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The

S outher n C ross www.scross.co.za

June 28 to July 4, 2017

Reg No. 1920/002058/06 No 5038

A pilgrimage impression of Fatima

Lapsed Catholics: Consumerism is one culprit

Interview: Finding God in addiction

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Cardinal: Court case against Church ‘a joke’

BY ERIN CARELSE

A Cardinal Wilfrid Napier takes a penalty kick at the inauguration of the Blessed Benedict Daswa Sports Field at Durban’s St Augustine’s Primary School. The cardinal, who is the archbishop of Durban, blessed the sports field named after South Africa’s first beatified martyr in the presence of school chaplain Fr Anthony Kudupadam TOR and his predecessor, Fr Sean Mullin CSSp, Catholic Schools Office director Lionel Samuel, and staff, friends and pupils of the school.

Daswa inspired school’s new pitch STAFF REPORTER

F

OR a Durban primary school, a new sports field represents an opportunity to remember and honour a martyr for the faith.

The seed for the idea to set up a new sports field at St Augustine’s Primary School in Greyville was planted by former school chaplain Fr Sean Mullin CSSp. At the time of Bl Benedict Daswa’s beatification in September 2015, he issued a challenge: “What can you do as a school to remember a martyr—a South African Servant of God, a person who believed and died for his faith?”

Principal Judy Fynn had already been concerned about the state of the school’s playground which she regarded as unsuitable for sports practice and physical education classes.

“We knew that Benedict Daswa was an educator and a principal of a school. He was also an avid sportsman. When he was attacked, he tried to escape his attackers by running across a sports field,” said Angela Pienaar, religious education coordinator at St Augustine’s.

“We therefore decided to take up the challenge by Fr Mullin by organising a sports field for our learners—our future leaders— and naming it after Bl Benedict Daswa.”

It took two years to realise that goal. The school’s Mrs Frank, an ex-pupil, oversaw the project.

At an inauguration ceremony, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban blessed and opened the field in the presence of Fr Mullin, current school chaplain Fr Anthony Kudupadam TOR, Catholic Schools Office director Lionel Samuel, and staff, friends and pupils of the school.

For the school, this was a day to remember.

“Our principal, staff and learners will never forget our awesome celebration,” Mrs Pienaar said. “When the cardinal walked on the field for the ceremonial kick-off, our children screamed with delight. It was an amazing day, especially watching the cardinal on the field with our children.”

The first game to be played on the field was a match between two sides of the U-11 boys football team representing Arsenal and Burnley—the latter being Cardinal Napier’s favourite English team.

FTER he spoke to a KwaZulu-Natal man who sued the local Catholic Church for blasphemy‚ murder and the Spanish Inquisition, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban said he knew that he was dealing with someone not in full possession of his faculties.

André Slade, a Sodwana Bay guesthouse owner who made headlines last year when he refused to accommodate black people and government employees, with his Slovakian wife, Katarina Krizaniova, launched legal action against the Catholic Church, the Holy See and Cardinal Wilfrid Napier as respondents.

They were seeking an order that “the liberty granted to Roman curia to set foot on land in South Africa be revoked” because of “blasphemy, crimes against humanity, murder, perjury and prejudice”, and that by supporting the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, was party to crimes against humanity.

Judge Mokgere Masipa in the Durban High Court quickly dismissed the case due to issues around his affidavit and her jurisdiction, and ordered the applicants to pay the costs of the application and the legal costs incurred by Cardinal Napier.

Cardinal Napier told The Southern Cross that he knew after speaking to Mr Slade that he was dealing with someone with problems.

“The first ‘summons’ was delivered to the chancery reception desk in May. How it came to be served was itself a mystery, since it was amazingly vague and incomplete, and furthermore, not signed by any court official,” the cardinal said.

“My first reaction was to call Mr Slade to find out if there was something specific that the Church had done to him or to his wife, which could be resolved without taking up the court's valuable time,” he said.

“When he repeated the same vague issues on the phone, I asked him if I had done anything to him or his wife, but his answer was equally as vague. As a last resort I asked him if we knew each other or had met at any stage.

When he told me that we had met, and the occasion was my visit to his guesthouse at Sodwana Bay, I knew we were dealing with

S outher n C ross Pilgrimage

someone with problems other than those raised in the summons,” Cardinal Napier said.

“I thanked him, now knowing what kind of person I was dealing with, and hung up the phone.”

About a week later a second and more complete summons arrived.

“This was referred to our attorneys, who lodged a motion to dismiss. His application was struck from the Durban High Court roll, due to issues around his affidavit and her jurisdiction and costs were awarded to us as we had to engage the services of an advocate.”

Cardinal Napier said that his reaction on receiving the summonses was “to ask myself whether the time hadn’t come for the Church to take a stand against the state’s increasing encroachment on religious rights in general, and the Catholic Church’s right to teach what it believes to be God's law revealed in the Scriptures and entrusted to the Church by the Son of God Jesus Christ”.

He said the words of Peter and John in Acts 4:19 came to mind: “You must judge whether we must obey you or God!” Cardinal Napier considered referring the case to the Vatican but because it was so absurd‚ decided against it.

He hoped that courts will in future be more discerning about which cases they allows on their roll.

Mr Slade, 54, refers to himself as “the son of God” and his wife as “the Holy Spirit”.

In his case against the Catholic Church he demanded that the Church confess to what he called a “new world agenda”‚ denounce all monarchies as well as release all “scriptures‚ written history and archaeological evidence” in their control. He also demanded that the church withdraw “18 000 amendments to the Bible in admittance to their plagiarism”.

Mr Slade is facing charges of hate speech before the Equality Court this month for sending an e-mail saying blacks and government officials were not allowed to stay at his guesthouse.

Mr Slade is currently in more serious legal trouble after he allegedly shot and killed his 26-year-old neighbour Siyabonga Nsele, who he claims was intruding on his property.

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The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

LOCAL

Thousands flock to Kevelaer shrine T

BY KURT HOLMES

HOUSANDS of members of the Sacred Heart Sodality flocked to Kevelaer, KwaZulu-Natal, for their annual pilgrimage, to pay homage to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the intercession of Our Lady.

The shrine of Our Lady of Kevelaer has been very busy this year, especially with the Catholic world celebrating the 100th anniversary of the apparitions in Fatima, Portugal, to three shepherd children. Pilgrims from all over the country, who cannot make it to Fatima, have come to Kevelaer near Ixopo, to place their prayers and petitions before Our Lady.

Kevelaer has been a place of pilgrimage in South Africa for many years, since the miraculous image of Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted was brought here from Germany by Fr Vitalis Fux in 1947.

The picture, together with another, dates from 1623, when two soldiers bought them during the Thirty Years’ War in Europe.

One of the images was placed at a shrine in Kevelaer, Germany, in 1642, in a chapel built by Henry Busman after he had heard a voice calling him: “Build here a little chapel for me.”

In 1932, Fr Fux went to Germany to raise

funds to build a bigger church at his mission station at Ixopo. He made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Kevelaer, where he learned about the existence of the second picture, which was still with the family of one of the soldiers after 300 years.

Fr Fux visited the soldier’s descendants, who initially refused to part with the picture.

Eventually, they gave it to the priest on another visit.

Before returning with the picture to South Africa, Fr Fux went to see the mystic and stigmatic Therese Neumann, who was unable to see. However, as soon as the picture was held in front of her, she placed her finger on it and said: “This is the Mother of Our Redeemer, Consoler of the Afflicted.”

Fr Fux was convinced of the authenticity of the picture. He and the image of Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted finally arrived in South Africa in 1947, when it was solemnly enshrined in the new church at Kevelaer in Mariannhill diocese.

Since then, pilgrims have made their way to Kevelaer to place their petitions before Our Lady. There have been many reports of prayers being answered as a result of devotions at the shrine of Kevelaer.

The Kevelaer shrine continues to serve as a beacon of light and hope, not only for the

many pilgrims, but also for the local community of Donnybrook, which benefits from the area’s many outreach programmes.

One such programme is the Sukumani Sakhe community-based care group, which provides counselling, support and love for orphaned and vulnerable children, people with HIV/Aids, the aged and frail, among others.

There is also a clinic at Kevelaer which provides high-quality care at little or no cost, and a low-cost housing project aimed at helping the poor build decent homes.

These projects, however, face financial constraints, and Kevelaer mission is in desperate need of donors. Among its urgent projects is renovating the church and its facilities, over 100 years old.

The major Sacred Heart pilgrimage held in June is only surpassed by the crowds that gather at Kevelaer in August for an all-night vigil to celebrate the feast of the Assumption.

One of the youngest pilgrims at this month’s vigil was Danielle Holmes, 8, who said she was there because she just loved Mary.

“Mary is our Mother and, just like all mothers, she loves her children and loves to help them,” she said.

“I came here to pray for my family and to let Mary know that I love her too.”

Major crowds gathered at the shrine of Our Lady at Kevelaer in KwaZulu-Natal to pay homage to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the intercession of his Mother.

Taking Corpus Christi to the streets

U Maria Regina parish in Lyttelton, Gauteng, held a Eucharistic procession through the streets on Corpus Christi.

NDER the leadership of the parish’s Men in Christ group, parishioners of Maria Regina took to the streets of Lyttelton in a special Eucharistic procession following the early morning Mass on Corpus Christi.

At the head, parish priest Fr Sefiri Motsepe knelt before the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance on the back of a bakkie. Three times along the route he placed the monstrance on wayside altars when Scripture

texts and prayers were read.

At the three stations, members of the Catholic Women’s League, the Knights of Da Gama and the parish youth group (Plugs) highlighted the procession’s intention of praying for women and children who were victims of abuse and violence.

The procession concluded with Benediction at the entrance to the church.

At the beginning of Mass, Fr Motsepe welcomed guest homilist and

concelebrant Fr Kevin Reynolds, and members of various Men in Christ groups in Gauteng.

Fr Reynolds reminded the congregation how previously people had been encouraged to spend a little time after Mass in church, mindful of Christ’s sacramental presence still within them, and suggested parishioners revive the practice of giving their Eucharistic Lord some extra time whenever they attended Mass.

New Jesuit podcasts on Sunday readings

BY ERIN CARELSE

T

HE Jesuit Institute is offering a weekly reflection on the Sunday readings via podcast. The podcasts are available every Friday and can be accessed via the Jesuit Institute’s website (www.jesuitinstitute. org.za).

The institute decided to begin the podcasts at the beginning of the liturgical year to offer people a way of reflecting on the Sunday readings in their own time and space.

“We try to make connections between the weekly Scripture texts and what’s going on in society and the world,” said Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, director of the Jesuit Institute.

“The podcasts are meant to be a ‘bridge’ that connects faith and life.

Very often people struggle to make that connection, and so we hope that by offering this, we facilitate a deeper reflection on the readings,” he said.

The content of the podcasts is practical, and every week suggestions are made as to what people could do so that the weekly Scriptures can be lived. Each podcast is between 10-14 minutes long.

“We have been surprised by the wide audience the podcasts are slowly getting,” said Fr Pollitt.

“We have regular listeners from Asia, Nigeria and the US, with most of the listeners still being from South Africa.”

The institute has uploaded a few interviews to its podcast page, including one with Fr James Martin SJ on his book Jesus: A Pilgrimage, and another with Fr Rampe Hlobo SJ on the plight of migrants and refugees in South Africa.

The podcasts are produced in the Jesuit Institute’s small multimedia studios in Johannesburg.

The institute also runs a short video project on a variety of topics.

The videos are also available on its website.

“We noticed that we are moving

from a textual to a visual culture, and these short videos try to communicate brief sharp messages which can be used as conversation starters.

Some groups have also downloaded the videos and used them to begin a conversation on a specific topic,” said Fr Pollitt.

The videos, like the podcasts, are free, and the institute asks that those using them acknowledge their source.

After the brutal rape of a woman in Roodepoort, Gauteng, the institute produced a short video which had many views.

They received requests for permission to show the video, not only in South Africa but also in other parts of the continent.

Other videos focus on spirituality.

One video is “An introduction to Ignatian Spirituality”, and Fr Anthony Egan SJ has produced a small series of videos on the Bible, covering topics such as “What is the Bible?”, “How is the Bible the Word of God?”, and “How best to read the Bible”.

These videos can be used in faithformation classes as conversation starters. New videos become available on Fridays and can be found under the video tab on the Jesuit Institute’s website.

Another media project is a weekly column which is used in some parishes. Usually sent out on Fridays, the column attempts in 500 words to address a topic pertinent at that time.

“It is not a comprehensive account of a specific issue but rather an attempt to highlight some or other issue and offer a faith perspective on it,” Fr Pollitt said.

The weekly podcast and video are linked to the Friday mail-out of the column.

The institute also produces a monthly newsletter entitled “Institute Connects” which offers news and gives information of upcoming events. n To join the mailing list e-mail admin @jesuitinstitute.org.za

The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

LOCAL

Bishop: South Africa’s ‘moral fibre broken’

BY ERIN CARELSE

T

HE Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference’s Justice & Peace Commission said corruption has broken the nation’s moral fibre.

Bishop Abel Gabuza of Kimberley, chairman of Justice & Peace, expressed shock at the recent revelations contained in the leaked Gupta e-mails, and urged those implicated in them to do the right thing and resign from office.

In a statement, he said the problem of state capture would not have escalated this far if there had been compulsory disclosure of corporate donations to politicians and political parties.

“We ask all the political parties in parliament to work together to enact such a policy as a matter of urgency. We also call upon the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to require public companies to disclose their political spending to shareholders,” Bishop Gabuza said.

“Public companies should not be allowed to spend the money of shareholders—among them institutional investors—on political parties without informing them.”

The leaked e-mails, if authentic,

show President Jacob Zuma’s patronage network, and its plans to plunder state resources, is more complex and expansive than thought, he said.

Bishop Gabuza called on the governing ANC—“given the high levels and complexity that currently characterise corruption in the public sector and private sector”—to consider the establishment of an anti-corruption court with specialised prosecutors and judges.

“This would provide a stronger adjudication mechanism for the timely and expeditious disposal of corruption and corruption-related cases,” he said.

“It is true that corruption was a problem before Mr Zuma came into office,” the bishop said. “It has, however, worsened under Mr Zuma’s watch. The continued allegations of corruption throughout his term of office have weakened the state’s resolve and credibility to fight the cancer of corruption. As a result, greed and corruption have become the normal way of organising our social, political and economic relationships in South Africa.”

He added: “The moral fibre of our nation is clearly broken.”

Most of the delivery points for public services—home affairs,

schools, licence renewal points, traffic police, police stations, clinics and hospitals—have now become collection points for bribes, he said.

The bishop noted that both in the public and private sector, one can only get a job by bribing someone.

“This sickness is worsening because the president and some cabinet ministers have for a significant period lacked the leadership integrity and credibility necessary to challenge greed and corruption,” he said.

“The longer we have a president and cabinet ministers tainted by serious allegations of corruption, the more this culture will entrench itself in our national psyche, so deep that it will be almost impossible to eradicate in the future.”

The bishops said they therefore make a plea to ANC members to consider this factor when the party chooses its president and new leadership at the end of the year.

“The ANC owes it to the country to ensure that the new ANC president and leadership [have] both the political capacity to demand accountability from the current president and the ethical credibility required to lead from the front in the fight against corruption,” Bishop Gabuza said.

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The Capuchin Poor Clares in Swellendam, Western Cape, were visited by papal nuncio Archbishop Peter Wells. The nuns are seen with Archbishop Wells (centre), Bishop Frank de Gouveia of Oudtshoorn (right) and their chaplain Fr Patrick Classen.

Catholic Comrades Marathon runners from Mofumahadi Wa Rosari parish in Thabong, Welkom, returned to their church for thanksgiving after completing this year’s 92nd Comrades. They had attended Mass the week before running to ask for God’s grace. (From left) Telang Mohlabanyane, Nthabiseng Tinte, Mike Khomoealeburu, Nkhetheni Masupa, Mokete Phale, and parish priest Fr Michael Rasello at back.

Spiritfest Grahamstown to offer range of religious and arts events

BY SAMANTHA CAROLUS

T

HIS year Spiritfest’s Winter School at the Grahamstown Festival (June 29 to July 9) will host services, music events, lectures, discussions and book launches.

Picking up the festival theme of “#must fall”, Spiritfest will look especially at aspects of the struggle for freedom and justice from the perspective of Christian faith.

New this year is a multi-media service, “Under African Skies”, featuring choral music and hymns from South Africa and beyond, with images of the African landscape.

The two Sundays of the festival will see special services: a Unity

Mass at which the congregations of four local Catholic churches will join in worship; a Jazz Mass at the Anglican cathedral; and a service at Every Nation church. On the last Sunday, Bishop Andile Mbete of the Grahamstown Methodist district will lead a procession of witness down High Street with a choir and musicians, culminating in a service in Commemoration church.

This year will also see Lucernarium, a service of candlelight and plainsong; a St Michael’s Marimbas concert; the 40 Stones in the Wall group exhibition; a book reading of The Bear Who Stepped Up by Hilary Murdoch; guided meditation and prayers; as well as an open-mic

session for poetry lovers.

Music includes the Grahamstown Circuit Choir, conducted by Siyabulela Lali and Reuben Maselwa, and a Stephen Holder organ recital titled “Mystery, Modes and Grace”. Singer-songwriters and a capella artists are invited to perform acoustic and unplugged at two open-mic evenings.

On July 3, Jesuit Father Anthony Egan will look at the morality of protest, with questions such as “When is it right to protest?” and

“What kind of protest is legitimate?”

Fr Egan will draw on historical examples, moral philosophy and theology.

Zuko Blauw and Sr Aloysia Zellman will tell how a youth centre has been set up to commemorate Dominican Sister Aidan Quinlan, a medical doctor murdered during the 1952 riots in Duncan Village, East London, in their lecture titled “Sr Aidan Lives On”, on July 4.

Veteran activist, lawyer and theologian Rev Barney Pityana will speak about the faith which underpinned the life of his friend, the late Struggle hero Steve Biko, in a lecture titled “Biko’s Faith”, on July 5.

Lindsay Kelland, in a July 6 lecture titled “Recovering from Rape

PrINCIPAl

CPLO to host other African liaison groups

BY ERIN CARELSE

T

HE Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office (CPLO) is in its tenth year of conducting an annual training course for bishops’ conferences from around Africa. This year, however, it will instead be hosting a three-day conference (from July 3-6) for active parliamentary liaison offices from various African countries.

“In 2000, bishops in Zambia sent a delegation to South Africa for a few weeks to learn about the CPLO’s work and find out if this model could work for them. On their return home, they started their own office, and slowly other countries did too,” said Mike Pothier, CPLO research coordinator.

There are nine African countries with active extant CPLOs or similar structures which will be attending this year: Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia. The secretarygeneral of the Inter-regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa will also participate.

“The aim of the conference is to find out what the active CPLOs are doing, their successes and failures, and what they need to do their work better,” Mr Pothier said. “It’s also an opportunity to find out if they’re getting support from their superiors, bishops, and others in the Church, what their political context is, and if they’re able to make an impact.”

There will be four theological inputs during the conference, from: • Fr Peter-John Pearson, director of the Southern African CPLO, • Ben du Toit, retired theologian in the Dutch Reformed Church, • Imam Rashied Omar of the Claremont Main Road mosque in Cape Town, who is also attached to the Kroc Peace Institute at the University of Notre Dame in the US, • Fr Larry Kaufmann CSsR, a leading South African moral theologian.

Together”, will cover aspects of sexual violence.

On July 7, Spiritfest will host the launch of the book The Road to Emmaus by Chris Mann, on strengthening the resilience of our spiritual life.

Another launch will be that of The Book of Joy by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

Christian students and student leaders at the Grahamstown university will speak on recent campus protests in a panel discussion around the theme of “Faith and #mustfall” on July 8. n For more on Spiritfest visit www. grahamstowncathedral.org/spiritfest/ or facebook.com/spiritfest. grahamstown

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To ensure that the school is managed in compliance with applicable legislation, regulations and personnel administration measures as prescribed, and to ensure that the education of the learners is promoted in a proper manner and in accordance with approved policies.

Key performance areas include:

• Shaping a vision of success for the school and its students. • Creating a climate hospitable to education.• Cultivating leadership in others.• Managing people, data and processes.

• Improving teaching and learning at the school.

Qualifications

• B.Eddegree / Degree + Teaching Diploma (PGCE), preferable an MA in educational leadership or educational administration. • At least 3-5 years’ experience at the levels of Head of Department/ 3 years’ experience at Deputy Principal level at mainstream schools.• Solid communication and problem-solving skills. • Ability to analyse testing data and other statistics. • Digitally literate. • Involvement in community initiatives.

Qualities

• Outstanding Leader, People Person, Fair and Reasonable, Problem Solver, Exceptional Listener

Salary: Negotiable

OvervIeW Of JOB

Social Worker

The duties and responsibilities include providing comprehensive school social work services to parents, students and school staff, addressingbarriers that limit a student from receiving full benefit from their educational experience. Respond to referrals from school administration, parents, teachers, the school Disciplinary Committee by providing direct services and by assisting families in accessing appropriate community resources.

Qualifications

• B.SW • Relevant child and youth care degree and in process with (PGCE) • Valid drivers licence • Involvement in community initiatives

Important Qualities

Empathetic , Patient, Dependable, Organised, Perceptive, Objective, Persistent, Flexible, Resilient Salary range: R13 800 (CTC)/Month

Both positions are based in Cape Town. Please send your details, including work experience, qualifications and contactable references to The COO, Ms. Denise Orgill, The Salesian Institute Youth Programme, at email denise.orgill@salesianyouth.org.za by no later than 5 JulY 2017. If you have not received a reply within two weeks of the closing date, please consider your application unsuccessful.

4

The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

INTERNATIONAL

Pope: Parents, don’t pretend to be teens

BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

I

NSTEAD of “pretending to be adolescents”, parents must help young people see the blessing of growing into adulthood, Pope Francis told catechists, parish council members, priests and religious from the diocese of Rome.

The belief that youthfulness is a model of success “is one of the most dangerous ‘unwitting’ menaces in the education of our adolescents” that hinders their personal growth because “adults have taken their place”, the pope said, opening the Rome diocese’s annual convention.

This “can increase a natural tendency young people have to isolate themselves or to curb their process of growth” because they have no role models, the pope said.

In his nearly 45-minute talk, Pope Francis reflected on the convention’s theme, “Do not leave them alone!

Accompanying parents in educating adolescent children”.

The pope said the first step in

reaching out to young people in Rome is to “speak in the Roman dialect, that is, concretely” rather than in general or abstract terms that do not speak to teens’ problems.

Families in big cities such as Rome face different problems from those in rural areas. For this reason, the pope said, parents must educate their adolescent children “within the context of a big city” and speak to them concretely with “healthy and stimulating realism”.

Although social networking has allowed more people to connect and feel part of a group, its virtual nature can also create a certain alienation where people “feel that they do not have roots, that they belong to no one”, the pope said.

“If we want our children to be formed and prepared for tomorrow, it is not just by learning languages, for example, that they will succeed in doing so. They need to connect, to know their roots. Only then can they fly high,” he said.

Departing from his prepared

speech, Pope Francis said parents “should make room for their children to speak with their grandparents”, who have the gift of passing on “faith, history and belonging with wisdom”.

Pope Francis said parents, catechists and pastors must understand that adolescence is a challenging time in young people’s lives where “they are neither children and do not want to be treated as such and are not adults but want to be treated as such, especially on the level of privileges”.

He also said he was worried about the current trend in society to view adolescence as a “pathology that must be fought” and that leads some parents to “prematurely medicate our youths”.

“It seems that everything is solved by medicating or controlling everything with the slogan ‘making the most of time’ and in the end, the young people’s schedules are worse than that of a high-level executive,” he said. —CNS

Fr Pat McHugh and the Rev Neal Phair in front of St Maeldoid's Protestant church in Muckno, Ireland. St Maeldoid’s, beside the Northern Ireland border, opened its doors to St Mary’s Catholic church, which has closed for renovations. Both Fr McHugh and Rev Phair greet parishioners outside the church after Mass every Sunday. (Photo: Clodagh Kilcoyne, Reuters/CNS)

Belgian beer helps homeless monks

BY MARY REZAC

I Contact us: Tel 041 373-0039 / Mobile 074 376-5833 / Email retreat@catholic-pe.co.za

La Salle College PRINCIPAL

Applications are invited for the post of To commence on 1 January 2018

La Salle College is a day school for boys and girls situated in spacious grounds in the suburb of Discovery in Gauteng. The College was founded by the De La Salle Brothers in 1966 and has 340 pupils from Grade R to Grade 12. The College has a caring Catholic atmosphere and is committed to providing Gospel inspired education in the traditions of the De La Salle Congregation.

The successful applicant for the position of Principal will : • Preferably be a practising Catholic • Have suitable academic and professional qualifications • Have at least 5 years of management experience in school education • Have a proven record of good leadership qualities and people skills • Have effective organizational and administrative skills • Be well versed in the requirements of the IEB and Government Education Departments.

• Be registered with SACE • Be available to commence duties on 1 January 2018

Suitably qualified applicants are invited to apply in writing by submitting: • A Curriculum Vitae setting out the applicant’s relevant experience • A letter dealing with the applicant’s previous management and leadership achievements • The names of at least two referees, one of whom should be a Minister of Religion • Certified copies of SACE registration and academic qualifications • Copy of the applicant’s ID document Applications should be sent to the Chairman of the Board of Governors of La Salle College By post to: P O Box 6183, Ansfrere, 1711 By email to: brendol@yebo.co.za By hand delivery to: La Salle College, Slabbert Street, Discovery, Gauteng The closing date for applications is 28 July, 2017

Suitably qualified applicants may be invited to attend an interview at the College in August 2017. The College reserves the right not to proceed with the filling of the post. An application will not in itself entitle the applicant to an interview. Applicants who are not contacted by 4th August 2017 should assume that their application has not been successful.

T was God and beer sales that helped sustain the Benedictine monks of Norcia, and it is God and beer sales that will help them rebuild.

Last August and again in October, strong earthquakes rocked the town of Norcia in central Italy, killing hundreds of people and destroying the 14th-century basilica of St Benedict, the birthplace of the saint, and the adjacent monastery where the monks of Norcia dwelt.

Miraculously, their brewery, where they produce Birra Nursia, was mostly left intact.

The monks were forced to dwell in tents and cabins through a particularly cold Italian winter while they began rebuilding a new, earthquake-proof monastery in San Benedetto in Monte, just outside the walls of Norcia.

Now, the monks have announced a project that will help them rebuild: Leffe, a Belgian brewery, has agreed to partner with the monks for a special-edition brew, the proceeds of which will go directly to the monks’ new monastery.

Leffe beer, which is brewed in

the monastic tradition, launched a special limitededition brew with Birra Nursia as a joint label with Leffe Blonde.

“While the two beers, Leffe and Birra Nursia, remain distinct, the Nursia name on the Leffe Blonde bottle signifies the shared commitment of the two breweries: to rebuild Norcia and bring hope to the tragedystricken region,” the monks said on their website.

The 100 000 bottles of the special-edition brew will be available for distribution only in Italy, and will directly fund the new wooden chapel, “which is not just for the monks, but is open to all those thirsting after God”, the Benedictines said.

Leffe beer itself

has monastic roots. Norbertine canons of the Leffe abbey had been brewing beer in the town for centuries, until the French Revolution resulted in the abandonment and destruction of the brewery. In the 1950s, determined not to let the brewing tradition die, the abbey’s Abbot Nys met master brewer Albert Lootvoet, and an agreement was struck.

Shortly after, the Leffe brewery was back in full swing; today it is under the corporate ownership of Anheuser-Busch. Some of the proceeds of the beer still support the Leffe monastery.

For the Norcia monks, the wooden chapel is the first phase of a full reconstruction for the abbey.

The monks said the whole experience has been a reminder that “in moments of tragedy when all seems lost, God calls us to trust that somewhere, somehow, good can come from it”.—CNA

Pope, cardinals propose ‘healthy decentralisation’

BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

P

OPE Francis and members of his international Council of Cardinals discussed the possibility of allowing local bishops rather than the Vatican decide on certain matters, including the marriage or priestly ordination of permanent deacons.

It is “what the pope calls a ‘healthy decentralisation’,” said Greg Burke, director of the Vatican press office.

Briefing journalists on the council’s meeting, Mr Burke said the cardinals and pope looked specifically at the possibility of allowing bishops to determine whether a permanent deacon who is widowed can remarry or whether a permanent deacon who is unmarried or widowed can be ordained to the priest-

hood without having to “wait for a decision to be made in Rome”, as is the current rule.

Such decisions regarding permanent deacons now are handled at the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, but could pass to the local bishops’ conference, Mr Burke told journalists.

The Council of Cardinals advising the pope on Church governance also discussed proposals to broaden the participation of laypeople and members of religious orders in the selection of new bishops.

“It is something that already exists, but they want to do it in a more systematic, more extensive way,” Mr Burke said.

As Pope Francis and his international body of cardinal advisers continues looking at a reorganisation of the Roman curia, the meeting also included

a discussion of the proposed new descriptions of the work of the offices dealing with the evangelisation of peoples, Eastern churches, interreligious dialogue and legislative texts.

The Council of Cardinals will meet again on September 11-13.

Its members are: Cardinals Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state; Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Sean O’Malley of Boston; Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, retired archbishop of Santiago, Chile; Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, India; Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany; Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Congo; George Pell, head of the Secretariat of the Economy; and Giuseppe Bertello, president of the commission governing Vatican City State.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

5

Christian leaders decry Pope slams ‘decay and stench of corruption’ Zambian repression

BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

BY FR DON BOSCO ONYALLA

C

C

HRISTIAN leaders in Zambia have lamented the state of affairs in the country, blaming it on “the blatant lack of political will” on the part of the governing party, and strongly rebuking President Edgar Lungu.

“Our country today stands at the crossroads and we are in a crisis. We face many challenges related to governance; the muzzling of people’s freedoms and human rights violations,” the Church leaders have stated in their strongly worded letter.

The leaders are part of the Church Mother Bodies in Zambia, comprising the Council of Churches in Zambia, the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia and the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The leaders have compared the detention and alleged torture of opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema to mistreatment during colonial times. “In this country, only senior citizens well over 60 years can remember the British colonial administration using dogs on us Africans. It was unthinkable that a Zambian government would sink so low as to unleash dogs on its own people.”

“Mr Hichilema has been in custody since he was arrested in a late night raid [on April 10] on his home by heavily armed police service personnel who used unprecedented force and brutality in apprehending just one unarmed citizen,” the Church leaders noted.

Pope Francis greets Zambian President Edgar Lungu during a private audience in February. Zambia’s Christian leaders have since rebuked the president for his govenment’s brutal treatment of citizens. Fr Simon Donnelly of Johannesburg (centre) translated for the pope and President Lungu. (Photo: Alberto Pizzoli, Reuters/CNS) They also lamented the lack of media freedom.

“We Church leaders maintain that the presence of 80 radio stations, online newspapers and independent television stations in Zambia does not mean press and media freedom. Media and press freedom is about journalists and media institutions doing their work without fear, intimidation and threats; it is about news editors publishing and airing what they judge as newsworthy for public good, especially in holding public officers to account.”

The leaders regretted that their collective effort to seek an audience with the country’s president have been unsuccessful.

“Our aim was to bring to his attention some national issues that are of great concern to the Church,” the leaders have said.

“Now that we have not been allowed to proceed along that path, we have decided to issue this statement to let the powers-that-be and the people of Zambia know our position on what is happening in the nation,” the leaders said.— Canaafrica

HRISTIANS and non-Christians must join the fight against corruption, which tears apart the bonds that unite humanity, Pope Francis said.

Corruption “reveals such strong anti-social conduct” that it “dissolves the pillars upon which society is founded: coexistence among people and the vocation to develop it,” the pope wrote in the preface to a new book.

“Corruption breaks all of this by replacing the common good with a particular interest that contaminates every general outlook,” he wrote. “It is born of a corrupt heart and is the worst social plague because it generates serious problems and crimes involving everyone.”

The new book, Corrosion, was written by Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Vittorio Alberti, an Italian philosopher. The book’s release coincided with the Vatican’s first “International Debate on Corruption”.

The meeting, sponsored by the dicastery and the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, looked at corruption as a global problem and at its connections to organised crime and the Mafia.

Among the participants of the meeting were 50 anti-Mafia and anticorruption magistrates, as well as bishops and Vatican officials, heads of movements, victims, journalists, scholars, intellectuals and several ambassadors, the Vatican said.

“We want to assert that we can never trample, deny or hinder the dignity of people. So, it is up to us with this dicastery to know how to protect and promote respect for the dignity of the person,” Cardinal Turkson said.

Writing the book’s preface, Pope Francis said the etymology of the word “corruption” conjures images of a heart that is broken and ruined “like a body that in nature enters into a process of decay and stench”.

The scourge of corruption, he said, is behind the exploitation of people and the environment, the trafficking of humans, arms and drugs, as well as the violation of human rights.

“Corruption, which is in fact a weapon, is the most common language especially of the Mafia and criminal organisations in the world,” the pope wrote. Corruption is “a process of death that lends itself to the culture of death” espoused and promoted by the Mafia.

However, he said, even the Church isn’t immune to the dangers of corruption, which manifests itself in a way “that is more disastrous than leprosy”.

“Our corruption is spiritual worldliness, being lukewarm, hypocrisy, triumphalism, making the spirit of the world dominant in our lives, the feeling of indifference,” he said.

“We Christians and non-Christians are snowflakes, but if we unite, we can become an avalanche, a strong and constructive movement,” the pope said.—CNS

Indian Cardinal Dias dies The

A

LONGTIME diplomat and fluent in 17 languages, Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias died June 19 in Rome after a long illness. He was 81.

Cardinal Dias served as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples before his retirement in 2011 and as archbishop of Mumbai from 1996-2006.

The late cardinal was born on April 14, 1936, in Bandra, in the western Indian city of Mumbai, then Bombay.

He was ordained a priest for the archdiocese of Mumbai in 1958 and received a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

In 1964, he completed his studies at the Vatican institute for diplomats and was appointed to the Vatican Secretariat of State.

He worked for the secretariat’s Eastern Europe desk for nine years, at the height of the Cold War, and became acquainted with St John Paul II, then archbishop of Krakow, Poland.

Cardinal Dias was chief of the desk that served several former Soviet republics, as well as West African

Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias.(Photo: CNS) countries and China, and he worked at nunciatures in Scandinavia, Indonesia, Madagascar and Mauritius.

In 1982, he was consecrated archbishop and sent as apostolic nuncio to Ghana, Togo and Benin. In 1987, he was appointed apostolic nuncio to South Korea, where he worked for four years.

In 1991, he was appointed apostolic nuncio to post-communist Albania, where his task was to rebuild the Church after decades of harshly imposed official atheism.

Pope John Paul made him a cardinal in 2001 and Pope Benedict XVI named him prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples in 2006.—CNS

Pope to visit Chile, Peru

P

OPE Francis will travel to Colombia in September and, the Vatican announced, he will return to South America in January for a visit to Chile and Peru.

The pope will be in Chile from January 15-18, visiting the cities of Santiago, Temuco and Iquique, the Vatican press office announced.

He then will fly to Peru and from January 18-21 will visit Lima, Puerto Maldonado and Trujillo.

The Vatican had announced that the pope would make a pastoral trip to Colombia from September 6-11.

No mention was made of a possible trip to the pope’s homeland, Argentina. He has not returned to the country since he was elected pope in March 2013.

The Peru-Chile trip would be his fourth to South America. In July

2013, he visited Brazil for World Youth Day. In July 2015, he travelled to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay. The September trip to Colombia would be his third to the continent.

With the pope’s trip to South Sudan postponed indefinitely, he is sending close to a half-million dollars (R6,5 million) to help two Church-run hospitals, a teacher training centre and farming projects for families as a way to show the people there his solidarity and support.

Cardinal Peter Turkson told reporters that the ‘Pope for South Sudan’ initiative “wants to make tangible the presence and closeness of the Church with the suffering people”.—CNS

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6

The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Snowflakes must unite

C

ORRUPTION, Pope Francis has said, is “like a body that in nature enters into a process of decay and stench”. That stench is suffocating South Africa.

“Corruption [replaces] the common good with a particular interest that contaminates every general outlook,” the pope wrote in the preface to Corrosion, a new book by Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson and Italian philosopher Vittorio Alberti. “It is the worst social plague because it generates serious problems and crimes involving everyone.”

The decay of corruption set in well before President Jacob Zuma took office in 2009, himself under the cloud of still-unresolved allegations of financial improprieties.

In the intervening years, the scandals involving Mr Zuma, many of his ministers and parastatal appointees have escalated into a deluge of corruption and incompetence.

The recently leaked Gupta emails, if they are authentic, suggest that the extent of state-looting by the Gupta family and their surrogates in government exceeds even our most outlandish suspicions.

Bishop Abel Gabuza, in a statement released by the bishops’ Justice & Peace Commission, rightly observes that “the continued allegations of corruption throughout [President Zuma’s] term of office have weakened the state’s resolve and credibility to fight the cancer which is corruption”.

The bishop observes: “As a result, greed and corruption have now become the normal way of organising our social, political and economic relationships in South Africa.”

As Bishop Gabuza points out, corruption preceded Mr Zuma’s presidency. On a large scale, there was the arms deal under President Thabo Mbeki (in which Mr Zuma’s name first came up in relation to corruption), and the cover-up that followed. And a solid argument can be made to compare the Guptas’ state capture now with the Broederbond’s state capture under the apartheid regime.

But where 20 years ago the relatively minor Sarafina 2 scandal, presided over by then-health minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, was regarded as a big matter, the never-ending flow of corruption that followed, and the craven racketeering by big business, has normalised all manner of dishonesty.

Bishop Gabuza notes this in his statement, saying that many

public services have become “collection points” for bribes, and that many jobs in both the public and private sectors are obtainable only through the payment of backhanders.

His verdict is sharp and accurate: “The moral fibre of our nation is clearly broken.”

It is a verdict that may be applied to many other countries in the world. Indeed, some countries have legalised and institutionalised corruption. The lobby system and campaign financing regulations in the United States are a good example of insidious corruption made legal.

On a global scale, South Africa ranks in the midfield of corrupt nations, though that position is due to our vigilant and resilient civil society, media and independent judiciary rather than any restraint on the part of those who are brazenly looting the state’s coffers.

And it is civil society that must combat corruption. We must stand up to corruption: to those who demand that their palms be greased, to kleptocratic politicians and their principals, and to businesses that collude in pricefixing and other manipulations that exploit people.

And in doing so, our outrage must not be mitigated by the rhetoric of race or political partisanship. Corruption has no colour, no ideology. The evil of greed is universal.

Pope Francis himself has acknowledged that corruption can happen even in churches. Corruption can happen to any of us.

So our stand against corruption demands also individual introspection. How are we breaking moral and ethical laws in our everyday lives? When do we act with impunity—whether it’s stealing a pencil at work or bribing an official—simply because we can get away with it?

We have to battle our own temptations every day. And we must also unite to combat the culture of corruption in our society, business and politics—not in sporadic protests but in a sustained manner that communicates that we have had enough of Zupta, of price-fixing, of corporate exploitation, of greasing palms.

Pope Francis sums up well the power of collective action: “We— Christians and non-Christians— are snowflakes; but if we unite, we can become an avalanche, a strong and constructive movement.”

Evidence for the Shroud of Turin

T

HE Shroud of Turin is, conceivably, the most precious relic of Christianity.

Botanical evidence from the Shroud places its origins in Jerusalem—botanist Avinoam Danin of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has said the analysis of plant and flower imprints on the Shroud, coupled with pollen grains, reveals species of plants that could be found only in March and April in the Jerusalem region centuries ago.

This calls into question the controversial 1988 findings of a group of scientists based on carbon-dating tests that the Shroud dates back only to the 13th or 14th century, which led to the conclusion that the Shroud was a medieval forgery.

However, the erroneous date was arrived at because the samples used were taken from a side strip of the Shroud, had frequently been

Where is the fire of the Holy Spirit?

T

HE altar is the place where the priest, the representative of Christ, imitates him fullest.

It is not the vestments that make the priest; what people are looking at is his attitude, his smile, the way he carries himself, the way he talks.

Priests must speak with authority, clearly, with enthusiasm, and bring God’s message across like they themselves believe what they are doing and saying.

Representing Christ means drawing crowds because that is what Jesus did. Our churches should be overflowing with people seeking, hungry and thirsty for God. Why are churches empty when thousands are in need of the Gospel of Christ? Where is the power in our priests? Do they just do what they have been taught in the seminary? Are priests “superglued” in their safe zone behind the pulpit?

Believe me, people will come to church, they will come to love Jesus, if priests spoke with authority, boldness, confidence, determination, enthusiasm, faith, Godliness and holiness, and imitated Jesus.

Receiving the Holy Spirit will radically transform priests’ lives, exactly like the first disciples, for the Holy Spirit is the action of God, the power of God, the breath of God, the fire of God, and he is God, within you.

If priests, as God’s representatives, are filled with Holy Spirit fire, they will produce congregations filled with Holy Spirit fire.

We need the Holy Spirit and only if we receive him will we be very different.

In fact, people will think we are “under the influence”, and they would be right, of course, for we

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June 21 to June 27, 2017

12-page Catholic Education supplement

Saints were with Fatima pilgrimage

Page 22

Special supplement

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

Special CATHOLIC Focus on EDUCATIO N

to The Southern

Cross, June

21 to June

27, 2017

The state of schooling

Edited by

The state of

Erin Carelse

& Kelsay

remain trapped tion in South basic educatheir families in poverty because cannot afford teachers healthy, as Africa is not send them to versities. are qualifying to better-resourced MDUDUZI schools. from uniQWABE finds.

Poor children Power of the unions: unions have no but to attend teacher choice about block attempts schools where average performance to bring N her budget below and accountability rather than in the sector is the norm interfere speech 24, Basic the and learning with the teaching Education on May Furthermore, exception.

Angie Motshekga Minister growth in schools. slow economic Slow basic education said that has meant delivery: pace of infrastructure that financial system is “the allocations to nitely a system schools—especially defi- those DBE has despite the fact that in the lower “All of us,” on the rise”. the Accelerated the Infrastructure quintiles—have been she duty to School ensure thatsaid, “have a stancesreduced—and in Delivery backlogs our learners Initiative, many inthe even have remain a challenge, cially to quality, right of coming. not been inclusive, espeThis forth- and in provinces effective, the like Limpopo the Eastern teaching negatively affects cation is and efficient basic and learning not Cape. have a stable negotiable. We edu- ties of already activi- on The education system now schools. underperforming an upward the whole system that looks is trajectory indeed pace is very development at Subsidies child—our but the slow. There of a independent to low fee-charging future ber of positive are The minister leaders.” initiatives a numschools ent directorates been admitted Department by that the manyreduced or paid have also designed within thedifferof Basic late, placing (DBE) is concentrating of them to Education under immense the Vision ensure that we DBE nancial pressure, ing the quality realise on improvfi- stakeholders 2030 goals—but ucators’ salaries. especially of outcomes early grades for edall in the Education,have to pull together. taken from of schooling. after all, This is research lective responsibility. n the 2016 is our collearner dropout showing NSC matric that Mduduzi 265 810 candidates and poor outcomes exams, Qwabe is learning ematics. policy, advocacy the manager wrote a result of in the higher grades and government foir weaknesses are with 30%Of those, 135 958 math- tions at the dation phase. in the founpassed cation.

Catholic Institute rela- South half of all or higher—a little Africa’s basic Exploring of Eduunder candidates To produce education than scored tion landscapethe present system is greater success educa- passed 30%. Only about lower holders, writes improving—but ing whether assists in identifywith 60% CIE policy requires collective only or above. 34 000 The basic the system improving researcher commitment very slowly. education Mduduzi Qwabe. is has been by all stakedepartment that need and where the to gaps in recent celebrating improvements There are be addressed are. international Southern 30 231 schools South Africa. studies: the in tium for and East African ConsorOf these ordinary 25 826 Monitoring Educational primary; public schools (14 are Quality (SACMEQ 206 Trends IV), and ondary; 6 411 secin International the 5 209 comics and Science bined MathematStudy (TIMSS intermediate). and 2015).

Although these inThere deed show considerable are 12 883 888 improvement, in all sectorslearners Africa remains South of the basic education one of the lowest-performing system: 93% developing nary public in ordithe TIMSS countries in schools; 4% in independent there are results, and also concerns schools; over the 2,2% in SACMEQ Early Childhood sults. reDevelopment The poor and 0,9% centres, ance of learnersperformschools. in special in reading and comprehension There are has been 446 008 educators mented bywidely docuin the a number schools studies. of (186 285 of them primary).

Out of The learner-educaa hundred tor ratio children is school, only who start is 481:1 and29:1; learner to school about 54 12, and educator finish Grade 17:1. of to school is passed Grade these only 72,5% Over 98% of 7-15-year-olds This adds 12 in 2016. at school, but the quality are omy that is pressure on an econa challenge already experiencing with expertsremains sluggish growth 80% of schools—the saying other aggravated dysfunctional. poorest—are Youth socio-economic by unemployment factors.

The basic as being is estimated education a budget sector has can, to in excess of 60%, allocation a certain lion for the of R23,4 extent, be which bil- uted to the attribcrease of 2017/18 budget, high dropout an in- schools. about R1,1 rate in the 2016/17 billion from Other challenges erable amountallocation. A considmentioning that are worth of expenditure to infrastructure, are: goes Lack at about lion, the R13 bil- trict/circuitof capacity at National distion Programme offices: School Nutridelivery at this affects the at R6,8 billion, tem. and Planning, The policycoalface of the sysInformation Assessment on the “Role Organisation and at R6,7 billion. of Education and The DBE tricts” was has done Disto introduce a great deal deal with promulgated in 2014 pro-poor through since beenthis challenge and to policies programmes has gazetted the inequalities ment. to mitigate for amendthat persist the South within Service delivery include theAfrican economy. disrupting protests These National school attendance: tion Programme, School Nutri- the past few years, in schools policy, protesting the communities and learner no-fee delivery against a lack port. transdisrupt school of service as a way According attendance of pressurising schools have to the DBE, 87% ment. governof been declared schools in A shortage no-fee skilled teachers: of adequately quintiles the poorest categories— 1-3. the shortage fects the Unfortunately, most critical afsuch as mathematics underperforming, about 75% subjects, because the are and teaching teachers and science, and facilities best phase. in the foundation the remaining are found in shortageThere is also 25% of This means a critical of schools. that the pecially for language teachers, children African languages. esfrom poor majority of Poor backgrounds teachers: subject knowledge inadequately by trained

Correa

in SA

I

I

Subsidies to poorer independent

schools were reduced, placing many under financial pressure.

No 5037

Special Pilgrimage to Portugal and Spain

A special decorated candle will also be blessed and given to every bishop or his delegate, to be taken back to their cathedral and placed in a prominent position during this bicentennial year, “to further celebrate heroic contributions by so many who in the face of difficulty and often opposition have brought the light of Christ into Southern Africa,” Mgr Stokes said.

Other events are planned for the 12months of the bicentennial celebrations.

At least one large celebration in each deanery in the archdiocese of Cape Town will focus on “Our Forefather and Foremothers in the Faith”.

A Eucharistic procession is also being planned, starting from Holy Cross parish in District Six to the cathedral, with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Two special projects will include the youth and school-going children.

Two “Bicentennial Catholic School Choir Festivals” will be held in the Cape Town City Hall, on August 27 and October 29. These festivals will showcase the talent of the local youth and recount the story of Catholic education in South Africa.

The second project will be a youth competition entitled “Exploring our Catholic Heritage”.

Parishes and Catholic schools will invite the youth to tell their story through a heritage Continued on page 3

T he

or OPE Francis has ordered priests belonging to the diocese of Ahiara, Nigeria, to write a letter promising obedience to him and accepting the bishop appointed for their diocese.

Priests who do not write by the deadline of July 9 will be suspended.

The papal text in English was posted on the blog of Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, president of the Nigerian bishops’ conference. Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, who also was present at the meeting at which the pope issued the ultimatum, told Catholic News Service that they were the remarks of the pope.

Bishop Peter Ebere Okpaleke was appointed bishop of Ahiara by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, but has been unable to take control of the diocese because of protests, apparently by the majority of priests and laity.

The Vatican issued only a short communiqué on the meeting with the pope, describing the situation in the diocese as “unacceptable”.

The protests were apparently motivated by the fact that Bishop Okpaleke is not a local priest.

Ahiara diocese is dominated by the Mbaise ethnic group. As an outsider from

the nearby diocese of Awka, Bishop Okpaleke was rejected by much of Ahiara’s clergy and laity, who wanted one of their own to be appointed bishop.

Some 77% of the diocese's population of 670 000 are Catholic.

According to the pope’s remarks posted

by Archbishop Kaigama, Pope Francis said: “I think that, in this case, we are not dealing with tribalism, but with an attempted taking of the vineyard of the Lord.

“Whoever was opposed to Bishop Okpaleke taking possession of the diocese wants to destroy the Church. This is forbidden,” the pope reportedly said.

“I ask that every priest or ecclesiastic incardinated in the diocese of Ahiara, whether he resides there or works elsewhere, even abroad, write a letter addressed to me in which he asks for forgiveness; all must write individually and personally,” Pope Francis said.

In their letters the clergy of Ahiara must “clearly manifest total obedience to the pope” and “be willing to accept the bishop whom the pope sends and has appointed”, the pope said.

“Whoever does not do this will be ipso facto suspended a divinis and will lose his current office.”—CNS/CNA

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Refugee Week

I

BELIEVE that celebrating Refugee Week this June was a great thing, and it should always be well advertised so that the majority of people join in and get more interested in understanding the reality of refugees.

As an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe who fears the Mugabe regime, I find that Refugee Week is the greatest celebration and thank all the countries that give sanctuary to refugees.

Anna Damson Mwanza, London

Seeking 1960s St Bernadette movie

I

N the 1960s, when I was still in primary school, we were shown some good movies in the church hall. One of them was titled Bernadette or Song of Bernadette.

I have the 1943 version starring Jennifer Jones but I am looking for a 1960s version starring Jean Simmons. I have been unsuccessful thus far in sourcing this particular version.

Is there any kind soul who loves Catholic classic movies out there who may be sitting on one, on DVD

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Aloysius E Schroeder, Cape Town

Pilate and Roman law on execution

A

T the time of Jesus, Roman law had been codified in what is known as the Twelve Tables. Table IX, Law No 6, stated: “Putting to death of any man who has not been convicted, whosoever he might be, is forbidden.” We know Pontius Pilate handed Jesus over to a Jerusalem mob who were demanding Jesus be crucified.

Philo, a contemporary of Pilate, verified this habit of Pilate by referring to “his frequent execution of untried prisoners, vindictiveness and abusive behaviour”.

In AD36 and according to the historian Josephus, a large group of Samaritans went to Mount Gerizim—their holiest site—to see sacred artefacts allegedly buried by Moses.

Evidently Pilate had got word of this and sent in soldiers to attack and kill the Samaritans. “Many prisoners were taken, of whom Pilate put to death the principal leaders and those who were most influential,” Josephus reports.

The Samaritans then complained to Vitellius, Roman governor of Syria, who sent Pilate to Rome to explain his actions to Emperor Tiberius.

Although no more is recorded concerning Pilate’s fate, we can assume Roman law followed its course because he did not return to Judea.

According to Eusebius, the fourthcentury bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, Pilate committed suicide.

Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg

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Page 21

Bishop Victor Phalana of Klerksdorp with young parishioners wearing an image of the bishop on their T-shirts at St Monica’s outstation at Jouberton, where he celebrated a confirmation Mass—at the same time his niece was confirmed by Archbishop William Slattery in Pretoria.

Of St Monica’s, Bishop Phalana noted that the Catholics there may have only a “tin church”, but they have a deep faith.

St Mary’s cathedral in Cape Town in the late 19th century. The Southern African Church will mark the 200th anniversary of the establishment of a local vicariate next June.

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touched, and only one type of solvent was used—not enough to remove contamination.

Comparison of the Shroud has also been made with the Sudarium of Oviedo, believed to be the burial facecloth of Jesus. (The Sudarium has been in the cathedral of Oviedo in Spain since the 8th century and claims a documentary trail back to the 1st century.)

Dr Danin said many of the pollen grains on both cloths come from a thorny thistle plant which has bloomed in Palestine between March and April for millennia.

There is abundant proof of the Shroud’s authenticity: • The weaving technique of the fabric is consistent with 1st century Palestine.

• The fabric contains cotton—wool would have violated Jewish law.

• A dirt sample from the foot area

contains a relatively rare form of calcium carbonate, matching that found in Jerusalem.

• The Shroud contains pollen grains from plants found in Palestine flourishing in soil with high salt content (such as the Dead Sea area).

• The Shroud shows the crucifixion nails through the wrists (as was the custom) and not the hands as in all artistic representations of the crucifixion over the centuries.

• The crown of thorns was capshaped and not the circlet of traditional artistic representations, which a forger would have used.

• The bloodstains on the Shroud and on the Ovieto Sudarium are of the same blood type.

• The flow of blood on the Shroud is consistent with that of a Vshaped cross-beam. A forger would have used the horizontal type of traditional representation.

John Lee, Johannesburg

Searching for true love at the shopping mall

Year of celebration as SA Church turns 200 years in 2018 HE archdiocese of Cape Town will begin a year-long celebration of the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Church in South Africa with an invitationonly Mass this weekend, on June 25.

The bicentennial celebrations, which will involve the other dioceses in the region, is planned to culminate with national Masses of Thanksgiving at noon on June 10, 2018, in every cathedral, parish and mission station throughout Southern Africa.

Pope Pius VII erected the vicariate apostolic of the Cape of Good Hope and adjacent territories on June 7, 1818, constituting for the first time a formal presence of the Catholic Church in Southern Africa.

Bishop Bede Slater, a Benedictine, was named bishop, but because of anti-Catholic laws, he was forced to reside in Mauritius.

The first resident vicar-apostolic was Bishop Raymund Griffiths, a Dominican, in 1837.

In the almost 200 years since the vicariate apostolic of the Cape of Good Hope was established, the presence of the Catholic Church has grown, with 28 dioceses and one vicariate in the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) region, which comprises South Africa, Swaziland and Botswana.

At the inaugural bicentennial celebration Mass at Cape Town’s St Mary’s cathedral on this weekend, “tribute will be paid to the selfless contributions of those heroic early pioneers; priests, both religious and laity, from far-off lands, by whose dedication and untiring efforts, the seeds of the Church were first planted in the Cape of Good Hope and throughout Southern Africa”, said Mgr Clifford Stokes, vicar-general and facilitator.

Due to space restrictions, the Mass is by invitation only.

He said today’s Church owes “an immense debt of gratitude” to the many religious congregations for “their invaluable contribution” in the fields of education and health care, “and also to those whose charism is to minister to the poor and the destitute”, Mgr Stokes said.

At the offertory procession during the Mass, symbols of their contributions to the Southern African Church will be brought up and displayed in the sanctuary.

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The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

PERSPECTIVES

What would Jesus do?

T HERE are a few moments in the life of the parish priest when his quiet, comfortable day is disturbed so thoroughly that it ruins not only the day but also the whole week and possibly his whole pastoral outlook.

Sometimes this is a necessary and good disturbance—it drives a change, a rethink, gives a chance to reassess. Other times this means that it’s a purely gratuitous scuppering of your efforts.

One of those latter-type moments is when people—generally very sincere people—deploy the cliché: “What would Jesus do?”

It usually happens when someone is not happy with the way things are being done and organised in the parish. The quickest ad hominem argument is to ask: “What would Jesus do?”

The venerable WWJD movement of the 1990s, with those wristbands, was a way of reminding people of their living relationship with the Lord. It was a daily challenge, through a great slogan, to ask people to know the mind of our Lord and to act from that knowledge.

But it quickly became a hold-all for the caftan-wearing, circle-dancing folk music lovers who have never grown out of their 1968 experience (as Pope Benedict XVI characterised them). It becomes a way of saying not what Jesus would ask us to do, but a way of making Jesus do what I want.

There are those who have privatised the person of Our Lord into their own self-image and canonised that self-image into a process that ultimately makes our Lord into just another nice prophet-type guy, all cool and groovy. This is a betrayal of the real person of Jesus.

A powerful and necessary slogan has become a brown paper bag over the chemo-poisonous chemicals of a lethal injection.

As you can sense, I don’t like what the slogan has become.

One of the immense beauties of the post-1968 liturgy is the rediscovery of the dynamism of sacred Scripture. With the three-year Sunday lectionary cycle and the two-year weekday cycle, Catholics and the other users of the Revised Common Lectionary have daily and huge doses of Scripture. While not everything is covered in the Bible, we certainly cover almost all the Gospels and the New Testament writing and a very healthy majority of the Old Testament.

I

have spent the last ten years participating in at least two Bible studies a week.

One of the amazing spiritual personal benefits I receive from this is that I have deeply discovered, and continue to discover, the personality of Jesus in the Gospels.

Gone is a child-like naivety of Jesus and the Lambs. I’ve discovered a really powerful appealing person who points us

Once WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) served to ask Christians to know the mind of Jesus. Today, writes Fr Chris Townsend, it can be used as a form of attack.

Fr Chris Townsend

Pastor’s Notebook

to the Father in love—and also with a very strong sense of justice and purpose.

The picture of Jesus in the Gospel of John, for instance, has him saying fearlessly harsh things. The “eat my flesh and drink my blood” sayings of John 6 are not pretty symbolic gestures but horrifically and profoundly disturbing encounters with a nice guy who at that point is not all cool and groovy. The effect was that many left him and no longer pilgrimaged in his way.

The effect of the cleansing of the Temple was not just that Jesus threw over a few tables and chased a few pigeons. It was a profound attack on an entire system of both ritual appeasement and collaboration. One has only to imagine the chaos that erupted with Passover animals running wild and panicked in the streets of Jerusalem (whose population swelled by between three and ten times for the high holy days).

This is no gentle Jesus meek-and-mild.

There’s no more Mr Nice Guy here—if you are serious about Scripture and the history of how it has been interpreted in the Church.

I’m sure the WWJD squad will be up in arms and force me under pain of another verse of “Kumbaya” to admit that all I’m looking for is a justification of an outdated authoritarian discipline that doesn’t gel with their particular version of “Let’s just love one another”; that I just want to impose my way on unwilling sheep.

Remember it’s “love God and your neighbour”. And as our Lord said to Phillip: “Have I been with you this long and still you are dancing around a beeswax candle in a pure cotton tie-dyed caftan…”

Six good reasons to take up a craft K NITTING, said Dorothy Day, “is very conducive to thought. It is nice to knit a while, put down the needles, write a while, then take up the sock again”.

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was an American journalist, social activist, and Catholic convert.

She initially lived a bohemian lifestyle before gaining fame as a social activist after her conversion. Day later became a key figure in the Catholic Worker Movement and earned a national reputation as a political radical, perhaps the most famous radical in US Catholic history.

I find it interesting that a woman, so accomplished in politics and social activism, found some benefit in a simple craft like knitting, so much so that the activity became the subject of one of her famous quotes.

I cannot agree more with Dorothy Day that knitting is “nice”— and not just knitting, but any craft.

Why is it nice to do a craft? Maybe it’s because creating things with your hands is a time-old tradition which will never vanish. Maybe it’s because crafting is a wonderful distraction from some of the worries in life. Whether you’re making pottery or jewellery, crocheting, sewing, painting, knitting, woodworking, beading, or any of the many other forms of creative crafts and arts, it’s possible to gain a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

Recently I got back into the craft of crocheting which I had learned as a young girl many moons ago.

I purchased some wool, took out my

Judith Turner

Faith and Life

For Judith Turner, taking up crocheting has been a calming, meditative experience. hook and decided to crochet myself a pair of wrist warmers. I went online, found a pattern I liked and began crocheting. It was so rewarding, because the eventual result looked exactly like the ones in the online pattern.

As I was crocheting, I felt so peaceful, centred and calm. Crocheting reminds me of a simple time in my life as a young girl, a time with no adult challenges. Besides calming and centring me, I also love that when I am done I’ll have something pretty to wear (or to give away).

I

would like to share six reasons why crafting is so beneficial for us, especially in today’s world where we are faced with many challenging socio-economic factors, just as Dorothy Day was: 1. Fun: The best reason I can think of is that arts & crafts are plain old fun.

From picking colours to choosing patterns, from visualising to creating, it is fun to make something with your own

hands. And it seems that we could all use a little more fun in our lives.

2. Economical: It is often (but not always) less expensive to make things yourself. I made a pair of wrist warmers for under R10 in material, plus an hour of my time. So, when done with a budget in mind, making your own crafts can be most economical.

3. Meditative: As I mentioned before, I always feel so much more calm and peaceful when I am crocheting. It helps me focus and be more centred. It really is like a good session of meditation for me.

4. Diversion: It’s nice to have a hobby that allows you to express your inner artist and design something beautiful and/or useful. Hobbies are a great way to take your mind off work or challenges you might be having in your life. They are a wonderful distraction if you need one.

5. Empowerment: When I’m done with a project I feel really good about what I have made and about myself. I feel empowered. I know that I can start something and finish it. I know I can be more self-sufficient and I have the ability to make things for myself.

6. Community: Often you can find a group in your area that shares similar Continued on page 11

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There are many reasons why Christians fall away from their faith. One major culprit: consumerism.

(Photo: Steve Buissinne)

Chris Chatteris SJ

Pray with the Pope

Why people lapse General Intention: That our brothers and sisters who have strayed from the faith, through our prayer and witness to the Gospel, may rediscover the merciful closeness of the Lord and the beauty of the Christian life.

HRISTIANS “should look more redeemed”, Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher of the “death of God”, once remarked.

God cannot die, of course, but what Nietzsche probably meant was that belief in God dies because those who proclaim him do so unconvincingly.

For some, faith dies because they feel they can no longer hold to it in an intellectually honest way.

The Czech theologian Tomas Halik says we should respect such people, but also challenge them not to fall into “atheistic fundamentalism”, suggesting that they remain open to the mystery of existence.

Halik also argues that a dogmatic, closed-minded atheism is the first cousin of dogmatic, closedminded, religious fundamentalism, because in both cases the position is intellectually lazy.

If we are honest, the mystery of existence compels us to admit that there are no final answers to certain questions. Faith is a journey, not a settled state.

He suggests that believers and unbelievers should take as a model Zaccheus, sitting in his tree. He’s not there shouting with the crowd in Jericho for Jesus and nor has he walked away in disbelief.

Up there in his tree, he’s somewhere in between, maintaining a patient hope that eventually he will find what he is looking for. And what he needs is for someone (perhaps someone like us) to invite him into their home.

Most of the lapsed whom I know have just drifted away from practice rather than having thought their way into unbelief. They too need to be invited into our homes.

C

B

ut why has this happened at all? Unfortunately, poor pastoral care is often to blame. If the clergy are in persona Christi (standing in the person of Christ, as we clergy like to remind people from time to time), then this carries a heavy responsibility. If people do not see God in us, they might not see him at all.

The bishop of Nottingham, in his Chrism Mass homily for this Easter, reminded the clergy that their priesthood is effective only insofar as they share in the priesthood of Christ. This means having a deep and prayerful relationship with him.

“Regular time spent in the presence of the Lord, who restores, renews, and convinces us of his love, is vital to our priestly ministry,” said Bishop Patrick McKinney. “Without that time spent in prayer, we can lose sight of God and become mere activists building our house on sand.”

What of the general “tenor of the times”? We often blame secularism for the loss of faith, and no doubt it is a culprit. However, its first cousin is another “-ism” that can also corrode faith: consumerism.

The all-consuming rush after more and more possessions, and the money that is needed to pay for them, can truly throttle our faith.

If Pope Francis is asking us anything, he’s asking us to consider the question: “How much is enough?”

That’s a highly sensitive matter these days when most people seem to feel that they are badly off relative to someone else, even millionaires apparently.

But, to find the time and focus to practise one’s faith, there needs to be a periodic clearing of the clutter, a taking stock of what is important and what is not. Radical questions need sometimes to be asked, like “Why do I live like this?”

It seems to me that we have allowed business and advertising to turn us into “consumers”, and this has seriously damaged our true identity as beings made in the image and likeness of God. Dedicated, practising consumers are going to find it hard to be dedicated, practising Christians.

The Church is growing in the poorer, developing regions, and declining in the rich and developed ones. The recovery of the image of God in us as human persons rather than as consumers may hold the key to returning to the practice of our faith.

8

The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

COMMUNITY

The Zimbabwean choir of St Lawrence parish in Delft, Cape Town, celebrate after coming first in an archdiocesan choir competition.

Fr Tom Segami, parish priest of St Peter Claver in Pimville, Soweto, baptised infants at the Pentecost Sunday Mass. He was assisted by Deacon Thabo Thokoane, (Photo: Sello Mokoka)

Send your photos to

pics@scross.co.za

Pupils at Mount Edmund Christian Brothers’ College in Pretoria helped the soup kitchen run by Christ the King parish in Queenswood by collecting more than 150 blankets, which were distributed to the homeless in Pretoria.

Fr Severiano Phiri of Taung gathered with young people after the Youth Day Mass at the Camden community in Kimberley diocese.

All Saints parish in Ennerdale, Johannesburg, held a Corpus Christi procession (left) through the streets of the suburb.

Ninety members of the Catholic deaf community in Southern Africa—from Swaziland, Lesotho, Durban, Eastern Cape, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria—gathered at Coolock House in Port Shepstone to celebrate the Easter Triduum. Among them was Stephina Mphiwe, the mother of Fr Robert Mphiwe of the Pretoria archdiocese. The organiser and presiding priest was Fr Lufeyo Mpaha.

Parishioners from 33 parishes in Witbank diocese participated in a training workshop for extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, held at the Maria Trost Pastoral Centre in Lydenburg. Fr Sello Makgale, Sr Alphonse Kimbuende and Fr Rafael Armada were the facilitators. (Supplied by Fr Armada)

The altar of the church of the Resurrection parish in Table View, Cape Town, was specially decorated for Pentecost Sunday by Corina Pedder. Parish priest Fr Kevin Dadswell is seen on the altar saying Mass.

On Corpus Christi Sunday, a large group of children received their First Communion at Mahobe mission in Umzimkulu diocese in KwaZulu-Natal.

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St Anthony’s parish in Coronationville, Johannesburg, celebrated the receiving of an RCIA group into the Church. With the celebrants are parish priest Fr Luke Okwaraudu and teacher Sr Kathleen Mitchell HF.

Sandile Majola, a Catholic member of the maintenance team at St Benedict’s School in Pinetown, Durban, ran the Comrades Marathon for the first time, with a finishing time of 8:38:4.

The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

INTERVIEW

9

Where we can find God in addiction This year’s Winter Living Theology will look at the problem of addiction, which has a spiritual dimension, too. FR RUSSELL POLLITT SJ spoke to Jesuit Father Thomas Weston, who will present this year’s lectures, workshops and retreats.

E

VERY year the Jesuit Institute partners with the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) to offer a “Winter Living Theology” series of lectures.

When the Institute began ten years ago, it was approached by the SACBC with a request to revive the “Winter School” which had been staged successful in the 1970s and ‘80s.

The Institute agreed and “Winter Living Theology” has offered an opportunity for clergy and lay people in major South African centres to access good scholarship on a variety of theological and pastoral issues.

It is an opportunity to keep abreast of theological thinking and receive ongoing formation in theology and faith. It is designed to help people take a few days, if they can, to listen, dialogue and reflect together.

Those with limited time are catered for by the presentation of one-off evening lectures on that year’s particular theme.

Topics which have been covered in the last few years include Christology, scripture, and liturgy.

This year the Jesuit Institute and the SACBC are hosting Fr Thomas Weston, a Jesuit from California.

Fr Weston will be looking at an issue which is increasingly damaging young people and families in South Africa: addiction. The title of this year’s series is “Finding God in Addiction: Pastoral Responses to Addiction and Recovery”.

Have you been to South Africa before?

No, this will be my first trip to South Africa. I have given retreats

and lectures all over the world but have never had the opportunity to visit South Africa. I am very much looking forward to my time there and meeting new friends.

Where are you from, and why did you join the Society of Jesus?

I’m from California—a long way from South Africa!

I went to the Jesuit high school in San Jose, California. I was taught by many Jesuits during my time there. Those were the days when lots of Jesuits were still in the classroom; there are not too many Jesuits left teaching in schools these days.

I liked my teachers; they pushed us and made us think. I owe a lot to the men who taught us day in and day out. Towards the end of school I realised that I wanted to teach too—they had inspired me.

I realised too that I wanted to be a member of this hard-working, generous, good group of men. The rest is history, as they say. I entered the novitiate of the Jesuits in the California Province and am still striving to live up to the wonderful examples of Jesuit life and work that inspired me.

How did it come about that you work with addicts?

Well, my own recovery began in 1976. I had a drinking problem and it was going to destroy me, I realised, if I did not get help. I did, thanks to God and my Jesuit superiors and brothers who supported me.

Over the next few years I began to realise that there was little available in the Church for people who were either addicts or lived with an addict.

I found myself doing more and more activities with people in recovery, sharing my story, forming groups and offering spiritual direction. There was a need, I was willing, and had some idea of what it means to be an addict.

Opportunities arose, and so I began working more and more with addicts and their families, offering talks and retreats.

Were your superiors happy with you doing that?

My Jesuit superiors were supportive

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Fr Thomas Weston, a Jesuit from California, will present this year’s Winter Living Theology in various cities in Southern Africa in July. and, soon, they missioned me to do this ministry.

It has been, besides a short teaching stint, the ministry that I have done pretty much permanently now for many years.

What has been the most consoling part of this ministry?

The most consoling part of this ministry is that I get to meet a wide variety of persons from all kinds of backgrounds.

Addiction stretches across race, class and nationality. Some people are better at hiding it—”the family secret”—but it is a great leveller.

Many of the people I meet and work with are the salt of the earth.

I gain great inspiration and courage from people who, as best they can, enter into recovery and try to find the healing they need—for themselves and their loved ones. It’s not easy but determination, support and God’s grace carry them.

I see the best of the human spirit at work. That’s consolation.

What is the most difficult part of your ministry?

Addiction is a disease; it is a killer.

There is a lot of heartache and heartbreak. Relationships are ruined, families torn apart. Communities, in the case of drugs, are under siege.

It can be hard to watch someone attempt recovery and then slip back

F

ather Weston will be in South Africa in July. He will be doing three days of lectures in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. He will offer a one-day workshop in Cape Town and Manzini, Swaziland.

Fr Weston will lead two weekend retreats—one in Port Elizabeth and one in Durban.

His lectures and retreats are open to anyone; they are for addicts and their loved ones (who often suffer greatly, too). The lectures and retreats are also for those who are involved in or want to work at making a pastoral response to addiction. n For more information or to register contact Ursula at the Jesuit Institute: admin@jesuitinstitute.org.za or 011 482-4237. A promotional video is available at www.jesuitinstitute.org.za

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Individual, directed or private retreats can be arranged for periods of 2-8 days throughout the year. Diocesan, Parish and Church meetings and workshops should be booked well in advance reception: 031 700 2155 fr urs fischer 031 700 2890 fax 031 700 2738 email: monretreat@saol.com

into addiction as they seek “a fix”.

Addicts are often demonised. It’s really an illness that we have to try and understand the anatomy of. It can be hard work—addiction can be ruthless.

What do you enjoy doing when you are not ministering to addicts and their loved ones?

I like to learn, to keep up to date. I read a lot and see myself as a bit of an amateur historian.

I have learnt a lot on my travels about peoples, cultures and the world.

One of my favourite past-times is gardening. I love being out in the garden, nurturing plants and watching then come to blossom. I would describe myself as much more of a city person than a rural one.

I also love cooking. One has to learn that if you live in a Jesuit community. And sometimes, in some communities, you learn fast if you want a good meal—not all the brothers can cook!

Where are you currently living?

I live in the small Jesuit community in Oakland, California. It’s my place of peace, a place where I can study and garden and cook. The rest of the community leave the garden to me.

I have a huge collection of books in the house—the community is

not always grateful for the space I take.

I am grateful to live with good men, good Jesuits, who are always working to try and improve the lives of others, especially those who are small, weak and vulnerable.

You mention reading. Is there anything that really inspires you?

I am grateful for the Second Vatican Council, the marvellous work that attempts to bring people together as children of God and sharers of our planet. I have read extensively on the Council; there is still so much about it that we need to discover, learn and put into practice.

When in South Africa you will be offering lectures, but you’ll also conduct two retreats. Do you see both as very important?

Yes, I will lecture, but I also think that retreats are very important.

Addiction is not just psychological and physical. It impacts deeply on the spirit—it is a spiritual problem, too.

I want to be able to help people understand, but I also want to help people spend time in a sacred space, with God, in reflection.

The talks and retreats are for anyone—addicts, family members or friends of addicts. People need great spiritual support, they need God’s grace. We cannot overcome these challenges alone. We need to learn and pray.

Salary range: R13 800 – R15 000 (CTC)/Month

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The following guidelines are provided for potential relief educators & Instructors:

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10

The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

PILGRIMAGE

From left: The interior of Holy Rosary basilica at Fatima • Archbishop Brislin and Fr Davis Mekkattukkalam with Holy Rosary basilica in the background • The wall of the Marto home against which the most famous photo of the visionaries was taken • The 1916 apparition of the Angel of Peace is recreated at the place where it happened, just outside the children’s home village of Aljustrel.

(All photos by Günther Simmermacher)

Impressions of a pilgrimage to Fatima The centrepoint of The Southern Cross’ pilgrimage to Portugal and Spain in May was the visit to Fatima to mark the centenary of the apparitions. GüNTHER SIMMERMACHER shares his impressions.

T

HE apparitions of which we are celebrating the 100th anniversary this year did not really occur in the Portuguese town of Fatima, but on a nearby field which belonged to the family of the oldest of the three child visionaries, Lucia dos Santos.

The dos Santos family, like their relatives, the Marto family to which Francisco and Jacinta belonged, were peasants and lived a very simple life, by our modern standards.

But they were relatively well-off in terms of land and livestock ownership.

When Our Lady appeared to the children—”brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal goblet filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun”—they were tending the sheep on a field owned by the dos Santos family known as Cova da Iria; the August apparition at Valinhos also took place on land owned by the family.

The Marto and dos Santos families lived in a village name Aljustrel, about 2km from what we now know as the Fatima sanctuary. Their houses are now museums. Charmingly, real sheep still live in the pen at the dos Santos home.

The respective houses are not tiny, but—again, by our modern standards—not really big enough to accommodate such large families.

The visitor is struck by the idea that a tiny room with one bed was shared by the five Marto boys, including Francisco (whose deathbed is also preserved).

It’s against an outside wall of the Marto home that the most famous picture of the three children was taken. Many tourists miss it, and the guides aren’t too keen to show it, because the inevitable photo sessions are a drain on time—and with

Archbishop Stephen Brislin leads the nightly procession of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima around the sanctuary. the wall being on a narrow but quite busy thoroughfare, it is not the safest place.

That photo is a lovely study of the three children. Francisco looks hesitant and contemplative, much as he has been described by those who knew him. It’s clear that the girls were in charge. Lucia looks serene but defiantly sure of herself.

It is Jacinta who is the most interesting character. Her body language, with her hand resolutely on her side, and that fiery look in her eyes suggests that this little girl had a feisty side.

Those who knew her described Jacinta as sweet and shy. But when Lucia was ready to crack under the pressure of those who doubted the children’s testimony, little Jacinta and Francisco insisted that they stay firm, for to deny the apparitions would be to lie.

During the long suffering that would culminate in Jacinta’s death in a Lisbon hospital on February 20, 1920—less than a year after Francisco died of the Spanish flu—the nine-year-old girl exhibited that resolution we see in the photo. She bore her great pains bravely and with great faith.

The night before she died, she asked the hospital chaplain for Communion and the last rites; but to her mother she said that she’d soon be better and returning home.

Having received the last rites, she died alone, as was her wish.

To be boiled in oil It is remarkable that the three children stuck by the account of their experiences, even with the local priest and Lucia’s mother expressing their unswerving disbelief, and even at the brutish hands of the civil administrator who interrogated the children individually and threatened to boil them in a vat of oil (telling each that he had already done so to the others).

Portugal at the time was ruled by an anti-clerical government which took power in 1910. For them, any expression of religious fervour represented a political threat. That explains why the mayor detained the children for interrogation and threatened them with a gruesome death if they didn’t confess to lying.

As we know, the children stood by their witness.

That abduction and interrogation took place on August 13, as the children were walking to Cova da Iria for Our Lady’s fourth apparition.

Having missed the appointed time, that month’s vision took place a few days later at a different place, Valinhos, just about half a kilometre away from the dos Santos home.

Today, the site of that apparition falls in the middle of a beautiful Stations of the Cross which culminates

Youth: Tell the Church what you think!

To involve young people in preparations for the Synod of Bishops on Youth in 2018, the Vatican has released the long-awaited online questionnaire YOUNG PEOPLE, THE FAITH AND VOCATIONAL DISCERNMENT to better understand the lives, attitudes and concerns of 16- to 29-year-olds around the world.

The questionnaire is open to any young person, regardless of faith or religious belief:

survey-synod2018.glauco.it/limesurvey/index.php/147718

at the Hungarian Calvary, a large monument above a chapel, built in 1964 by Hungarian Catholics.

Between those two places is the Loca do Cabeço site where the angel appeared to the children in 1916 to prepare them for the events that would happen the following year.

All this today falls under the boundaries of Fatima, which even today is still a rather small town of 11 000 people.

The name Fatima sounds Muslim because it is. The story goes back to the time of the reconquest of Portugal from the Moors in the 12th century.

Fátima was the name of a Muslim princess kidnapped by a knight, Gonçalo Hermigues. The Catholic version of the story is that Fátima fell in love with her kidnapper and converted to Christianity in order to marry him. She was baptised and given a Christian name, Oureana.

The Muslim side of the story says she was forcibly converted.

The village of Fatima itself was founded only in 1568. While it bears the Muslim name of the princess, the municipal region that governs Fatima is Ourém, which popularly is believed to be a corruption of Oureana. The truth is rather more prosaic: after the reconquest in the 12th century it was called Portus de Auren, from which Ourém (the “m” is pronounced as a nasal “n”) is derived.

How devotion grew After the apparitions of Fatima, the devotion grew quickly. No doubt the miracle of the sun—when at the final apparition tens of thousands gathered on the Cova da Iria field saw the sun “dance”—gave testimony to the faithful that something quite amazing had happened there.

Even sceptics who were there testified to witnessing something extraordinary and inexplicable.

Whatever happened that day, the suggestion of a mass hallucination, which some doubters tend to invoke, seems even more inexplicable than God using the universe to show his hand by way of an astral phenomenon.

In short order, a small chapel was built on the spot of the apparitions, and in 1920 pilgrims installed a statue of Our Lady of Fatima in the chapel—in defiance of government troops.

The first Mass was celebrated there in 1924, and the foundation stone for the basilica of the Holy Rosary was laid in 1928. Two years later, only 13 years after the apportions, the Holy See officially approved them as “worthy of belief”.

In 1937 the remains of Francisco and Jacinta were entombed in the basilica. Lucia was also buried there after her death in 2005 in the Carmelite convent in Coimbra, which our group visited the day after Fatima.

The basilica dominates the sanctuary; no group photo from Fatima is complete without it in the background. But there is another basilica, on the other side of the sanctuary. Dedicated to the Holy Trinity, it was consecrated in 2007.

It’s a modernistic building which architects love and pilgrims less so.

I find it quite ordinary from the outside, but at least it’s discreet. Its purpose is to hold huge numbers of people. A circular structure of 125m

The visionaries of Fatima: Lucia, Francisco and, hand on her side, Jacinta. in diameter, it has 9 000 seats. As our group sat in the basilica to recite a prayer which Pope Francis had said in Fatima just a week or so before, the size of the church was almost intimidating.

Inside, it looks a bit like a convention centre, but with an imposing tiled background to the plain altar, above which looms a crucifix with a very unusual-looking Christ.

It’s not a place which inspires great faith for its beauty, but it’s preferable to the underground basilica of St Pius X in Lourdes, which looks like a parking garage.

Procession by candlelight The highlight of a pilgrimage to Fatima surely is the nightly rosary by candlelight at the Apparition chapel, followed by the procession of a statue of Our Lady of Fatima around the sanctuary.

Our pilgrims had two opportunities to take part. On the second night, they spotted with excitement that our spiritual director, Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, was presiding over the rosary, which is recited in different languages.

Before the rosary was to take place, the archbishop had presented himself as part of the clergy that would lead the procession. He was already dressed in the priests’ white vestments when it somehow emerged that he was, in fact, an archbishop. Quickly he was given the vestments of the presider and hustled onto the presider’s chair on the sanctuary.

In the end, his job was easy: to quietly preside on his chair as everybody else was busy saying the rosary or getting people in place to do so.

Afterwards, our archbishop led the statue of Our Lady around the sanctuary Our fellow pilgrim, Fr Davis Mekkattukkalam CMI of Port Elizabeth, proceeded among the clergy.

It was a great end to a great day that had also seen Archbishop Brislin consecrate The Southern Cross to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Little St Jacinta, left hand determinedly lodged on her side, would have approved. n The Southern Cross in association with Radio Veritas will repeat this pilgrimage in October, to be led by Fr Brian Mhlanga OP. For details see www.fowlertours.co.za/fatima

CLASSIFIEDS

Radio Veritas launches network for Catholic lay professionals

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ADIO Veritas held a wine and whisky tasting event in Johannesburg to launch the first Catholic Professionals Networking Club in South Africa.

Those attending heard organisational leader and Human Rights Commissioner Angie Makwetla and Advocate Leslie Sedibe give presentations before everyone settled in for the sampling.

In launching the networking club, Radio Veritas is seeking to form a collective of Catholic professionals who believe that by harnessing their cumulative energies they can have a positive impact on the Church and society.

This forum of lay Catholic professional men and women, the station believes, will be grounded in and inspired by the members’ Catholic faith, instrumental in fostering spiritual development and growth as part of its mission, and engaged in focused action in identified areas of concern in society.

CONGRATULATIONS to Fr Jerry, of St. Augustine’s cathedral in PE, who celebrated his 24th anniversary of ordination on June 6.

PRAYERS

Six good reasons to take up a craft Continued from page 7 crafting interests. And if there are none, what better reason for you than to start one in your neighbourhood or parish.

It really brings people together. I find it a lovely way of meeting people with similar in-

Your prayer to cut out and collect

CLASSIFIEDS

terests, and even making new friends.

So, let our hearts not be troubled by all the challenges we face in our society today. Let’s take a lesson from Dorothy Day and face those challenges, but also balance it with arts and

L

oving Father, whose arms are always open to welcome us home, we bring before you all those we know who are non-churchgoing Catholics.

We ask that you bless them abundantly this day and ignite in their hearts, and in ours, the desire to seek your love.

Through Christ your Son, show us how we might lovingly reach out to non-churchgoing Catholics, especially those closest to us.

May the Spirit guide them on your path and help us

Liturgical Calendar Year A – Weekdays Cycle Year 1 Sunday July 2, 13th Sunday of the Year 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16, Psalms 89:2-3, 16-19, Romans 6:3-4, 8-11, Matthew 10:37-42 Monday July 3, St Thomas, Apostle Ephesians 2:19-22, Psalms 117:1-2, John 20:24-29 Tuesday July 4, St Elizabeth of Portugal Genesis 19:15-29, Psalms 26:2-3, 9-12, Matthew 8:23-27 Wednesday July 5, St Anthony of Zaccaria Genesis 21:5, 8-20, Psalms 34:7-8, 10-13, Matthew 8:28-34 Thursday July 6, St Maria Goretti Genesis 22:1-19, Psalms 115:1-6, 8-9, Matthew 9:1-8 Friday July 7 Genesis 23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-67, Psalms 106:1-5, Matthew 9:9-13 Saturday July 8, Saturday Mass of Our Lady Genesis 27:1-5, 15-29, Psalms 135:1-6, Matthew 9:14-17 Sunday July 9, 14th Sunday of the Year Zechariah 9:9-10, Psalms 145:1-2, 8-11, 13-14, Romans 8:9, 11-13, Matthew 11:25-30

HOLY ST JUDE, Holy Apostle, faithful servant, friend of Jesus, you are honoured and petitioned by the universal Church, as patron of desperate, hopeless and impossible cases. I thank you for listening to my prayers and granting your intercession. In this broken world we have many trials, difficulties, and temptations, thank you for prayers asked and answered for me in God’s presence. St. Jude, implore God that my prayers continued to be answered in His way that is best for me and my family. May God give me the grace to see His purpose in all things. Amen.

crafts to keep motivated and energised.

Have fun and create a little something for yourself or a gift for someone else! n For previous articles by Judith Turner go to www.scross.co.za/ category/perspectives/turner/

A PRAYER FOR CATHOLICS WHO DON’T GO TO CHURCH to see how we might support them on their faith journey.

Remove anything from our paths that prevents us from drawing close to one another and to your loving embrace.

May we all experience this day the joy of knowing that we are your beloved sons and daughters, churchgoing or not, and give us the confidence to witness your Son, who is the source of our life and hope. Amen.

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 765. ACROSS: 3 Lost sheep, 8 News, 9 Altar rail, 10 Shrubs, 11 Haven, 14 Above, 15 Near, 16 Renew, 18 Iota, 20 Hopes, 21 Hurry, 24 Stayed, 25 Endurance, 26 Seen, 27 Snatchers.

DOWN: 1 Anastasia, 2 Sworn oath, 4 Oils, 5 Tiara, 6 Harden, 7 Exit, 9 Abner, 11 Honey, 12 Neophytes, 13 Presiding, 17 White, 19 August, 22 Reach, 23 Anon, 24 Scar.

Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: July 2: Bishop Xolelo Thaddeus Kumalo of Eshowe on his 63rd birthday

576 AM in Johannesburg & beyond

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011 663-4700 eblaser@radioveritas.co.za

11

Births • First Communion • Confirmation • Engagement/Marriage • Wedding anniversary • Ordination jubilee • Congratulations • Deaths • In memoriam • Thanks • Prayers • Accommodation • Holiday Accommodation • Personal • Services • Employment • Property • Others Please include payment (R1,70 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

ANNIVERSARIES

Radio Veritas director Fr Emil Blaser OP (left) and associate station manager Fr Brian Mhlanga OP (right) present Advocate Leslie Sedibe, one of the speakers at the station’s launch of the Catholic Professionals Networking Club, with a gift.

The Southern Cross, June 28 to July 4, 2017

PRAYER TO THE HOLY SPIRIT: Holy Spirit, you who makes me see everything and shows me the way to reach my ideal, you who gives me the divine gift to

forgive and forget all the wrong that is done to me and you who are in all instances of my life with me. I, in this short dialogue, want to thank you for everything, and affirm once more that I never want to be separated from you no matter how great the material desires may be. I want to be with you and my loved ones in your perpetual glory. To that end and submitting to God’s holy will, I ask from you.(mention your favour).

Amen. This prayer should be said for 3 consecutive days. After the 3rd day, your sincere wish will be granted no matter how difficult it may be. Promise to publish it on granting of your favour.

The idea is to spread the wonder of the Holy Spirit.

FATHER, you have given all peoples one common origin. It is your will that they be gathered together as one family in yourself. Fill the hearts of mankind with the fire of your love and with the desire to ensure justice for all. By sharing the good things you give us, may we secure an equality for all our brothers and sisters throughout the world. May there be an end to division, strife and war. May there be a dawning of a truly human society built on love and peace. We ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord.

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

Community Calendar

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

JOHANNESBURG: St Anthony’s church in Coronationville is calling for donations of tinned fish, peanut butter, jam, butter and juice for their soup kitchen. Contact Faried and Nadine Benn on 073 906 6037 or 083 658 2573.

CAPE TOWN: Retreat day/quiet prayer last Saturday of each month except December, at Springfield Convent in Wynberg, Cape Town.

Hosted by CLC, 10.0015.30. Contact Jill on 083 282 6763 or Jane on 082 783 0331.

Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Good Shepherd parish, 1 Goede Hoop St, Bothasig, welcomes all vis-

OMI STAMPS YOur uSeD STAMPS

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

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

itors. Open 24 hours a day.

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 abortion clinic. 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.

Neighbourhood Old Age Homes

We can use your old clothing, bric-a-brac, furniture and books for our second-hand shop in Woodstock, Cape Town.

Help us to create an avenue to generate much needed funds for our work with the elderly.

Contact Ian Veary on 021 447 6334 www.noah.org.za

Brother, May I know thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly, And follow thee more nearly, For ever and ever.

PERSONAL

ABORTION WARNING: The truth will convict a silent Church. See www.valuelife abortionisevil.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/uploads/ downloads/bcpill.pdf WOODEN BEAMS NEEDED: Is there someone who can assist with some 6mt strong wooden beams for the base of a new hermitage structure to be erected? Any donation of materials iro windows and doors that could suit would also be most appreciated.

E-mail johnallenofm @live.com

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

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. Phone Malcolm Salida on 082 784 5675, eamail mjsalida@gmail.com SCOTTBURGH: Garden cottage, sleeps five. Phone Margaret on 083 716 5161.

Traditional Latin Mass

Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel 36 Central Avenue, Pinelands, Cape Town Call 071 291 4501 for details.

Email: sspx.capetown@gmail.com The

Southern Cross

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Editor: Günther Simmermacher Business Manager: Pamela Davids Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000

10 Tuin Plein, Cape Town, 8001 Tel: (021) 465 5007 Fax: (021) 465 3850

Editorial: editor@scross.co.za News editor: news@scross.co.za Business manager: admin@scross.co.za Advertising: advertising@scross.co.za Subs/Orders: subscriptions@scross.co.za Website: www.scross.co.za Digital edition: www.digital.scross.co.za Facebook: www.facebook.com/thescross

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Published by the proprietors, The Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Co Ltd, at the company’s registered office, 10 Tuin Plein, Cape Town, 8001.

The Southern Cross is published independently by the Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Company Ltd. Address: PO Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000. Tel: (021) 465 5007 Fax: (021) 465 3850 www.scross.co.za

Editor: Günther Simmermacher (editor@scross.co.za), Business Manager: Pamela Davids (admin@scross.co.za), Advisory Editor: Michael Shackleton, Local News: Erin Carelse (e.carelse@scross.co.za), Editorial: Claire Allen (c.allen@scross.co.za), Mary Leveson (m.leveson@scross.co.za), Advertising: Yolanda Timm (advertising@scross.co.za), Subscriptions: Michelle Perry (subscriptions@scross.co.za), Accounts: Desirée Chanquin (accounts@scross.co.za) Directors: R Shields (Chair), Archbishop S Brislin, S Duval, E Jackson, B Jordan, Sr H Makoro CPS, J Mathurine, R Riedlinger, G Stubbs, Z Tom Editorial Advisory Board: Fr Chris Chatteris SJ, Kelsay Correa, Dr Nontando Hadebe, Prof Derrick Kourie, Claire Mathieson, Fr Lawrence Mduduzi Ndlovu, Palesa Ngwenya, Sr Dr Connie O’Brien I.Sch, John O’Leary, Kevin Roussel, Fr Paul Tatu CSS

Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, staff, directors or advisory board of The Southern Cross.

the

14th Sunday: July 9 Readings: Zechariah 9:9-10, Psalm 145: 12, 8-11, 13-14, Romans 8:9, 11-13, Matthew 11:25-30

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O you ever feel utterly bowled over by the hostility that our society shows towards the truth of our faith? If so, it does not mean that you have things wrong.

Next Sunday’s readings warn us that we are not to expect things to go all our own way, for what God is likely to ask of us is the opposite of what we tend to imagine.

So in the first reading, a famous one, the prophet asks the “daughter of Zion” (that is us, of course) and “daughter of Jerusalem” to rejoice because “Look! Your king is coming to you.” That sounds all right, until we see what this monarch’s mode of transport is. And it is not Air Force One, or the Mercedes Benzs or Rolls Royces favoured by our current leaders, but a broken-down old bicycle that he is riding (“lowly, on a donkey, the foal of a donkey”).

And then see what he is going to do: “He shall expel Air Force One from Ephraim, and the Rolls Royce from Jerusalem, and Weapons of Mass Destruction shall be banished.” Instead: “He shall proclaim peace to the nations, and his dominion from sea to sea, from

S outher n C ross

the River to the ends of the earth.” In other words, the weaker we are as Church, the better it will be for our mission. That is almost impossible for us to grasp; but try sitting with it, and see where it leads you.

The psalm sings a song to God as king: “I shall exalt you, my God the King, and I shall bless your name for ever and a day.” But this God is not a chest-thumping deity, demanding our adulation; instead, the poet sings, he is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and great in steadfast love, good is the Lord to all, and merciful on all that he has made”.

And the people he singles out for mercy are life’s “losers”: “The Lord supports all who fall and raises up all those who are bowed down.”

This is a very different way of looking at things, and we shall do well to reflect upon it.

In the second reading, Paul is continuing his treatise to the Christians in Rome about the confidence that they should have because of what God has done in Christ, and how they should be living. “You people are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, given that the

Spirit of God lives in you.”

Here we should simply say that for Paul “flesh” is humanity as closed to God, whereas “spirit” is humanity open to God. And that does not involve dominating but serving: “If someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person does not belong to him.”

So we are invited to a very different way of living: “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you people, the one who raised Jesus from the dead will even give live to your mortal bodies, through the Spirit who lives in the midst of you all.”

The Gospel for next Sunday continues this unexpected theme, of God being close, not to the powerful but to the unimportant. We are eavesdroppers on Jesus’ prayer to God: “I give thanks to you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth [and there is nothing more powerful than that] because you hid these things from the clever ones and the intellectuals, and revealed them to infants!”

Then he turns to us and tells us where power really lies: “Everything was handed

A good heart is not enough C

with which we often treat nature? Individual attitudes, true. But injustice is also the result of social, economic and political policies that, whatever their other merits, help produce the conditions that spawn poverty, inequality, racism, privilege, and the lack of conscientious concern for the air we breathe.

Most of us, I suspect, are familiar with a story that’s often used to distinguish between charity and justice. It runs this way: There was a town built alongside a river, but situated around a bend so that the townsfolk could see only that part of the river that bordered their town. One day a few of the children were playing by the river when they saw five bodies floating in the water. They quickly ran for help and the townspeople they alerted did what any responsible persons would do in that situation. They took care of the bodies.

Pulling them from the river they found that two were dead and they buried them.

Three were still alive. One was a child for whom they quickly found a foster home; another was a severely ill woman, her they put in a hospital; the last was a young man and, for him, they found a job and a place to live.

B

ut the story didn’t end there. The next day more bodies appeared and, again, the townsfolk responded as before. They took care of the bodies. They buried the dead, placed the sick in hospitals, found

Conrad

HARITY is about being goodhearted, but justice is about something more.

Individual sympathy is good and virtuous, but it doesn’t necessarily change the social, economic and political structures that unfairly victimise some people and unduly privilege others.

We need to be fair and good of heart, but we also need to have fair and good policies.

Christian writer and political activist Jim Wallis, speaking more specifically about racism, puts it this way: When we protest that we are not implicated in unjust systems by saying things like, “I have black friends”, we need to challenge ourselves: It’s not just what’s in our hearts that’s at issue; it’s also what’s at the heart of public policy.

One can have black friends, for example, but if policies are racist there’s still no justice. Individual goodwill alone doesn’t always make for a system that’s fair to everyone.

And it’s precisely on this point where we see the crucial distinction between charity and justice, between being goodhearted as individuals and trying as a community to ensure that our social, economic and political systems are not themselves the cause of the very things we are trying to respond to in charity.

What causes poverty, racism, economic disparity, lack of fair access to education and healthcare, and the irresponsibility

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Sunday Reflections

over to me by my Father; and no one knows the son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the son and (here is where you and I come in) anyone to whom the son wishes to reveal him.”

Then he turns to us, and the son invites not the owners of nuclear weapons, but “all of you who are weary and burdened”. And what does he promise? Not power or dominant influence; instead: “I shall give you rest.”

We are invited to take upon us Jesus’ “yoke”, the symbol of oppression, not because Jesus is incredibly powerful, but “because I am meek and humble in heart—and you will find rest in your lives”.

Then the climax: “For my yoke is kindly” (and in Greek this word would have sounded like “Christ”) “and my burden is light.”

We have therefore nothing to fear, not even the hostility of our contemporaries. God is in charge.

Southern Crossword #765

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

foster homes for the children, and jobs and places to live for the adults.

And so it went on for years so that taking care of the bodies that they found each day became a normal feature of their lives and became part of the life of their churches and their community. A few altruistically motivated people even made it their life’s work to take care of those bodies.

But—and this is the point—nobody ever went up the river to see from where and for what reasons those bodies kept appearing each day in the river. They just remained good-hearted and generous in their response to the bodies that found their way to their town.

The lesson is clear enough: It’s one thing (needed, good, and Christian) to take care of the needy bodies we find on our doorsteps, but it’s another thing (also needed, good, and Christian) to go upstream to try to change the things that are causing those bodies to be in the river.

That’s the difference between good-hearted charity and acting for social justice.

Sadly though, as good churchgoing Christians we have been too slow to grasp this and consequently have not brought the demands of Jesus and faith to bear as strongly upon the question of social justice as we have been to bring them to bear upon charity.

Too many good, good-hearted, churchgoing, charitable women and men simply do not see the demands of justice as being anything beyond the demands of private charity and good-heartedness. And so we are often good-hearted enough that we will literally give a needy person the shirt off our back even as we refuse to look at why our clothing cupboards are overfull while some others don’t have a shirt.

But this should not be misunderstood.

The Gospel demand that we act for justice does not in any way denigrate the virtue of charity. Charity is still the ultimate virtue and, sometimes, the only positive difference we can make in our world is precisely the one-to-one love and respect that we give to each other. Our own individual goodness is sometimes the only candle that is ours to light.

But that goodness and light must shine publicly too, namely, in how we vote and in what public policies we support or oppose.

ACrOSS

3. It’s missing from the flock (4,5) 8. As the Gospel it’s good (4) 9. Track to the sanctuary?

(5,4) 10. Brush by the south to find plants (6) 11. Place of safety (5) 14. It’s not beneath you (5) 15. Not far (4) 16. You shall ... the face of the earth (Ps 104) (5) 18. Greek letter (4) 20. Optimists live in them (5) 21. Act quickly (5) 24. Sad yet remained (6) 25. Crude Anne has lasting power (9) 26. Saw past (4) 27. Kidnappers (9)

Solutions on page 11

DOWN

1. A saint gets AA for being virgin and martyr (9) 2. Son worth a solemn declaration (5,4) 4. Silo may contain what’s needed for consecrations (4) 5. It may go to a lady’s head (5) 6. ... not your hearts, as at Meribah (Ps 95) (6) 7. Way out (4) 9. He commanded Saul’s army (1 Sm 14) (5) 11. Samson enjoyed its sweetness (Jg 14) (5) 12. Type shone among the new converts (9) 13. Celebrant’s doing it from his chair (9) 17. Colour of liturgical joy (5) 19. Month that inspires respect (6) 22. Arrive and stretch the arm (5) 23. Soon among the canonised (4) 24. It marks the skin (4)

CHURCH CHUCKLE

T

WO doctors and a medical aid manager die and line up together at the Pearly Gates.

One doctor steps forward and tells St Peter: “As a paediatric surgeon, I saved hundreds of children.”

St Peter lets him enter.

The next doctor says: “As a psychiatrist, I helped thousands of people live better lives.” St Peter tells him to go ahead.

The last man says: “I was a medical aid manager.

I got countless families cost-effective healthcare.”

St Peter replies: “You have been pre-approved to enter. But,” he adds, “you can only stay for three days. After that, you can go to hell.”

Journey Through The Fifth Gospel Pilgrimage

5-16 May 2018

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