not take place until 14 years later, in 1947. His journey home was an eventful one. He suffered several serious accidents, and he believed Our Lady’s protection kept him safe.

One of these was when the aircraft he was flying in developed engine failure over the thick Congo jungle. Miraculously, a clearing in the sea of green appeared and the pilot was able to land successfully with no fatalities.

After they were rescued and Fr Vitalis was safely back home in Mariannhill, the picture was solemnly transferred to the new church at Kevelaer and put up on the wooden carved altar on which it sits up to this day.

Fr Mhlongo sums up the place: “Kevelaer is a special place; a place of prayer where people come with their different needs to place their petitions before Our Lady. And its history is full of pilgrims whose petitions were answered. That is why people continue to come here.”

And as Paton puts almost biblically in Cry the Beloved Country: “Stand unshod upon it; for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.” n Additional web reporting by the Catholic Portal.

Motorbike run for children

A

MOTORCYCLE ministry has raised R21 000 for a children’s home through activities connected to a Sunshine Run. The Knights of St Christopher (KOSC), a motorcycle ministry in the archdiocese of Cape Town, raised the funds for Huis Andrew Murray, a children’s home in Wellington for 150 boys and girls from 3-18 years old.

This was the ministry’s second Sunshine Run. “It is a way for the Knights of St Christopher to show support to Huis Andrew Murray by donating all the proceeds from the event,” said Abie Cader of the KOSC executive.

The Knights of St Christopher motorcycle ministry was established by Fr Bogdan Buksa of Bellville, and inaugurated and blessed by Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town in 2012. Archbishop Brislin is also the patron of the KOSC. The Knights declare as their mission “to ride for Jesus, minister the Good News of the Kingdom of God,

Wade Kramer, a founder of the Knights of St Christopher, receives his prize of a donated laptop from Mervin Mcloughlin of Lewis Stores. support charities, endeavour to reach out to the underprivileged by serving as a tool for outreach programmes, and to strive through the medium of this ministry to combat social and spiritual evils which exists in society and thereby increase the Kingdom of God”.

The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

LOCAL

Be there: Canonisation of Mother Teresa pilgrimage

S

OUTHERN African Catholics have an opportunity to witness the historic September 4 canonisation of Bl Mother Teresa of Kolkata first-hand on a pilgrimage to Italy cohosted by The Southern Cross and Radio Veritas.

This will be the second pilgrimage offered by The Southern Cross for later this year, along with the Year of Mercy Pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Cairo, led by Fr Larry Kaufmann CCsR in October (see advert on page 10).

The pilgrimage to Mother Teresa’s canonisation is taking place from September 2-11, scheduled to be led

by Fr Emil Blaser OP, station director of Radio Veritas.

Apart from the canonisation ceremony and a weekly audience with Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square, the pilgrimage will visit holy and historic sites in Rome and in Assisi, the town of St Francis and St Clare.

In Rome the group will tour the four major basilicas—St Peter’s, St John Lateran, St Mary Major and St Paul Outside the Walls—as well as Santa Sabina, the mother church of the Dominican order, and the church of St Alphonsus, mother church of the Redemptorists.

At the latter church they will also see the original icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. This year the Redemptorists are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the beloved icon being entrusted to them.

The pilgrimage also includes a visit to the Vatican Museum, with the Sistine chapel, and to the catacombs, as well as a tour of some of Rome’s great sights, such as the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.

In Assisi the group will visit the basilicas of St Francis, with its aston-

3

Jesuit Institute hosts Marikana book launch

BY MANDLA ZIBI

M

ishing artworks and the hand of the saint, and St Clare, where personal items belonging to St Francis and St Clare can be seen, as well as the crucifix that changed the life of St Francis.

The programme also includes a visit to Grechio, where St Francis invented the Nativity scene, and where the cells of the saint and that of St Bonaventure can be seen.

In nearby Fonte Colombo St Francis wrote the Rule for his order in a cave which can be visited.

In 2014 The Southern Cross and Radio Veritas collaborated in the very successful pilgrimage to the canonisation of Popes St John XXIII and St John Paul II. n For more information or to book contact Gail Fowler at info@fowler tours.co.za or call 076 352-3809 or 021 551-3923, or download the itinerary with booking form at www. fowlertours.co.za/motherteresa

ARIKANA was a form of “state terrorism”, and while its living victims continue to suffer a failure of justice, the Church cannot be silent on their plight.

These and other sentiments were part of the discussion at the launch of Greg Marinovich’s new book Murder at Small Koppie: The Real Story of the Marikana Massacre, co-hosted by the Jesuit Institute and the Daily Maverick in Johannesburg.

Last year the institute held a screening of the Emmy-Award winning documentary Miners Shot Down, also about Marikana.

Mr Marinovich’s book deals in what Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, director of the Jesuit Institute, called “a new and comprehensive way” with the massacre which took place at Marikana near Rustenburg on August 16, 2012.

It covers the events leading up to the killings, the massacre itself, as well as the aftermath of the most lethal use of force by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in post-apartheid South Africa.

“Marikana matters because impoverished people were killed.

Much of what the Church teaches in the body of Catholic Social Teaching is relevant to what happened that day and, hopefully, we can learn from this,” Fr Pollitt said.

“Issues like poverty, migrant labour, exploitation, the role of unions, policing practice and the relationship between state and capital are at the heart of the Church’s Social Teaching.”

A broad spectrum of people attended the launch, most notably some of the country’s best political journalists and legal minds.

A panel discussion took place which included author Mr Mari-

Panel members at a Jesuit Institute and Daily Maverick-hosted discussion on Marikana included (from left) Ranjeni Munusamy, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, David Bruce and Fr Russell Pollitt SJ. novich—who is based in Boston but participated via Skype—as well as Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, who represented the deceased miners at the Farlam Commission, and independent researcher and analyst David Bruce.

The discussion was moderated by the associate editor of the Daily Maverick, Ranjeni Munusamy.

Offering insights into why he chose to write the book, Mr Marinovich said he hopes his work will make a contribution to the collective South African memory.

The book not only makes a contribution to knowledge about what happened on the day of the massacre but also examines the findings of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry.

Historian, theologian and social ethicist Fr Anthony Egan SJ said the book is “a very important historical document which will be more important in the future than what it might seem to be right now”.

Fr Egan, who has reviewed the

book for the Daily Maverick, suggested that what happened at Marikana and the way the police acted was a form of “state terrorism”.

Adv Ntsebeza said that he did not believe that the commission had been thorough enough and that justice had not been done for the 34 miners who were gunned down. He also lamented the fact that Marikana, for many, is now simply “just history”.

Mr Bruce said Marikana revealed just how ill-equipped the SAPS were when dealing with crowds. He said that a serious gap in public order policing played a major role in the tragic events that unfolded.

“The Jesuit Institute will continue to encourage uncomfortable dialogues so that we can truly live a faith that does justice,” Fr Pollitt said.

“We cannot claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ if we are not at the forefront of the struggle for justice for those who are marginalised and live on the fringes of our society.”

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Youth have ‘hunger for God’

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‘B

OYS tend to be more responsive to a religious vocation than girls. That seems to be the spirit of the age,” said Bishop Edward Risi of Keimoes-Upington after a Vocations Day in his Northern Cape diocese.

More than 70 young people participated in the Vocations Day as they interacted with both clergy and religious.

The day also formed part of the confirmation process of the young people.

According to Bishop Risi, the activities concentrated not only on ordained ministries or the consecrated life but on all vocations.

“We do need good fathers and mothers. Priests and religious are important but we also need secular vocations filled with spiritually gifted people,” he said.

Asked if he thought young people were less interested in vocations within the Church, Bishop Risi said on the contrary, children brought up within the Church tended to “develop a hunger for the Lord”.

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4

The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

INTERNATIONAL

Benedict XVI: Mercy moves us towards God

BY CINDY WOODEN

the sins of men, but in order to cancel the faults of God”.

“Even if today the majority of Christians would not share such a drastic overturning of our faith, you could say that it indicates a basic tendency,” the retired pope said.

Another sign of a strong change in general thinking that challenges at least medieval Christian thought, he said, is “the sensation that God cannot simply allow the perdition of the majority of humanity”.

Yet, Pope Benedict said, there still exists a general perception that “we need grace and pardon”.

The fact that so many people are open to that message [God’s mercy], Pope Benedict said, shows that “under the patina of self-assurance” and a conviction of self-righteousness, “man today hides a deep awareness of his wounds and his lack of worthiness before God. He is waiting for mercy”.

In many ways, he said, the focus on divine mercy is a modern way of speaking about “justification by faith”, knowing how important God’s mercy is.—CNS

A

LTHOUGH he lives a relatively hidden life in a villa in the Vatican Gardens, retired Pope Benedict XVI continues to study modern theological questions and, occasionally, to comment on them publicly.

The attention Pope Francis and many Christians are giving to the theme of divine mercy is a “sign of the times” that shows how, deep down, people still experience a need for God, the retired pope told Belgian Jesuit Father Jacques Servais in a written interview.

“Mercy is what moves us towards God, while justice makes us tremble in his sight,” Pope Benedict said in the interview.

“For people today, unlike at the time of [Martin] Luther and from the classical perspective of the Christian faith, things have been turned upside down in a certain sense: Man no longer thinks he needs to be justified in God’s sight, but rather he is of the opinion that it is God who must justify himself because of all the horrendous

Retired Pope Benedict XVI attends the opening of the Holy Door of St Peter’s basilica. (Photo: Stefano Spaziani,CNS) things present in the world and in the face of human misery.”

The extreme synthesis of such an impression, he said, could be formulated as “Christ did not suffer for

Pope Francis makes debut on Instagram

BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

F

IRMING up his presence on social media, Pope Francis has made his debut on the photosharing app Instagram, a Vatican official announced.

Mgr Dario Vigano, prefect of the Secretariat for Communications, said the pope’s new account “Franciscus” will offer another side of his pontificate through photos.

During a news conference presenting a new book on the pope, Mgr Vigano dubbed him “the Apple pope” because “there is a very complex system behind a simple interface”.

That simplicity translated well

Pope Francis meets Kevin Systrom, co-founder and CEO of Instagram, during a private audience at the Vatican. (Photo: L’Osservatore Romano)

for the pope’s Twitter account, which has well over 25 million followers in nine languages.

Whether at general audiences or during foreign trips, thousands of people try to take a coveted “papal selfie” Pilgrimage to the Holy land with the pope.

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own selfies, the account will offer viewers a glimpse into the pope’s life and messages.

The announcement came just over two weeks after Pope Francis met with Kevin Systrom, CEO and co-founder of Instagram.

“Today I had the honour of meeting Pope Francis,” Mr Systrom wrote to his followers on the photo-sharing app. “We spoke about the power of images to unite people across different cultures and languages. It was by far one of the most memorable experiences of my life!”—CNS

SElECt

□ Cardinal owen mcCann □ □ □

A child with his family in Al-Qaboon, Syria. His father disappeared four years ago in the country’s ongoing civil war. (Photo: Mohammed Badra, EPA/CNS)

‘No place is safe for Syria’s children’

BY DALE GAVLAK

A

S peace talks resumed in Geneva trying to end the 5year-old war in Syria, the UN children’s agency warned that more than 80% of Syria’s children have been harmed by the destructive conflict.

“No place today is safe for Syria’s children,” Peter Salama, UNICEF’s Mideast director, said in the Jordanian capital at the launch of the organisation’s latest report on the Syrian crisis.

“A new and disturbing pattern of violations against children’s rights has emerged in the conflict,” Mr Salama said, as youngsters have been killed and maimed, boys under age 15 have been forced into active combat, while still others have been exposed to siege and starvation.

Nearly 7 million children in Syria live in poverty and are potential targets for recruitment by armed groups, Mr Salama warned.

UNICEF has called for unconditional and sustained access to children in Syria, including 2 million in besieged areas.

“This generation is at grave risk.

Almost 3 million of these children are out of school,” Mr Salama said.

“If we don’t have them educated, we won’t have the next generation of people to rebuild Syria.”

A 12-year-old Syrian named Saja told UNICEF that she is trying to educate herself by reading, but she does not always understand everything in her books. She lost one of her legs in a bombing that killed several of her friends.

“It’s a struggle, but what can I

do,” she said. Despite her handicap, Saja hopes to train as a gymnastics coach and plays soccer using crutches.

Meanwhile, Catholic Relief Services reports that it has supported more than a million people affected by the Syrian conflict, mainly sheltering in neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.

“The scale of the suffering is devastating,” said Kevin Hartigan, CRS regional director for Europe and the Middle East, who has overseen the response. “But as Pope Francis reminds us, there are human faces behind the staggering statistics. Each of the millions of displaced Syrians is an individual uprooted from a full life, a family member, a loved one.”

CRS, Caritas and the UN have called for an end to attacks on civilian infrastructure in Syria so that schools, hospitals and water supplies are kept safe.

Hind Kabawat, a Syrian Christian lawyer who attended the Geneva talks, said that it’s up to Syrian people to decide whether to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“The Syrian people have the right to decide if they want to keep Bashar Assad or not. When we have somebody who has committed all of these crimes in Syria, I don’t think he is qualified to be a president,” said Ms Kabawat, formerly with the US Institute of Peace.

“We have to live in hope. This is the only thing we can do now,” she said. “We don’t have other options.

The other option is war, which is death to Syrian people.”—CNS

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The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

5

Malawi bishops on abortion: Every person is precious T

HE bishops of Malawi have condemned those campaigning to legalise abortion in the country, “agents of the culture of death” and attributed poverty to “wrong economic choices made by those in power”.

In a pastoral statement, the bishops reaffirmed respect for the sanctity of life.

“In a country little by little marked by trends in the declining respect for human life, the Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society,” the bishops said in the pastoral letter, titled “Mercy of God as a Path of Hope”.

“Our belief in the sanctity of human life and the inherent dignity of the human person is the foundation of all the principles of social teaching.”

Abortion rights activists with international support are working to legalise more abortions in Malawi, saying legal restrictions drive women to commit illegal abortions that are unsafe for the women’s health.

“Through the agents of the culture of death, campaigning for abor-

tion legislation, human life is under direct attack,” the bishops said. “In these circumstances, we wish to reaffirm that every person is precious, that people are more important than things, and that the measure of every society is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person.”

They encouraged those who undergo the “tormenting experience” of abortion to seek God’s mercy.

The bishops reflected on many other difficulties in Malawi: persistent hunger, corruption, a lack of security, poor economic development, and tribal divisions.

The bishops see poverty in their country as “a direct consequence of wrong economic choices made by those in power”.

They criticised the Malawian government for a lack of “transformative leadership”, saying that “God recommends leadership that is visionary, transformative, empowering, caring, serving, protective, people-centred and obedient to him”.

The bishops wrote: “As your pastors, we cannot sit back and watch in the face of shrinking standards or lack of public service delivery, an in-

creasing gap between the rich and the poor, lack of fiscal discipline and misplaced priorities in the prevailing tough times which call for tough measures.”

The bishops spoke against the advocacy of homosexuality, but also voiced respect for individuals and condemned “in the strongest terms” those who incite violence against homosexuals and against those who perform homosexual acts.

“The Jubilee of Mercy offers all sinners, including those who indulge in homosexual acts the possibility of experiencing God’s mercy especially through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”

They criticised the government for declining to prosecute homosexual acts under law, saying the government has faced pressure from international bodies, donors and local human rights campaigners.

“We find this path very unfortunate. It is an act of betrayal on the part of those in power to sell our country to foreign practices and tendencies contrary to the will of God because of money,” they said.—CNA

Boko Haram sows fear in Cameroon’s Church

BY JONATHAN LUXMOORE

A

CATHOLIC aid official warned that Church life faces “grave disruption” from Boko Haram in Cameroon after a local bishop confirmed the Nigeria-based group had caused a “psychosis of fear”.

“This movement opposes all Western values and is also hostile to Muslims who won’t accept the reign of shariah law,” said Rafael D’Aqui, head of the Africa section at Aid to the Church in Need.

“They’re now trying to draw world attention with cross-border attacks, and since foreign priests and nuns are a key prize, the missionaries on whom the Church depends have had to leave.”

Mr D’Aqui said that Boko Haram had infiltrated Cameroon’s northern Yagoua and Maroua-Mokolo dioceses after suffering military setbacks in neighbouring Nigeria, despite “huge efforts” by the Cameroonian armed forces.

He added that Boko Haram ma-

rauders were still regularly taking control of whole villages, abducting child hostages to be brainwashed and used in “random suicide attacks”.

Extremist groups “are obtaining huge sums of money from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to build mosques where there were previously no Muslims and train imams in a hard, radical school”, Mr D’Aqui said. “There’s a militant fraternity now, which is intent on invading and establishing a presence in Christian areas.”

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need’s Germany-based news service, Bishop Bruno Ateba Edo of Maroua-Mokolo said at least 20 people had been killed in a double suicide bombing at Meme, adding that Christians and Muslims in Extreme-North, whose 2,5 million inhabitants include 50 ethnic groups, were now “all afraid of the suicide bombers”.

The bishop added that some villages had set up interfaith patrols in

A 4-year-old boy in Nigeria was left for dead after a Boko Haram attack in Mala Keri, Nigeria. The boy was found in the middle of a burning house with no parents. (Photo: Stringer, EPA/CNS) collaboration with the army, but said there was “no clear frontier” between Cameroon and Nigeria, with families living on both sides and speaking the same languages.

“It’s the entire population they’re attacking in crowded marketplaces—there’s a psychosis of fear,” Bishop Edo said.

“We’ve called on our Catholic faithful to show acts of mercy toward the refugees, those internally displaced and those from Nigeria.

We tell our people that, despite the suicide bombers and the war, our prayers will help us greatly.”—CNS

Pope: The crucifix is no decoration

BY CINDY WOODEN

What is confession with the pope like?

H AVE you ever wondered what it would be like to go to confession with Pope Francis?

An American studying in Rome recently got an answer to that question. And she called the experience a genuine encounter with a spiritual father – that was also surprisingly normal.

“Pope Francis practises what he preaches when he speaks of being a tender father in the confessional,” Leslie Knopf said.

She said the pope was very kind during the whole confession and was intentional in understanding her and where she was coming from.

However, he also made sure to get to the heart of the matter being discussed.

“It was the most private audience you could ever have with the pope, because no one would interrupt us, it was just one-on-one to be able to receive the mercy of God in that moment,” she said.

Ms Knopf said she was “completely comfortable” being herself, and that she and the pope even shared a few laughs over some Italian words she had difficulty pronouncing.

Pope Francis “was fully present to the needs of my soul”, she said.

“It was a true experience of mercy, which is not merely saying that everything is okay, but truly a call to conversion.”

Ms Knopf is currently earning her licentiate in Internal Church Communications at Rome’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. She also serves as communications director for Catholic Bytes, and director for a new initiative called Misericordia Media.

She was one of several individuals who had the opportunity to go to confession with Pope Francis during his annual “24 Hours for the Lord” Lenten event.

A worldwide initiative led by Pope Francis, the event points to confession as a primary way to experience God's merciful embrace. It was launched in 2014 under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation.

As part of the penitential service, Pope Francis went to confession himself before administering the sacrament to a number of individuals, one of whom was Ms Knopf.

She said that she had no idea she would be confessing with the pope, and found out only the day before.

“It was a total surprise,” she said.

Ms Knopf said that during the confession, Pope Francis gave her general advice which is applicable to all areas of her life.

“He said that when discerning the will of God, it is really easy—you just have to ask and pray and he will let you know. So ask and pray to the Lord on every step of the way and he will let you know as it comes.”

For those who are afraid to go to confession or who haven’t been in years, Ms Knopf told them not to be afraid, and to focus on what Pope Francis has often said during the Jubilee: that in the confessional, it is the “merciful face of Christ” that we encounter.

“There is nothing you can take to the confessional that won’t be forgiven,” she said, adding that confession is above all “a sacrament of love,” so there is nothing to fear.— CNA

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PILGRIMAGE TO ITALY

T

HE story of God’s love for humanity is starkly clear in a crucifix; redemption is possible because the Lord took on the sins of the world, Pope Francis said at morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives.

“The crucifix is not a decoration; it’s not a work of art with many precious stones like you see,” the pope said.

“The crucifix is the mystery of the ‘annihilation’ of God out of love,” the pope said in his homily. Salvation “was not accomplished with the magic wand”, he said. “It was accomplished by the suffering of the son of man, by the suffering of Jesus Christ.”

Sin is the work of Satan, and Jesus defeats Satan by “making himself sin” and being raised on the cross, the pope said.

The Book of Numbers recounts how the ancient Israelites were being bitten by serpents in the desert and the Lord told Moses to make a serpent and put in on a pole, then anyone who

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The Brazen Serpent sculpture by Italian artist Giovanni Fantoni is seen in a view of the Holy Land from Mount Nebo in Jordan, where Moses died before reaching the promised land. (Photo: Jordan Tourism Board) looked at it after being bitten would live.

In a similar way, the pope said, looking upon Jesus on the cross shows people how they are healed from the eternally deadly

effects of sin.

That “is the story of our redemption; the story of God’s love”, he said. “If we want to know the love of God, let us look to the crucifix.”—CNS

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6

The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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.

Straight Catholics must reflect

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Where to get Catholic news I

R

EPORTS in the secular media on the resignation of Cardinal Napier as archbishop of Durban last month had many Catholics severely confused.

SABC TV News and Independent Newspapers used the terminology of the cardinal “stepping down”, giving rise to an impression that he would enter retirement with immediate effect, leaving the archdiocese of Durban vacant.

Many of the faithful in the archdiocese of Durban were shocked that they suddenly no longer had the spiritual leader who has guided them for almost 24 years.

Further questions were asked whether his resignation meant that he would also relinquish his position as a cardinal.

It took much corrective work

by The Southern Cross and various Catholics on social media to correct the misunderstandings created by media outlets that had understood the term “resignation” in the sense of labour law, rather than canon law.

A Southern Cross Facebook post which set out the facts and reassured the faithful that Cardinal Napier was still the legitimate archbishop of Durban was shared more than 80 times, reaching some 16 000 people. Clearly there was a great need for facts to settle the confusion.

And yet, the correct information was publicly available on the day the SABC and Independent Newspapers got things so badly wrong.

In the Southern Cross issue which most readers would have bought that day, we covered Cardinal Napier’s 75th birthday on the front page—including the correct implications of his resignation.

In the second paragraph we explained that every bishop is required by canon law to submit his resignation on reaching the age of 75, and that it is then up to the pope to decide when to accept that resignation. This can take several years.

The pope’s eventual acceptance of Cardinal Napier’s resignation will be accompanied by the naming of his successor as archbishop of Durban. This is standard procedure in settling the succession in archdioceses.

How long this will take is generally governed by different factors: the health, ability and willingness of the incumbent archbishop to continue his epis-

copal ministry; his reputation in the Vatican, local Church and society; the availability of a suitable successor.

The new nuncio (or papal representative) to Southern Africa, Archbishop Peter Wells, will need to ascertain what personal and demographic attributes are required to lead the archdiocese. With the aid of consultation in the local Church, he will then make his recommendations to the Vatican and to the pope, who then, in his own time, makes the final decision.

In the interim, Archbishop Napier will continue to serve as the head of the archdiocese of Durban. His resignation imposes no limits on his rights and privileges in exercising his episcopal service.

When the pope eventually accepts his resignation, the retired archbishop will continue to be a cardinal until his death. The title is a lifelong honour, though a cardinal may not take part in a papal election after he turns 80.

These facts are known to many readers of The Southern Cross and listeners of Radio Veritas, which interviewed Cardinal Napier in the week leading up to his 75th birthday and also stated the facts about a bishop’s canonical resignation.

The confusion that was generated by secular media reports on a matter relating to the Catholic Church has highlighted again the need for Catholic media in South Africa—especially The Southern Cross as the nation’s Catholic weekly, and Radio Veritas as our only Catholic station—to be vigorously supported and distributed.

Readers of The Southern Cross and listeners of Radio Veritas know what is going on in the Catholic Church because they can draw from reliable Catholic sources.

On the other hand, those who receive their information about the Catholic Church from secular sources are likely to be misled by journalists who tend to be novices in the field they are covering.

Relying on the secular press for news and insights about the Catholic Church is akin to consulting a rugby magazine for expert information about ballet techniques.

Here we have had a concrete example of why the local Church needs its faithful to consume Catholic news in great numbers.

Now, what are we going to do about it?

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F one has the inclination to read an article in the American National Catholic Reporter (March 2) concerning a report released by the Pennsylvania attorney general on sexual abuse in a certain US diocese, and compare it to the article two weeks previously in The Southern Cross written by members of a Catholic LGBTI group (February 10), one will see the similarities.

Both involve sexuality, the former being an attempt at secrecy while the latter is open and transparent.

The issue of gay marriages has

Happy parish will give generously

R

ECENTLY a parish priest addressed a congregation on church finances. He said the church had incurred a deficit and he had been taken to task by the diocese on the issue. He added that parish income had remained stable for some years in spite of increased costs.

I would like to make a few remarks on church finances.

The first is that religion has an enormously important role in society and when it really fulfils the spiritual needs of a community, it will be generously supported.

Lack of finances arises when a church does not look after the needs of its constituency and when people do not understand what the financial needs of the church are.

Financial embarassment is also caused by declining church membership and support.

There is an increasingly secular, hedonistic and materialistic popular culture completely at odds with everthing Christianity stands for.

There is also a proliferation of new churches that offer better service to their members than older, traditional bodies and are better attuned to the mentality and needs of contemporary society.

On a practical level I can suggest a number of things to make churches financially viable.

The first is to ensure preaching and church services are of a high standard and that those attending really feel that they are encountering the power of God that gives them strength in daily life.

The second is to ensure that all members of the congregation feel welcome, loved and wanted, with genuine pastoral care.

Finally, priests or finance committees need to regularly take people into their confidence about what the church needs in the way of money and what it is needed for.

If people can see that the church is reaching out with the love of God to members and those spiritually

Mercy and justice

A

LMIGHTY God is and always has been infinitely merciful to repentant sinners, but he is also infinitely just.

He is infinitely good too, and thus incapable of reaching a compromise with the forces of evil.

For these reasons his mercy simply cannot operate in the case of unrepentant sinners who wish to continue their sinful conduct.

This latter aspect is not being sufficiently emphasised in many of the sermons being delivered during the Year of Mercy, which are thus confusing many of the faithful, especially those not well versed in their faith.

Damian McLeish, Johannesburg

Homosexuals need intimacy too

I

AM surprised that so many Catholics can be of the opinion that homosexual people must choose the option of a celibate, lonely, loveless life, when they themselves usually enjoy a loving, warm and satisfying relationship with their partners.

Opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in Letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the Catholic hierarchy. The letters page in particular is a forum in which readers may exchange opinions on matters of debate.

Letters must not be understood to necessarily reflect the teachings, disciplines or policies of the Church accurately. letters can be sent to PO Box 2372, Cape town 8000 or editor@scross.co.za or faxed to 021 465-3850

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and materially poor outside it, they will support it generously.

But if the church is inward-looking and focuses only on maintenance of its structures and institutions, not only will people fail to give it financial support, they will drift away into religious indifference or join other denominations.

Frank Bompas, Johannesburg

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brought sexuality into the spotlight. With the advent of in-vitro fertilisation, procreation of children need not necessarily be accomplished through the physicality of the sex act. This is surely going to impact on St Cyril’s assessment that marriage is designed only “for the procreation of children”, as quoted

by Henry Sylvester in the same edition of The Southern Cross.

In reality all organic life forms on earth, including humans, are endowed with a sexual need, the end result thereof usually resulting in

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the proliferation of the countless life forms that exist.

For thousands of years the institution of marriage has been only between a man and a woman. Society is changing and we are beginning to see more and more same-sex unions where couples are now legally free to marry and have and care for children.

This is obviously a challenge to traditionalists. How is it going to be resolved?

In this Year of Mercy, perhaps we “straight” Catholics need to contemplate this dilemma as our earthly journey continues.

Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg

Some people may find it easy to choose a celibate life, but that is not the case with most human beings. I think it is cruel and judgmental to expect homosexuals to do so, and if they don’t, to exclude them from the sacraments and the community of the Church.

Why would a loving God create 5-10% of the human race as homosexual and then expect them to live a lonely, loveless life? Same-sex attraction is not a choice; it is how some people are created.

In this Year of Mercy, I have added two verses to my version of the beautiful prayer of St Francis, “Make me an Instrument of Thy Peace”.

“Where there is racism, let me show respect for diversity and tolerance “Where there is homophobia, let me show unconditional love and acceptance of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.”

June Boyer, Johannesburg

Gay acts a choice

I

N his article about gays and lesbians (January 13), an anonymous priest avers that the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual acts should be understood as referring to homosexual acts committed by heterosexuals. He regards these acts as freely chosen and unnatural because they are against the naturalborn orientation of heterosexuals.

But in his view the acts of gays and lesbians belong to another category, because these people act out their natural-born orientation and that is not a matter of choice.

The Bible and tradition, however, consider every homosexual act as evil, independently of the sexual orientation of the committer.

If we apply the same reasoning to alcoholics we would have to condone the cheerful indulgence of dipsomaniacs because their binges are not freely chosen but bubble up from their natural-born orientation.

Remember that the gay priest Krzysztof Charamsa, who said he had a boyfriend, was dismissed from his post in the Holy See! JH Goossens, Pretoria

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Pray with the Pope

Pray for the farmers General Intention: That small farmers may receive a just reward for their precious labour.

S a small farmer myself, Pope Francis’ general prayer intention for April is music to the ears.

Well, what I call my “farm” is just a large vegetable garden that I tend at St Francis Xavier’s Orientation Seminary in Cape Town.

What started as a hobby has been built up into something that makes a modest contribution to the seminary kitchen, although it could never get anywhere near to satisfying the healthy appetites of our seminarians!

Small farmers, including those now called “urban farmers”, make an important and increasing contribution to the world’s food supply. According to www.greenbiz.com, urban farming now supplies one fifth of the world’s food.

We might think that this applies just to countries in the developing world, but we would be only partly right. While some 40% of urban people in sub-Saharan Africa are engaged in agriculture, community and so-called “squatter gardens” are springing up in empty spaces in the post-industrial cities of the United States and other Western countries.

Can these small urban farms compete with rural agribusiness? It appears that they have some natural advantages, as Greenbiz explains: “Despite their relatively small size, urban farms grow a surprising amount of food, with yields that often surpass those of their rural cousins.

“This is possible for a couple reasons. First, city farms don’t experience heavy insect pressure, and they don’t have to deal with hungry deer or groundhogs [a ground squirrel of the marmot family]. Second, city farmers can walk their plots in minutes, rather than hours, addressing problems as they arise and harvesting produce at its peak. They can also plant more densely because they hand cultivate, nourish their soil more frequently and micromanage applications of water and fertilizer.”

I can tick most of those boxes including our local equivalent of groundhogs, the Cape mole, which takes a share of the sweet potatoes. All of which tells us that small farming, urban or rural, has its own challenges, especially water.

We are lucky enough to have a summer water supply in the shape of two well-points. Marginal profits are another challenge.

Many small farmers find they need another job to make ends meet, which is why we pray for them to be properly rewarded. I too have another job— teaching. So do pray for us small farmers!

A

Africa’s Samaritans Missionary Intention: That Christians in Africa may give witness to love and faith in Jesus Christ amid political-religious conflicts.

N the midst of political and religious conflicts we hope that Christian believers will stand out by a living proclamation of the love of Christ based on a lively faith.

However, we are realistic enough to know that not everyone will be able to rise to this. Sometimes we may be sorely disappointed, as for example in the cases of those Christians who have participated in terrible things such as genocide.

We are, of course, a Church of sinners and Jesus called and continues to call sinners. Indeed he proclaimed that his mission was not to the (morally) healthy but the sick. So we should expect to meet sinners in the Church and we should be comfortable acknowledging that we are among their number.

However, the sick go to the doctor to be healed, and hence if that healing has not taken place this raises important questions. If we have not changed, or been converted, then might we not be risking claiming membership of the Body of Christ under false pretences?

Last year in Kenya a bus was stopped by members of an Islamist terrorist group. The gunmen wanted to separate the Christians from the Muslims, intending to murder the Christians. The Muslims refused to be separated from their Christian fellow passengers and some offered them items of Muslim dress to confuse the terrorists.

Those Muslims bring to mind the parable of the Good Samaritan. Indeed they showed us Christians how to live out the parable.

The final injunction was: ‘Go and do likewise’. If we could do as these good and courageous Muslims did, we would give a powerful witness in those places in the world where political and religious conflicts rage.

I

The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

7

What Mary and Joseph teach families Kelvin Banda OP A S human beings, we need families which bring us up in a good and moral manner. But families also experience many challenges in trying to maintain the bond that must exist at the core of family life.

The life of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Joseph can serve as a model for many families.

Firstly, Mary is the standard of Christian virtue and discipleship through her total submission to the will of God, as well as through her meditative personality, her evangelisation, her intercession on behalf of others, her solidarity with those who suffer, and finally her prayerful patience in anticipating for the coming of the Lord.

Christian and non-Christian families need to reflect on the role of Mother Mary within the context of family.

Mary is the uniting figure in the Holy Family; she brought unity between God, herself and Joseph through accepting and obeying the will of God, thereby bringing salvation to all.

Our mothers need to be exemplarily like her. They need a strong foundation of faith; a faith that is founded on contemplation; on the word of God. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10:17).

Women need to listen to the voice of God and so become intercessory prayerful figures within families.

Just like love, the faith of a woman is stronger than that of a man. This is because, mostly, when a woman realises her faith in God, she clings to it just like she would cling to her loved one.

Women have a great passion for families. Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, who interceded for the needs of a newly-married couple at Cana, women have much

strength to present the needs of the family before God because of their love, discipleship and charity for the family.

Women indeed show true compassion for the family at times of trouble, pain or suffering. They have authentic compassion which seeks to love those who experience different calamities around them.

S

econdly, like St Joseph, men are also called to listen, to wait upon God. They can do this by being “men of prayer”. Men need to lead families in a deeply prayerful way of living.

Pope Francis articulated this soon after his election. In a homily on March 19, 2013, he said a man needs to be a “protec-

The Holy Family is depicted in St Joseph’s church in Nazareth. In his article, Kelvin Banda OP suggests that the Blessed Virgin and St Joseph are a good example for families today.

Point of Reflection

tor by being constantly attentive to God, open to the signs of God’s presence and receptive to God’s plans and not simply to his own”.

The pope further noted that caring and protecting demand goodness and a certain tenderness.

“In the gospels, St Joseph appears as a strong and courageous man, a working man; yet, in his heart, we see great tenderness, which is not the virtue of the weak, but, rather, a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love,” Pope Francis said.

Men must not be afraid of goodness, of love, of tenderness to their families. Tenderness and love do not show weakness but are signs of communal strength, supportive and protective of the family.

Tenderness and love are some of the character traits that a loving, fortified man can use to build up and unite his family.

Men need to learn from Joseph how to love women in a godly manner and bring up children in the grace of God: encouraging children to go to church; get them involved in the work of the parish, and join different sodalities.

Lastly, by emulating the Blessed Virgin Mary and her spouse, St Joseph, women and men can lead their families to God through their everyday moral life rooted in prayer, contemplation and the grace of God.

Church has answers to SA crisis I LIKED most of the Lenten messages from Catholics this year. There seemed to be a healthy shift away from regarding Lent as a dietary season into a contemplative one.

There was much to inspire in what I heard, from the preaching in church to media Catholics rediscovering the real meaning of Lent, which is about emptying ourselves in order to be filled with God. But I would also like to hear more Catholics regarding social justice as the centre of our endeavour to be Christ-like.

After all, Christ made it clear that as much as you did it to these you did it to me. St A protestor demonstrates in front of a fire John also reprimands the hypocrisy of lov- at the Union Buildings in Pretoria in Octoing God whom we have never seen, while ber. (Photo: Kim Ludbrook, EPA) hating our fellow beings we see every day about the preferential option for the poor, (4:20).

The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner once even if sometimes things still leave much wrote: “We hear today of something called to be desired in implementation.

Lent came this year during a season of ‘political theology’. This is a good name for a theology that seeks to explicitate and anger and aggression in our country. It clarify the social dimension of all the real- would seem everyone is nursing one ities of faith. The grace of confirmation is grudge or another, from the students who the strength to take cognizance of a Chris- have just woken up to the violence of matian’s responsibility for Church and soci- terial poverty that thwarts the dreams of ety. Truly, then, confirmation is expressly the poor to your insouciant housewife ordered to the ‘political’ responsibility of who is angry because all the toyi-toyi riots and the burning of things is making her the Christian as Christian.

“Recalling our confirmation means re- late for her yoga class. Even the racists minding ourselves that a Christian may have raised their heads above the parapet. not treat his or her Christianity simply as here is a general sense of our country a ‘privatistic’ [self-centered or narcissistic] being in the race to the bottom; what matter of personal interiority.” with the predatory networks of paFr Rahner’s words, to me, are directed to those Christians who think their faith is a tronage and blatant corruption in the capprivate matter that does not require them ture of state resources that is driven from the highest office of the land. to be involved in societal issues.

These are not times for the Church to I sometimes despair at the dim visibility of the Catholic Church in socio-political be overly subdued into silence and impotence by the need to guard the separation issues of our era.

Of course, different structures of our of powers. These are mostly moral issues faith, like the Catholic Parliamentary Li- that require her strong guiding voice.

Socio-economic inequality is a timeaison Office (CPLO), the Jesuit Institute, Justice & Peace and the Goedgedacht bomb, and yet it is being spoken of as if it’s Forum, often immerse themselves in the just a temporal inconvenience that will soon go away with the hoped-for ecodialogue of our public square.

But I find it still difficult to see the Church at large standing hand in hand with those who feel the inPilgriamge to the Holy land justices of the modern with fr. mpogopasi system, like the students rising against September 2016, Price: r32,000.00 [t&c] high school fees, and the poor in general.

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nomic growth.

The country’s economy has entered what the economists call secular stagnation—a condition of non-economic growth, where the rich upper structure are the only people making profit, which they then save without reinvesting it back into the economy.

And the middle and poor classes can’t make ends meet, meaning they can’t spend to revitalise the economy.

Other countries that have been in a similar situation for a long time, like Japan, have adopted desperate measures of adjusting their interest rates to negative value, in their attempts to mitigate the situation, while our Central Bank keeps raising it.

And we still base our planning on the National Development Plan which envisages a 5% economic growth—while in real terms we have hit below 1%. This is madness. The major problem is that the people who got us into this mess are the ones the government is now listeningto in order to get us out. Talk about the foxes guarding the chicken coop.

The consistent message of Catholic Social Teachings (CST) is that, even when it happens, societies do not flourish on economic growth alone. The CST acknowledge that free market capitalism is good for income growth and creating a large economic surplus—but it also creates dangerous economic inequalities that require government intervention for mitigation.

Widening inequality provides fodder for political unrest and leads to political inequality, because the rich sponsor elections in order to influence government policy direction.

8

The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

The Leadership Conference of Consecrated Life held an “Initial Formation” day at Koinonia in Waterberg, Limpopo. The aim was to help formators in the area of vocation promotion and recruitment. Pictured are three brothers from different congregations. (From left) Salesian Brother Clarence Watts, De La Salle brother Patrick Lestwalo and Marist Brother Paul.

COMMUNITY

The Immaculate Conception Sodality of Bethlehem diocese is pictured at its investiture ceremony conducted by Fr Khahliso Mofokeng, joined by Fr Buang Mofokeng. (Photo: Manyarela Manyarela)

The Missionary Association of Mary Immaculate of the Natal Province visited the Cebula House of formation for pre-novice Oblates.

St Louis parish in Clairwood, Durban, was visited by the Pauline Sisters.The sisters are pictured selling religious books to the parishioners. The Paulines have a books and media centre in Overport, Durban.

Members of the Salesian Youth Movement in Johannesburg celebrated the feast of St John Bosco at Don Bosco Centre in Walkerville. Sr Lidia Castro FMA gave a talk on what the SYM is all about and how young people can change and impact their communities. Salesian provincial Fr Francois Dufour celeGrade 12 pupils at St Dominic’s brated Mass for the youth which was followed by a braai.

Priory School in Port Elizabeth, took the Grade 1s for a Physical Education lesson out on the fields as part of their Life Orientation course.

Approximately 100 people attended Mass to mark the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Termination of Pregnancy Act in St Mary’s cathedral in Cape Town, organised by the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office.

Frs Ngcebo Zulu and Sifiso Ntshangase with a group of seminarians from Eshowe diocese after their retreat at Little Flower Mission.

Holy Cross Primary School in Aliwal North received drinking water from De la Salle Holy Cross College in Victory Park, Johannesburg, in response to their plea for water. The primary school expressed its thanks to the “angels of mercy” at its sister school.

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Pope Francis announced a special Jubilee of Mercy and Lourdes is in the heart of this major event. The Saint Michael’s gate becomes a symbolic passage materialised by a Holy Door from sin to grace and all pilgrims are invited to cross the door into the sanctuaries and walk the spiritual path by taking one of our lovely pilgrimages to include Lourdes in 2016

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Members of the Sacred Heart Sodality of Ermelo deanery in Dundee diocese, are pictured during its annual conference in Piet Retief.

South African Police Services attended Holy Mass at St Joseph the Worker church in Bosmont, Johannesburg.

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The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

LIFE

9

Machines can help but also pose danger The machines are taking over! With Artificial Intelligence increasingly affecting our daily lives, DENNIS SADOWSKI looks at the ethics of the information revolution.

T

HE fourth revolution—the information revolution—is already here.

Think the self-driving car, robots that have mastered legged locomotion, and machines that recognise faces, respond to speech, translate between languages and even answer questions.

It’s all part of the rapidly emerging fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Engineers and scientists are engaged in increasingly well-funded research into ever more complex machines that can “think” on their own and accomplish tasks once believed possible only by humans.

Humankind has encountered previous revolutions that have changed its thinking about its place in the universe: Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and Sigmund Freud’s research into the human psyche.

Each had serious implications in their time.

The information revolution, however, also poses moral and ethical questions that humans are just beginning to raise in concert with the rapid developments in artificial intelligence, known as AI. While AI has not yet advanced to the point where robots are “super intelligent” and pose a physical threat to the existence of humanity—as many works of science fiction have explored—people who think about such matters say the time has come for serious discussions to occur on what it means to be human in a world in which smart machines are becoming more prevalent.

“The biggest challenge that our development in AI and robotics presents to us is a challenge to our human exceptionalism,” said David J Gunkel, a professor of communication and the author of The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots and Ethics.

“We have always thought of ourselves, in the medieval way of thinking, as the top of the chain of being,” he said. “We’re now on the verge of creating machines that push against or at least challenge the position we’ve given ourselves.”

The questions are particularly meaningful in light of rapid computer advances.

Gordon E Moore, co-founder of Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor,

Nadia Thalmann, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, talks to a humanoid that she and her team created. With her brown hair, soft skin and expressive face, the humanoid is a new brand of robot that could one day, scientists say, be used as a personal assistant or care provider for the elderly.

(Photo: Edgar Su, Reuters) observed in 1965 that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. Contemporary semiconductor developers estimate that the pace has slowed to about two and a half years.

Given that understanding, it is estimated that by 2045 the world’s computing power will surpass the brainpower equivalent to that of all human brains combined.

Some of the questions revolve around human labour, both physical and intellectual, autonomous weapons systems, policing robots, control of critical infrastructure and the widening gap between people with access to technology and those without.

“The ethical focus shouldn’t be so much on the computer—to say this is a good or a bad thing—but more on the motivation, the plans, the understanding, the intentions of those who are making the machines] and those who are funding [the research],” said Jesuit Father James Murphy, associate professor of philosophy at Loyola University in Chicago.

Fr Murphy posed a basic question to researchers: “Have you thought through the ethics of what you are doing?”

“If you are doing that work and don’t realise [the ethics involved], that you do it because it can be done—that’s unethical,” he said.

Advances in autonomous weapons systems is an example that points to the concerns raised

by Fr Murphy and other deep thinkers about AI ethics.

“People don’t appreciate how many partially or wholly autonomous weapons system are already deployed and in use around the world,” said Don Howard, professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

He cited the deployment by the South Korean military of machinegun-wielding robot sentries along the North Korea border that identify with heat and motion detectors potential targets more than 3km away. While it requires a human to fire the weapon, full autonomy is not a possibility to be ignored in Prof Howard’s estimation.

“We need to think about this,” he said.

O

n another front, Prof Howard said humanity must address the near-term challenge that smart robots are replacing human labour at an accelerating rate. It’s not just factory work where robots are beginning to replace, but even in service industries, including bars and restaurants, he said.

Significant progress has been made in developing machines that can provide basic care to the elderly. Other more skilled jobs being

taken over by smart machines include television and film animation, drafting and design work, and journalism.

Low-wage earners will be most affected, according to the most recent Economic Report of the President released in the US in February.

It uses data from several sources, including the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and business studies, to show that people earning up to $20 an hour were 260% more likely to see their job automated than people earning $20 to $40 an hour, and 2700% more likely to see their job automated than people earning more than $40 an hour.

Prof Howard, who teaches a class on robot ethics, urged society to keenly consider the importance of work as addressed by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work”).

“Doing a job well is one of the most important sources of psychological well-being,” Prof Howard said.

The responsibility for posing such questions falls to all of society rather than just those in scientific fields and the deep thinkers of academia, said Shannon Vallor, associate professor of philosophy at Jesuit-run Santa Clara University.

She called for improved education about the risks and benefits of AI in engineering, software design and computer science pro-

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grammes, greater professional and industry emphasis on the ethical development of emerging technologies, and better informed legislators who are able to “intelligently and responsibly regulate high-risk AI applications”.

Dr Vallor suggested that the times call for “broader cultural reflection on AI and human flourishing”.

“What large aims should AI serve? Whose interests? What kind of future should we want AI to help us build?” are among the questions she posed.

People of faith also can have a role in determining how AI evolves, Dr Vallor suggested, inviting them to “envision and work towards a technological future that is compatible with universal justice, compassion, hope and wisdom”.

The questions, though, are not limited to the deep thinkers of academia.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking have joined with other innovative thinkers in cautioning that rapid advances in artificial intelligence without some thought into what they mean for humanity could threaten human survival.

Think tanks such as the Institute for Ethics in Emerging Technologies and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University have echoed those concerns.

The faith community, including the Catholic Church, has left the subject largely untouched.

Prof Gunkel, the author of The Machine Question, said his students often believe that ethical and moral questions are better addressed in the future when machines are more advanced.

“My response is, ‘No, we have to talk about it now. We have to decide in advance of the technology [what is moral and ethical]. Once the technology is here, it’s too late,” he said.

He challenged the educational system to reintegrate the humanities into curricula so students—especially those seeking to enter science, technology, engineering or mathematics—have a wellrounded education and think about issues other than passing exams, going on to university and getting a job.

The key to the future of humanmachine relations is to enter the realm of asking questions about the nature of the work in which a person is involved, Fr Murphy said, because it’s what humanity has been doing throughout its history.

“There is no fundamentally new ethical question about persons that the development of computers raises,” Fr Murphy said. “It’s the same old questions, just in a different form or different guise.”—CNS

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Race debate must take place

BY MANDLA ZIBI

I

T is still ver y difficult for whites in South Africa to accept what “white privilege” means, according to a Jesuit priest and commentator.

Many whites attribute their success to hard work in the past, but the truth is that because of skin colour, they had more opportunities than blacks, Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, director of the Jesuit Institute, told a dialogue entitled “Continuing the Conversations that Matter— Racism in South Africa”.

The meeting was co-hosted by the Jesuit Institute, the Goedgedacht Forum and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in Johannesburg.

“It is important that these spaces are created so that genuine conversations can take place about an issue that will be critical to the future of this country,” Fr Pollitt told the gathering, which featured a number of educational staff from Catholic schools.

“It is not about how hard you worked, but how, because of your skin colour, you had many more opportunities and open doors than black people. That’s what the [apartheid] system did, it gave some people a headstart in life—not on merit but on skin colour—and we cannot deny this,” said Fr Pollitt He argued that racism, and how we deal with it now, will determine our collective future much more than economics or politics.

Fr Pollitt’s comments came after the bishops of Southern Africa issues a landmark pastoral letter on racism, titled “A Call to Overcome Racism”, which was reproduced in full in last week’s Southern Cross.

In it, the bishops said that repentance, spiritual healing and hard conversations are necessar y to respond to racism and racial divisions in South A “In this Jubilee Ye Southern Africa, w credible and compr racism,” the bishops is not an easy conve us may prefer to avo This means ackn Church before, duri The bishops note can evoke emotions self-righteousness, g and sadness.

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10

The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

PILGRIMAGE

Sea of Galilee: Places of faith and miracles The Sea of Galilee was the scene for almost all of Jesus’ public ministry. In the third part of his series on the recent Pilgrimage of the Peacemakers, GüNTHER SIMMERMACHER takes us on a tour of the region.

W

HEN you look around the area surrounding the Sea of Galilee today, you see what Jesus saw. And yet, in his time, things were quite different.

The harp-shaped lake—the term “sea” is rather ambitious—more or less looks the same as it did in Jesus’ time, when he knew it as the lake Gennesaret. The water is still wet, and it’s usually placid, though sometimes the winds come, with no Messiah there to calm them.

The pilgrim today sees the same mountains which Jesus knew: the Golan Heights, Mount Arbel, what we call today the Mount of Beatitudes.

From the waters one can still see the city of Tiberias, which in Jesus’ time was brand-new, having been built by Herod Antipas in the 20s AD. Jesus never went to the city named after the emperor of the occupation force, which was built on the grounds of graves and therefore to Jews ritually unclean.

But some things have changed.

For one, there were a lot more trees there than one sees now.

When Jesus exercised his public ministry, he did most of it in a small area, no bigger than Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. Dotted around the landscape there were seven cities—all but one of them are long gone as human settlements, including the three upon which Jesus prophesied woe: Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, former governor of Galilee and later turncoat for the Romans, bragged that all of them had at least 15 000 inhabitants. Archaeology doesn’t bear out his claim; Josephus might have exaggerated a bit to boost his status as a former governor of the region.

Still, when Jesus walked in these parts, this was a bustling, urban region, located on the Via Maris, the busy trade route that led from Heliopolis in Egypt to Damascus.

From left: Boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, with the landscape Jesus would recognise; the octagonal church on the Mount of Beatitudes; the altar shaped like a fishing boat in the unmarked Catholic church at ancient Magdala. (All photos: Günther Simmermacher) That is why Jesus came here: because this was an active, dynamic place, and Capernaum was ideally located in the midst of these settlements. There was lots of traffic, among the locals and among those who traversed the Via Maris—and that meant many potential listeners to the Good News.

Capernaum (or Kafr-Nahum, as Jesus knew it) was a relatively welloff fishing town. Simon Peter most likely was not a backwater yokel with a boat and a net, but a successful businessman who had a house just a few metres away from the focal point of the city: the synagogue.

Peter’s house has been excavated and identified with absolute certainty; the foundation of the synagogue in which Jesus preached and healed still stands as well. The Southern Cross Pilgrimage of the Peacemakers in February saw both.

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e also visited the ancient Magdala. The home of Mary Magdalene was known in the first century as Migdala Nunia, and was even wealthier than Capernaum.

The city was famous for its fish processing—its name means “tower of fish”—and made lots of money from exporting cured fish and a popular fish sauce, even to Rome.

During construction for a guesthouse and church at Migdal a few years ago, the Legionaries of Christ, a Catholic order, found a first-century synagogue and other structures belonging to the long-lost city.

Synagogues were rare in those days, and not the places of liturgy we know them as today. The place for liturgy was the Temple in Jerusalem.

Before the destruction of the

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temple in 70 AD, synagogues were places of religious ceremonies, but also all-purpose community centres for civic affairs, public meetings, wedding feasts, education and daycare of children, and so on.

Small villages might not even have synagogue buildings, but hold their meetings in open spaces.

There is no evidence, for example, that the village of Nazareth had a synagogue building. It was too small in population to sustain such a thing. So when Luke’s gospel (4:16) tells us that Jesus “entered the synagogue on the Sabbath”, with unwelcome consequences, we may imagine that synagogue as an open area consigned for such gatherings as reading the Torah.

That synagogue at Migdal selfevidently is of great importance to Jews. But it also appeals to us Christians, since it is quite certain that Mary Magdalene knew that place. It may very well be that Jesus also preached there.

Matthew’s gospel tells us that “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Good News of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people” (4:23). It is implausible that Jesus did not preach in the synagogue of Magdala, a major regional centre.

The Magdala synagogue is the only synagogue from Jesus’ time found in Galilee, other than the foundation of that in Capernaum.

Artifacts that were discovered suggest that Jewish liturgies might have been celebrated there which were normally reserved for worship in the Temple. The implications of that could be enormous. Was this community doing their own thing?

Did they perhaps even adapt their liturgical practices in response to the teachings of the Nazarene, the New Temple?

The Israeli Antiquities Authority took over the excavation of the synagogue, but the Legionaries got in a team of archaeologists from their native Mexico which has dug up parts of the old town.

The findings have been spectacular, revealing a town of wealth, confirming ancient writings. That is the town of Mary Magdalene, herself a woman of means who helped finance the enterprises of Jesus and his followers.

The Legionaries of Christ haven’t managed to complete their guesthouse, but they built a church there. Its interior is impressive, dominated by a huge altar in the shape of a fishing boat.

The exterior, however, is disagreeable. It has no cross, no statue, no belltower—nothing that might identify it as a church. Its looks like a public library. This is because the Israeli government prohibits churches from fixing on their new buildings anything that could mark it out as a Christian structure.

The church isn’t even called a church but is widely referred to by the rather deplorable euphemism “spirituality centre”.

Luckily, a good number of churches were built before the state of Israel was founded. The most magnificent of these is the church on the Mount of Beatitudes, an octagonal structure built in the 1930s by the prolific architect of Holy Land churches, Antonio Barluzzi (1884-1960).

Its most unusual feature is the location of the altar in the middle of the church.

A beautiful garden allows the pilgrim to reflect in prayerful silence on Our Lord’s ministry around the Sea of Galilee, which reveals itself in its full glory from the mount, and on the famous sermon.

Here one might imagine the scene of Jesus delivering his eightpoint sermon to his audience, though it is more likely that he addressed them from the slopes. Scripture scholars also believe that the Sermon on the Mount is a summary of statements Jesus made over a period of time.

B

ut this should not concern us too much. Our focus should be on the message. And, like many of us today, Jesus’ listeners were probably puzzled by some of these counterintuitive ideas.

“Whoah there, Rabbuni,” one of these listeners might have said, “what do you mean, ‘blessed are the meek?’ What good does meekness do me?” We might ask the same kind of questions today.

And Jesus surely would have explained what he meant, engaging in patient dialogue with the people.

For our group, the seventh beatitude had particular resonance: “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” That’s what we came as: Peacemakers.

As peacemakers we sought to learn about the unhappy situation in the Holy Land, about the experiences and fears that shape attitudes on both sides, and to pray for a just and peaceful solution to what at the moment looks like a stalemate.

The final beatitude blesses those

“who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness”. This applies in a very real way to the Christians of the Holy Land, Palestinians who feel caught between the hammer and the anvil, with the oppression and injustice visited upon them by the state of Israel on the one hand, and the pressure of increasingly radical Islam on the other.

So it seemed scandalous that the overpriced gift shop on the Mount of Beatitudes, a Franciscan site, should have been leased out to vendors who sell T-shirts and other souvenir tat which pronounce Israeli propaganda, even misusing the gospel of Matthew to that end.

How hurtful must this priority of revenue over solidarity be to the Christians of the Holy Land? What would Jesus say?

The beatitudes are intended to encourage the poor and oppressed of their final victory. They are best read not in a bland or overly pious monotone but in an oratory voice of the kind we know from Martin Luther King Jr. Sometimes we misread Jesus.

Jesus must have been a passionate, charismatic and rousing orator. People came in their hundreds and thousands to hear him speak. If he had delivered his lines in a dull drone, these numbers might have been counted in a few dozen.

Being in the Holy Land helps us understand the content and context of his parables and his proclamations. The Jesuit author Fr James Martin, in his fine book Jesus: A Pilgrimage, tells of one revelation.

He was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee when he noticed that the surrounding landscape included rocky ground, fertile land and thorny plants—just the sort of terrain the sower in the parable contends with as he spreads his seeds.

“For the first time I realised that when Jesus was preaching, he may not have been describing abstract plots of land (as in ‘Try to imagine rocky ground’), but what his listeners were standing on. I could envision him pointing and saying, ‘Look at that ground over there’,” Fr Martin writes.

And that is a grace of a good pilgrimage to the Holy Land, especially when in the care of an expert guide, as we were: it is an opportunity to understand Jesus and his life, not as an abstract but as a lived experience.

That is why seeing the Holy Land is known as the Fifth Gospel: it tells us the story of Christ and the promise of salvation.

Next week: The land of Samaria

The excavation of a first-century synagogue in ancient Magdala. It is very likely that Jesus preached here.

The Southern Cross, March 30 to April 5, 2016

CLASSIFIEDS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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.

We must proclaim Christ as our Saviour

H

OW are my fellow Catholics progressing with our urgent work of the new evangelisation in this extraordinary Year of Mercy? Former Catholic countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Poland are now seen as “post-Christian”.

The Church exists in order to evangelise, yet many of us are afraid of that word with its somewhat “Protestant overtones”.

It may be that many of us have yet to experience Jesus Christ as Lord, rather than only “knowing about him”.

It is no secret that many Catholics are not cognisant with the basic Gospel message—that we receive justification through faith in Jesus Christ, and by his grace working in love.

The good works, which must appear, do not save us: they

show that our faith is genuine.

Many of us seem to be “saving ourselves” by our own efforts apart from grace.

This is Pelagianism, a heresy, which has reared its ugly head again and again and is even known as a Catholic heresy.

There are many who seem to believe that we are saved by being good. This is often apparent in our conversations with others.

Pope St Leo the Great (440461AD) wrote: “Unless a man believes in Jesus Christ, true God and true man, and accepts him as his own personal Saviour, the salvation that is offered to the whole of mankind will avail him nothing.”

Some of us may yet reach heaven, but as “baptised pagans”. We need to be in love with Jesus Christ as Bl Teresa of

Church has true answers to SA crisis Continued from page 7 The consequence is always that the poor who suffer the most, when they are unable to see a path towards betterment, they, like Samson, tear down the pillars of their prison to kill themselves together with their enemies.

This is what is currently at seed in our country. At the root of why our government is so inadequate, or lacks the political will, to properly intervene with economic policies that make real economic redistributive change, is the capture of the state by big capital.

If I were the chairperson of the National Development Plan, I would instruct its commissioners to read the history of Catholic social thought regarding the economic order.

It anticipates the current South African situation, and provides sound solutions in what is termed democratic capitalism.

The very survival of democratic capitalism depends on a culture rooted in transcendent truth.

But, as John Paul II suggests in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus: “In a world without truth, freedom loses its meaning, the market loses its efficiency, and democracy yields to statism and even totalitarianism.”

Our youth are starting to riot against the callous, silent oppression of the majority by market fundamentalism . It is a threat that may bring the country to the brink.

Pray it does not get to that. But if it is the necessity cup we must drink to awaken us from the slumber of complacency, then pray for strength to undergo what is necessary, so we may enter the real new dawn for our country. n Read the archive of columns by Mphuthumi Ntabeni at www.scross.co.za/category/perspec tives/ntabeni/

Kolkota, the Little Flower, St Catherine of Siena, St Teresa of Avila, St John Paul, St John XXIII, and countless others were.

It is a shocking fact that should call us to prayerful action, that Brazil, with its 180 million Catholics, has as many ex-Catholics present at Sunday worship as Catholics at Sunday Mass, in that most populous Catholic country.

In the words of Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi, we should witness not only by our lives but by a clear and unequivocal proclamation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The person being evangelised needs to know where the power and source of that witness comes from.

John Lee, Johannesburg

ClASSIFIEDS

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IN MEMORIAM

CIOllI—Mary-Anne (Dickie) née Dixon. Passed away on January 18, 2015 after a long illness, borne with dignity and great courage, deeply mourned and will be forever remembered, with great love, Remo, Catherine, Michael, David, Stephan and grandchildren. RIP.

PRAYERS

Year C – Weekdays Cycle Year 2

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 700. ACROSS: 4 Passion, 8 Halved, 9 Spirits, 10 Rachel, 11 Nature, 12 Breathed, 18 Lexicons, 20 In half, 21 Balaam, 22 Matured, 23 Revere, 24 Prelude. DOWN: 1 Cherubs, 2 Elected, 3 Defect, 5 Appendix, 6 Sprite, 7 Outcry, 13 Half-dead, 14 Forages, 15 Ishmael, 16 Unfair, 17 Samuel, 19 Inaner.

humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succour me in my necessity. There is none who can withstand your power, O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands. “Say this prayer for 3 consecutive days and then publish. Leon and Karen.

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

O MOSt beautiful flower of Mount Carmel, fruitful vine, splendour of Heaven, blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in my necessity.

O Star of the Sea, help me and show me where you are, Mother of God. Queen of heaven and earth I

AlMIGHtY eternal God, source of all compassion, the promise of your mercy and saving help fills our hearts with hope. Hear the cries of the people of Syria; bring healing to those suffering from the violence, and comfort to those mourning the dead. Empower and encourage Syria’s neighbours in their care and welcome for refugees. Convert the hearts of those who have taken up arms, and strengthen the resolve of those committed to peace. O God of hope and Father of mercy, your Holy Spirit inspires us to look beyond 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. tHANKS be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, For all the benefits thou hast won for me, For all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me. O most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother, May I know thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly, And follow thee more nearly, For ever and ever.

ST. KIZITO CHILDREN’S PROGRAMME St. Kizito Children’s Programme (SKCP) is a community-based response to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children, established through the Good Hope Development Fund in 2004 in response to the Church’s call to reach out to those in need. Operating as a movement within the Archdiocese of Cape Town, SKCP empowers volunteers from the target communities to respond to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) living in their areas.

The SKCP volunteers belong to Parish Groups that are established at Parishes in target communities. Through the St. Kizito Movement, the physical, intellectual, emotional and psycho-social needs of OVCs are met in an holistic way. Parish Groups provide children and families with a variety of essential services, while the SKCP office provides the groups with comprehensive training and on-going support.

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PERSONAl

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HOlIDAY ACCOMMODAtION

Liturgical Calendar Sunday April 3, 2nd Sunday of Easter Acts 5:12-16, Psalms 118:2-4, 22-27, Revelation 1:9-13, 17-19, John 20:19-31 Monday April 4, Annunciation of the Lord Isaiah 7:10-14; 8:10, Psalms 40:7-11, Hebrews 10:4-10, Luke 1:26-38 Tuesday April 5, St Vincent Ferrer Acts 4:32-37, Psalms 93:1-2, 5, John 3:7-15 Wednesday April 6 Acts 5:17-26, Psalms 34:2-9, John 3:16-21 Thursday April 7, St John Baptist de la Salle Acts 5:27-33, Psalms 34:2, 9, 17-20, John 3:31-36 Friday April 8 Acts 5:34-42, Psalms 27:1, 4, 13-14, John 6:1-15 Saturday April 9 Acts 6:1-7, Psalms 33:1-2, 45, 18-19, John 6:16-21 Sunday April 10, 3rd Sunday of Easter Acts 5:27-32, 40-41, Psalms 30:2, 4-6, 11-13, Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19

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the

3rd Sunday of Easter: April 10 Readings: Acts 5:27-32, 40-41, Psalm 30:2, 4-6, 11-13, Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:119

I

F you want to grasp the difference that Easter makes, then just compare the difference between what we see of Peter in the first and the last readings for next Sunday.

To make the point, we look first at the Gospel. It starts with Peter, and six of the disciples “going fishing”, which is often understood as indicating a lack of faith in the Resurrection, returning to his old profession rather than embracing the new meaning given by Easter.

Then he fails to recognise Jesus, standing on the shore, even when they get a miraculous catch of fish; he has to be told by the Beloved Disciple, “It is the Lord!” Then he behaves very oddly indeed, for he puts his clothes on in order to jump into the water, and rushes to the edge, even though the boat is only a hundred metres offshore.

Then there is breakfast, and an embarrassing conversation between Peter and Jesus, the threefold question, “Do you love me?” echoing Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus, not long before; and after each question, Peter is given a job to do: “Feed my sheep.”

This is followed by a prediction of the way he is going to die, and only then (when Peter

S outher n C ross

might be pardoned for remembering another important engagement) does Jesus tell him, “Follow me.”

However, we notice that whenever we meet him in Scripture after this (that is to say in Acts and the first and second letters of Peter), he shows a remarkable courage and confidence.

What has happened? We might get a clue from the cheerful attitude of the psalm. It is the encounter with God that has done it for him: “I shall exalt you Lord, because you raised me up…you brought my soul up from Sheol.” This encounter with God enables us to say, with confidence, things like “You changed my mourning into dancing…Lord my God, I shall thank you for ever.” Easter should do that for us.

In Sunday’s second reading, the visionary allows us a glimpse into the heavenly liturgy, which explains what is going on in our world, and gives us courage.

We listen to “the sound of many angels around the Throne and around the Living Creatures and around the Elders—and their number was tens of thousand tens of thousands and thousands of thousands” (a lot, in

‘F

Conrad

lease valves. Most often, there’s nothing we can do to lighten or release it. Fear paralyses us, and this paralysis is the very thing that robs us of the strength we would need to combat it. We can beat a drum, rage in profanity, or cry tears, but fear remains.

Moreover, unlike anger, fear cannot be taken out on someone else, even though we sometimes try, by scapegoating. But, in the end, it doesn’t work. The object of our fear doesn’t go away simply because we wish it away.

F

ear can only be suffered. We have to live with it until it recedes on its own. Sometimes, as the Book of Lamentations suggests, all we can do is to put our mouth to the dust and wait. With fear, sometimes all we can do is endure.

What’s the lesson in this?

In her memoirs, the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova recalls an encounter she once had with another woman as the two of them waited outside a Russian prison.

Both of their husbands had been imprisoned by Stalin and both of them were there to bring letters and packages to their husbands, as were a number of other women.

But the scene was like something out of the existential literature of the absurd. The situation was bizarre.

First of all, the women were unsure of whether their husbands were even still alive and were equally uncertain as to whether the letters and packages they were delivering would ever be given to their loved ones by the guards.

Moreover, the guards would, without reason, make them wait for hours in the snow and cold before they would collect their letters and packages, and sometimes they wouldn’t meet the women at all. Still, every week, despite the absurdity of it, the women would come, wait in the snow, accept this unfairness, do their vigil, and try

Sunday Reflections

your language and mine).

And they sing to the “Slaughtered Lamb”, which enables us to glimpse not only the reality of the terrible crucifixion of Jesus, but also the great victory, as he receives “power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing”, as the whole of creation sings to “The One Sitting Upon the Throne and to The Lamb”.

These are the persecuted, the immigrants, those at the bottom of society; and it is they who are given confidence by the victory of Easter, as the four Living Creatures and the Elders join in the ceremony. That is our story also, today.

And so to the first reading. Here Peter is brought face to face with the High Priest, almost the highest authority in the land. This official reminds him of the instructions “not to teach in the name [of Jesus]”, whereas he and the others “have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you want to bring this man’s blood upon us”.

This, however, is no longer the Peter who only a few weeks ago was intimidated by a mere slave-girl. Instead, he and the others boldly respond, “We have to obey God, not

How we can conquer fear EAR,” writes the novelist Cor de Jonghe, “is the heartbeat of the powerless.” That’s true. We can deal with almost everything, except fear.

The late Belgium spiritual writer Bieke Vandekerkehove in her fine book The Taste of Silence shared very honestly about the demons that beset her as she faced a terminal illness at age 19. She singled out three particular demons that tormented her as she faced the prospect of death: sadness, anger and fear.

She suggested that we can more easily cope with the first two, sadness and anger, than we can with the third, fear. Here’s her thought: Sadness can be handled through tears, through grieving. Sadness fills us like a water glass, but a glass can be emptied.

Tears can drain sadness of its bite. We have all, no doubt, experienced the release, the catharsis, that can come through tears.

Tears can soften the heart and take away the bitterness of sadness, even while its heaviness remains. Sadness, no matter how heavy, has a release valve.

So too does anger. Anger can be expressed and its very expression helps release it so that it flows out of us. No doubt too we have also experienced this.

The caution, of course, is that in expressing anger and giving it release we need to be careful not to hurt others, which is the ever-present danger when dealing with anger.

With anger we have many outlets: We can shout in rage, beat a drum, punch a bag, use profanity, physically exercise until we’re exhausted, smash some furniture, utter murderous threats, and rage away at countless things. This isn’t necessarily rational and some of these things aren’t necessarily moral, but they offer some release.

We have means to cope with anger.

Fear, on the other hand, has no such re-

Nicholas King SJ

New confidence in Christ

human beings”, as he makes the Easter proclamation, “The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead, whom you people killed by hanging him on a tree.”

And he is now no longer dragged down by uncertainty: “We are witnesses of these events, we and the Holy Spirit whom God gave to those who obey him.”

Such is this display of confidence that the Sanhedrin have no real idea what to do, except that they “summoned the apostles and flogged them and told them not to speak in the name of Jesus” (some hope of that, we may reflect).

But notice the effect on Peter and the others who were previously guilty of such cowardice: “So they went off from the presence of the Sanhedrin rejoicing, because they had been found worthy to suffer dishonour on behalf of the Name.”

This is a profound transformation, one that is directly connected with the encounter with the Risen Lord.

Could it be yours, this week?

Southern Crossword #700

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

to get letters and packages to their loved ones in prison.

One morning, as they were waiting, seemingly with no end in sight, one of the women recognised Akhmatova and said to her: “Well, you’re a poet. Can you tell me what’s happening here?” Akhmatova looked at the woman and replied: “Yes, I can!” And then something like a smile passed between them.

Why the smile? Just to be able to name something, no matter how absurd or unfair, no matter our powerlessness to change it, is to be somehow free of it, above it, transcendent in some way. To name something correctly is to partly free ourselves of its dominance.

That’s why totalitarian regimes fear artists, writers, religious critics, journalists and prophets. They name things. That’s ultimately the function of prophecy.

Prophets don’t foretell the future, they properly name the present.

Franciscan Father Richard Rohr is fond of saying: “Not everything can be fixed or cured, but it should be named properly.”

The late psychologist James Hillman had his own way of casting this. He suggested that “a symptom suffers most when it doesn’t know where it belongs”.

This can be helpful in dealing with fear in our lives. Fear can render us impotent.

But naming that properly, recognising where that symptom belongs and how powerless it leaves us can help us to live with it, without sadness and anger.

CHURCH CHUCKLE

Ten reasons why God created Eve 10. God worried that Adam would always be lost in the garden because he knew men would never ask for directions.

9. God knew that Adam would one day need someone to hand him the TV remote because men don't want to see what is on TV; they want to see what else is on TV. 8. God knew that Adam would never buy a new fig leaf when the seat wore out and therefore would need Eve to get one for him.

7. God knew that Adam would never make a doctor’s appointment for himself.

6. God knew that Adam would never remember which night was rubbish night.

5. God knew that if the world was to be populated there would have to someone to bear children because men would never be able to handle it.

4. As Keeper of the Garden Adam would never remember where he put his tools.

3. The Scripture account of creation indicates that Adam needed someone to blame his troubles on when God caught him hiding in the garden.

2. As the Bible says, “It is not good for man to be alone”, he only ends up getting himself in trouble.

1. When God finished the creation of Adam he stepped back, scratched his head and said: “I can do better than that.’

aCroSS

4. Christ’s is solemnly proclaimed on Good Friday (7) 8. Divided equally (6) 9. They are immaterial at the seance (7) 10. Beloved wife of Jacob (Gn 29) (6) 11. The order of creation could be Mother (6) 12. Jesus did it on his apostles (Jn 20) (8) 18. Word books (8) 20. How you saw equally (2,4) 21. He had a talking ass (Num 22) (6) 22. Rum date fully developed (7) 23. Venerate (6) 24. Preliminary performance (7)

DoWn

1. Cheeky angels? (7) 2. Chosen by ballot (7) 3. Leave the Church because of blemish? (6) 5. It is added to the book of anatomy (8) 6. Will it confuse priest? (6) 7. Noisy external protest (6) 13. Exhausted yet still alive (4-4) 14. Plunders for centuries (7) 15. Son of Abraham and Hagar (Gn 16) (7) 16. Darkly unjust (6) 17. He has two Bible books (6) 19. More senseless near in (6) Solutions on page 11

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