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The

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August 10 to August 16, 2016

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No 4993

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Where the popes get their clothes

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Five page WY D roun d-up

Pope to youth: Teach adults!

BY CINDY WOODEN

A

The sun sets over World Youth Day pilgrims as Pope Francis leads a prayer vigil at the Field of Mercy in Krakow. An estimated 1,6 million young people attended this year’s WYD. The next WYD will be hosted in Panama City in 2019. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

WARE of the risk of being called naive or being accused of spouting platitudes, Pope Francis called on young people to model for adults the paths of mercy and respect, and then demonstrated what he meant.

“Today we adults—we adults—need you to teach us, like you are doing now, how to live with diversity, in dialogue, to experience multiculturalism not as a threat but an opportunity,” the pope told young people gathered for a prayer vigil at World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland.

“Have the courage to teach us that it is easier to build bridges than walls. We need this,” he said.

Many people find it easy to sit on the couch and tweet popular stereotypes like “All Muslims are terrorists” or “Immigrants steal our jobs”.

Pope Francis acknowledged that it is a huge task to build bridges and said he knew many people might not feel up to it at first. But, he said, Christians have an obligation to make at least an attempt.

Start small, he said. Take the hand of someone next to you. It is possible that no one will accept that extended hand, he said, “but in life you must take risks; one who never risks never wins”.

At a time when civil discourse seems not only to have rejected “political correctness”, but also grandma’s “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”, Pope Francis said Christians are called to watch their tongues—and their texting fingers.

“We are not here to shout against anyone. We are not about to fight. We do not want to destroy. We do not want to insult anyone. We have no desire to conquer hatred with more hatred, violence with more violence, terror with more terror,” he said.

“When it comes to Jesus, we cannot sit around waiting with arms folded; he offers us life. We can’t respond by thinking about it or texting a few words,” he told the 1,6 million young people, thousands of whom had spent the night camping at an area dubbed the Field of Mercy, at the closing Mass.

“People will try to block you, to make you think that God is distant, rigid and insensitive, good to the good and bad to the bad,” he told the young

people. “Instead, our heavenly Father ‘makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good’. He demands of us real courage: the courage to be more powerful than evil by loving everyone, even our enemies.”

P

erhaps more than any event so far in the Year of Mercy, the WYD celebrations focused on the traditional Catholic lists of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked; welcome the stranger; assist the sick; visit the imprisoned; bury the dead; counsel the doubtful; teach the ignorant; admonish sinners; comfort the sorrowful; forgive offences; patiently bear with troublesome people; and pray for the living and the dead.

A year before the Krakow gathering, Pope Francis sent young people a letter asking them to prepare for World Youth Day by performing one of the works each month. And, in solemn prayer, the pope and the youths meditated as the seven corporal works and seven spiritual works were paired with one of the 14 Stations of the Cross at the Krakow celebration.

“In the face of evil, suffering and sin,” the pope told them, “the only response possible for a disciple of Jesus is the gift of self, even of one’s own life, in imitation of Christ; it is the attitude of service. Unless those who call themselves Christians live to serve, their lives serve no good purpose.

By their lives, they deny Jesus Christ.”

The reality of evil, violence and terrorism filled the newspapers, strongly contrasting with the sight of young Catholics dancing in the streets of Krakow or a million of them on their knees before the Blessed Sacrament or thousands standing in line for confession in a park.

Pope Francis invited the youth to continue along the path that began with their pilgrimage to Krakow and bring the remembrance of God’s love to others.

“Trust the memory of God: his memory is not a ‘hard disk’ that saves and archives all our data, but a tender heart full of compassion that rejoices in definitively erasing every trace of evil,” the pope said at the closing Mass.

The next World Youth Day will be held in 2019 in Panama City. The event, first staged in 1983, has been hosted on all continents except Africa.

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The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

WORLD YOUTH DAY

What the ‘Days in the Diocese’ were like for SA pilgrims

BY LEBO LENTSOANE

B

EFORE the actual World Youth Day begins in the selected host city, pilgrims attend the “Days in the Diocese”.

This year these took place in all the dioceses around Poland.

This was an opportunity for the pilgrims to meet the local people, get to know the culture, and prepare to meet the pope in Krakow.

The group from the archdiocese of Johannesburg—of which I was a member—and other regions of South Africa as well as from Swaziland were part of the Oblates Encounter held over six days in the diocese of Wroclaw in western Poland.

It was attended by 1 500 pilgrims

from all over the world.

Several priests from South Africa were also in Wroclaw to give spiritual leadership, hear confessions, celebrate Mass and so on.

The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate live and work on all continents where young people live, study and work.

They are also prominent in South Africa, especially in Durban, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg. Archbishops Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg and Jabulani Nxumalo of Bloemfontein are both Oblates, as are Bishops Edward Risi of Keimoes-Upington and Barry Wood of Durban.

As part of the Days in the Diocese the Oblates offered beautiful liturgy, singing and faith tradition, but also

Pilgrims from Swaziland, dressed in their traditional attire, dance during their performance at the Festival of Nations which was held in the Polish city of Wroclaw during the Days in the Diocese. (Photo: Lebo Lentsoane)

Slavic spontaneity, joy and enthusiasm to young people.

Besides the faith-filled and enriching catechesis, devotion and cultural exchanges—our pilgrims also brought some African culture to Wroclaw—there were also richly symbolic moments.

In one of these, pilgrims held ribbons in five different colours—symbolising five continents in the world—which were unwound from a cross. This gesture was intended to express that pilgrims are one community within the Universal Church, in the centre of which stands the cross of Christ.

And after the Days in the Diocese we joined the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from around the world—and the pope—in Krakow.

Catholic journalist Lebo Wa Majahe prays before the relics of St John Paul II. (Photo: Lebo Lentsoane)

Pilgrims gathered for a Mercy Festival in Wroclaw after their catechesis.

The only way to spot one’s group was by their national flag—the South African flags here were held by the Johannesburg pilgrims. Fr Tony Nunes of Johannesburg, wearing a blue T-shirt, can be seen engaging with the group. (Photo: Lebo Lentsoane)

The youth group of the Neocatechumenal Way of South Africa—coming from Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Oudtshoorn—have a moment of communion in Warsaw with fellow World Youth Day pilgrims from Puerto Rico during the Days in the Diocese. (Photo: Andrea Parato)

Johannesburg pilgrims perform at the Festival of Nations which was held in Wroclaw during the Days in the Diocese.

(Photo: Lebo Lentsoane)

Testimonies from pilgrims A

BY JuNNO AROChO ESTEVES

T the World Youth Day prayer vigil, young people from Poland, Syria and Paraguay gave their experiences of finding hope in the midst of disbelief, war and addiction to the 1,6 million gathered in the Field of Mercy.

Natalia, a young Polish woman from Lodz, spoke of her experience of encountering the love of God through the sacrament of reconciliation after 20 years of “not having anything in common with the Church”.

“Going to confession, I was convinced of having irredeemably lost eternal life. Instead, I had heard that God had made everything evil I had done disappear forever,” she said.

Rand Mittri, a 26-year-old Syrian woman from Aleppo, shared the pain and sorrow that comes from seeing her city “destroyed, ruined and broken”.

“The meaning in our lives has been cancelled.

We are the forgotten city,” she said.

Rand went on to describe how she and many

families live in constant fear of leaving their homes, not knowing when disaster will strike.

“Perhaps we will be killed that day. Or perhaps our families will. It is a hard and painful feeling to know that you are surrounded by death and killing, and there is no way to escape, no one to help,” she recounted.

Despite the horror she faces daily, Rand said she learned her faith in Jesus “supersedes the circumstances” and that with each passing day she believes “God exists despite all of our pain”.

“Jesus, I trust in you,” she concluded.

Miguel from Asuncion, Paraguay, recounting his 16-year struggle with drug addiction.

Beginning to experiment with drugs at age 11 and imprisoned for a crime by 15, Miguel said he continued committing crimes until he was eventually imprisoned for six years.

A priest, he said, took him to a halfway house in Brazil, Fazenda de la Esperanza, where he learned to live as a family with his fellow companions.—CNS

WORLD YOUTH DAY

How to get ready for WYD 2019 in Panama

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Lunch with Pope Francis P

BY ANN SChNEIBLE

H

OW can young people prepare for the next World Youth Day, Pope Francis asks? Remember the past, be courageous in the present, and have hope for the future.

The pope made these impromptu remarks during a meeting with the 20 000 volunteers who served at this year’s WYD in Krakow.

Addressing the volunteers, Pope Francis told them: “You are the hope of the future.” However, he added that there are some conditions to this status.

The first of these conditions, he said, is that of memory: “memory of my people, of my family, my history”.

In order to be someone who is the “hope for the future,” one must speak to grandparents and other elderly people.

“Promise me that when you prepare for [WYD in] Panama you are going to speak to your grandparents!” he said. “They are the wisdom of the people.”

The second condition, he said, is courage in the present. He cited as an example the testimony given by the brother of Maciej Szymon Ciesla, a WYD graphics designer who died of cancer just a few weeks before the event began.

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

“This young man is not here today [but he] has sown hope for the future.”

Pope Francis said he did not know if he would be in Panama, but that Peter—in reference to the first pope—would be.

“And Peter will ask you if you have talked with their grandparents, if you have talked with the elders” in order to have this memory.

He will also ask “if you’ve had the courage and boldness to deal with situations, and have sown seeds for the future”.

“And to Peter, you will give a clear answer—is that clear?” the pope asked, to which the youth replied in a resounding “Yes!”— CNA

OPE Francis has a “stomach of iron” and considers the German Richard Wagner his favourite composer, said young Catholics who lunched privately with him during World Youth Day. Thirteen WYD organisers from a dozen countries shared the meal at the cardinal’s residence. They were chosen by lottery to attend the 80minute encounter, during which questions were put to the pope in Italian and Spanish with simultaneous translations.

Malgorzata Krupnik, who was one of two Poles at the lunch, said she had been “very nervous and unsure what to expect”, but her stress had vanished as soon as the pope arrived.

“As we sat there, he said, ‘Speak to me; I want to talk to you.’ He was really optimistic, lighthearted and humorous, and not at all stiff and severe,” Ms Krupnik said.

“We asked how he’d felt when he was elected pope, and he said he’d experienced the gift of inner peace from God, which is still with him,” said Paula Mora of Colombia.

“You can feel this peace and humility when you speak to him. It was as if we were children meeting their father over a normal family lunch.”

Quan Vu Hong, a young Vietnamese on the WYD’s organisation committee, noted Pope Francis’ easygoing nature, saying it was the most touching quality of all.

Pope Francis poses for a selfie with young people during a lunch in Krakow. (Photo: L’Osservatore Romano) .

“He took a selfie with us and joked around during lunch. It made us closer to him and we did not feel he was a pope anymore. He was a father for us.”

Fatima Leung-Wai, a 28-year-old Samoan from New Zealand, said the pope declined to list his preferred reading, but said he routinely ate anything and had a “stomach of iron”.

Poland’s Catholic information agency, KAI, said the youths ate a

hearty traditional Polish meal with the pope, which included beef soup, rice with pieces of pork, as well as traditional dumplings, known as pierogi, and sernik, a popular Polish cheesecake made with a local curdled cheese known as twarog.

The lunch was prepared by Sacred Heart sisters, who also had cooked for St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI during their visits to the city.—CNS

French WYD pilgrims cycled 18 days to get to Krakow

BY KATE VEIK & TONIA BORSELLINO

P

ILGRIMS from across the globe travelled to World Youth Day by plane, train and automobile.

But not Victor Jacquemont, Antoine Lescuyer, and Humbert Canot.

The three young men from Paris, all in their early twenties, travelled from Paris to Krakow by a distance

cycling 1825km.

Their 18-day journey took them across France, Germany and the Czech Republic. They had a small tent to sleep in, but also asked for “hospitality” from local churches and met many people along the way.

One of the reasons they chose to bike was because, “it’s not just a trip.

It was kind of a pilgrimage,” Mr Canot said.

He explained that they wanted to make some effort, “some physical effort,” and have time to think about their faith. “The bike was kind of an ideal way of travelling for that.”

Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ also had an impact on them, because it talks about “having an eco-

Syrian brothers reunited at WYD WO Syrian brothers were reunited at World Youth Day, three years after being separated.

Yousef Astfan, 34, and his brother Al, 25, are from Aleppo in war-torn Syria.

Yousef currently works in Dubai. Al has lived in Germany for about 18 months as a refugee. He is studying for his master’s degree in mechanical engineering.

“I met him literally four hours ago,” Yousef said when he was interviewed by Catholic News Agency. “This is the first time I met him in three years. Since he left Syria, I didn’t see him,” he added.

“I just can’t believe that he’s here with me, finally. My family are very happy because we finally met. They wish to be here as well.”

Yousef said that Christians who live free from violent persecution should appreciate what they have.

“They don’t appreciate the bliss they are living in,” he said. “I can just tell the people and raise my voice: you are living in a bliss, so keep it, do what you need to do.”

The Syrian civil war has raged since March 2011. More than 270 000 people have been killed, while over 12 million are displaced or have become refugees. Some of the combatants have conducted atrocities against Christians and other religious minorities.

The Astfan brothers’ parents and sister, her family, and Yousef’s wife and family are still in Syria.

“They are living in Aleppo. It’s pretty dangerous there. But they don’t want to leave their country,” Yousef said.

Yousef first attended WYD in Madrid in 2011; this was Al’s first time.

“It gives you a very nice push for your faith, to be here to see all these Christians. Because everybody says that Europe is no more Christian,” Yousef said.

“I don’t see this. I feel proud that all these Christians are here. Especially when we fight for our Christianity in Syria. Being a Christian in Syria is a curse. You can get killed for this.”—CNA

began. They said they “introduced it to [everyone] that we met on the way”.

The men also handed out small miraculous medals from the chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Paris, where the devotion originated.

“We gave it as a memory and as a token of friendship.”—CNA

A NEW WAY OF HELPING THE SOUTHERN CROSS

BY KATE VEIK & KEVIN J JONES

T

logical way of living”, the men said.

“We thought that travelling on bicycle would be a nice way to put that in practice.”

The pilgrims believe that the Virgin Mary protected them during the whole journey.

A woman who saw their journey on Facebook gave the men a small icon of Mary, just before their trip

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The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

LOCAL

Mariannhill celebrates new archives

BY SYDNEY DuVAL

T

HE Congregation of Missionaries of Mariannhill (CMM) met in the basement of their 134year-old monastery for a celebration of heritage and memories with their ancestors, the Trappists and the religious who followed as CMM. The venue was the congregation’s new archives, which were blessed and opened by provincial superior Fr Bheki Shabalala in the presence of many confreres, guests and friends, including Bishop Fritz Lobinger, retired of Queenstown, who has made his retirement home at Mariannhill’s Mater Dolorosa.

Also present was newly ordained Bishop Siegfried Jwara of Ingwavuma, a former provincial superior and formator of the congregation.

Archbishop Paul Khumalo, retired of Pretoria and another former CMM provincial superior, is the newly-named archivist. He outlined the development of the new archives as a special place where the heritage of the past was secured as a living presence of the signs of the times in bygone years, to be re-ignited by researchers as a source of renewal and a better understanding of the signs of our times.

The several thousand documents housed in the archives could serve as building blocks for the future work of the Church in all its various ministries. The documents also showed that Abbot Francis was not only a man who responded to the needs of his times, but in many ways was ahead of the times.

Archbishop Khumalo said the pioneers were owed a huge debt of gratitude for their amazing work in

Sharing the celebration to mark the blessing and opening of the new archives at Mariannhill monastery are (from left) monastery superior Fr Lawrence Mota CMM, Bishop Pius Dlungwane of Mariannhill, Bishop Siegfried Jwara CMM of Ingwavuma, provincial superior Fr Bheki Shabalala CMM, and Archbishop Emeritus Paul Khumalo CMM, the archivist. (Photo: Sydney Duval) building up the local church, undertaking long arduous journeys by horsecart, engaging in new projects that required planning and implementation—churches, convents, schools, hospitals, agriculture, workshops and printing presses.

They had used the printing press and photography to produce a vast body of publications to support the work of evangelisation, catechesis and the development of the social communications ministry.

The archives were 18 months in the planning and building to ensure a secure and protective environment. Moving boxes and files from separate rooms upstairs to the basement location took four months.

Space was acquired through consolidating part of the former garage of the monastery superior, disused toilets and a washroom, and the old darkroom where photographs were developed and printed for the monastery’s iconic weekly newspaper, UmAfrika, which was first published in 1928, but began its life as Izindaba Zibantu in 1910.

A

rchitect Robert Brusse was called in to design an appropriate facility and entrance that would be both practical and attractive in its simplicity. He has been involved in various restoration projects involving Mariannhill churches and buildings, from Mariannhill itself to Cento-

cow, Reichenau with its famous water wheel, Emaus and Maria Ratschitz.

Archbishop Khumalo paid special tribute to three people for their valued contribution to the development of the archives over a number years.

Sr Adelgisa Herrmann, who had taught at St Francis College for more than four decades and had herself published a history of Mariannhill.

The late Fr Henry Ratering CMM, who had served as archivist for many years and had done so much to prepare research material for the Pfanner Commission as it examined the life and personality of Abbot Francis Pfanner for signs of heroic

MIMOSA CHAPEL

and saintly virtues.

Archbishop Khumalo also spoke of Fr Ivo Burkhardt CMM, the archivist at the CMM generalate in Rome, as the brains behind the project, having lived at Mariannhill for several months to oversee the planning and implementation of the special facility which now houses several thousand documents including original plans and drawings, writings, publications, letters, histories and photographs dating back to the 1880s— and the collection of Bushmen paintings by the artist and architect Br Otto Mäder.

Fr Burkhardt also organised the restoration, duplication and computerising of documents and precious photographic plates for transfer to the generalate.

Included are the plans drawn by the master architect Br Nivard Streicher OSB, who designed many of the buildings required by Abbot Pfanner to serve his growing mission outreach in the old Natal.

The archives at Mariannhill have been recognised as a source of invaluable research material for students around the world engaged in doctoral and masters’ theses. The architecture of Br Streicher and the building skills of the Trappists and their missionary successors, including their intricate brickwork, stand as the work of masters.

Here is a place dressed in silence where you can hear footsteps of the ancestors, the turning of pages in attentive study, the scratching of pen and ink on the paper that recorded the work of the past, and sense the thoughts of new ways and journeys springing to life.

INVITATION TO A PILGRIMAGE IN HONOUR OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA SUNDAY 21ST AUGUST 2016, 13h30

It is an honour for the Mimosa Shrine to welcome the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, brought to us by Ms Alexandra Silva.

This special statue is being taken on a Pilgrimage throughout South Africa in preparation for the 100th anniversary, in 2017, of the apparition of Our Lady at Fatima. The statue was blessed on 14th May 2015 in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal by the Rector of the Sanctuary, Father Carlos Cabecinhas and the Archbishop of Johannesburg, His Excellency Buti Tlhagale.

2 SAASVELD ROAD, BELLVILLE, 7530 Tel : 021 919 1511/021 762 3197 Email : mariankeysers @gmail.com

The program is as follows : 1. Welcome to the Our Lady of Fatima statue 2. Introduction by Ms Alexandra Silva 3. Holy Mass 4. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament 5. Adoration 6. Blessing of the sick, elderly and congregation 7. Procession by candlelight, with the Statue, to the Cross 8. Benediction and quiet time 9. Farewell to Our Lady of Fatima statue 10. Tea

You are cordially invited to join us for a day of prayer and worship. Those afflicted with illnesses and the elderly , who require a special blessing on this day are particularly invited.

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

LOCAL

5

Tough questions due when bishops’ meet

BY MANDLA ZIBI

A

NUMBER of hot-button issues, both Church-based and socio-political, will be on the plate when Southern African bishops meet for their bi-annual plenary assembly, to be held for the first time in Gaborone, Botswana.

Archbishop William Slattery of Pretoria, spokesman for the bishops’ conference, likened the plenary to the kind of intense planning session a local football club like Orlando Pirates or Kaiser Chiefs would hold ahead of the new league season.

“But at a deeper level, the gathering is a moment of grace for the bishops, where we can share our concern, support each other spiritually and pastorally,” he said.

Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation on the family, will be high on the agenda.

For Archbishop Slattery, the main thing, apart from the general discussion on the Amoris Laetitia will be how to practically implement the document.

“The heart of the discussion will be how to help people enrich their family and married lives.

Also, who will do this work in the community of the faithful. If God is present in marriage, there is warmth, communication and understanding.”

Also up for discussion is Catholic social action, how the Church can be present in times of disaster.

Archbishop William Slattery of Pretoria said Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia document on the family will be high on the agenda at the bishops’ plenary in Gaborone.

“The Church does enormous work in society, from schools, hospitals, caring for the old and giving comfort to the dying. But without the presence of God’s spirit, all these initiatives can lose their initial inspiration and all these works become just another machine,” the archbishop said.

A couple of political items on

the agenda are racism and this month’s local government elections.

The last six months have seen a number of racial incidents between blacks and whites in South Africa, leading to a noticeable hardening of attitudes on both sides.

Archbishop Slattery anticipated that the bishops’ plenary would explore ways in which the Church could “help racial healing, since it is clear that racism has not died”.

“We will also evaluate the results of the local government elections, and try to discern what the people of South Africa are saying.

We must respond to the cry of the people as evidenced in the results.”

An important issue also up for discussion is the Church’s ongoing support for the clergy.

“We must devise more ways to help our priests with formation, and ways to deepen their spiritual life. As the Church we need to support them, but also to challenge them,” Archbishop Slattery said.

The archbishop also said that evangelisation will be discussed.

“We will discuss the means by which we can not only help our people to know about Christ but also more importantly, how to encounter Jesus.”

As usual, the plenary will hear a report from the current SACBC president. Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, and elect a new executive.

Archbishop Buti Thlagale of Johannesburg is flanked by Carmelite Fathers Arwin Tauro (left) and Peter Rebello before the consecration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel church in Benoni. Fr Tauro is serving as the church’s parish priest.

Carmelites rejoice over new Benoni church

BY MANDLA ZIBI

‘A

WESOME adoration” is how one of the faithful described their feelings about the recently consecrated church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Benoni.

When Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg blessed the new church and installed the tabernacle, he declared that all the sacraments can now be performed in the parish.

The archbishop thanked the Carmelite Fathers for their selfless service to the faithful in his archdiocese.

Carmelite Fathers Arwin Tauro, Boniface D’Souza and Peter Rebello “worked very hard and long hours to have the church consecrated in Benoni”, said Sanet Karam of the parish office.

During the Mass, a new batch of 15 Secular Carmelites was admitted for a period of formation through the rite of admission.

“In his homily, Archbishop Tlhagale explained the importance of Carmelite spirituality for the laity and asked the candidates to discern their vocation as Secular Carmelites

through the spirit of prayer and commitment,” Ms Karam said.

The archbishop handed each of them the constitution of the Secular Carmelites, asking them to study it well, be faithful to it and strive for perfect union with Christ. He also commissioned the first group of lectors in the parish.

“Since the blessing of our church, you can now truly feel the presence of the Lord among us. The faithful feel nothing less than awesome adoration for our Lord and our Church,” Ms Karam said.

The Carmelites of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (sometimes simply called Carmel) were founded probably in the 12th century on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land, the place where the prophet Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal.

St Berthold traditionally has been associated with the founding of the order in the late 12th century. Its first rule was adopted in 1207 under St Brocard; Carmelites regard this as the beginning of their order.

Apart from Benoni, the order is also active in South Africa in Cape Town and Mahikeng.

De la Salle holy Cross College students get ready with their cartons for the school’s sleepout to gain some idea of the tough lives the homeless lead.

Students sleep rough in solidarity with homeless

G

RADE 11 and 12 learners of De La Salle Holy Cross College in Johannesburg had a brief taste of extreme poverty when they took part in this year’s School Sleepout.

Starting at 6pm till to 6am, college principal Debbie Harris was joined by some learners, teachers and parents in spending the night sleeping rough outdoors in the school grounds.

The event was intended to be in solidarity with and to raise empathy for the homeless as well as to collect items for those in need, such as blankets, tinned food and bread.

On the night of the School Sleepout, the learners made sandwiches for the St Vincent de Paul Society

that were collected the next morning for distribution to the homeless. They also made pots of vegetable soup.

As the group slept outdoors, two fires kept them warm as they went without all their normal comforts.

Grade 12 learner Emma Knight said that she wanted to do the sleepout not only because it was a good way of getting a better understanding of other people’s realities but also because it encouraged her to go without her luxuries for a night.

“It is important to get a better understanding of what the homeless go through on a daily basis— and make us all appreciate how lucky we are” she said.

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The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

INTERNATIONAL

Pope names panel to study women deacons

BY CINDY WOODEN

P People look at cardinals’ vestments on display in the window of Ditta Annibale Gammarelli, in Rome. (Photo: Max Rossi/CNS)

Where the popes get their threads from F OR five generations the Gammarellis have dressed and shod the Vicar of Christ through their family business, Rome’s historic Ditta Annibale Gammarelli. Now, after the recent death of manager Annibale Gammeralli, the business will pass to the hands of the sixth generation.

Established in 1798 by Giovanni Antonio Gammarelli, the “Ditta” was founded under Pius VI as a tailor for the Roman clergy. After Giovanni died, management of the shop passed to his son Filippo, and then to Filippo’s son Annibale.

In 1874 Annibale moved the shop from its original location to its current spot on Via Santa Chiara 34, just steps away from the Pantheon.

It’s located inside the building of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the institute that forms future Vatican diplomats.

When Annibale died, his sons Bonaventura and Giuseppe decided to keep the name “Ditta Annibale Gammarelli” as a homage to their father—a name that has since become known to clergy throughout Italy and the world.

In an additional act of homage, Bonaventura decided to name his own son after his father: making the late Annibale Gammarelli the second to carry the name of the family business and to carry it forward.

Annibale passed away on July 12 in Rome after a long career managing the sartorial workshop, leaving it in the care of his son Stefano Paolo and his nephews Maximillian and

Lorenzo, who are the sixth generation to sew garments for the pope.

During each conclave the Gammerellis are charged with making three white cassocks in different sizes—small, medium and large— which sit ready and waiting for the new Successor of Peter.

And though Pope Francis doesn’t use it, the white cassocks are always accompanied by the red mozzetta (the papal half-cape of choir dress that buttons in the front and covers the shoulders), as well as the white pellegrina (the buttonless white shoulder cape worn with a cassock and open in front), the white fascia (the waistband typically embroidered with the papal coat of arms, though the pope opted out of this), and the white zucchetto (or skullcap).

Popes typically change cassocks more or less every two months, since the silver cross they wear oxidises, leaving a stain on the white fabric.

In 2000 Ditta Annnibale Gammarelli was added to the list of historic shops in the city of Rome, and is likely the oldest shop to still be managed by the direct descendants of its founder.

The shop has served thousands of priests and hundreds of bishops and cardinals, and sewn garments for the Roman pontiffs since Bl Pius IX, who was elected Bishop of Rome in 1846.

Photos of the past nine popes decorate the walls inside the workshop, which will continue to dress popes under the guidance of yet another generation of Gammarellis.— CNS

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OPE Francis has appointed six men and six women to a commission to study the issue of women deacons, particularly their ministry in the early Church.

In addition to the 12 members named, the pope tapped Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to serve as president of the commission.

The pope set up the commission at the request of the International Union of Superiors General, the organisation for the leaders of women’s religious orders around the world.

Meeting the group in May, Pope Francis said that while his understanding was that the women described as deacons in the New Testament were not ordained as male deacons are today, “it would be useful for the Church to clarify this question”.

The International Theological Commission, a body that advises the doctrinal congregation, included the question of women deacons in a study on the diaconate almost 20 years ago. While its report, issued in 2002, did not offer recommendations for the future, it concluded that biblical dea-

conesses were not the same as ordained male deacons.

Pope Francis told reporters that he had asked Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the doctrinal congregation, and Sr Carmen Sammut, president of the superiors’ group, to suggest scholars to include in the study group.

At least one of the members Pope Francis named to the commission—scholar Phyllis Zagano— has written extensively on the role of women deacons in the early Church, arguing that they were ordained ministers and that women can be ordained deacons today. Ms Zagano is a senior research associate in the religion department at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

The other members of the commission are: • Augustinian Father Robert Dodaro, president of the Pontifical Augustinian Institute in Rome and a professor of patristic theology specialising in the works of St Augustine.

• Spanish Sister Nuria Calduch-Benages, a member of the Missionary Daughters of the Holy Family and a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

• Francesca Cocchini, a professor of Church history at Rome’s

Sapienza University.

• Italian Mgr Piero Coda, a professor of systematic theology and member of the International Theological Commission.

• Spanish Jesuit Father Santiago Madrigal Terrazas, professor of ecclesiology at the Pontifical Comillas University in Madrid.

• Angeline Franciscan Sister Mary Melone, a theologian and rector of Rome’s Pontifical Antonianum University.

• German Father Karl-Heinz Menke, retired professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Bonn and member of the International Theological Commission.

• Rwandan Salesian Father Aimable Musoni, professor of ecclesiology at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome.

• Jesuit Father Bernard Pottier, professor at the Institute of Theological Studies in Brussels and member of the International Theological Commission.

• Marianne Schlosser, professor of spiritual theology at the University of Vienna and member of the International Theological Commission.

• Michelina Tenace, professor of fundamental theology at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.

Vatican Gardens’ gruesome past grows into green haven

BY CAROL GLATZ

T

ODAY’S lush and immaculately manicured Vatican Gardens were once just a sprawl of mosquito-infested swamps, clay hillsides and hardy grape vines.

The wild, unpopulated landscape on the fringes of early Rome slowly shifted as it changed to accommodate historical events over the course of 2 000 years: the martyrdom and burial of St Peter; the blossoming of Christianity; the growth of papal power; and the eventual establishment of the world’s smallest sovereign nation.

The gardens make up almost half of Vatican City State’s 44 hectares and their colourful evolution is documented in a newly updated volume: A Guide to the Vatican Gardens: History, Art, Nature, curated by historians and experts from the Vatican Library and Vatican Museums.

In the first century AD, the Roman Emperor Caligula set up a circus for chariot racing on the outskirts of ancient Rome.

Shipping over a red granite obelisk from Egypt, he decorated the circus with the monument, which now stands in the centre of St Peter’s Square.

Emperor Nero expanded the circus, using it to showcase his cruelty CAsA seReNA against Christians like burning them alive to The retirement home light his evening parties with the Italian flair. on the hill’s gardens and 7A Marais Road, crucifying others, like St Peter, who was then Bedfordview, Jhb. buried in a roadside cemeProvides full board tery nearby. and lodging, medical As the apostle’s tomb became a place of worservices and transport. ship, the “circus fell into Senior citizens wishing disrepair and returned to to retire in this beautiful wild scrub”, wrote the book’s co-author, AmbroHome, please phone gio Piazzoni.

011 284 2917 After Emperor Conwww.casaserena.co.za stantine converted and granted Christians the freedom to practise their faith in 313 AD, he or-

Tourists walk through the Vatican Gardens which have evolved over the centuries from wild fields and vineyards to formal manicured plots.

(Photo: Paul haring/CNS) dered the construction of the first basilica dedicated to St Peter.

With the Saracen raid in 846, Pope Leo IV constructed a fortressed wall to defend the Vatican area from marauders. Inside the walls, there were meadows, vegetable gardens, orchards and vineyards while outside—which is part of today’s gardens—were more pastures and woods.

O

nce popes started residing permanently at the Vatican, they added their own personal touches to the vast expanse of greenery surrounding them.

Pope Nicholas IV had his doctor, Simon of Genoa, cultivate medicinal plants and aromatic herbs in the tradition of the Benedictine monk.

This 13th-century papal initiative was to become the oldest botanical garden in Italy and marked the beginning of the formal scientific study of botany as a branch of medicine, “predating by centuries the teaching of botany” in academies and universities, Mr Piazzoni wrote.

Pope Pius V made sure the medicinal plant studies continued in the 16th-century by hiring a Tuscan botanist and geologist to take care of the gardens. The pope gave him the title of “medicinal plant expert of Our Lord” and furnished him with a “safe conduct pass” allowing him to travel anywhere in search of rare plants.

The Vatican medicinal garden gradually lost importance—becoming a humble lawn.

Given the variety of habitat and papal proclivities at the time, the Vatican Gardens were also home to a menagerie of wild animals including the brief upkeep of a leopard during the pontificate of Boniface VIII in the 13th century and Hanno, the elephant, which was a gift to Pope Leo X from Portugal’s king in 1514.

Pope Pius XII (1939-81) found an injured finch in the Vatican Gardens and nursed her back to health.

“Gretchen” the finch would keep the pope company and sit on his shoulder at mealtimes while hopping down to peck at crumbs.

Pope Leo XIII (1818-1903) spent a lot of time caring for the gardens and pursuing his love for hunting and viniculture.

He reportedly tended his small vineyard himself, hoeing out the weeds, and visiting often for moments of prayer and writing poetry.

He had a papal guard on duty with orders to shoot to scare off birds threatening his grape harvest.

Modern-day popes still use the gardens for exercise, restful relaxation and meditation, although the gardens were opened to the public several years ago for tours which “reinforce the ideals that constitute the universal mission of this extraordinary place”—the love and care for God’s creation.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

7

Imam: Priest murder was attack on us all

BY CAROL ZIMMERMANN

P Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela poses with pilgrims during World Youth Day at the main square in Krakow, Poland. Pope Francis announced that the next World Youth Day will take place in Panama in 2019. (Photo: Agencja Gazeta, Jakub Porzycki, Reuters/CNS)

WYD will boost Panama

BY JONAThAN LuxMOORE

P

ANAMA, which will host World Youth Day in 2019, is a small country, but the head of its bishops’ conference has no doubts the Church will be able to organise the event.

“Panama, with its canal, is a bridge between two continents, and we’ll also make it a symbolic bridge between young people, especially in Latin America,” said Cardinal Jose Lacunza Maestrojuan of David, Panama.

At a news conference in Krakow the cardinal said Panama was wellplaced for air, road and sea communications with North and South America and would give World Youth Day a distinctive character.

“We truly hope this will be a blessing for our country, placing it at the centre of the whole world’s attention,” Cardinal Lacunza said.

Bishop Manuel Ochogavia Barahona of Colon-Kuna Yala said Panama was “a multicultural country, incorporating all the world’s races”, and would make World Youth Day a “fiesta Latina”, adding that plans would include “a lot of sun and salsa”.

Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa Mendieta of Panama told journalists Pope Francis had “once again surprised us” by choosing Central America as a venue, adding that

World Youth Day would be an opportunity to “promote the region’s youth”.

“Panama’s youngsters are suffering from mass emigration, unemployment, violence and human trafficking—so this will be a great stimulus for us to start again,” the archbishop said. “It’ll also be important for following the pope’s call to bring the faith to the peripheries. Panama is one of those peripheries, and World Youth Day will achieve this end.”

Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela attended the final weekend of World Youth Day with his wife, Lorena Castillo, visiting Wadowice, hometown of St John Paul II, and the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He accepted rosaries at a Spanish prayer service at Krakow’s Divine Mercy Sanctuary and met the pope after the closing World Youth Day Mass.

In a statement, he said he was happy Pope Francis had recognised that Panama’s values of “peace, dialogue and coexistence” were similar to those of World Youth Day, adding that his government would back the Catholic Church in facilitating “an event which includes every part of society”.

Catholics traditionally make up three-quarters of the 3,3 million inhabitants of Panama.—CNS

OPE Francis has questioned the claim that Islam should be identified with violence, in contrast to the Islamic State militant group, which he says is a fundamentalist sect of the religion.

“I do not believe it is right to identify Islam with violence,” the Pope told journalists during the papal flight to Rome following his apostolic journey to Poland. “This is not right and it is not true.”

“I don’t like to speak about Islamic violence,” the pope said, taking into account that one sees violence every day in the newspapers, even at the hands of baptised Catholics.

“There are violent Catholics!” he said. “If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence.”

The pope expressed his belief that every religion has its fundamentalist groups, including Catholicism.

Such fundamentalism, when it is present, can “kill with language”, he said, citing the worlds of the Apostle James.

Francis’ remarks came in response to a question put by a journalist regarding the murder of a French priest at the hands of Islamist militants, an attack which Pope Francis condemned. The journalist asked the pope why he never refers to Islam when decrying these sorts of terrorist acts committed by Islamist militants.

Acknowledging that there are fundamentalist groups, Pope Francis stressed that there are many young people, including Europeans themselves, who “have left empty of ideals, who have no work,” and who turn to drugs and alcohol and “enlist in fundamentalist groups”.

“One can speak of the so-called ISIS,” the pope continued, “but it is an Islamic state which presents itself as violence. “This is a small fundamentalist group called ISIS [but] I do not believe it is true or correct that Islam is terrorism.

“Terrorism is everywhere. You think of tribal terrorism of some African countries,” he said.

“Terrorism grows when there are no other options, and when the centre of the global economy is the god of money and not the person— men and women—this is already

Do you feel called to the Franciscan way of life?

Pope Francis falls at the start of Mass in Poland.

Pope: I just tripped

S

PEAKING to journalists aboard his return flight from Krakow, Poland, Pope Francis was asked if he was all right after he stumbled and fell during Mass outside the Marian shrine of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa as he was blessing the altar and an image of Mary with incense.

“I was looking at the Madonna and I forgot about the step,” he recalled. “I had the thurible in my hand and I just let myself fall. If I had tried to resist, then there would have been consequences.”

The pope was also asked about accusations of sexual abuse made against Australian Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.

Pope Francis said the accusations are unclear, but are in the hands of investigators. He also warned against deeming alleged accusations true or false before they are investigated thoroughly.

“If I would give a verdict for or against Cardinal Pell, it would not be good because I would judge prematurely,” he said. “We should wait for justice and not judge beforehand (or) a verdict by the press, a verdict based on gossip.” —CNS

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People hold a banner with a picture of slain French priest Father Jacques hamel, which reads, “Where there is hatred, let me sow love” at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Throughout France and Italy, Muslims attended Mass in solidarity with the Catholic Church. (Photo: Benoit Tessier, Reuters/CNS) the first terrorism!

“You have cast out the wonder of creation...and you have put money in its place,” the pope said, adding: “This is a basic terrorism against all of humanity! Think about it!”

F

ATHER Jacques Hamel’s gruesome murder prompted sorrow and outrage from Muslim leaders around the world.

Muslims across France and Italy attended Sunday Masses in a show of solidarity with Catholics.

The initiative was created by the French Centre for Muslim Worship, which was joined by the Italian Muslim Religious Community.

“This attack in a place of worship and on innocent worshippers in particular demonstrates that there are no boundaries to the depravity of these murderers,” wrote Imam Qari Muhammad Asim, senior imam at the Makkah mosque in Leeds, England.

The knife-yielding attackers slit the throat of 85-year-old Fr Hamel and also injured two others in the church, Eglise St-Etienne, before they were fatally shot by police.

“In this extremely difficult time for the Catholic community, we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters of all faiths,” the English imam said in a statement.

“An attack on any place of worship is an attack on a way of life of faith communities and therefore an attack on all of us.”

Solidarity among religious leaders was immediately apparent after news spread about the murder of the beloved priest described as a grandfather figure at the parish in the Normandy working-class town of St-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

That’s in part because French President Francois Hollande not only assembled security officials after the church attack but he also gathered representatives of Christian churches and Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish leaders to display interfaith unity.

Mohammed Karabila, president of the Regional Muslim Council of Normandy, told a French newspaper he was “distressed at the death of his friend” Fr Hamel.

He and the slain priest had worked together on an interfaith committee for nearly two years since the beginning of Islamic State attacks in France.

He described the priest as “a man of peace, of religion, with a certain charisma. A person who dedicated his life and his ideas to his religion. He sacrificed his life for others”.

Mohammed Karabila, head of S a i n t - É t i e n n e - d u - R o u v r a y ’s mosque, said regarding Muslims attending Mass: “Today we wanted to show physically, by kissing the family of Jacques Hamel, by kissing His Grace Lebrun [archbishop of Rouen] in front of everybody, so they know that the two communities are united.”—CNS

8

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

World Youth Day in SA?

E

VERY three years the Catholic Church shows that it is still relevant to young people who come from all around the globe to attend World Youth Days in their hundreds of thousands.

For the 1,6 million young people who prayed with Pope Francis in Krakow, and the many millions of others who couldn’t go to Poland but followed the World Youth Day keenly on the news and social media, the Catholic Church clearly is still important.

World Youth Days are a tremendous tool of evangelisation and formation. Their impact lives on in those who have had the blessing of participating in them. Many share the spiritual fruits which they derived in their communities; some even go on to enter the priesthood or consecrated life.

For the Church in Poland, WYD will be a long-lasting blessing. With increasing secularisation invariably making inroads even in strongly Catholic Poland, the experience of WYD will provide a counterwitness.

The next World Youth Day will be held in Panama, a country in the middle of the Americas. Its location will be inviting to the Catholic youth from South, Central and North America. Presumably Pope Francis is of the view that these regions need an urgent injection of the evangelising spirit of WYD. Alas, for African youth, the logistics of travelling to Panama may be complicated and expensive.

Some South African Catholics have mooted the idea of staging WYD on the southern tip of Africa, perhaps as soon as 2022.

There certainly is much to commend the idea. No WYD has been held yet in Africa, which across the continent has a fastgrowing and vibrant Church.

Clearly, staging a WYD in Africa is overdue.

South Africa has the infrastructure and experience to host an event of such magnitude. The successful hosting of the 2010 football World Cup showed that in organisation and facilities, this country is capable of handling big world-class events.

While South Africa has a high crime rate, it was nonetheless safe for travelling football fans.

There is no reason to believe that, with due precautions in place, WYD pilgrims would be

any less safe here than they were in similarly crime-afflicted Rio de Janeiro in 2013.

Holding WYD in South Africa would also galvanise a local Church that sometimes lacks in self-confidence. It might even serve to bring a still racially divided Church closer together, because all Catholic communities would have to cooperate.

However, there are also compelling arguments for caution.

Chief among those is the question of finance. The Southern African Church is not rich, and expending large amounts of its limited funds on a big event such as WYD might be seen as an extravagance, even if the intangible rewards would be great.

Should South Africa bid for WYD 2022, then the Church must have an undertaking from the government and business that the bulk of costs of hosting the event would be carried by them.

But there is another concern which must be interrogated: is our Church community ready to host the world’s youth?

Are we, as the Southern African Church, truly prepared to commit ourselves to staging such a big event? Are we ready to expend our energies in unity on such a huge project, on every level and in every area of the Church?

There is a fair concern that the disappointing number of participants in the Mini-World Youth Day in Johannesburg last December showed a lack of appetite for such events. Some dioceses didn’t bother to send delegates, and the event turned out to be an inadequate representation of the diversity of the local Church.

The question must be asked: If South Africa’s Catholic Church shows deficient enthusiasm for a national youth day, why should it be trusted to work up a zeal for World Youth Day? Next year’s SA youth day in Durban will have to provide a more encouraging picture of commitment to the youth by the Church’s leaders, and by the Catholic youth itself.

Africa needs to host a WYD, and South Africa is well-placed to stage such an event. But before that notion is entertained, we must be sure that as a Church we are ready to do so — in terms of both logistics and commitment to an effective youth ministry.

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.

Prayer on the field a thanks to God?

G

ÜNTHER Simmermacher’s article “With God on the pitch” (July 27) gave rise to thoughts about prayer in sport.

I have in the past considered prayer on the playing field as somehow sacrilegious—the Lord does not take sides in contests of strength or physical skills, I thought, and I still have this opinion.

Mr Simmermacher seemingly is a football fan; most of the examples he cites are from that discipline. I, on the other hand, am a rugby man: hence the incidences which I quote.

It has always been a source of wonder to me that the great Springbok “enforcer”, Bakkies Botha, would bend a knee to the turf be-

Jesus is our personal Saviour

W

E Catholics understand our Christianity as a process rather than a “one-off experience”.

However, we should be able to pinpoint a time, more or less, earlier on, when the Lord seemed to come closer and more alive, real and active in us.

Catholics in the charismatic renewal movement (in which 40 million Catholics worldwide are said to be involved), call this “the baptism”, or “release” of the Spirit—a time when the initial gift of the Spirit received at baptism and confirmation is “unwrapped”, or “released” in us.

I must admit that before I experienced this special grace in my life, my Catholic faith was mere “head faith”, or faith of the intellect. I knew “about” Jesus. There was no personal relationship.

St John Paul the Great said: “There are Catholics who have not experienced Christ personally, only the ‘values’ of the Gospel, instead of the living Lord, the Way the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6).

St Leo the Great, pope from 440461AD, wrote: “Unless a man believes in Jesus Christ, true God and true man, and accepts him as his own personal Saviour, the salvation offered to the whole of mankind will be of no avail to him.” Sobering words! It seems some may be saved, but as “baptised pagans”.

There is the “perennial Catholic heresy”, among some, which affirms: “Be good and God will love you”, and that you achieve salvation by your own grim efforts.

Saving faith in the Lord Jesus is what achieves salvation for us.

Good works must appear, but as fruits of grace—to assist us in the ever-urgent work of evangelisation, not being embarrassed at spreading the Word to others!

John Lee, Johannesburg

Günther Simmermacher

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fore the start of a match, bow his head, and have a moment’s communication with his God. Following in his footsteps we have that huge and fearsome player Eben Etsebeth doing almost exactly the same thing. I have seen Bryan Habana, on the many occasions when he has scored, raise his eyes and his hand to the heavens in acknowledgement.

These are but a few instances— many, many more could be seen among top South African sides, from the Springboks on down.

And our cricketers as well; many times have I seen that acknowledgement after the taking of a wicket, or the scoring of a century.

I cannot know what passes

Eucharist the core

A

FTER reading the third Holy Eucharist submission by Emmanuel Ngara (June 15) titled “Our great yearning for the Eucharist”, it is beneficial to revisit his two earlier submissions titled “Communion is not just a ritual” (March 23) and “How the Eucharist liberates us” (April 20).

In these three essays Mr Ngara invites attention to the most important and fundamental issues of our Catholic faith.

In Fr Ralph de Hahn’s submission titled “Eucharist and gospels change lives”, he emphasises the centrality of the Eucharist in our Catholic faith and also refers to our laxity and paucity of appreciation in this regard.

Here we are invited to the question phrased by Fr Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap in the first chapter of his short publication titled The Eucharist: Our Sanctification. I quote: “The question now is what place the Eucharist has in the history of salvation. Where should we place it? And the answer is that it has no particular place—it is the whole thing. The Eucharist is coextensive with the history of salvation. Just as on a clear morning the whole sky is reflected in a dewdrop on a bush, so the Eucharist reflects the whole of the history of salvation.”

At this point it is opportune to turn to Fr Ron Rolheiser’s publication titled Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in the 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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Eucharist which holds out such hope and relief for all of us sinners.

In conclusion, for us Catholics, it is the Mass that matters and, further, it is the Eucharist which makes the Mass. It follows that it is of great importance to include our appreciation and gratitude in all our most humble and sincere prayers, for surely it is the infinite love of Almighty God for us, even before our wonderful gift of faith, that we can accept and believe this supreme mystery unreservedly.

Kevin Andersson, Pietermaritzburg

Let us be assured

I

REFER to the lead article and the editorial of July 20 on Fr Patrick Maselwane’s tragic death which we all deeply mourn, whether we worked together or were the best of friends or not.

Fr Maselwane himself commented some time back that he didn‘t want people to just say only wonderful things about him, or anyone, after their death. I agree, even though I know one is tempted to idealise a person at such a time.

Families face that same situation.

The headline “Stop the rumours” would appear to acknowledge that there were unusual circumstances in the priest’s death.

The statement about a police investigation was not made publicly at the time, leaving many people who attended the funeral unknowing or more confused. We must await the outcome of the police investigation and with the greatest possible compassion accept that everything need not necessarily be made public.

However, we do need an assurance that if there are issues that need to be addressed, that this will be done—for the sake of truth, our Church and its families.

Toni Rowland, Johannesburg

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through the mind of these players, but I have come to the belief—perhaps because I need to believe that way—that it could well be a prayer of gratitude for the ability with which God has gifted the player, for the talent, the opportunity, and most of all for the fortitude to use that talent.

Many have the physical ability but perhaps lack the strength of character to use that with which they have been blessed. The fortitude is God’s gift as well as the playing ability, but the man must use that gift.

Perhaps the players I mention are simply asking the Lord not necessarily for a winning outcome, but simply for the grace to use well what they have been given. I like to think so.

Tom Drake, Johannesburg

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PERSPECTIVES

Why Satan hates World Youth Day Sarah-Leah I Pimentel N late July the Church wept as a priest in an obscure part of France became the Church’s newest martyr, after having been brutally killed as he was celebrating daily Mass.

In part, we are horrified because of the manner in which Fr Jacques Hamel was killed at the altar. We feel assaulted because our holy place was desecrated by the innocent blood of a priest. We are outraged because the two attackers delivered a message of hatred before they too were killed by police.

Two young men affiliated to ISIS committed this heinous act. But I think that it’s far too simplistic to blame terrorists for yet another senseless killing.

Satan exists. He is real. Modern Catholics prefer to shy away from references to Satan and we have sanitised him, choosing to speak rather about the weakness of the human condition, giving in to temptation, and poor personal choices.

Don’t get me wrong, we are still responsible for our actions, and I hope that our collective faith has matured to the point where we recognise that evil is present in our world because we freely choose to participate in it.

But behind this nebulous notion of evil, is a spirit, that same spirit that turned away from God at the beginning of the world.

Satan and his demons continue to go around the world looking for opportune situations and people are willing to help perpetuate evil.

And if there is one thing that Satan despises most, it is joy, unity, love. And so he is always looking for opportunities to destroy these three virtues. This is why I believe that the slaying of Fr Hamel was not just another terrorist attack.

On the same day, just 1 600km from this sleepy French village, hundreds of thousands of young people from all cultures and

walks of life were joyfully gathering in Krakow, Poland, for the start of the World Youth Day. They gathered under the theme: “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” These young Catholics are a living testimony to mercy, which expresses itself in joy, unity, and love—the very things Satan despises.

And so he looks for a way to mar the Church’s joy. All too easily he found willing accomplices—two young men affiliated to an extremist group. That is all we will remember.

B

ut it’s not about motives or political or religious agendas. It’s about the eternal battle of good over evil. Pope Francis reacted to Fr Hamel’s killing by saying that “the world is in a state of war in bits and pieces”. It is a war. But as Catholics we live in eternal hope, because we know that it is a war that has already been won by the blood of Christ.

Nevertheless, it would do us good to reflect a little on the shape that the world is taking as it heads deeper into this war of

A photo of slain Fr Jacques hamel is seen among flowers at a makeshift memorial in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. (Photo: Ian Langsdon, EPA/CNS)

The Mustard Seeds

“bits and pieces”. The world is angry. The world is afraid.

It seems that each new day brings with it some new tragedy. In our anger, our confusion, our fear, we want to find someone to blame. It is so easy to scapegoat a selfproclaimed enemy who call themselves Islamic State who abuse religion to justify their war.

But we need to be careful about making one group, one culture, one religion the scapegoat for the world’s problems. Pope Francis made it very clear that this is not a “war of religion”. Instead it is “a war of interests. There is a war for money. There is a war for natural resources. There is a war for domination of peoples.”

The world is filled with angry disillusion. The dream of globalisation didn’t materialise because too many have been left out. In response to that, those who have been pushed to the margins of the world economy are demanding to be heard, albeit going about it the wrong way. We have finally noticed them. We are seeing them, but we’re still not hearing.

Instead, the world of the privileged feels itself under threat, and is reacting by drawing back into isolationism and pushing the marginalised even further away. Britain has voted to leave the EU, Donald Trump makes electoral promises to build a wall to keep out the Mexicans, border controls to keep out immigrants, and he preaches a message that is angry, that is merciless.

We might not agree with what the likes of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are Continued on page 13

Challenges of priestly vs married life Emmanuel Ngara I N the previous column we explored the question which is greater and holier, religious life or married life?

In an attempt to answer this question we shall begin by noting the fact that the sacrament of holy orders and the sacrament of matrimony have something in common—they are both dedicated to the service of others.

The priest and other religious people are dedicated to the service of the People of God or the Church. On their part, a married couple are dedicated to the service of each other and to the service of their children and the broader family. But does this make holy orders and matrimony of equal standing in the Church?

One way of answering the question is to say that it is not a necessary question because priest and parent complement one another. However, there is a sense in which the priesthood is a very special calling.

When Moses complained to God that the responsibility of leading the Israelites was too onerous for him, God asked him to appoint 70 others to help him (Numbers 11). Similarly, Jesus had many followers, but he chose only 12 to be his apostles. The 70 elders and the 12 disciples were specially set apart and given authority and powers above what all the others had.

In the Christian Church, while all the baptised constitute what Peter calls “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), the ordained priests are specially set apart. A priest becomes a representative of Christ by performing the functions of a priest on behalf of Christ, and by teaching and acting as a pastor. In the Catholic Church, it is only an ordained priest who can offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

On the issue of holiness, it is reasonable

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Christian Leadership

A priest officiates at a wedding. Both vocations—priesthood or religious life and matrimony—can be holy but are also subject to challenges. (Photo: Gregory A Shemitz) to suggest that the priesthood or religious life generally, offers greater opportunities for holy living, as was explained in the previous column.

H

owever, the mere fact of being a priest does not necessarily make such a person holier than a lay person. A lay woman or man who strives to live a spiritual life

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dedicated to the service of God and others could be holier than a priest who is not particularly faithful to his vocation.

That point leads us to look briefly at some of the challenges facing both callings.

A priest who is a good preacher could be tempted to succumb to his ego, becoming proud of his gift and focusing attention on himself rather than on Christ.

A very common temptation is the failure to keep the vow of celibacy. This is something to consider for a young man who thinks he is called to the priesthood.

Is he going to be faithful to the vow of celibacy?

The Apostle Paul has some advice to give to the unmarried: “But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Cor 7:9).

Married life also has its own temptations and challenges. A marriage could be destroyed by such challenges as infidelity, conflict or the absence of real love between the two, leading to mutual resentment and the desire to separate.

In the final analysis, holiness depends on how faithful one is to one’s calling, whatever it is, and to Christian principles and God’s commandments. In this we do not depend on our own power, but on God’s grace.

Whether priest, parent, sister or brother, we are all called to holiness.

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

9

Cackie Upchurch

Year of Mercy

The Lord hears the cry of the poor

I

N 1999 a Jesuit priest named Fr James Brockman died. He had previously served in Central America and was considered an expert on the life and writings of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Fr Jim was a brilliant and, at the same time, simple man who loved serving the poor.

When the church filled with the strains of Psalm 34 at his funeral, the refrain came alive for many of us in a new way: “The Lord hears the cry of the poor. Blessed be the Lord.”

When God hears, God acts. The church pews were filled with dignitaries and with those who were living on the fringes. Through Fr Jim, God did indeed hear the poor and acted on their behalf. They loved him in return, and because of him they knew God’s love in their own lives.

Hearing the cry of the poor is a way of describing God’s mercy. One of the earliest testimonies of God hearing the poor is found in the early chapters of Exodus. The Israelites were in bondage and finally cried out—they could take no more.

“God heard their moaning and God was mindful of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and God knew…”

(Exodus 2:24). That’s when God called on Moses to present to Pharaoh the divine mandate to free his people.

Most of the prophetic literature in our Bibles is a testament to God’s finely tuned sense of hearing.

In the midst of major geo-political shifts of power in the ancient Middle East, Israel and Judah were often too busy playing politics to attend to the requirements of their covenant with God. As a result, their fidelity to God was tested and their ability to act with justice towards the poor was found wanting. When the poor cried out for God’s mercy, who could God call on to act on their behalf?

Sometimes the prophets, speaking for God, would recount the misdeeds of God’s people and place their sin before them.

Consider this example: “There is no fidelity, no loyalty, no knowledge of God in the land…therefore the land dries up, and everything that dwells in it languishes” (Hosea 4:1, 3). This was not for the purpose of simply shaming them but of calling them into a stance of repentance and conversion.

“Come, let us return to the Lord, for it is he who has torn, but he will heal us; he has struck down, but he will bind our wounds” (Hosea 6:1).

Only when they realised their own poverty were they open to repentance and to receiving the mercy they also needed to share.

At one point in history, when the nation of Judah was defeated by the Babylonian forces, many of the most influential Jews around Jerusalem were sent into an exile that lasted 70 years.

A portion of the book we know as Isaiah reflects the period when the exile was coming to an end and the children and grandchildren of the original exiles would be allowed to return to Jerusalem.

“Sing out, heavens, and rejoice, earth…for the Lord comforts his people and shows mercy to his afflicted” (Isaiah 49:13). The time for chastising was over, now was the time for comfort and encouragement.

The prophet Isaiah appealed to the imagination of those whose exile was ending with the image of a mother and her child. If God’s people could not believe they were worthy of rescue or if they felt they had been forgotten while off in Babylon, the prophet assured them otherwise in Isaiah 49:15-16: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have engraved you.”

Yes, the Lord hears the cry of the poor. The expectation for those in covenant with God is that they—we—would do likewise. In the end, when friends gather, as they did for Fr Jim’s funeral, their voices may bear testimony that once again God has heard and acted with mercy through us. n This is the sixth column in a 13-part series of reflections on the Year of Mercy. This article was originally published in Arkansas Catholic.

10

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

COMMUNITY

Twelve children of St Vincent Pallotti parish in Pacaltsdorp, George, received first holy Communion from parish priest Fr Cosmas Onwukwe. Catechists Marilyn heynes and Suzanne Petersen are pictured with the children.

Dominican sisters Rosalie Vernon-Jones, Bernard Fentisi and Alacoque hecker celebrated their 70-60-and 50-year jubilees respectively at Emaus Convent with Bishop Vincent Zungu of Port Elizabeth, eight local parish priests, and sisters from around East London and many friends.

Debutantes from holy Rosary high School in Johannesburg joined thousands of other Stop hunger Now volunteers at the Sandton Convention Centre in recognition of Mandela Day, where 830 000 meals were packaged for those less fortunate.

holy Angels parish in Bez Valley, Johannesburg, held Mass for the Catholic Chinese community, celebrated by Frs Tony Daniels, Tony Nunes, Ron houreld and Deacon Victor ho.

St Thomas Aquinas School

St Thomas Aquinas School is a co-educational, independent Catholic school situated in Emahlahleni (Witbank), approximately 150km East of Johannesburg. Our school celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2014, and is recognised as one of Mpumalanga’s leading independent schools, achieving a 100% matric pass rate for the past 42 years. Our school encompasses classes from Grade 000 to Grade 12 currently with 780 pupils.

SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

Due to the relocation of the incumbent, the Board seek to appoint a with effect from the 1st Term 2017

Applications are invited from passionate educationalists who will be committed to building on the school’s past and current successes by taking it to the next level of its educational development.

The responsibilities of the successful candidate will include, but not be limited to, the following: • The achievement of a clear vision and mission which is already in place • Inclusive leadership of the whole school community • Oversight of all operational aspects of the school • Ensuring that the Catholic Christian ethos is maintained and enhanced through effective and authentic spiritual leadership.

Fr Terry Nash SPS, newly appointed parish priest of St Anthony’s parish in Pietermaritzburg, took parishioners on pilgrimage to the Year of Mercy holy Door at the Emanuel cathedral in Durban. St Anthony’s parishioners were among the over 1 200 pilgrims who attended the Year of Mercy pilgrimage.

Candidates who attended a personal development course hosted by the Kolping Society received life skills certificates from Fr Maxwell Salsone of St Anthony’s parish in uitenhage, Laurian Kleinhans from Kolping national offfice and Olivia Ncwadi, Kolping co-ordinator in uitenhage.

Applicants are required to have at least the following qualifications, experience and skills: • Appropriate professional qualifications as an educator. A senior post graduate degree will be an advantage, • A minimum of 5 years experience as a Deputy, Head or similar school position • Ability to work under pressure and interact directly with demanding parents • A lived personal Christian faith, and an ability to relate strongly to the Catholic ethos at the heart of the School • A traceable history of passionate contribution to schooling and education • SACE registered.

• Interpersonal, management, communication and leadership and innovative skills.

• Excellent self-management and planning skills and ability to display a high level of conceptual reasoning Applicants are invited to email their comprehensive CVs with contact details of three referees to: principal.stthomas2016@gmail.com no later than 26 August 2016. Shortlisted candidates will be expected to undergo psychometric/ psychological assessments during the selection process.

St Thomas Aquinas School reserves the right not to proceed with filling this post. An application will not in itself entitle the applicant to an interview or appointment and failure to meet the minimum requirements of the post will automatically disqualify the applicant.

If you receive no correspondence from the school within 30 days, please consider your application unsuccessful.

Sacred heart College Pre-Primary School in Johannesburg held a fun day where families, some of whom brought friends along, spent a busy morning with their children enjoying activities which included tractor rides, face painting, pancake baking and story-telling, and the highlight visit of a fire engine.

REFLECTION

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

11

Finding your way back home again Amidst the busy flow of information, societal secularisation and the demand for scientific rationality, the faithful will always find their way home to God the Father writes GRAhAM WILLIAMS.

H

OME is essential to our very being. It can be a physical and social place and space— of family, friendship and fellowship, communion, worship belonging and sharing. And it can also be a state of intellectual, emotional and spiritual connection and contentment. A “place” of ecstasy and joy, living of life to the full.

This is not the same as being rich, having prestige, power, possessions, position; and doesn’t exclude the experience of pain.

Home is not an escape from the world. Nor is it a comfort zone. But it is a safe place. A place where healing, learning and growth happen as relationships are nurtured, and quests and causes are pursued.

It is a safe harbour to launch from and return to.

Home is where we are rooted, where “we live in connections, thrive in webs of meaning that make reality coherent, flourish in working together on things that matter, bloom in our experience of giving and receiving blessing across generations, and prosper as we are drawn toward hope”, as Gary Gunderson & James Cochrane put it in their book Religion and the Health of the Public.

The song “Homeless” by Ladysmith Black Mambazo speaks of being destitute, of being robbed of home. Perhaps it speaks of the ground-down people under apartheid who were uprooted by forced removals and deprived of basic rights? Perhaps it speaks to the current situation of migrating refugees from war-torn countries, human trafficking, ever-increasing numbers made homeless—physically and spiritually?

The father of our nation, Nelson Mandela, was physically homeless and separated from family for 27 long years. During that time he who was homeless carried a vision of, and longed for, a home for all, a place of peace and belonging with no racial, cultural, ethnic and other divisiveness.

Maybe there is hope. Wild rock pigeons and domestic homing pigeons have an exceptional, magnetic ability to locate home—maybe we too have a builtin call to find home again, as groups and as individuals.

There are many stories about coming home to where we belong.

Think of the pattern of Joseph Campbell’s oft-quoted Heroes Journey, which, put simply, is departure-trials and discovery-return.

Stories old and new repeat that pattern, from Homer’s Odyssey to Lassie Come Home.

Published in 1845, Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling” is “a psychological and

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spiritual root story...one that contains a truth so fundamental to human development that without integration of this fact, further progression is shaky,” Clarissa Pinkola Estés wrote in her 2008 book Woman Who Run With the Wolves.

Many of us go through times of feeling alienated, ugly inside, and different. We need to come home to that “place” where we belong, be accepted, esteem ourselves.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32), the younger of two sons has a “you owe me” attitude and asks for his inheritance prematurely. He leaves home and lives a decadent life in a “distant country”—a place far from his spiritual home.

He ends up penniless, starving and having to feed pigs whose food he wasn’t permitted to eat (how low can you sink?). Disgraced and without expectation he returns home.

I once stood on a hillside in Nazareth in the Holy Land and imagined the father seeing his returning son in the distance, running to welcome him back affectionately, treat him like royalty and grant him authority, celebrate. Lost and found. “This son of mine was dead and has come back to life.”

The dutiful elder son’s nose is out of joint. He compares his situation to that of his sibling and is deeply resentful

A

rt historian Kenneth Clark has called Rembrandt’s painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son”, created shortly before the Dutch master’s death in 1667, as the bestever painting. Reflecting on this work throws light on the soul’s journey, leaving but then returning to our spiritual home.

Is this a process that needs to be continuously repeated until our final transition from life to death?

Changes in our environment, society, communities, technology, and workplace practices all impact us inwardly, often unconsciously.

Being constantly connected to worldwide news and information via TV, computers, mobile phones affects our need to connect face to face with others.

Why attend our churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, if we now have a far greater connectivity and much wider exposure to information, knowledge and wisdom of a religious and spiritual nature on the internet?

Former monk, psychotherapist and popular author Thomas Moore believes that it’s okay to follow our own spiritual path these days, drawing on ancient wisdoms, leading thinkers, the classics, to be curious, and to explore—as long as we remain open to the unknown, the mysterious, have the “ability to be connected to the mysteries without having to explain them”.

An inner compass, in his view, will direct us home.

Such a shift has been signalled

by Britain’s Prince Charles who has said that when he accedes to the throne he will be the Defender of Faith, not the Defender of the Anglican Faith.

But there are three clear dangers with this relatively new found op-

Rembrandt’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son” in the hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia. portunity to find our own path to our internal truth: • We should be aware of the possibility of being “conned” by the often self-granted credibility of some “experts” and teachers, and the attractive promises that they make to us.

• We may lose connection with a live community that we were once a part of. Our religion and our spirituality have become a very private matter. Is our emotional, social, spiritual being blunted by cyberspace and virtual engagement? Is what it means to be human increasingly shaped by different criteria and definition?

• Is our thinking and understanding of our very being becoming more and more watered down and wishy-washy? Engaging with others and their beliefs, values, religions is wonderful for learning, mutual respect, expansion of horizons—but only if such engagement is from a basis of clarity regarding one’s own faith, which then becomes strengthened during the engagement process.

Another reason why we leave our spiritual home is because we become embarrassed by and fear ridicule of our inability to explain some aspects of our religious beliefs.

Too much emphasis is put on the demand for “intellectual”, “scientific”, “evidence-based” proof to explain our faith. So it is wonderful to come across learned works produced by spiritual scientists. One of these is Ilia Delio’s The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love (Orbis Books, 2014). Her solidly-reasoned explanations and insights put physics, evolution and Christianity

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into meaningful perspective.

In Rembrandt’s painting, leaving home for the younger son was not only physical and social but also a spiritual act. Asking for his inheritance prematurely was tantamount to the son wishing his father was dead.

A

llow your gaze on Rembrandt’s painting to move to the elder son standing on the right, on the edge of the light. Rembrandt has captured his stiff bearing, disconnectedness, withdrawal, distance, how he is immobilised by resentment. He conveys a feeling that life is not fair. There is anger turned inward, passive aggressiveness and other confusing, negative and selfdestructive emotions.

This son has lost his capacity to love. He traded off duty for expected reward and acknowledgement. He is present but excludes himself. He has effectively left, is now himself homeless, and needs to find the desire to come home again. Note how he speaks disparagingly to the father about his brother: “This son of yours.”

What prompts a desire to return? When we leave home and go on our striving journeys—for reward, adventure, freedom, risk— chances are that along the way we will become jealous of other people’s successes, give in to self-gratification, experience existential loneliness, feel anger and agitation, find ourselves “in a distant country”.

We live alongside ourselves not from within ourselves. Others write our scripts and set our agendas. We become disconnected and dislocated—homeless (even though we may not yet realise it).

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The 13th-century Persian mystic Rumi said: “Someone who does not run towards the allure of love walks a road where nothing lives.”

We reach a point where we simply have to return. A sudden knowing, or waking up. (“I woke to find myself in a dark wood. The right road was wholly lost and gone”— Dante.)

In Rembrandt’s painting the “bit players” say quite a lot about this spiritual homecoming. The indistinct figure in the background on the left (behind the father) may be the mother. Her presence is both vague and intriguing. She seems to be leaning forward, probably delighted at her son’s return, but holding back.

The man sitting on the elder son’s right (an uncle or friend?) could be lost in thought, contemplating his own journey.

And the person in the centre of the painting is present but doesn’t look engaged.

The Dutch theologian Fr Henri Nouwen experienced, lived with and engaged with the painting over a long period of time. This is what he saw: The most intense light in the painting shows the father’s hands.

His left hand is strong, firm and supportive, reclaiming what was lost and has returned. His right hand is soft, comforting and caressing. A mother’s hand. The son is safe. Reconnected. Belongs. He is “in the light”.

Fr Nouwen concluded: “As I look at my own aging hands, I know that they have been given to me to stretch out towards all who suffer, to rest upon the shoulders of all who come, and to offer the blessing that emerges from the immensity of God’s love.”

Like Fr Nouwen, the old, frail father suffers from failing body and failing eyesight. Yet he possesses a deep “inner seeing”. He recognises, knows, loves both sons. There is no either/or judgment. Instead it is non-dualistic acceptance.

Staying with the light area of Rembrandt’s painting, we contemplate the younger son. He has been through boom-and-bust, and now is thin, dirty.

His head is shaven—like a prisoner, bereft of part of his identity.

His clothes are ragged and torn, his shoes—like him—at the end of their tether, nearly completely ruined, worn through.

His sword is the single remaining symbol of his sonship. He rests against his father’s heart. Forgiven.

Giving and receiving blessing. Able to again participate fully, with new purpose and hope for the future.

He is in that special Rumi moment: “Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments.”

Let’s give Fr Nouwen the final word: “Whether you are the younger son or the older son, you have to realise that you are called to become the father—look at the father in the painting and you will know who you are called to be.” n Graham Williams is an author, executive coach and a certified management consultant active in leadership development.

12

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

CHURCH

Church of All Nations, Jerusalem; holy Redeemer, Cape Town; St James (Spanish Place), London; St Simon the Tanner, Cairo (All photos on this page by Günther Simmermacher, except holy Redeemer church by Fr Scott Davidson CSsR and St James’ church by David Iliff/License: CC-BY-SA 3.0)

A pick of Top 10 churches Among the riches of our faith is the great diversity of our churches. Here Southern Cross editor GÜNThER SIMMERMAChER picks his Top 10 favourite churches.

Santa Croce, Florence

F

lorence’s Duomo has the iconic exterior, but inside it is rather austere. By contrast, the nearby Franciscan basilica di Santa Croce is not particularly remarkable in its facade but utterly breathtaking inside, with artworks by Giotto, Donatello, Cimabue, the two Gaddis and so on.

One doesn’t know where to look first.

The church has many tombs, including those of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and the composer Rossini. For the history buff, this church is a treasure.

T

HERE is something quite daunting about choosing one’s Top 10 churches. To begin with, by what standards does one decide? Aesthetical value? Historical weight? Personal sentiment?

In choosing my ten “favourite” churches, I have gone mostly for sentiment: places that are for one reason or another embedded in the happy vaults of my memory.

So this is a very subjective list. A ranking of ten “greatest” or “most awe-inspiring” or “most historic” churches might look quite different.

Such lists would certainly include the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem—our faith’s most sacred shrine—and St Peter’s basilica in the Vatican, a place where even after numerous visits, one can always find something new rewarding.

I have further narrowed down the selection by nominating only Catholic churches—with one exception. Moreover, I have allowed myself only one church per country since I could as easily compile Top 10s of my favourite churches in the Holy Land, Italy, Germany or, indeed, South Africa.

With apologies to all the wonderful churches I am omitting, here is my Top 10, in no particular order:

Church of All Nations, Jerusalem

L

ocated at the foot of the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, the church of All Nations is an architectural marvel by the master church builder Antonio Barluzzi.

Its alabaster windows let in little light, the ceiling resembles the starry night sky that watched over that gut-wrenching final night Our Lord spent on earth.

At the altar is the rock on which Jesus prayed so desperately. Around it is a low iron-fence representing the crown of thorns.

It is here, in the place of Jesus’ most tormented prayer, where the pilgrim can kneel down and bring his or her anguishes and hopes to God in the most emotional of settings.

Saint-Séverin Church, Paris Top from left: Wieskirche, Germany; St Anthony of Padua, Istanbul; Annunciation church, Alba de Tormes.

Bottom from left: St Séverin, Paris; Santa Croce, Florence; St Anthony, Lisbon.

N

otre Dame cathedral is imposing; Sacré-Coeur is astounding; Holy Trinity is graceful. All three, and so many other churches in Paris, are very beautiful and faith-inspiring in their own particular ways.

But for me the nicest church in Paris is St Séverin, which often is overlooked in the bustle of the touristpacked Latin Quarter.

Perhaps it is this oasis-like quality that attracts me to this sober gothic church. If not that, then maybe it’s the magnificent stained glass windows, both ancient and modern, which are among the best I’ve seen.

St James Church, London

B

Holy Redeemer Church, Cape Town

T

he church of the Holy Redeemer in the Cape Town suburb of Bergvliet is an elegant house of God, especially after more recent renovations gave the interior an attractive, warm colour scheme. The stainedglass windows in this Redemptorist church are worth a visit, if one is in the neighbourhood.

But nobody would place this church, built in the 1930s, in a world Top 10 of churches without invoking personal sentiment, and so it is here: this is the church where my wife and I pledged our love and life to one another almost a quarter of a century ago.

And for that, the church of the Holy Redeemer occupies a very special place in my heart.

Wieskirche, Bavaria

M

uch as I love gothic churches with columns so high that they seem to puncture the stratosphere, I’m also a sucker for the lavish vitality of rococo design.

The Wieskirche is a pilgrimage church, due to a miraculous statue of the scourged Christ, in a rural area in Upper Bavaria. This church, built in the 1740s, isn’t commercialised—just two souvenir kiosks in the parking lot—and so has an atmosphere of peace and devotion.

During Masses, tourists are forbidden to walk around; this is above all a place of worship.

The interior of this church is ornate, with much gold paint and bright frescoes whose playful lightness contrast the serious theological message they convey.

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St Anthony of Padua Church, Istanbul

I

n these troubled times for Turkey, my mind often returns to the church of St Anthony of Padua. Located just off Istanbul’s main shopping street, Istiklal Avenue in the Beyoglu/Galata district, it provides an instant oasis of peace from the city bustle.

This was St John XXIII’s “parish church” when he was the papal nuncio in Turkey, and his statue presides over the church’s courtyard.

The church incorporates three saints who are very special to me: Ss Anthony of Padua, John XXIII, and Maximilian Kolbe, who is present there in the form of a bronze bust.

Annunciation Church, Alba de Tormes, Spain

A

fter Our Lady, the three most significant woman in the Catholic Church saints are St Clare of Assisi, St Catherine of Siena and St Teresa of Avila.

All three were immensely strong women who gave transformative leadership in times when women barely had legal standing. I have been blessed to have visited the tombs of all three of them.

That of St Teresa in the convent church in the small Spanish town of Alba de Tormes, near Salamanca, touched me in particular.

The tomb of St Teresa looms over the altar, in the position where the Carmelite reformer had her sickbed installed during the illness that culminated in her death, so that she’d not miss the Eucharist.

efore Vatican II, Saint-Séverin in Paris was the French centre of liturgical reform. Hop over the channel, and I might go for Latin Mass at St James church, or the “Spanish Place”, in Marylebone.

I was last there about 30 years ago, when I lived in London, but the impression of the intense devotion of the congregation at Mass there has remained with me, together with the smells-and-bells beauty of the Latin Mass, and that magnificent organ.

The church is known as “Spanish Place” because it was the chapel of the Spanish ambassador’s palace during Elizabethan times. For London’s ill-treated Catholics at the time, it was a place of refuge.

St Anthony Church, Lisbon

I

love St Anthony of Lisbon and Padua. If I were to compile a Top 5 of my favourite Italian churches, the basilica with his tomb in Padua would feature. But here we have the church of his birth in the Portuguese capital.

This lovely, compact baroque-rococo church was built in 1767, after the great earthquake that destroyed Lisbon 12 years earlier, on the site of an earlier church that marked the place of the saint’s birth in 1195.

The spot of St Anthony’s birth can be visited in the plain crypt.

St Simon the Tanner Church, Cairo

T

he one non-Catholic church on this list, St Simon the Tanner church features on account of being unique. Built into a cave on Cairo’s Mokattam Mountain, it can hold more than 20 000 people. And it often is filled to capacity, a sign of the devotion of the much put-upon Christians of Cairo.

This is the main church among several other cave churches that form part of the St Simon the Tanner monastery complex on top of the mountain ridge which is decorated with biblical scenes carved into the rock by a Polish artist.

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

CLASSIFIEDS

Sr Mary Joseph Modise CSA

S

ISTER Mary Joseph Modise, a long-term superior general of the Congregation of the Companions of St Angela, died on July 17.

Born on April 5, 1937, she entered the newly founded congregation in Krugersdorp in 1955, and was among the first ten members who were recived as postulants.

She taught at St Peter’s, St Mary’s and St Angela’s Dobsonville.

Sr Mary Joseph became the first moderator general of the Companions of St Angela in July 1977 and was an executive

member of the Leadership Conference of Consecrated Life.

She served on the South

African Council of Churches, the Diocesan Protocol Committee and the board of Boys’ Town.

Sr Mary Joseph also worked for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Catholic Institute of Education.

She served the congregation as superior general for 27 years.

Her humility and sense of service was epitomised by her leadership.

She emulated St Angela Merici, the congregation’s patroness, with her simplicity, and will be fondly remembered for her gentle nature and great sense of humour.

Why Satan hates World Youth Day Continued from page 9 saying, but they echo the anger and fear that has taken over the world.

Let me repeat this. The enemy is not Islamic State, or the immigrants in Europe, or any other group that makes us uncomfortable. There is one enemy: Satan.

He is real and he exists. And he thrives on anger, fear and hatred.

He hates to see joy, unity and love.

This is why events like World Youth Day are so powerful and important. They may not make global headlines, but they are a blessing for the Church and the world because they promote the joy, unity and love that the world so sorely needs.

Young lives are forever changed by the encounters of World Youth Days.

The Church offers young people the space to meet other young people who share the same values but speak different languages, wear different clothes, eat different food and have different world views. It is a lived experience that teaches tolerance, acceptance, an openness of the heart.

Their presence at packed Masses is a testimony of their faith. They are telling us: “The Church is alive and God lives in our hearts.”

They are the vision of a Church that must become more merciful, more loving, more joy-

Southern CrossWord solutions

ful, more peaceful, more welcoming in a world that is hardening its heart.

Let us not be fearful and angry. We pray in thanksgiving for the sacrifice of the Church’s martyrs through the ages. We pray for mercy and forgiveness for those who have killed them.

We pray for protection of all of God’s people, wherever they are.

We pray in thanksgiving for our young people, the Church of the future, and pray that their joy, love, and mercy will show us the way out of the dark times in which we are living. n Read past articles by Sarah-Leah Pimentel at www.scross.co.za/ category/perspectives/sarah leah-pimentel

SOLUTIONS TO 719. ACROSS: 5 Soul, 7 High Church, 8 Snow, 10 Kingdoms, 11 Scared, 12 Stroll, 14 Hold up, 16 Delays, 17 Corporal, 19 Cede, 21 Altogether, 22 User. DOWN: 1 Thus, 2 Showered, 3 Choked, 4 Wrongs, 5 Shed, 6 Unemployed, 9 Necropolis, 13 Relocate, 15 Purity, 16 Deluge, 18 Pear, 20 Ezra.

Word of the Week

Excommunicate: The punishment of cutting off a person from receiving the sacraments and exclusion from the communion of the Church.

Holy Chrism: The special oil used in the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and holy orders.

Liturgical Calendar Year C – Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday August 14 Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10, Psalms 40:2-4, 18, Hebrews 12:1-4, Luke 12:49-53 Monday August 15 Ezekiel 24, 15-24, Responsorial psalm Deuteronomy 32, 18-21, Matthew 19, 16-22 Tuesday August 16, St Stephen of Hungary Ezekiel 28:1-11, Responsorial psalm Deuteronomy 32:26-28, 30, 35-36, Matthew 19:23-30 Wednesday August 17 Ezekiel 34:1-11, Psalms 23:1-6, Matthew 20:1-16 Thursday August 18, Bl Victoria Rosoamanarivo Ezekiel 36:23-28, Psalms 51:12-15, 18-19, Matthew 22:1-14 Friday August 19, St John Eudes Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalms 107:2-9, Matthew 22:3440 Saturday August 20, St Bernard Ezekiel 43:1-7, Psalms 85:9-14, Matthew 23:1-12 Sunday August 21, Assumption of Our Lady and Patronal Feast of South Africa Revelations 11, 19; 12, 1-6.10, Psalms 45, 1012.16, 1 Corinthians 15, 20-27, Luke 1, 39-56

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Births • First Communion • Confirmation • Engagement/Marriage • Wedding anniversary • Ordination jubilee • Congratulations • Deaths • In memoriam • Thanks • Prayers • Accommodation • holiday Accommodation • Personal • Services • Employment • Property • Others Please include payment (R1,60 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

PRAyeRs

sT JUDe, holy Apostle, faithful servant, friend of Jesus, you are honoured and petitioned by the universal Church, as patron of desperate, hopeless and impossible cases. I thank you for listening to my prayers and granting your intercession. In this broken world we have many trials, difficulties, and temptations, thank you for prayers asked and answered for me in God’s presence. St. Jude, implore God that my prayers continued to be answered in his way that is best for me and my family.

May God give me the grace to see his purpose in all things. Amen. (Petesan)

Community Calendar To place your event, call Mary Leveson at 021 465 5007 or e-mail m.leveson@scross.co.za (publication subject to space)

JOHANNesBURG/ CAPe TOWN Run Alpha ’16 workshop on running the Alpha course. August 19 and 20 in Johannesburg, at Gracepoint church, Glenferness.

August 26 and 27 in Cape Town, at Common Ground church in Rondebosch.

Among the speakers will be Fr Peter-John Pearson.

R150 per ticket, includes refreshments and lunch. To register, go to runalpha. co.za DURBAN: Holy Mass and Novena to st Anthony at St Anthony’s parish every Tuesday at 9am. Holy

Mass and Divine Mercy Ugu deanery revival.

September 4 at St Francis Primary School sports ground, Park Rynie, South Coast. 8:00 till late.

To support Bishop Dlungwane to educate Catholic seminarians. Phone Mariannhill diocese at 031 700 2704.

NeLsPRUIT: Adoration of the Blessed sacrament at St Peter’s parish every Tuesday from 8:00 to 16:45, followed by Rosary, Divine Mercy prayers, then a Mass/Communion service at 17:30pm.

treasures of grace held in the recitation of the Rosary, impress upon our souls a fervent love for this devotion. By meditating on the mysteries of our redemption, may we learn how to use the teachings which lie therein and obtain the graces we ask in this prayer. For the Glory of God and the redeeming of our souls. Amen. Novena from 5 to 13 each month.

For prayers/hymns write to jjvcamara@gmail.com

LORD, inspire those men and women who bear the titles “husband” and “wife”. help them to look to You, to themselves, to one another to rediscover the fullness and mystery they once felt in their union. Let them be honest enough to ask: “Where have we been together and where are we going?” Let them be brave enough to question: “how have we failed?” Let each be foolhardy enough to say: “For me, we come first.” help them, together, to reexamine their commitment in the light of Your love, willingly, openly, compassionately.

THANKs

A PRAYER

My past life, O God, to Your mercy; my present life to Your love; my future life to Your providence.

13

O MOsT holy Virgin Mary, who chose to appear on the Sierra de Aire, in the Cova de Iria, to three young shepherds to reveal the

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O HOLy sPIRIT, in thanksgiving for favours granted.

Chris h sT JUDe, in thanksgiving for favours granted. Chris h.

PeRsONAL

ABORTION is murder. Silence on this issue is not

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golden, it’s yellow! Avoid pro-abortion politicians.

See www.hli.co.za ABORTION WARNING: The truth will convict a silent Church. See www.valuelifeabortion isevil.co.za VIsIT PIOUs KINTU’s official website http://ave maria832.simplesite.com This website has been set up to give glory to the Most holy Trinity through the healing power of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

View amazing pictures of Pious Kintu’s work in Congo and various African countries since 2007. Also read about African Stigmatist Reverend Sister Josephine Sul and Padre Pio among others.

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R2 100, per week. Alison at 084 577 1356. Delton at 083 414 6534 MARIANeLLA Guest house, Simon’s Town: “Come experience the peace and beauty of God with us.” Fully equipped with amazing sea views.

Secure parking, ideal for rest and relaxation. Special rates for pensioners and clergy. Malcolm Salida 082 784 5675, mjsalida@ gmail.com

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the

The Assumption of Our Lady: August 21 Readings: Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6, 10, Psalm 45:1-12, 16, 1 Corinthians 15:20-27, Luke 1:39-56

N

EXT Sunday we celebrate in this country the Assumption of Our Lady. Now the thing that we have to remember is that doctrines about Mary always point to the truth about her Son, and also to the truth about her fellow human beings. And that can be difficult.

The first reading reveals that Mary and her Son are under threat, the “woman clothed in the sun, and the moon under her feet and on her head”. She is in labour, but, worse than that, there is “a great red dragon”, which represents the hostile power of Rome, waiting to “swallow up her child when she gives birth”.

The child, however, is safely born, because this is God’s project, and, we learn “is going to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod”, and is snatched up to the safety of God’s throne.

So the child, clearly Jesus, is going to be protected by God, and we breathe a sigh of relief; but the woman remains under threat, and “fled to the desert, where there was a place prepared from God”. So she should be all right.

Then we hear a liturgical hymn, which gives us confidence, whose refrain goes: “Now

S outher n C ross

Mystery of Assumption has come the Salvation and the Power and the Kingdom of our God—and the authority of his Messiah.” Do you see how the text points to God and to Jesus, and to Mary only secondarily, and then to us as fellow-members of the human race? That is the secret of the Assumption.

The psalm is probably originally a coronation-song, or a royal wedding-hymn; in this excerpt from it, the poet first addresses the king, congratulating him on the number of women who wait upon him.

Then his wife is addressed, perhaps not in terms that are currently fashionable, since she is told: “Forget your people and the house of your father; the king is going to desire your beauty. He is your Lord; and you must worship him.”

Whatever we think of the patriarchal society that produced this poem, it fits well enough the relationship between Mary and her Son; she finds a new role precisely in pointing to Jesus, the “Lord” whom she is to “worship”. We only understand Our Lady in her connection with Jesus.

The second reading faces head-on the difficulty that many people feel with regard to

the Assumption, namely the privilege that Mary has in being raised from the dead.

Paul’s answer, directed against his Corinthians who were finding it a bit difficult to believe, not so much in the Resurrection of Jesus but in the resurrection of others who have died, is to go back to basis. He insists that Jesus’ Resurrection was only the beginning. For Paul, what happens to Jesus means the undoing of what happened in Adam. In him, “everyone dies”, while in Jesus “all shall be made alive”.

But there is a correct order: “first Christ, and then those who belong to Christ” (and Our Lady, of course, is high on that particular list). Then: “At the end when he hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father…he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet.”

So this feast of the Assumption holds the whole thing together; Mary is a sign of what God has done in Christ, and what God is still doing for us. There is much to celebrate here.

In the Gospel we hear the lovely story of the Visitation, beautifully painted by Luke.

Once again the tale brings together God and Jesus and Mary.

How we misunderstand hell H

tion because of the fear of hell, it is essentially wrong and should not be taught in the name of Christianity.

Why? Because it belies the God and the deep truths that Jesus revealed. Jesus did teach that there was a hell and that it was a possibility for everyone.

But the hell that Jesus spoke of is not a place or a state where someone is begging for one last chance, just one more minute of life to make an act of contrition, and God is refusing. The God whom Jesus both incarnates and reveals is a God who is forever open to repentance, forever open to contrition, and forever waiting our return from our prodigal wanderings.

With God we never exhaust our chances. Can you imagine God looking at a repentant man or woman and saying: “Sorry! For you, it’s too late! You had your chance! Don’t come asking for another chance now!” That could not be the Father of Jesus.

A

nd yet, the gospels can give us that impression. We have, for example, the famous parable of the rich man who ignores the poor man at his doorstep, dies, and ends up in hell, while the poor man, Lazarus, whom he had ignored, is now in heaven, comforted in the bosom of Abraham.

From his torment in hell, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to him with some water, but Abraham replies that there is an unbridgeable gap between heaven

Conrad

ELL is never a nasty surprise waiting for a basically happy person. Hell can only be the full-flowering of a pride and selfishness that have, through a long time, twisted a heart so thoroughly that it considers happiness as unhappiness and has an arrogant disdain for happy people.

If you are essentially warm of heart this side of eternity, you need not fear that a nasty surprise awaits you on the other side because somewhere along the line, unknowingly, you missed the boat and your life went terribly wrong.

Unfortunately for many us, the preaching and catechesis of our youth sometimes schooled us in the idea that you could tragically miss the boat without knowing it and that there was no return. You could live your life sincerely, in essential honesty, relate fairly to others, try your best given your weaknesses, have some bounce and happiness in life, and then die and find that some sin you’ve committed or mistake you’d made, perhaps even unknowingly, could doom you to hell and there was no further chance for repentance.

The second of your death was your last chance to change things, no second chances after death, no matter how badly you might like then to repent. As a tree falls so shall it lie! We were schooled to fear dying and the afterlife.

But whatever the practical effectiveness of such a concept, because it really could make one hesitate in the face of tempta-

576AM

Nicholas King SJ

Sunday Reflections

Mary, presumably a girl of no more than twelve, makes the long (and, one might say, unwise) journey from Galilee to the Judean uplands, where she greets Elizabeth, and finds that this is a God-moment, for Elizabeth’s child enables her, “filled with the Holy Spirit”, to identify Mary’s child: “Where does this come from that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

This is important, because up to this point in Luke’s gospel “Lord” has referred only to God. Nor does the story end there, because the second part of the gospel is the thoroughly subversive song that we call the “Magnificat”, which envisages God “sending the rich away empty”.

There is a clue here as to how we are to respond to the mystery of Mary. Finally, she does not stay longer than she needs, but after three months (presumably referring to the birth of John) she goes home.

She is a very inconspicuous servant of God and of her Son, this lady whose feast we shall celebrate on Sunday.

Southern Crossword #719

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

and hell and no one can cross from one side to the other.

That text, along with Jesus’ warnings that the doors of the wedding banquet will at a point be irrevocably closed, has led to the common misconception that there is a point of no return, that once in hell, it is too late to repent.

But that’s not what this text, nor Jesus’ warning on the urgency of repentance, teaches. The “unbridgeable gap” here refers, among other things, to a gap that remains forever unbridged here in this world between the rich and the poor.

And it remains unbridged because of our intransigence, our failure to change heart, our lack of contrition, not because God runs out of patience and says: “Enough! No more chances!” It remains unbridged because, habitually, we become so set in our ways that we are incapable of change and genuine repentance.

Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus actually draws upon a more ancient Jewish story that illustrates this intransigence: In the parallel Jewish parable, God does hear the rich man’s plea from hell for a second chance and grants it to him. The rich man, now full of new resolutions, returns to life, goes immediately to the market, loads his cart with food, and, as he is driving home, meets Lazarus on the road. Lazarus asks for a loaf of bread.

The rich man jumps off his cart to give it to him, but as he pulls a huge loaf of bread from his cart, his old self starts to reassert itself.

He begins to think: “This man doesn’t need a whole loaf! Why not just give him a part! And why should he have a fresh loaf, I’ll give him some of the stale bread!” Immediately he finds himself back in hell! He still cannot bridge the gap.

The psychospiritual writer Kathleen Dowling Singh submits that in making a series of mental contractions we create our own fear of death.

That’s true too for the afterlife: By making a series of unfortunate theological contractions we create our own fear of hell.

ACROSS 5. ... of My Saviour (hymn) (4) 7. Where you might find an Anglican superior?

(4,6) 8. His garments were as white as this (Dn 7) (4) 10. The devil showed Jesus all of them (Mt 4) (8) 11. Decreased, leaving Dee frightened (6) 12. Amble a short way with bread bun (6) 14. Bear what a highwayman can do (4,2) 16. Postpones (6) 17. Some of the works of mercy (8) 19 Yield to some who precede you (4) 21. Let earth go around completely (10) 22. Sure way to find employer (4)

DOWN 1. Shut in this way (4) 2. Rained and drew shoe away (8) 3. Garrotted (6) 4. They are plainly not right (6) 5. Drop from the little house (4) 6. Without work (10) 9. Nicer pools around old cemetery (10) 13. Let Leo react when you move to another parish (8) 15. Uncomplicated chastity (6) 16. It came down heavily on Noah (6) 18. Shape of fruit that’s gone bad? (4) 20. His book follows Chronicles (4)

Solutions on page 13

CHURCH CHUCKLE

T

WO boys were walking home from catechism after hearing a strong lesson on the devil.

One said to the other: “What do you think about all this Satan stuff?”

The other boy replied: “Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out. It’s probably just your Dad.”

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WORLD YOUTH DAY

The Southern Cross, August 10 to August 16, 2016

15

WYD in numbers

Pope at Auschwitz

An estimated 2 million young people attended World Youth Day. Nearly 50 cardinals, 800 bishops and 20 000 priests from around the world also were to attend. Eight Southern African bishops in Krakow were among them: Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg, Bishops Victor Phalana of Klerksdorp, Stanislaw Dziuba of Umzimkulu, Adam Musialek of De Aar (both Polish by birth), José Ponce de León of Manzini in Swaziland, Valentine Seane of Gaborone and Frank Nabuasah of Francistown, Botswana.

Visiting the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, Pope Francis met with a dozen survivors of the camp, including a 101-year-old violinist.

The pope prayed in front of the wall of the crematorium, then entered the barracks of Block 11 where St Maximilian Kolbe was starved and eventually killed. Outside the cell, he signed the visitors’ book, writing a simple message: “Lord, have mercy on your people.

Lord, forgive so much cruelty.” The event ended with the pope greeting 25 people honoured as “righteous among the nations”, a recognition of non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazi extermination.

Vocations magnet The International Evangelisation Centre on Piastowska Street was a key feature of WYD, tasked with inspiring and encouraging vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

Among those who did the inspiring was Wojciech Kuczynski, a Polish novice with the Society of the Divine Word. He said he discovered his vocation while attending a youth vigil after the April 2005 death of St John Paul II, after “a life of drugs and rock music” that included “dabbling in satanism”. He hopes to be ordained a priest in 2018. Bishop Gervas Mwasikwabhila Nyaisonga of Mpanda, Tanzania, also said his vocation was confirmed while attending a Catholic youth event. “While youngsters feel their religiousness is accepted here, they don’t always feel it’s accepted at home—so we encourage them to maintain their own culture and identity, provided it’s Christian,” Bishop Nyaisonga said.

Peace talks at WYD A group of Palestinian Catholics and a contingent of Hebrew-speaking Catholics from Israel found themselves in the same sector at the Field of Mercy for the closing programmes of World Youth Day. “We can’t really meet each other in our country,” said Danielle Maman, 22, of Jerusalem, one of the Israeli Catholics. “We can’t talk face-toface because there are walls and checkpoints.” Michael Abusada, 26, a Palestinian living in Jerusalem, said: “We should all, as Palestinians and Christians, be one together. All of us can bring home peace, love and the mercy of Jesus.”

Divine Mercy visit Visiting the tomb of St Faustina Kowalska at Divine Mercy basilica in Krakow’s Lagiewniki suburb, Pope Francis signed a visitor’s book with a citation from the Bible: “I desire mercy, not sacrifices.” As the popemobile made its way to the Divine Mercy shrine, a throng of nuns chased after him while waving their flags. One smiling nun ran after the pope while playing her dark blue guitar and singing the popular Spanish hymn “Alabare”.

Faith for Iraq A group of about 200 Iraqis waved flags of their homeland at WYD. Ragan Teresa from Baghdad said the effort of getting so many Iraqis—including some from Kurdistan—to Poland was worthwhile.

“Meeting the pope will strengthen our faith in God. We can take this faith to Iraq and to other people there and strengthen all and pray for all.”

Way of the Cross Dancers, acrobats, painters and other artists performed interpretations of each key moment leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, death and burial during the Way of the Cross at World Youth Day. Each significant event of Jesus’ crucifixion was linked to a corporal or spiritual work of mercy. A group of mimes dressed and painted completely in white acted out Simon of Cyrene helping Jesus carry his cross, while wall climbers seemed to stumble as they climbed and formed a cross on the wall, representing Jesus falling for the first time. The first station— Jesus sentenced to death—related to sheltering the homeless and refugees who share in that same suffering through humanity’s indifference.

Bishops José Ponce de León of Manzini in Swaziland, Victor Phalana of Klerksdorp in South Africa, and Valentine Seane of Gaborone in Botswana.

The World Youth Day volunteers cheer as Pope Francis arrives for a meeting at Tauron Arena. (Photo: Agencja Gazeta/Jakub Porzycki/Reuters)

Human cruelty Humankind’s cruelty did not end with the Holocaust, but rages on in the suffering of those living through war, homelessness and persecution, Pope Francis said after visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp. Christ not only “suffered 2 000 years ago”, he said, but continues to suffer in today’s world.

‘Seek answers’

World Youth Day pilgrims walk through the streets of Krakow. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

Prayer for martyrs Pope Francis made an unannounced stop at a Franciscan monastery housing the relics of two martyrs, where he prayed for peace and an end to violence. The church is home to relics of two Polish martyrs, Bl Zbigniew Strzalkowski and Bl Michal Tomaszek, who were killed on August 9, 1991, by Shining Path terrorists in Pariacoto, Peru.

Message to Cuba Pope Francis sent a special video message to a Catholic youth meeting in Havana, Cuba, to help young

Pope Francis waves to people lining a street as he rides a tram to reach the World Youth Day welcoming ceremony with young people in Blonia Park. (Photo: Alessia Giuliani/CNS)

Cubans who couldn’t afford the trip to WYD feel more connected to the international gathering. He told them that when they walk through the Holy Door in their archdiocese they should let themselves become “infected” with God’s love, so that they will be able to look at others with mercy and tenderness, especially those in need.

St John Paul II and St Faustina Kowalska, Pope Francis said at a Mass outside the Marian shrine of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa. Hundreds of thousands of Poles lined the street leading up to the shrine, which houses the famed icon of the Black Madonna, which tradition holds was painted by St Luke.

Poland’s heralds

Focusing on married life during one of his “balcony talks” from the cardinal’s residence, Pope Francis said that three words are key to a successful marriage: “please, thanks, and sorry”.

The Lord’s “humble love” is reflected throughout Poland’s history, particularly through “meek and powerful heralds of mercy”, such as

Key to marriage

Young people are called to seek the answers that will bring love to a violent world. One way of doing so is to “get out, tell every stranger you meet that they mean so much to you,” Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines, told about 150 pilgrims gathered for a WYD Caritas meeting in St Joseph church in Krakow.

‘Sign of love’ Visiting patients of the children’s hospital of Prokocim University in Krakow, Pope Francis expressed his solidarity with the sick and lauded the hospital in its caring for “the smallest and most needy,” showing his gratitude to those present for “this sign of love”.

Designer tribute Pope Francis held up the life of Maciej Szymon Ciesla, 22, who designed the World Youth Day graphics but died of cancer in early July, as a gift to the Church. “He is with us today,” the pope said from the same window at the cardinal’s residence where St John Paul II, former archbishop of Krakow, often talked to the faithful.

Pilgrims wait for Pope Francis to arrive for the prayer vigil at the Field of Mercy. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

Pope Francis prays during the World Youth Day closing Mass at the Field of Mercy. A huge image of Jesus of the Divine Mercy provided the backdrop. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

Panamanian flags are seen during the closing Mass. Pope Francis announced that Panama will host World Youth Day in 2019. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

A woman talks with a pilgrim at the World Youth Day evangelisation centre, as St John Paul II peers from a poster. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

Pope Francis prays in the chapel of the Black Madonna at the Jasna Gora monastery in Czestochowa. (Photo: Grzegorz Galazka/CNS)

The cross is carried in procession during the Way of the Cross in Blonia Park (Photo: Paul haring/CNS)

Men religious, other pilgrims and locals walk along a street in Krakow. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

Pope Francis passes the Door of Mercy as he arrives to lead the prayer vigil at the Field of Mercy in Krakow, Poland.

(Photo: Paul haring/CNS)

PRICE CHECK

WYD pilgrims pass Wawel Royal Castle as they make their way to Stations of the Cross at Blonia Park. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

Pope Francis hears a confession as he visits the Divine Mercy Shrine in Lagiewnicki, a suburb of Krakow.

(Photo: L’Osservatore Romano)

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Pilgrims hold candles during eucharistic adoration with Pope Francis at the prayer vigil at the Field of Mercy.

(Photo: Jaclyn Lippelmann, Catholic Standard)

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Bishop calls for end to political assassinations STAFF REPORTER

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OLLOWING several incidents of assassinations in the run-up to the municipal elections on August 3, a bishop pleaded for an end to political killings.

The rise in political assassinations is “one of the biggest threats to South Africa’s hardwon democracy”, said Bishop Abel Gabuza, chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference. “ We a re sa d d en e d t o se e t h a t , af t er 2 2 y e ar s i n t o d em o cr acy, po l i t i c al k i l l i n gs — which are sad reminders of our painful past—are still happening,” the bishop of Kimberley said.

At least 12 people died in political killings during the elections period.

KwaZulu-Natal has borne the brunt of violence, with police statistics showing that some 90% of presumed political killings k l h

Pope Francis enters the main gate of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Oswiecim. (Photo: Alessia Giuliani)

A priest kneels amid sleeping pilgrims at sunrise, hours before the closing Mass at the Field of Mercy. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

spate of political murders. Des van Rooyen, minister of Cooperative Governance and Tra d i t i o na l A f fa i rs , c al l e d “ o n al l p ar ti es , particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, to ensure that the killings come to a stop and to coo p e r a t e w i t h t h e p o l i t i c a l a n d l a w e n f o rc e ment structures in place in the province who are already hard at work to root out this evil”.

Themba Mavundla, chairm u M k h o nt o We S i zw e M i l i tar y V KwaZulu-Natal, acknowledged th the assassinations in the provinc tween rival ANC members, promp ward councillor nomination which he said “were manipulate The flawed nomination pro ever, cannot ser ve to excuse the tions, he said. “We can’t have a and barbaric people murdering ple.”

Other victims have been mem

or The South African flag flies during the official opening ceremony of World Youth Day at Blonia Park in Krakow, Poland. South African pilgrims can be seen in their yellow rain coats. (Photo: Lebogang Lentsoane)

SA imam condemns terror murder of French priest

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