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Why atheist Hawking goes to the Vatican

Conversion from mafia to priesthood

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Father Chris: Priesthood can be funny business

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The other day in Bethlehem... The children of Leratong crèche in Bohlokong in Bethlehem, Free State, performed their annual nativity Play. over the years it has become a tradition in The Southern Cross to feature the crèche’s children in its pages during advent.

Bishops say sorry for sex abuse failures

Pope grants Fatima indulgences C By Maria XiMena rondon

OR the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, Pope Francis has decided to grant a plenary indulgence opportunity throughout the entire anniversary year, which began on November 27 and will end on November 26, 2017. The rector of the Fatima Shrine in Portugal, André Pereira, said that the plenary indulgence can be obtained during the entire Jubilee Year. There are three ways of obtaining the indulgence, detailed in a statement on the shrine's website. To obtain the plenary indulgence, the faithful must also fulfil the ordinary conditions: go to confession and Communion, be interiorly detached from sin, and pray for the intentions of the Holy Father. The first way is for “the faithful to make a pilgrimage to the Fatima Shrine in Portugal (pictured) and participate in a celebration or prayer dedicated to the Virgin”. In addition, the faithful must pray the Our Father, recite the Creed, and invoke the Mother of God. The second way applies to “the pious faithful who visit with devotion a statue of Our Lady of Fatima solemnly exposed for public veneration in any church, oratory or proper place during the days of the anniversary of the apparitions, the 13th of each month from May to October 2017, and there devoutly participate in some celebration or prayer in hon-

our of the Virgin Mary,” the website says. Regarding this second way, the rector said that the visit to the statue of the Virgin “does not necessarily have to be only at Fatima or exclusively in Portugal”, but can be done anywhere in the world. Those seeking an indulgence must also pray an Our Father, recite the Creed and invoke Our Lady of Fatima. The third way to obtain a plenary indulgence applies to people who, because of age, illness or other serious cause, are unable to get around. These individuals can pray in front of a statue of Our Lady of Fatima and must spiritually unite themselves to the jubilee celebrations on the days of the apparitions, the 13th of each month, between May and October. They also must “offer to merciful God with confidence, through Mary, their prayers and sufferings or the sacrifices they make in their own lives”.—CNA n The Southern Cross is hosting a pilgrimage to Fatima in May 2017, led by Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town. See the panel ad on the backpage for more information.

By MandLa ZiBi

ATHOLIC parishes across South Africa marked three days of prayer and fasting in support of sexual abuse victims, including those of Catholic priests. This followed a statement by the region’s bishops in which they acknowledged “failure at times” to adequately deal with the issue and to empathise with the pain caused. Addressed to “the clergy, religious and faithful, brothers and sisters”, the statement by the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) was read out to congregants at Sunday Masses as part of the 16 Days of Activism and No Violence Against Women and Children. Unambiguous in its tone of contrition, it was a major pronouncement on the sex abuse scandal. “We, your bishops, acknowledge our own failures at times in adequately dealing with issues of sexual abuse, especially when we have failed to listen to the cry of those abused within our own Church structures and our failure to empathise with their pain,” the statement said. “We ask forgiveness for ourselves and for our clergy for having not done enough in recognising the physical, emotional and psychological pain and trauma which many victims of sexual abuse have suffered at the hands of family members, members of society at large and within our own Church structures,” said the document, signed by SACBC president Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town. To show solidarity with victims of abuse “wherever it occurs, whether in the Church,

in the family and elsewhere in society”, the bishops called the faithful to “unite in observing three days of prayer, one of which will be a day of fasting”. “We want to work with all structures in society and especially with our priests, Church personnel and Church workers in creating a safe environment for children and vulnerable people and in meeting the demands of justice in redressing the crimes and failures of the past regarding sexual abuse,” the bishops told the faithful. Archbishop William Slattery of Pretoria told The Southern Cross of his visits to two parishes during two of the three days. In Laudium, southwest of Tshwane, “we prayed for a new sensitivity to the suffering and also the healing of the abused and vulnerable”, he said. Saying that the Church had “responded too slowly to reported cases of abuse”, the prelate said at Laudium the congregation prayed also for the offenders, so that “they may be aware of the tremendous damage done by abuse...and the absolute destructiveness that it causes to a person’s whole future”. “To violate the sacred privacy of a child’s personality robs that child of the ability ever to trust again. Trust is the fundamental human quality without which we cannot approach other people or God himself,” said Archbishop Slattery. In Sunnyside, the archbishop urged congregants to report any examples of abuse and to follow strict protocols, as set out in the SACBC documents on the protection of children against sexual abuse. Archbishop Slattery noted that not only Continued on page 2

S outher n C ross Pilgrimage HOLY LAND • ROME •ASSISI • CAIRO 25 Aug - 8 Sept 2017 • Led by Archbishop William Slattery OFM For more information or to book, please contact Gail info@fowlertours.co.za or 076 352-3809

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The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

LOCAL

A hospital, a school, and true friendship STaFF rePorTer

ELEBRITY musicians encouraged the students of a Catholic school to foster a close friendship with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital (NMCH) in Johannesburg—and the school’s student representatives were present at the hospital’s official opening this month. Brescia House School in Johannesburg first started its involvement with the children’s hospital in February 2013 after hearing about the “For Kids, By Kids” project on Radio 702. The school’s outreach arm, the Serviam Committee, came up with the idea of hosting regular pupilrun cake sales and all proceeds were donated to the hospital. This month, the school’s headgirls and the Serviam Committee attended the official opening of the hospital. The school commissioned a beaded version of the NMCH logo from local street bead vendors to present as a gift to the hospital in commemoration of its opening. The hospital logo, which was de-

sign by Vega School of Design students, features many characters who all form part of the hospital story, from Nurse Thando to family members and friends. Tadiwanashe Mutambara, Brescia House’s headgirl for 2017, presented the gift to hospital CEO Sibongile Mkhabela at the event, which was attended by dignitaries from around the world. At the end of the celebration, Tadiwanashe assisted Graça Machel, Nelson Mandela’s widow, in unveiling the hospital plaque. Over the years, Brescia House has twice received surprise visits from celebrities to encourage the learners in their outreach work. First Idols presenter Proverb came to a school assembly to thank them for getting involved with the project and encourage them to continue in their efforts. The cake sales have been run six times since then, creating a growing awareness among the pupil body of the NMCH. In 2014 the girls were surprised when house music band Mi Casa participated in one of their cake sales.

Brescia House students present a beaded version of the hospital’s logo to nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital Ceo Sibongile Mkhabela. Later that year, the headgirl and the head of the Serviam Committee were invited to the groundbreaking ceremony. The headgirl was also invited to participate in the Telethon that was run on SABC TV in December 2014 and helped man one of the telephone lines. In June this year, two Brescia

House Serviam Committee members, Angelica Iacovitti and Christina Seuffert, attended the Nelson Mandela Children’s Foundation’s “Conversations for Development” event on the theme, “The South Africa I Would Like to Live In—#ThinkChange”. Angelica was one of the four keynote speakers.

“The idea behind this event was that through constructive conversations, people connect with others, inspire, influence, empathise, energise, organise and motivate,” said Helga Bishop, marketing manager of Brescia House. “They’re a major forum where we learn together, solve problems, talk over issues, influence others, make decisions and build relationships so we can therefore take action. “Influencers in various sectors such as corporate, media, religious organisations and government joined and contributed to the open conversation that was hosted at The Fund’s offices on June 15, ahead of Youth Day,” she said. “Part of this discussion was locating various actions and assessing if they are building or breaking the country. “Secondly, it was to motivate others to ask themselves what their responsibility is toward building a South Africa that they can live in.” Brescia House is officially the longest-standing school supporter of the NMCH’s For Kids, By Kids Project.

Memorable 2016 for Radio Veritas By MandLa ZiBi

Precious Blood Sister M Lucia Sithole made her final vows in the Mariannhill convent. (Front, from left) Bishop Pius dlungwane, Sr Sithole and provincial superior Sr immaculate ndlovu.

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YEAR of exciting ventures and new voices is coming to an end at Radio Veritas, South Africa’s only Catholic radio station. A whole cohort of new voices took to the airwaves this year, chief among whom Fr Brian Mhlanga OP, who joined not just as presenter of the afternoon programme “Changing Gear” but also as associate station manager. “Apart from his presenting skills, Fr Brian brought with him human resources skills and new perspectives. He has also led pilgrimages,” said Fr Emil Blaser OP, the long-time head of Radio Veritas. Other new voices were Mike Mahoney (“Living the Scriptures”); Frances Correia (“The Jesuit Hour”); Fr Thabo Mothiba OMI (“Sunday Choral Music Show”); Reabetswe Tloubatla (“Youthwise”) and Thato

Mokoena (technical producer and presenter of “Gospel Top 10”, “Letsemeng” and “Bua le Sechaba”). On a tragic note, the station lost Fr Patrick Maselwane, who died on July 8. Fr Mhlanga played a key role in the founding of Veritas Warriors, a group of men who are “enthusiastically marketing the station and seeking new financial supporters”, said Fr Blaser. Their first big success was to host the Shepherds on the Green event, a day of sports and fun for priests supported by laity to show their appreciation for their hard-working clergy. More than 160 priests from four dioceses attended the event, now planned to go annual. Mahadi Buthelezi joined the fulltime staff as marketing and advertising director and events co-ordinator. Since May the staff have been led in a weekly strategy workshop by An-

drew Masongwa. This has been a very rewarding and team-building exercise, Fr Blaser said. It was a busy fundraising year. “Besides a successful pilgrimage with The Southern Cross to the Mother Teresa canonisation in Rome, led by Fr Mhlanga, and a local one to Ngome in KwaZuluNatal, we took delivery of our VW Caddy and trailer donated by the archdiocese of Munich and local Portuguese donors,” Fr Blaser said. “We also set up a new facility with the help of a donor from the American Catholic media organisation Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) for the training of Catholic radio journalists from the continent of Africa,” Fr Blaser said. During the December holidays, the station will broadcast content from EWTN until its normal programming resumes on January 5.

Bishops on abuse

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Continued from page 1 Catholics but human society in general “has still a long journey to travel” when it comes to matters of gender inequality and abuse “in a society where abuse is so rampant”. Archbishop Slattery, who is also the SACBC’s spokesman, pointed out that “a lot of learning and reflection” were needed on the protocols and therefore urged the importance of educating all Catholics about the policies that the Church has put in place regarding sexual misconduct and abuse. The SACBC statement echoed these sentiments: “We commit ourselves to following the provisions in our own Church protocols for the investigation of sexual abuse within our Church structures and adherence to the law of the land when crimes have been committed.” Archbishop Slattery said there is still time for parishes which had not held activities called for by the bishops to do so. “If by some mistake, they had not organised themselves in time for the dates earmarked in the document, they still can go ahead with their own dates,” he said.

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For the record N our feature last week on the Upper Room Ministries’ devotional booklets, we announced an insert of a free booklet in this week’s issue. Readers will, of course, will have found the free insert in last week’s edition. We apologise for the confusion.

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The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

LOCAL

Old apartheid tricks won’t work for Zuma By MandLa ZiBi

RESIDENT Jacob Zuma’s attempts to divert attention from the “painful truths” of his leadership by warning off churches from politics will come to nought, according to a Catholic political analyst. Mike Pothier of the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Committee (CPLO) was reacting to President Zuma’s reported comments during a speech to the 12 Apostles Church in Christ in Durban this month, where he called for churches to stop “meddling” in politics. “It is an old trick which the apartheid government tried whenever it felt threatened by those who were fighting its policies,” Mr Pothier said. “Mr Zuma knows that churches are a powerful force in society. The Church has a right and a duty to express itself in the political sphere. As the Church, we praise the government when it does well, but we also criticise it when it does badly.” This, Mr Pothier said, is in line with Catholic social teaching. There is no way that the president can put a stop to being criti-

President Jacob Zuma cised by the Church, he said, pointing to the “inconsistency” at the heart of Mr Zuma’s “nonsensical” argument. “He is being inconsistent because when it suits him, he looks to the churches as his allies, but when they point out painful truths about his government, he turns around and wants them out of politics,” Mr Pothier said. At the Durban meeting, Mr Zuma said: “It is sad to see the

church and church leaders getting mired in matters of politics instead of praying for leaders. I urge the church to pray for us as leaders; pray for our people to stop the hatred. I urge you to assist us to build a stable nation built on love.” At the same event, Ethekwini mayor Zandile Gumede heaped praise on Mr Zuma, comparing him, together with former president Nelson Mandela, to Moses who led his people from Egyptian slavery to Canaan, the land of milk and honey. She said those opposing Zuma were “bees” and “cows” trying to prevent the people from enjoying the milk and honey of the Promised Land. She urged her audience to pray for President Zuma in his fight to get all to share in the “fruits of democracy”. Religious leaders such as the Rev Frank Chikane, Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana and Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein have been unequivocal in their calls for Mr Zuma to quit as head of state. Similar calls have been made by retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town.

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Bishop Wood on devotion to Our Lady

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Catholics extend care to seafarers STAFF REPORTER

T Black is winning: Fr Samuel Setshedi (left) plays morabaraba—an indigenous game close to Nine Men’s Morris—with Fr Thabiso Ledwaba. The smiling Fr Setshedi beat the philosophy professor from St John Vianney Seminary several times during the successful Radio Veritas “Shepherds on the Green” fun day for priests at the Benoni Country Club. (Photo: Mathibela Sebothoma)

Priests had fun on the greens BY NEO MOTLHALA

Members of St anne’s Sodality of South africa and Swaziland held their biennial convention at the olive Convention Centre in durban under the theme “Woman of St anne’s: ambassadors of Mercy”. (Photo: Fr Tom Maretlane)

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HE manicured lawns and top-class facilities of Gauteng’s Benoni Country Club were the perfect backdrop to a day of fun and festivity as 150 priests played games, cycled, walked, ran, ate and generally let it all hang out as part of “Shepherds on the Green Priest Appreciation Day”. Hosted by Radio Veritas through its volunteer group of Catholic men called the Veritas Warriors, the event was aimed at “showing some love” for the hardworking Catholic priesthood by sponsoring each padre to the tune of R1 000 each to participate, hang out and relax as Catholics await the coming of the Messiah. “Parish priests—indeed all the clergy—work and pray hard. In a world that could better value the role of priests, we believe it is time to show them some recognition, with love,” said Fr Brian Mhlanga OP, associate station manager of Radio Veritas and national coordinator of the event. Things got moving as early as 7am when the first priests arrived and soon had registration and other paperwork out of the way. Then it was time for runners, walkers and mountain biking enthusiasts to tackle a challenging 16km trail in the area, while the more reflective priests used the time revel in the peace and quiet of nature.

Besides golf, the priests also played five-aside soccer, tennis, squash, bowls, chess, morabaraba, draughts, and table-tennis. Others were just delighted at the opportunity to connect with old friends. Midday was punctuated by a Mass celebrated by Bishop Emeritus Patrick Mvemve of Klerksdorp and several priests, followed by a light lunch and health checks courtesy of retired Catholic nurses; head and shoulder massages; grooming by an onsite barber and cocktails. The evening ceremonies opened with a prayer by Archbishop William Slattery of Pretoria, after which the now-ravenous guests tucked into a three-course dinner to the musical accompaniment of the Mzansi Jazz Band. But the highlight of the day was the evening prize-giving ceremony, the culmination of a Radio Veritas listener voting campaign conducted on air and on the Radio Veritas Facebook page. Fr Ben Mahlangu, prison chaplain in the archdiocese of Johannesburg, and Fr Sakhi Mofokeng of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference jointly won the Best Singing Priests award, while listeners voted Fr S’milo Mngadi of Vosloorus as Best Preacher, and Fr Malesela Dikgale of Soweto as Most Stylish. The Man of the Moment award was won jointly by Frs Peter Nguyen of Walkerville, Continued on page 2

he Catholic ministry of the Apostleship of the Sea (AoS) is a “life-giving apostolate” to the many seafarers and fishers it supports, according to Archbishop Jabulani Nxumalo of Bloemfontein The archbishop, who is the AoS bishop promoter in South Africa, underlined the continuing importance of the ministry to seafarers which he said “blunted the axe so that the pain is not so sharp” of seafarers and fishers suffering in dramatic but not unknown cases of abandonment and physical abuse. He made the remarks during his opening address at AoS’ Indian Ocean regional heads conference held in Cape Town. The archbishop, who hails from the port city of Durban, noted how through the AoS ministry, we uniquely hear of the “agonies and hopes of many and also of what the grace of God can achieve”. Following the conference, AoS has drawnup a new regional plan to improve communications between its port chaplains and with the media to ensure the voice and conditions of exploited seafarers and fishers are heard. “Cases of abandonment and abuse are often overlooked, so AoS has come up with a new strategy to make sure these incidents are better referred from port to port. Often AoS port chaplains are the first welfare point of contact,” said Fr Jacques-Henri David, AoS regional coordinator. The regional heads are also working to encourage states to ratify International Labour Organisation’s Work in Fishing Convention of 2007 (No. 188). “We also agreed to look at providing support for particular seafarers centres, schooling for fishers’ children and enhancing the structure of AoS in South Africa,” Fr David said.

he conference—which included delegates from Kenya, Mauritius, Seychelles and South Africa—was held to review the work of AoS in the region, particularly in its support of fishing communities in the area. Delegates heard about a range of challenges and problems in the region, such as climate change affecting fishing seasons, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing— particularly by industrialised countries fishing huge amounts and therefore dramatically affecting artisanal fishing communities.

Archbishop Jabulani Nxumalo of Bloemfontein and a group of sea chaplains celebrate Mass during a regional conference of the Apostleship of the Sea in Cape Town. There were also cases of seafarers being abandoned. In some instances it took nearly two years before they were repatriated, sometimes without due wages being paid. The conference also heard tragic cases of seafarers being victims of human trafficking. “AoS is one of the oldest global fishers’ organisations in the world, doing impressive work in the region, such as the provision of schooling for fishers’ children in Madagascar, providing support with fishers’ wives’ associations and working alongside fishers, many of whom work as a means of survival in dugouts or boats with small motors,” said Fr David. “The challenge for fishers at this level is to have their voice heard, especially when fishing grounds are exploited by industrial fishing, and AoS works to get their concerns known,” he said. “There are still many places where seafarers work without valid employment contracts and seafarers in the region who cannot return to work having been traumatised after being captured by pirates.” The meeting also heard that there are plans to establish schools in South Africa and Kenya to train prosecutors on how to handle cases of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. A moving memorial Mass was celebrated by the conference delegates and seafarers in Cape Town port for recently deceased AoS national director Terry Whitfield, who had laboured for decades to ensure the work of AoS prospered in the region. For more information visit www.apostleshipofthesea.org.za

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INTERNATIONAL

Why top atheist Cactus fruit stains of Stephen Hawking hunger in Madagascar goes to the Vatican H S By BronWen daCHS

By andrea GaGLiarduCCi

TEPHEN Hawking’s recent visit to the Vatican has raised curiosity, with some asking what exactly the famed astrophysicist and self-proclaimed atheist was doing in the heart of the Catholic Church. But for the Vatican, his visit was nothing out of the ordinary. Prof Hawking is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences—which includes 80 of the most brilliant scientists in the world—and he was in Vatican City for the group’s annual meeting. Religious belief—Catholic or otherwise—is not a criterion for membership in the Pontifical Academy. The group’s president, Werner Arber—a former Nobel Prize Laureate in medicine—is a Protestant. And members of the academy are Catholics, Protestants, atheists, and members of other religions. This open membership policy exists because the Pontifical Academy is conceived as a place where science and faith can meet and discuss. It is not a confessional forum, but a place where it is possible to have an open discussion and examine future scientific developments. The academy was founded back in 1603 by Prince Federico Cesi with Pope Clement VII’s blessing, and its first leader was Galileo Galilei. When Prince Cesi died, the academy was shut down. Pope Pius IX refounded it in 1847, but the academy was then embodied in the Kingdom of Italy after the fall of the Pontifical State. In 1936, Pope Pius XI founded the academy once more, giving it the current name Scrolling through the lists of the members of the academy over the course of the years, one can find many Nobel Prize Laureates. These include Niels Bohr, Rita Levi Montalcini, Werner Heisenberg, Alexander Fleming and Carlo Rubbia.

or academy chancellor Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the period of the 1930s was one of “the most exciting of the aAcademy”. One of the members during that time was Max Planck, Nobel Prize Laureate for physics in 1918 and initiator of the studies on quantum physics. It was Max Planck who warned Pius XII about the possible consequences of nuclear war.

British physicist Stephen Hawking. (Photo: Facundo arrizabalaga, ePa/CnS) In a certain sense, the academy is a bridge between science, faith and the world. It proves that scientific knowledge does not exclude the presence of God. “The scientist,” Archbishop Sanchez has said, “discovers things he had not put there. Questioning who placed those things there is a theological question: the scientist just discovers them, the believer sees in them the presence of God.” The archbishop also recounted that he asked Prof Hawking how he could maintain that God does not exist, if he had reached this conclusion as a scientist or on the basis of his experience of life. And, he said, “Hawking had to recognise that his affirmation had nothing to do with science.”

his is one of just many anecdotes that has arisen from the academy, giving evidence that the Vatican is not an enemy to science, but a place where debate on scientific progress has long been both encouraged and actively promoted. During his conference at Casina Pio IV, Prof Hawking paid homage to Mgr Georges Lemaitre, president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences from 1960-66. Prof Hawking said that Mgr Lemaitre was the real father of the “Big Bang Theory”, thus dismissing the common belief that the father of the theory was the physicist George Gamow. “Georges Lemaitre was the first who proposed a model according to which the universe had a very dense beginning. He, and not George Gamow, is the father of the Big Bang,” Prof Hawking said. It’s no wonder, then, that Prof Hawking took part in an academic session in Rome, marking the 50th anniversary of Mgr Lemaitre’s death.—CNA

VIVA SAFARIS KRUGER PARK with

UNGER levels are so severe in drought-ridden southern Madagascar that many people in remote villages have eaten almost nothing but cactus fruit for up to four years, said a Catholic Relief Services official. Eating this fruit leaves crimson stains on people’s faces and hands, and there is a “shame of poverty associated with these stains in Madagascar”, an island nation 400km off the coast of mainland Africa, said Nancy McNally, CRS information officer for East and Southern Africa. The cactus plant “is the only thing that grows” in southern Madagascar, and the plants “are growing everywhere” in earth “that looks like white silt”, she said. A father of three, sitting with his wife and children outside the town of Beloha in south-eastern Madagascar, “told me that his family had been living on cactus fruit for a year”, McNally said. “With whatever money he could make” from finding something to sell, he would buy food for the youngest child, she said, noting that “this would amount to a little bit of rice once in a while for the boy, who was about a year old”. “It’s the worst poverty I’ve seen,” Ms McNally said, noting that the severe drought in southern Madagascar has led the UN to warn of potential famine, “a word that is very rarely used for fear of raising a false alarm”. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warned in late November

a family sits inside their hut in ambovombe, Madagascar. Hunger levels are now severe in drought-ridden southern Madagascar. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed, ePa/CnS) that 330 000 people in southern Madagascar are “on the verge of a food security catastrophe, next step being famine”. In Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital, “begging is very aggressive”, Ms McNally said, noting that “poverty is very deep, and it seems that people’s survival instinct has kicked in”. El Nino, a warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, has aggravated dry conditions in Madagascar and the entire southern African region, where an estimated 39 million people are affected by food shortages. More than 90% of Madagascar’s population lives below the $2 a day poverty line, Ms McNally said. “People are dying in remote villages,” such as Ajampaly, she said, noting that, “we don’t know how

bad it is”. Poor or no infrastructure makes it extremely difficult to reach remote areas in the south of the country, Ms McNally said. “Those who suffer most are people who don’t have family to help them—children and the elderly. “While there is some food in the markets in towns, “it is too expensive for most people,” she said. Madagascar needs a much stronger international response to this crisis, she said, noting that some areas of the island have had no rain at all for four years. “A 70-year-old man I talked to said he had farmed with his father when he was young, and every year they had a rainy season that could be counted on, but those times are gone and are not coming back,” Ms McNally said.—CNS

Richard Branson and co meet with pope By Cindy Wooden

OPE Francis pleaded with a group of billionaires to take seriously their personal obligation to share their resources and make a real commitment to doing business in a way that helps other people realise their potential, too. The global economic system, needs a “fundamental renewal” that “does not have to do simply with market economics, figures to be balanced, the development of raw materials and improvements made to infrastructure”, he said. “What we are speaking about is the common good of humanity, of the right of each person to share in the resources of this world and to have the same opportunities to realise his or her potential, a potential that is ultimately based on the dig-

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nity of the children of God, created in his image and likeness,” the pope told CEOs and other leaders taking part in the Fortune-Time Global Forum. Business leaders like Virgin’s Richard Branson, LRN's Dov Seidman, Siemens’ Joe Kaeser and IBM’s Ginni Rometty met in Rome for two days to respond to what they described as Pope Francis’ “passionate pleas for broader prosperity and lasting ways to lift the poor”. They also spoke with concern of growing popular discontent with the way big business and governments operate. “Populism and protectionism are rearing their heads around the world, and trust in business—as well as other institutions—has plummeted,” the leaders said in their report to the pope. After public sessions focused on

what Branson defined as “moral leadership”—“leadership that accepts that the long-term sustainability of our actions is more important than short-term gain”—the CEOs and heads of major non governmental organisations participated in working groups to develop practical commitments aimed at increasing people’s access to finance, health care, the internet, energy, food, clean water, education and job training. “Our great challenge,” Pope Francis told them, “is to respond to global levels of injustice by promoting a local and even personal sense of responsibility so that no one is excluded from participating in society.” “The centrality and dignity of the human person,” especially the poor and refugees, must be the key factor in strategising sustainable development, the pope said.—CNS

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The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

Bethlehem businesses hope for a merry one By JudiTH SudiLoVSky

E Pope Francis waves as he leads his angelus from the window of his studio overlooking St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. (Photo: Tony Gentile, reuters/CnS)

Pope: Jesus changes penitent hearts By CaroL GLaTZ

ESUS truly transforms and heals hearts when people let him, which means recognising and being ashamed of one’s sins, Pope Francis said in his homily at Mass in the chapel at his residence. Jesus helped people by showing them a new way and the possibility of real change, “and this is why the people followed him”, the pope said. The day’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah (35:1-10) talks about God bringing new life to a parched land and healing, strength and joy to a broken people. This promise and power of complete renewal, the pope said, was fulfilled with the Messiah, whose miracles and ministry were not about making things look better by putting on “makeup, cosmetics. He changed everything from the inside”. “God created the world, mankind fell into sin, Jesus came to re-create the world,” he said. Jesus comes to touch people’s hearts and forgive their sins, “to recreate that man from sinner to righteous” and make him “totally new”. But this scandalises the doctors of the law, who question Jesus’ au-

thority to claim such abilities, the pope said. Those with faith, however, understand like Mary Magdalena, who knew she was a sinner and saw Jesus could heal “not her body, but the wound in her soul. He could re-create her”. This “existential healing” of the soul, being re-created and transformed by Jesus requires “great faith”, trust, courage and honesty about the gravity of one’s sins, he said. It won’t happen if people say, “Yeah, yeah, I have some sins. I go to confession, say a few sweet nothings and then I continue on my way” doing the same things as before, the pope said. “Just two brushstrokes of paint and we believe that with this the whole thing is over. No! “We are all sinners, but look at the root of your sin and see that the Lord goes down there and recreates it, and that bitter root will bloom,” he said. People must delve deep, fully identify the nature and gravity of their sins, feel ashamed and “open their hearts” to let Christ in and make them new. The need for conversion, particularly during the season of Advent, was also part of Pope Francis’ Angelus address where he said that entering into God’s kingdom requires daily conversion—one step each day.—CNS

Pope Francis visits the nativity scene in St Peter's Square. (Photo: Paul Haring/CnS)

Pope’s busy Christmas

HE Vatican has released Pope Francis’ liturgy schedule for Christmas and the month of January. l The pope will celebrate Christmas Mass at 21:30 on December 24 in St Peter’s basilica. l Pope Francis will give his Christmas blessing urbi et orbi (to the city and the world) at noon on December 25 from the central balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square. l On December 31 in St Peter’s basilica, the pope will preside over evening prayer and the singing of the Te Deum in thanksgiving for the year that is ending. l The pope will celebrate a Morning Mass in St Peter’s basilica on January 1, the World Day of Prayer for Peace and the feast of Mary, Mother of God. l On January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, Pope Francis will celebrate Mass in St Peter’s basilica. l On the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, January 8, the pope will celebrate Mass in the Sistine Chapel and baptise several babies. l Pope Francis will preside over an ecumenical evening prayer service on January 25, the feast of the Conversion of St Paul. The service concludes the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.— CNS

VEN the Christmas decorations seem more cheerful this year in Bethlehem. A new display of Santa’s reindeer and sleigh were lit at the main traffic circle on Manger Street, and a big white Christmas tree made of lights perched merrily next to them. The official Christmas tree in Nativity Square was a focus of great commotion as pilgrims and locals struck poses for photos and selfies. At the official tree lighting ceremony, the square was packed with hundreds of onlookers ready to welcome the Christmas season to the birthplace of Jesus. After two Christmas seasons in which the political reality had overtaken holiday cheer, people seemed primed to finally feel some merriment in Bethlehem. In 2014, the bombardment of faraway Gaza was still keeping away tourists, and last year a spate of stabbings and shootings overshadowed any hope of holiday cheer. This year, the Israeli separation wall construction continues to slowly creep around Bethlehem, creating an isolated enclave. There has been no real move towards a long-

Palestinian Catholic anton ayoub Mussalam, 75, holds a dove on the roof of his home on Star Street in Bethlehem, West Bank. (Photo: debbie Hill/CnS) term peace agreement, nor any easing of travel restrictions or any significant improvement in the economic or political situations, but Palestinians are embracing what they can of the holiday spirit. Shopkeepers like Muslim Samer Laham, 37, whose front entrance displays rows of hanging Santa Claus hats, are putting out their Christmas wares and readying for the celebra-

tions. “People haven’t started buying the hats yet, but they will in a few more days,” said Mr Laham confidently. Ashraf and Shahad Natsheh, who are also Muslim, took the afternoon to come from Hebron, West Bank, to take pictures of their 10-month-old daughter Na’ara in front of the official Bethlehem Christmas tree with its life-sized crèche and goldcoloured ornaments. “The atmosphere is definitely better than last year, the roads are open and there is more calm,” said Shahad Natsheh, 26. “We came to see the tree because it is beautiful.” Cradling one of his white doves —“peace pigeons” as he has dubbed them—in his hands in their rooftop roost above Star Street, Anton Ayoub Mussalam, 75, who is Catholic, said everyone is waiting for Christmas. From 1987 until 2015, he and his wife, Mary, had not had permission to go to Jerusalem, where one of their daughters lives. “Maybe there will be a happy Christmas,” Mr Mussalam said. “We hope everyone will be happy. We hope there will be a small piece of peace. We need peace like we need food and water.”—CNS

How St John Paul II saved Christmas

FTER the late Fidel Castro gained power in Cuba in 1959, he spent the next decade slowly imposing socialism on the country, including state atheism. In 1960, several Cuban Catholic bishops signed a letter reaffirming the Church’s long-standing rejection of communism and called for Catholics to reject it. In response, his government confiscated Catholic property and arrested Catholics. Then, in 1969, he abolished Christmas as a public holiday. This ban on the public celebration of one of the Church’s high holy days lasted for nearly three decades until 1998, when Pope

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John Paul II successfully convinced him to remove the ban. Joaquín Navarro-Valls, St John Paul II’s spokesman in the 1990s, shared the story with Vatican Insider. “I explained to him [Mr Castro] that now that the date of [John Paul II’s] visit was set—for 21 January 1998—it would be interesting if it were a great success,” Mr Navarro-Valls said. “‘Cuba needs to surprise the world,’ I told him. Fidel agreed.” “I asked Castro for Christmas, which was just around the corner, to be celebrated as an official holiday for the first time since the start of the Revolution.” Here’s how Mr Castro re-

sponded, according to Mr Navvarro-Valls: “He said it would be very difficult as Christmas fell right in the middle of the sugar cane harvesting season. To which I responded: ‘But the Holy Father would like to be able to publicly thank you for this gesture once he lands in Havana.’ “After a long discussion, Castro finally said yes, although he did add: ‘But it could be for this year only.’ All I said was: ‘Great, the pope will be grateful to you for this. And as for next year, we’ll see.’ “As we know, to this day, Christmas is still celebrated as a public holiday in Cuba.”—CNA

The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Challenging the pope

Pope Francis decided, as is also his right, not to engage with the four cardinals’ dubia. It may well be that he suspected that these cardinals were not simply posing legitimate questions in a spirit of sincerity—even if the concerns stated in their query are shared by many Catholics—but were issuing a direct challenge to his authority. Cardinal Burke has long been a fierce and outspoken critic of this pontificate, and the other three cardinals come from the rigorist tradition which the pope has vigorously criticised. In absence of a response from the Holy Father, the four cardinals made their private communication public. This caused division between those who were scandalised by what they saw as an attack on the pope, those who agreed with the four cardinals, and those who were disappointed that the pope declined to engage with the dubia. Cardinal Burke then overstepped the mark by saying that the four cardinals may issue a “formal act of correction of a serious error”. In plain language, the cardinals are saying that Pope Francis—the head of magisterium of the Catholic Church—is proposing a pastoral approach that is in violation of Church teachings. This is a very serious charge indeed. In modern times, making the threat of “correction of a serious error” against a pope is unprecedented. The last time this happened was in 1334. Even among those who agree with the points raised in the dubia, there are those who see Cardinal Burke’s threat as an act of rebellion. Cardinals owe a special loyalty to the pope. Their function—their specific job description—is to advise the pope. It is not the task of cardinals to publicly question the pope’s fidelity to Church teachings. By sowing division and by overstepping the boundaries of their office, these four cardinals have caused scandal. It is legitimate to query the provisions in Amoris Laetitia, but this must come from serving bishops (who may also be cardinals), preferably with the collegial backing of their bishops’ conference, and expressed with sincere intent in the pursuit for truth. Wherever one stands on the pastoral approach proposed by Pope Francis, it can never serve Our Lord to turn his Table into a battleground of ideology.

HE unity of the Catholic Church is shaken when a small group of cardinals publicly insinuate that they believe the pope may be acting in error. In September, three retired cardinals and one cardinal who had been moved out of the Vatican curia by Pope Francis sent the Holy Father a communication called a dubia (Latin for “doubts”). In the letter they said that the pope has created “confusion” and “disorientation” with passages in his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia that address the possibility of divorced and civilly remarried people being admitted to Communion, and issued a set of questions for the pope to respond to. Amoris Laetitia is the document in which Pope Francis gave form to the deliberations of the twoyear Synod of Bishops on the Family, held in 2014 and 2015. On the issue of Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, Pope Francis affirmed the teaching that they are generally excluded from the Eucharist, but counselled an approach of case-by-case discernment, giving dioceses the autonomy to admit people in “irregular situations” to the Lord’s Table, provided that certain circumstances apply. While a synod cannot achieve consensus on all issues under discussion, and less so on a subject as controversial as this, there seems to have been no suggestions from the synod fathers that Amoris Laetitia distorts the collegial deliberations. Indeed, more than almost every post-synodal exhortation since the introduction of the Synod of Bishops in the 1970s, Amoris Laetitia reflects the spirit of collegiality which the Second Vatican Council envisaged. This does not mean, however, that Amoris Laetitia is now beyond discussion. Other than the deposits of faith and infallibly declared dogma, teachings and disciplines of the Church may be scrutinised. And as a document of mid-ranking authority, an apostolic exhortation carries less doctrinal weight than, say, an encyclical. So when retired Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Carlo Cafarra and Joachim Meisner, and Cardinal Raymond Burke, the present head of the Order of Malta, asked the pope to clarify aspects of Amoris Laetitia, they were well within their rights to do so.

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.

Fr Scholten was inspirational Y OUR report (November 30) of the death of Fr Dominic Scholten OP at the age of 86 on November 18 revived many memories of a priest who rendered so much to the development of the Church in Southern Africa. I first met Fr Dominic while still at St John Vianney Seminary in the 1960s. At that time, he pioneered with the late Mgr Charles Watkins the establishment of our bishops’ conference’s secretariat in the Standard Bank chambers on Church Square in Pretoria. Without a doubt, he was an innovator, proven by his employing two

Women blamed for abuse: No!

OLLEEN Constable’s article “Violence against women betrays Jesus” (November 16) refers. Thank you for your thoughtful response. When I read Cardinal Wilfrid Napier’s article in the archdiocese of Durban’s newsletter I said to myself, “Not again!” Why are women blamed when they are abused? The cardinal writes of “the ideology of exaggerated and enforced equality” that leads men to be violent against women. While women have made substantial gains in society (but very little in the Church), we are very far from real equality. After centuries of teaching that women are not fully created in the image of God (St Augustine said a woman was fully the image of God only when joined to her husband), Pope John Paul II changed this teaching in Mulieres Dignitatem (1988) and described women as fully equal to men in human dignity (#16). Blaming women for men’s violence against them because they are asserting their human dignity is exactly what happens when a woman is raped: it is supposedly her fault because of her clothing or she was “where she shouldn’t be”. Men are violent for many, many reasons. The implementation of women’s equality as a human being in the structures of society and the Church is not one of them. Sue Rakoczy IHM, Cedara

The Donald is for Christianity

WAS not able to understand how danger of fearfulness could be used in order to show the notorious political polarisation after the US presidential campaign, as expressed by your columnist Sarah-Leah Pimentel (“Danger of fearfulness”, November 30). American Catholics and Christians voted for Donald Trump, and

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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

sentiments. Did they look at the whole picture, and whether he is sincere or not? Catholics worldwide will have to pray hard that such an unpredictable character will be contained. Peter Wills, Sedgefield

Soviet Jesuits?

that is the fact. Obviously, a majority of American Christians were not shocked with horror but very happy with his victory. A strong USA, with new political views, is the only hope for the millions of refugees, many of them our Catholic brothers and sisters. It is difficult to believe that Mr Trump’s America will not be the strongest protector of Christianity. It is impossible to compare South African and American presidential elections due to different Constitutions. Our people do not elect the president directly, and in my opinion, our Catholic values will not bring significant difference for the choice of the president. Dr Krunoslav Fuzy, Queenstown

Trump conned many Catholics

WAS surprised that Pope Francis responded to the US election result. And I then thought I would wait to read other articles later in this respect. Since age 13, and the time of John F Kennedy, I have followed US politics and never seen anything like this year’s election campaign. It keeps me sleepless and I cannot believe that Donald Trump can even be allowed to put one step into the White House. Your editorial “Bigotry: Be the cure” of November 30 said it all! I have donated to pro-life causes since 1987 and still do, but Mr Trump conned Catholics to vote for him through pro-life/anti-abortion

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young black laymen, Victor and Gabriel, in his Afrikaans Apostolate office. Victor remained with the SACBC secretariat for over 40 years. Fr Scholten’s ministry was so expansive that I wasn’t too surprised by your report overlooking his national directorship of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) following Mgr Desmond Hatton’s holding this position for nearly three decades. In this position, which followed his term as secretary-general of the SACBC in the 1970s, he initiated biennial meetings of PMS diocesan directors. I recall at that time his commissioning my father, An-

thony, a professional cartographer, to design a distinctive South African PMS logo and a map of Southern African dioceses. Typical of his forward thinking, Fr Dominic nearly caused a group heart attack among our bishops when he suggested that the South African Church should forego its annual subsidies from Rome. It was his opinion that our local churches should already be self-supporting. He was convinced that PMS funds should go to poorer countries on our continent. Thank you, Fr Dominic, for your inspiring example of what our Catholic priesthood should embrace. Fr Kevin Reynolds, Pretoria

ERHAPS your readers would enjoy Tebogo Brown’s views on the late Fidel Castro (The Star, December 1): I haven’t had such a good laugh for a long time. As an “historical fact”, Mr Brown says that Mr Castro was a “Roman Catholic communist”, levered into power by the Jesuit-created CIA. Another “fact” is that the Jesuits controlled the Soviet Union. No doubt the elders of Zion are Jesuits too. Has Mr Brown heard of Jesus, who said: “A kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation” (Matthew 12:25)? I spot Jesuits around every corner: they must be behind #FeesMustFall. I have discovered (with Jesuitical cunning) a way to decolonise maths: count with beads. This is the only way our sporting students will score a hole in one. Peter A Onesta, Johannesburg

We can learn

ATHER Finbarr Flanagan OFM in his letter (November 16) describes Centering Prayer as “New Age”. I fail to see why one would call the practice of sitting in silence in the presence of the Lord and allowing him to talk “New Age”. I use the word I have chosen for my prayer practice to recall my ever-wandering mind back to the Lord, not as a “mantra”. I think we can learn from the spiritual customs of other faiths. We are all imperfectly striving towards God, and like the Good Samaritan can help each other and not be afraid of each other. Bridget Stephens, Cape Town

LENT IN THE

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PERSPECTIVES

Where is God in all the suffering? Judith Turner T HERE are countless tragedies happening in our world today. Where is God? Where is God when bad things happen to innocent children? Where is God when women are abused, raped and killed? Where was God during apartheid? These are questions which people ask over and over again: the question of God and human suffering. Every so often this question hits us with a great deal of sadness, as it did lately with the death of a student marching for free education, the earthquakes in Italy, the killing of people in the Syrian civil war, the reign of terror of Boko Haram, the plane crash that wiped out a football team from Brazil, to mention a few. Millions in the world die of hunger, thousands are injured, hundreds of thousands are homeless, thousands more face disease from lack of proper water, housing, and hygiene. This is the state of our world. This is the state of our country. Where is God in all this? How can our faith help us to understand this? I recently had the beautiful privilege of spending time in the chapel of the Christian Brothers’ Retreat Centre in Stellenbosch. And there is where I found some assurance of where God is in all of our suffering. In all the suffering of all the people of the world—God is there. I experienced a deep assurance that God is with us and that God has always been with us throughout the ages. Two beautiful icons, behind the altar of the chapel, helped me to feel and experience this deep assurance and ultimate consolation that God is with us. The first icon is about the covenant that God made with Noah (Genesis 9:17). It depicts Noah preparing a thanksgiving sacrifice at dawn when God speaks to him. A gold circle with golden radiations represents God. The dove, sent out by Noah to find dry land, is also a reference to the Holy Spirit, later to descend upon Jesus at his baptism.

In the icon there is also a river with two fish. The Greek word for fish is ichthys, which is also the acronym for “Jesus Christ Son of God Redeemer”. Lastly, there are a few flowers in the icon which depict the rebirth of living things after the flood. A covenant in the Bible is an understanding, a promise, a specific relationship between God and someone else—a person, a people. Unlike a contract where two parties agree equally, a covenant originates from God and does not depend on the other party. God is the initiator and sustainer of the covenant.

hat a beautiful and everlasting privilege it is to experience God’s covenant. God is saying to us: “I promise that I will be there with you, always, I will

an icon of the new Covenant at the Christian Brother's Centre in Stellenbosch

Faith and Life

guide you and protect you and I will always be your strength. I will save you.” God promises to be all of that to us, even though we do not make a single promise in return. That is what God’s covenant means. It is beautiful how the old covenant already makes reference to the New Covenant. The covenant which Jesus made at the Last Supper on the eve of his passion and death on the cross, when he said: “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.” And this is what the second icon in the chapel is about. In the icon, the sun is setting in the colours of Noah’s covenant sky. Jesus is in the Upper Room, richly prepared by the “man with the water pitcher”. There are fish on the table. The chalice, the Grail, is filled with wine. The words of consecration of the new and eternal covenant are being spoken. Jesus Christ is a living sign of God’s eternal covenant. He will be with us always. So where is God when millions are starving, being abused, raped and killed? Where is God with earthquakes, floods, fires, plane crashes? God is weeping with his people, grieving with them, sitting in sadness beside collapsed buildings and debris. He was there when it happened, and he is still here. He does not offer a rescue like Batman would, but we can be sure that he will redeem everything that was lost. In his own time, everything will be made new, and it will be good, just like God intended it. He will bring peace where there was sadness, and all will be well. This is his covenant.

The funny side of being a priest A S you read this, I’ll be reaching my 16th anniversary as a priest. I was thrown into the deep end in 2000 after my ordination to the diaconate when I was sent (not unexpectedly) to Soweto. There is a clerical wisdom that says that your first parish is always your first love and I look back on those first five years of priestly ministry with great fondness. In Soweto I learned how to drive, was laughed at for my feeble attempts at seSotho and even worse attempts at isiZulu. I was shot at (not directly), I was scammed, and I felt at home. Recently I was chatting to a friend, and we joked about some of the funnier sides of life in a township. We joked about front doors. The Soweto I was sent to was rapidly becoming suburban. The houses were being upgraded and the streets tarred. Every house had to have a decent front door, and as a newly-minted priest, doing my first solo sick call, I naturally walked up to the door—dodging the dogs who barked only at white people. No-one answered. Yet I could hear the commotion from the back. You see, the memory of the klopjag was still very strong, and my knocking at the front door had the whole family leaping out of doors and windows at the back. No, never go in through the front door. Then there were the scones. If anyone knew you were coming, the Order of the Most Excellent Scone Bakers held a bakeoff. And, well, those scones were the size (and sometimes consistency) of handgrenades—or depth charges, because they could sit in your stomach all day… In seSotho, which has a contested and historically difficult orthography (the way the language is written or codified), the French-based language patterns couldn’t cope with inflection. I bravely and occasionally proclaimed the Gospel to the Thursday morning gathering of the bepurpled and blue sodality members (over weekends I was rescued by the amazing Deacon Magata for all the serious stuff). For a long time I thought that I was talking about Jesus “speaking to the crowds”, until after four years a brave for-

Fr Chris Townsend

Pastor’s notebook

Fr Chris Townsend at his ordination in Johannesburg 16 years ago, as captured in a photo by Fr Gerard Hattingh in The Southern Cross. He is now serving Queenswood parish in Pretoria. mer school teacher took me aside after Mass for pronunciation lessons. The word for crowds and the word for breasts, it turned out, differ only in inflection. So I had Jesus preaching not to the crowds...

ownship funeral customs were occasions for practising the “smile-andwave” technique that is so much part of the life and ministry of priests. Every family has a different way—and different responsibilities. My neighbour’s father had died and as the body arrived in the house on the Friday evening for the vigil, it was custom for a bull to be slaughtered. There was great commotion. One of the guys, a township lad dressed in Carvellas, selected a kitchen knife and with great confidence stabbed the bull… in the hind. The requisite bellow was achieved as was a comical image of the young man powered into a wall and the bull running off down the road like something from the bullrings of Spain. The story did not end there. This challenge was taken in stride as all the young men opened fire at the bull as it hurtled down the road. During the meal after the funeral, to which all were invited, we got

the feeling that we were pulling out our fillings; there were so many small pieces of metal in the meat. Catholics in townships, like Catholics everywhere, are normal people. Mostly good; some not so much. One night it was one of the latter who, having a dispute at one of the shebeens that surrounded me, leapt over my low fence and proceeded to try and hide from the street committee mob who were after him. Somehow he had managed to get on my roof and was peering over the ridge line at the mob of pistolled beer drinkers who were after him. When they caught sight of him, they opened fire without hesitation. That is not a good idea when your aim is less than steady. That little episode cost the parish, and the Pontifical Mission Society, over R200 000 as we had to reroof the building (it wasn’t the first time St Michael’s had been shot at). Finally, there were the pigeons. They were prolific and defiant. And I am equally stubborn. After being issued with a health warning that these rats-with-wings had to be removed, I employed the services of a young priest who was a crack shot. One morning we set up a sniper station and he shot these township pigeons. As I watched, one or two fluttered off. But the majority took the bullets in the chest. Defiantly, as if they were receiving a challenge from a rugby team—not the Springboks, more like a New Zealand haka). Nothing happened. Nothing. We exercised the tactical withdrawal option and admitted defeat. These winged rats were tough. Six months later, I started picking up carcasses. The pests had died not from the pellet shots but from the lead… The years of my priestly ministry have created so many stories that I never watch soap operas or novellas. I have no need. I live one.

The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

Michael Shackleton

open door

Should pope talk about politics? In his encyclical Laudato si’ Pope Francis presents global warming and modern technologies as having moral implications, which are therefore within his competence to write an encyclical of warning about. Critics say he should stick to religion and keep clear of remarks about science and economics. What is your comment, please? Henrietta

OPES issue encyclicals (circular letters) to bishops, clergy and the Church in general— and in the case of Laudato si’, to “every person living on the planet”. Their purpose is to clarify or affirm a teaching of the Church in conformity with divine revelation. Pope Francis refers to the first two chapters of Genesis, in which God creates human beings and gives them dominion over all other creatures and the earth itself. Quoting Genesis 2:15 where God tells Adam to “till and keep” the garden, Francis reminds us that tilling refers to cultivating, and keeping means preserving the earth. This entails a stewardship that we are abandoning today. Humanity once tilled the soil and bred livestock in harmony with nature. There was a kind of mutual respect between the planet, its creatures and ourselves who are created from its very dust. The fruits of the earth were shared to the benefit of all. Since the 19th century, traditional ways of production have been largely supplanted by new technologies and industrialisation. There would have been nothing wrong with that if everybody had benefited, but this was not the case. Instead, the benefits went exclusively to a small proportion of the population in control of the process. The encyclical makes the powerful point that our technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience. The attitude now is not to respect nature but to master and manipulate it to suit the market. This is what Pope Francis’ encyclical is tackling. He warns that human intervention through business interests and consumerism are making our earth less rich and beautiful: “We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves.” The effects are seen in the deterioration of the environment and lifestyles dictated “by the interests of certain powerful groups”. This situation cannot be resolved by maximising profits and ignoring the rhythms of nature or ecosystems which are gravely upset by human intervention. Francis wants us to recognise that we must change lifestyles, production and consumption to combat global warming “or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it”. So he appeals to every person on the planet to share in the task in their own way. Critics may scoff at what they regard as the pontiff’s ignorance of the economic forces at play in the modern world, but Francis is undeterred. As a pastor he is concerned about justice for all who are being depersonalised by profiteers.

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The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

COMMUNITY

The matrics at assumption Convent School in Germiston, Gauteng, attended their final school assembly. Honours blazers were won by Skye Sheerin (left), 2016 headgirl, for achieving colours across all categories (academic, sport, cultural and service) and Julia Lutz (right) for exceptional sporting achievement in athletics. Children from durbanville parish, Cape Town, received their First Communion along with children from nearby Fisantekraal. Pictured here are the candidates with parish priest Fr Michael van Heerden, Fr Godfrey Solomon, deacon des eyden and catechists. (Photo: Tania Lotz)

St John Bosco parish in Westridge, Cape Town, embarked on a pilgrimage to Maryland in Hanover Park for a day full of blessings, reflection and Communion in one body as they came to the end of the year of Mercy. The Good Shepherd parish in Bothasig, Cape Town, held a year of Mercy pilgrimage to Schoenstatt, led by Fr ivanhoe allies.

Parishioners from Christ the king in Queenswood, Pretoria, packed food for the needy. an estimated eight tonnes of foodstuffs, clothing and necessities are transported yearly as part of the parish’s outreach. Pictured are regulars Louis, Traude, Cecile, Sonia and Tineka.

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Fr Vincent Sello, the new parish priest of immaculate Conception parish in Hercules, Pretoria, greets parishioners after Mass. (Photo sent by LB Moore)

First Communicants from St Patrick’s parish in Benoni all dressed up as saints on all Saints’ day. The men of St anthony’s parish in Sedgefield in the oudtshoorn diocese cooked breakfast for parishioners after Mass. Pictured are the men about to start. (From left) Martin, Tony, John, dave J, roy and dave M-S. Little eden held its Christmas concerts at the domitilla and danny Hyams Home in edenvale and elvira rota Village in Gauteng. Pictured are residents adrian and daniella getting into the swing of things. Lucy Slaviero, Little eden Ceo, thanked the staff and volunteers for their commitment and dedication to the special work of the homes.

Visit our Christmas archives scross.co.za/ category/ christmas

Six young people of the parish of our Lady of Grace in Heidelberg were confirmed by auxiliary Bishop duncan Tsoke of Johannesburg. on the same occasion, two senior members of the parish who celebrated their birthdays, John reid, 81, and Matilade neto, 82, were given a blessing by the bishop.

Christ the king parish in Wentworth, durban, had a renewal of commitment and installation of altar servers.

new executives were elected at the Catholic Women’s League’s aGM. (From left) first vice-president rita abraham, treasurer Pauline Lotter, secretary alison Bradshaw, Fr Justin Stirton, president anna accolla and second vice-president Carol Price. The event was held at our Lady of Fatima parish in durban north.

Council 28 of the knights of da Gama in edenvale, Johannesburg, celebrated a home Mass. The Mass was led by Fr Joseph Leathem oMi, assisted by deacon dennis Gregory, and held in the home of PSk robin Lydall.

The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

CHURCH

Why we must drop labels of left and right At a time of much conflict, in the Church and in the world, there must be a way to arrive at cooperations for the common good. BiSHoP GraHaM roSe suggests one model.

the full picture; he “manages” the application, as it were, of both justice and mercy—attempting to discern the “what”, the “how” and the “when”. We have had Cardinal Burke rightly calling for respect for justice and the law; with equal justification, we have had Cardinal Kasper calling for mercy and pardon. And we have the erstwhile Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, as the Totaliser—Peter the Helmsman, steering the ship now in this direction, now in that. If that direction is to mercy today, we should anticipate in some tomorrow it will again be to justice and then back again. This is not a contradiction; it is a profound respect for both Justice and Mercy in time and across time.

HIRTY-ONE years ago I was involved in the writing of a thesis. It was the mid-1980s and liberation theology was alive and well. It was in 1985 that the Vatican document “On Christian Freedom” was published. Closer to home in South Africa, the cry for liberation was loud on the streets of the townships. So it was, too, in theological circles—I recall the “Kairos Document” of the same year, 1985. Some two years earlier, on being requested by my archbishop to go to Ottawa in Canada to study canon law, I had pleaded rather to be allowed to study moral theology. Though attracted to other areas of moral theology I chose to study social ethics—such, most would have agreed, was the need of the times. The thesis I had begun in 1985 emerged finally under the title, “Liberation and the Construction of Justice”. My concern in writing as I did—notwithstanding the righteous rage and, not subtracting an iota from the need for liberation—was with what would happen after the ousting of the apartheid regime and the eradication of its oppressive structures. What would take its place? It was not unheard of in history, nor on our continent, that an unholy regime had only given way to worse. The Gospel itself describes how a home, having been swept clean of evil, came eventually to be inhabited by seven more demons. (Lk 11:24-26). My criticism then of Liberation Theology was that it was incomplete: caught up in an all-consuming passion to destroy injustice, it failed to give enough attention to the future shape of justice. The subtitle of the thesis was “Towards a model of socio-political transformation from a theological perspective.” The model, in short, proposed the need for three agents actively promoting three vital tasks. l The Liberator who spent himself, quite obviously, in the struggle for liberation; l The Creative Governor who was concerned with what shape justice could take; l The Totaliser. Experience had shown that the first two agents were normally so focused on their immediate task alone that they overlooked—if they did not even work actively against— each other. The Liberator would accuse the Creative Governor of not being radical enough; in his claim to be more realistic he was nothing more than a sell-out, an accomplice of the regime. On the other hand, the Creative Governor too easily saw the Liberator as utopian, as failing to recognise the stubbornness of sin and evil; in his irresponsibility he was often accused of provoking anarchy. Here then was the task of the Totaliser—to be able, as it were, to step back from the fraught situation and to see the fuller picture. Which agent was needed and when—now the Liberator tearing down structures of oppression, now the Creative Governor building up the structures of justice?

A Church torn apart? All this came to my mind during and since last year’s Synod of Bishops on the Family, and in our attempts to understand Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia. There was much controversy and much speculation during the synod.

Three plus one

in Bishop Graham rose’s model of reconciling competing thoughts, Pope Francis is the “Totaliser”—Peter the Helmsman. Inset: Bishop rose All too often the media painted a picture that was at least simplistic, certainly all too-easily manipulated and invariably misconstrued. Justice and mercy were, and still are, declared to be in opposition to each other. The Church, we are being told, is being torn apart—more than a spat; it is confronted with the possibility, if not probability, of schism… And the parties opposing each other are headed by two cardinals, Burke and Kasper. So the media summed it up; such is the spin… I have wondered whether the thoughts of the thesis begun in 1985 do not have something to say to this situation. Might they help to cast light on the work—the drama— of this synod and its aftermath, 30 years later? Could the essentials of the model then applied to the political transformation of South Africa in 1985 help us to understand the challenge facing the Church today? What are the underlying essentials of the model? There are, I believe, three very important realities—no, surely four!

clared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite’.” There was, in fact, no real inconsistency, only the difficulty of holding both “simultaneously”. The Prayer of the Church has the psalmist say: “My song is of justice and mercy” (101:1).

Things keep changing Secondly, we must avoid a perception that is static. The situation in South Africa in the early ‘80s certainly called for a mighty, and indeed heroic, struggle for liberation. But the situation was fluid and delicate, as is every human situation, perhaps even more so in such dramatic and fast-moving times. The situation we are faced with is never static; it is always dynamic and the wise participant and observer must be ready to move with the times. To read the signs of the times is to acknowledge the dynamic nature of the human experience: now needing this, now

needing that. As the Church entered the 2010s it had for some time boasted of its strong sense and system of justice and law. This is in itself good, indeed a great achievement. But precisely now we would, at our peril, stay rooted (a static fixation?) only in this single perception. We cannot overlook the call for mercy. The 1985 model calls us today to act dynamically. Now is the time for justice, now for mercy. Now will it seem we are caught up with law, now we are accused of being merciful—even to the point of lawlessness! The values and principles we hold are served by both justice and mercy—at the right time. We are at work in a changing world and such a dynamic context requires a keen sense, a holy recognition of what the Kairos is calling for.

The Helmsman Thirdly, the 1985 model cries out for its third agent: the Totaliser. His task, as said above, is to see

In the thesis I claimed that these three tasks—those of Liberator, Creative Governor and Totaliser—could be aligned with the Prophetic, the Priestly and the Wisdom traditions of the Old Testament. Which one should we exclude? Which one may we exclude? All three are needed, and it is Wisdom that will lead us to the others, to each at the right time. Can we, must we, not go further? Does this all not find its origin in the Trinity? Is it not all held there and does it not return to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? I like to think of the awe-full Justice of the Father, the infinite Mercy of the Son, and the supremely delicate Wisdom of the Holy Spirit. This is the fourth reality I referred to. From the thoughts of three decades ago to the Church of today, it seems to me it is only in a dynamic trinitarian perspective that the synod and Amoris Laetitia can best hold together both justice and mercy. For, need it be said, they are not yet caught up in full eschatological embrace. (Ps 84/85:10) And “Trinitarian”, as well we know, is so much more than a perspective. It is a divine “Place” and “Energy”—three awesomely real and loving Persons who hold even now true Justice and Mercy with Living Wisdom. n Bishop Rose heads the diocese of Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal. He is a former rector of St John Vianney National Seminary in Pretoria.

More than one side Firstly, we must avoid what has been described as a “monothematic approach” (don’t be put off by that term; I’ll clarify it). In the early ‘80s South Africa was so passionately committed to the destruction of injustice that, at least initially, it gave little if any attention to the need for the construction of justice. For a time, the forces of freedom were torn apart by the opposition of these two tasks. It was only later— certainly by the beginning of the 1990s—that negotiations began that included among other issues the drawing up of a new Constitution. The Liberator now recognised the need for the Creative Governor. In the Church today, it seems to me, we are being compelled— forced—into a perception that we have to choose between justice or mercy. In crude terms we are asked: “Whose side are you on?” Are we for Cardinal Burke or for Cardinal Kasper? This is to think monothematically and it is wrong; it is radically incomplete. The 1985 model calls us today to acknowledge both justice and mercy. Scripture speaks of all things being twofold: All things are twofold, one opposite the other and he has made nothing incomplete” (Ecclesiasticus 42: 24). The author GK Chesterton is very powerful here. In his book Orthodoxy he writes: “Instead of saying like Greek philosophy that ‘virtue was in a balance’, Christianity ‘de-

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The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

FAITH

‘My conversion from mafia to priesthood’ As far as conversion stories go, that of Donald Calloway is dramatic: from working for the Japanese mafia to the Catholic priesthood, as Mary reZaC explains.

ATHER Donald Calloway, 44, could give St Augustine a run for his money, in terms of dramatic conversion stories. In a recent Vimeo video produced by Spirit Juice Studios and the Knights of Columbus, Fr Calloway recalled his radical transformation from atheist, drug-addicted high school dropout to Catholic priest. The child of a military family, Donald (his family called him Donnie), moved from Virginia to Southern California with his parents at the age of 10. He was enticed by the lifestyle of Southern California, and by the age of 13, was living solely for pleasure—a pursuit that would eventually lead to a downward spiral landing him in rehab, jail, and with suicidal thoughts. When his dad announced one day that the family would be moving to Japan, Donnie became “enraged” at the thought of leaving. Once in Japan, Donnie sought out friends who were into the same things he was. Those friends soon became his connection to the Japanese mafia organisation called the Yakuza. “I was a little Caucasian boy that they could fill up my backpack with all these drugs and money, to run to different casinos on the big island

of Honshu, the main island of Japan,” he recalled. But before too long, Donnie was a wanted man by both the Japanese government and the United States government, including the US military presence in Japan. “They literally kicked me out of the country with two military police officers handcuffed at my feet and my hands, and I was released into the custody of my father,” he said. Donnie was placed into a rehabilitation centre, but relapsed immediately after he was released. At that point in his life, happiness was equivalent to feeling good, which meant never coming down from being high. He tried to never be sober. Occasionally he would wonder about the meaning of life, but it was always in terms of achieving and maintaining the high of those experiences, it wasn’t in a religious context. Then one night, an almost-21year-old Donnie was spending a quiet night at home in his room. Without the distraction of music or the noises of a party, his thoughts soon turned dark—to panic and suicide. Looking for a diversion, he grabbed a random book from his parents’ bookshelf, which happened to be about Marian apparitions. Although his mother was a devout Catholic, he had rejected religion for so long that he had no idea who the Blessed Virgin Mary was. But he started reading, and he was hooked. “It talked about a beautiful woman named Mary who was the mother of Jesus, and that she was

Fr donald Calloway with surfboard today, and (inset) as a troubled youngster who would run drugs for the Japanese mafia. beautiful, so beautiful that she would make little children cry and fall on their knees because of her femininity and her loveliness. That fascinated me,” he said. “I think God used the beauty of the Virgin Mary to get me, and it was a brilliant method because it worked. I read the whole book in one night, and that began my radical falling in love with Jesus Christ.” In his 2010 book No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy, Fr Calloway recalls what happened the next morning. Barely able to spit out his experience to his mom, because of his embarrassment and lack of religious vocabulary, he eventually convinced her that he had had a sin-

cere religious experience. She immediately started calling every priest she could think of who would meet with her son. But it was just after 6 in the morning, and most priests were not yet awake, or at least not up for a very early morning appointment. The first priest they called “did not comprehend the urgency of the situation—the need for a meeting at 6:30 am, with no prior notice. In his mind, what could be so important that it couldn't wait a couple of hours?” Fr Calloway recalled. “Unwilling to give up so easily, my mother called a second priest but got much the same response. ‘Can we put off the meeting until 8:30 or 9:00?’ he asked. “As she was dialling a third

priest, I interrupted and said, ‘Mom, isn't there one of those...’ My voice trailing off much as it did before. I didn't even know what to call it. We were living at Norfolk Naval Air Station, and I didn't know if the place I was thinking of was called a church or a chapel. I said, ‘Isn't there one of those things just inside the main gate?’” he recalled in his book. “Understanding what I was referring to, she looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Yes, Donnie. Run!’” Soon after, he was able to meet with a priest, who invited him to come and watch him celebrate Mass. After Mass, the priest gave Donnie a painting of Jesus. “I was shocked that [Jesus] was not looking at me like he was going to crush me. The image was of him in a gesture of blessing. I began to cry. I realised that I was loved and that I was wanted by God,” he said. Eventually, in 2003, the keen surfer became a priest with the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, an international Polish-founded order that has a special devotion to the Divine Mercy. Fr Calloway often travels to speak about his remarkable conversion story. “I often tell people that I’m Exhibit A of Divine Mercy—it works. I’ve done so many bad things and hurt so many people, and yet there’s mercy for someone like me. And if that’s true, and it is, then the whole world, there’s an ocean of mercy waiting for us,” he said. “Jesus loves you, and he came for you. God is madly in love with you, he’s longing for your friendship, he’s panting for your heart. Give it to him, and trust in him,” he said.—CNA

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The Southern Cross, december 14 to december 20, 2016

CLASSIFIEDS

Make mall Santas work for you

N a survey, 81% of 18- to 25year-old Americans said “getting rich” was their generation’s most important or second-most-important life goal. Their goal is probably replicated throughout the Western world. In a culture based so much on money and acquisition, young people can easily develop a materialistic mindset that puts possessions at the centre of life. For parents, charged with the education and spiritual formation of their children, the prospect of battling a massive advertising industry can seem daunting—particularly as Christmas approaches. Billions are spent on the research and marketing of products to children and teens. Entire segments of television programming—such as Saturday morning cartoons—are scheduled around the advertisements that will target a captive audience. As Catholic Christians, striving to celebrate the authentic meaning of Christmas, it is im-

portant to keep Advent a time of preparation and anticipation of Christ’s birth. It’s not easy amid the blitz of “Black Friday” specials. Instead of trying to block out the pre-Christmas clamour of the secular world, parents may find it helpful to turn it to their advantage, as a way of emphasising the importance of Christ’s birth. While the secular world may neglect the penitential spirit of Advent, even the glitz and glamour of holiday marketing campaigns can be explained to children as evidence of the world’s excitement over the Nativity of our Lord. One Catholic mother of four young children explains how she keeps her children focused on the anticipation of Christmas, in spite of the distractions encountered in the malls and on television. “I tell my kids that all of it— the Christmas music, the toy commercials—it’s all because

Jennifer Uebbing

advent reflection

everyone is so excited for Jesus’ birthday. We take the opportunity to say a little Advent prayer whenever we hear a favourite Christmas carol or see a Santa Claus.” She paused, smiling: “As you can imagine, we do a lot of praying this month.” Some other practical suggestions include making a game of spotting Christmas lights as beacons for Mary and Joseph on their journey towards Bethlehem, and saving Christmas cards to string together with ribbon to make a “Bethlehem chain” leading to the nativity set in your home. n Jennifer Uebing writes the “Mama Needs Coffee” blog on Catholic News Agency.

Your prayer to cut and collect

Advent Prayer Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight in Bethlehem. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, [State your intentions here...]

through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 737. ACROSS: 5 Dull, 7 Holy Father, 8 Rota, 10 Obligate, 11 Attune, 12 Harrow, 14 Effect, 16 Missal, 17 Comforts, 19 Days, 21 Sacredness, 22 Etch. DOWN: 1 Char, 2 Syracuse, 3 Salome, 4 Shiloh, 5 Drug, 6 Lectionary, 9 Out of court, 13 Resident, 15 Thrice, 16 Masses, 18 Fish, 20 Sash.

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)

CAPE TOWN: The Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Good Shepherd parish, Bothasig, welcomes all visitors. open 24 hours a day. The parish is at 1 Goede Hoop St, Bothasig. Phone 021 558 1412.

Helpers of God’s Precious Infants. Mass on last Saturday of every month at 9:30 at Sacred Heart church in Somerset road, Cape Town. Followed by vigil at Marie Stopes abortion clinic in Bree Street. Contact Colette Thomas on 083 412 4836 or 021 593 9875 or Br daniel SCP on 078 739 2988.

DURBAN: Holy Mass and Novena

to St Anthony at St anthony’s parish every Tuesday at 9:00. Holy Mass and Divine Mercy Devotion at 17:30 on first Friday of every month. Sunday Mass at 9:00. Phone 031 309 3496 or 031 209 2536. Overport rosary group. at emakhosini Hotel, 73 east Street every Wednesday at 18.30. 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 17:30.

Liturgical Calendar Year A – Weekdays Cycle Year 3 Sunday December 18, 4th Sunday of Advent Isaiah 7:10-14, Psalms 24:1-6, Romans 1:1-7, Matthew 1:18-24 Monday December 19 Judges 13:2-7, 24-25, Psalms 71:3-6, 16-17, Luke 1:5-25 Tuesday December 20 Isaiah 7:10-14, Psalms 24:1-6, Luke 1:26-38 Wednesday December 21, St Peter Canisius Song of Solomon 2:8-14, Psalms 33:2-3, 11-12, 20-21, Luke 1:39-45 Thursday December 22 1 Samuel 1:24-28, Responsorial Psalm 1 Samuel 2:1, 4-8, Luke 1:46-56 Friday December 23, St John of Kanty Malachi 3:1-4; 4, 5-6 (3, 1-4, 23-24), Psalms 25:4-5, 8-10, 14, Luke 1:57-66 Saturday December 24 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14, 16, Psalms 89:2-5, 27, 29, Luke 1:67-79 Evening vigil: Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalms 89:4-5, 1617, 27-29, Acts 13:16-17, 22-25, Matthew 1:1-25 Sunday December 25, Nativity of Christ Midnight Mass: Isaiah 9:2-7 (1-6), Psalms 96:1-3, 11-13, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2:1-14 Mass at dawn: Isaiah 62:11-12, Psalms 97:1, 6, 11-12, Titus 3:4-7, Luke 2:15-20 Mass during the day: Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalms 98:16, Hebrews 1:1-6, John 1:1-18

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IN MEMORIAM

DONNELLY—eugene. in loving memory of our longstanding colleague, friend and loyal servant of The Southern Cross who left us on december 18, 2011. remembered fondly by the staff of The Southern Cross.

PERSONAL

ABORTION WARNING: The truth will convict a silent Church. See www.valuelifeabortion isevil.co.za ABORTION WARNING: The Pill can abort. all Catholic users (married or cohabiting) must be told, to save their souls and their unborn infants. See www.epm.org/static/up loads/downloads/bcpill.pdf

voke you, special patron in time of need. To you i have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. Help me now in my urgent need and grant my petitions. in return i promise to make your name known and publish this prayer. amen. THANkS be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, For all the benefits thou hast won for me, For all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me. o most merciful redeemer, Friend, and Brother, May i know thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly, For ever and ever.

PRAYERS

HOLY ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who in-

O VIRGIN Mother, in the depths of your heart you pondered the life of the Son you brought into the world. Give us your vision of Jesus and ask the Father to open our hearts, that we may always see His presence in our lives, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, bring us into the joy and peace of the kingdom, where Jesus is Lord forever and ever. amen ALMIGHTY GOD, from whom all thoughts of truth

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and peace proceed, kindle in the hearts of all men the true love of peace, and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who make decisions for the nations of the earth; that in tranquility your kingdom may go forward, till the earth be filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. amen.

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

CAPE TOWN: Looking for reasonably priced accommodation over the december/January holiday period, come to kolbe House. Set in beautiful gardens in rondebosch. Self-catering, clean and peaceful. Safe parking. Close to all shops and public transport. Contact Pat on 021 685 7370 or kolbe.house@telkomsa.net GORDON’S BAY: Harbour Park. Sleeps 2 adults and 2 children. Fully furnished. r2 100 per week. Phone alison on 084 577 1356 or delton on 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 on 082 784 5675 or mjsal ida@gmail.com SCOTTBURGH: Self-catering garden cottage, sleeps four. Phone Margaret on 083 716 5161.

Traditional Latin Mass Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel 36 Central Avenue, Pinelands, Cape Town Call 0712914501 for details. Email:sspx.capetown@gmail.com The

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Sunday December 25: Christmas Day Readings: Luke 2:1-14, Luke 2:15-20, John 1:1-18

EXT Sunday is, unusually, that Christmas Day at which our Advent has been aiming. So it seems a good idea to look at the three Gospels which you might be hearing when you attend Mass on the day. If you are at Midnight Mass, the story you will hear is Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. It starts, “it came to pass in those days”. Then Luke invites us to focus, not on Jesus, but on Caesar Augustus, the most powerful man in the world, giving orders that “the whole world was to be registered”, and linking it to the time of Quirinius as procurator of Syria. But Luke has played a trick on us, and it is not these powerful “fat-cats” that engage his interest, but Joseph, forced to travel all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem with his fiancée, Mary (whom Luke shockingly reveals to be pregnant). Then things get worse, for this child, whom we have already learnt to recognise as “Saviour of the World”, is duly brought to birth, and is now “wrapped in swaddlingclothes” and laid in a feeding-trough. To get the appropriate sense of shock, you might think of it as a “dog-bowl” as a place to put this very important child. The point is that “there was no room for them in the dwelling-place”, and that simply should not have happened at the birth of

S outher n C ross

such a child. Then Luke turns to some unlikely witnesses for this improbable birth, namely “shepherds in the district”. Now it is no good you imagining some gentle medieval romance; for in that culture, shepherds were not at all respectable, but more like hard-bitten cowboys, living on the margins of society, and not respectable enough to sleep at night. Nevertheless it is these rough-hewn workers whom “the angel of the Lord stood over”, and whom “the glory of the Lord shone around”; so they are clearly chosen by God; and indeed it turns out that they are entirely appropriate for such an event, because “they feared with a great fear”, which is what good people do when they encounter the living God. And it is these disreputable characters who are given the all-important message: “Today has been born for you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.” Then the scene closes, beautifully, with the rest of the heavenly host singing, “Glory in the highest to God, and on earth peace among people of good will”. If your option is for the dawn Mass, then the Gospel that you will hear is the continuation of that first one. It tells of the reaction of the shepherds after this angelic visitation:

“They started saying to each other, ‘Let us go as far as Bethlehem, and see this thing that the Lord has made known to us’.” We notice that they are in no doubt about the source of the message; and, like Mary before them, they act on this idea “in haste”, finding everything just as they had been told, and “they revealed about the word that had been spoken to them about this little child”, to the astonishment of the hearers. The story ends there, and “the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them”. However, that is not quite all, for Luke adds a comment that is meant to model for us how we should react to this extraordinary Christmas event, telling us: “As for Mary, she was keeping everything in her heart, comparing these things in her heart.” That is what the reader of this beautiful story is now invited to do; sit and watch these remarkable events, and ask yourself, “What is God doing here?” If, finally, it is going to be Mass during the day, you will be rewarded with that remarkable prologue to the gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was towards God, and the Word was God.” Everything you need to know is in that

Our four endless struggles A

Conrad

RT has its martyrs, and perhaps our greatest pain is that of inadequate self-expression. That’s an insight from Iris Murdoch and it holds true, I believe, for almost everyone. Inside each of us there’s a great symphony, a great novel, a great dance, a great painting, a great book of wisdom, a depth we can never adequately express. But no matter our wit or talent, we can never really write that book, do that dance, create that music, or paint that painting. We try, but what we are able to express even in our best moments is but a weak shadow of what’s actually inside us. And so we suffer, in Murdoch’s words, a martyrdom of inadequate self-expression. What underlies this? At its root, this is not a struggle with what’s base or deficient inside us—pride, concupiscence, arrogance, or ignorance. To the contrary, we struggle with this tension because we carry divinity inside us. We are made in the image and likeness of God. This is fundamental to our Christian self-understanding. But this must be properly understood. We do ourselves a disservice when we understand this in an over-pious way, when we imagine it as a holy icon of God stamped inside our souls which we need to live a chaste and moral life. It’s true we must live such lives, but there’s more at stake, particularly as it pertains to our self-understanding. What we are forever dealing with is an immense grandiosity inside us. There’s a

Nicholas King SJ

Touching edge of mystery

divine energy in us which, precisely because it is divine, never makes easy peace with this world. We carry inside us divine energies, divine appetites, and divine depth. The spiritual task of our lives then, in essence, is that of ordering those energies, directing them so they are generative rather than destructive. And this is never a simple task. Moreover, our struggle to direct these divine energies triggers a whole series of other struggles. Because we carry divine energy within our very make-up, we should expect, this side of eternity, to struggle perennially with four things.

irst, we will struggle always to keep a balance between the pressures inside us pushing towards creativity and other voices inside that are telling us to keep a firm grip on our own sanity. We see this played out large in the lives of many artists in their struggle with normalcy, to keep their feet solidly planted within what’s ordinary and domestic because their push for creativity is also pushing them towards the dark, rich chaos that lies more deeply inside. All of us more or less struggle in the same way as do great artists. We too are lured towards the rich chaos inside us, even as we fear what it might do to our sanity. Second, we will struggle perennially with an overstimulated grandiosity. The divine fires inside us easily flame

Sunday reflections

sentence, except that you must then read the whole of the fourth Gospel in order to go deeper into the mystery of who this Jesus is. Except, of course, that we are nowhere told that this “Word” is Jesus; instead we learn that “everything came to be through him, and apart from him, not a single thing came to be”. And the mystery goes a step deeper: “In him was life. And the life was the light of human beings. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness did not master it.” These short sentences carry the high poetry of these lines, and reach their stunning climax in the claim: “The Word became flesh—and we saw his glory, the glory as of the only Son of the Father.” And the prologue ends, darkly but powerfully: “No one has ever seen God; only-Begotten God, the one who is in the Father’s bosom, that is the One who has expounded God.” Our heads spin as we listen to or read these majestic words; and we glimpse that we are on the edge of a mystery that we can only begin to grasp.

Southern Crossword #737

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final reflection

out of control. In a world where everything is shown to us on a screen in our hands and where the successes, beauty, achievements and talents of others are forever in front of our eyes, we are forever being overstimulated in our grandiosity. This is felt in our restlessness, in our sense of missing out on life, in our jealousies, in our anger for not being recognised for our talents and uniqueness, and in our constant dissatisfaction with our own lives. Third, because there is an innate connection between the energy for creativity and sexuality, we will struggle with sexuality. The algebra is clear: Creativity is inextricably linked with generativity and generativity is inextricably bound up with sexuality. No accident that great artists often struggle with sex, which doesn’t give them an excuse for irresponsibility but helps explain the reason. In sharp contrast, many religious people are in denial about this connection. Unfortunately that only drives the struggle underground and make it more dangerous. Finally, we all struggle perennially to find that equilibrium between inflation and depression. We are forever finding ourselves either too full of ourselves or too empty of God, that is, either identifying with the divine energies inside us and becoming pompous or, through false humility, over-sensitive; and wounded, not letting the divine energy flow through us and consequently living in depression because we have stunted our own creativity. The American psychologist James Hillman suggested that a symptom suffers most when it doesn’t know where it belongs, and so it is important that we try to name all of this. Divine energy living inside fallible human beings is a formula for tension, disquiet, and, yes, for martyrdom; but it’s meant to be a creative tension, a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. Proper naming doesn’t take away the pain and frustration, but at least it affords us a noble, poetic canopy under which to suffer.

ACROSS

5. Like a boring sermon on a cloudy day (4) 7. Address of the Bishop of Rome (4,6) 8. Vatican marriage tribunal (4) 10. Bind by duty (8) 11. Harmonise to sound of a melody (6) 12. Distress for the gardener (6) 14. The result of your action (6) 16. Liturgical book (6) 17. Consolations (8) 19. Times of light (4) 21. Cards sense leads to sanctity (10) 22. Engrave in wretched place (4)

Solutions on page 11

DOWN

1. Singe the cleaning lady (4) 2. Paul stayed here for three days (Ac 28) (8) 3. She witnessed the Crucifixion (Mk 15) (6) 4. Eli’s sons were priests here (1 Sam 1) (6) 5. Guard has a loss and turns to medication (4) 6. Reader’s liturgical text comes from it (10) 9. Where the tennis player may settle his case (3,2,5) 13. At home like the local bishop (8) 15. Three in number (6) 16. Large crowds at Sunday liturgies (6) 18. If he asks for this he won’t get a serpent (Mt 7) (4) 20. Decoration in the window frame? (4)

CHURCH CHUCKLE

pastor—the doom-spraying type—was praying for a demon-possessed man. “In the name of Jesus, what do you want from this man? Speak up now before I cast you out,” the exorcist ordered. The demon in the man said: “I want him to win the lottery draw worth R750 million tonight.” The priest lowered the microphone and whispered: “Get out of that man and enter into me.”

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