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October 25 to October 31, 2017

Two ex-SA bishops die within two days

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‘My vocation to the single life’

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Set up a new anti-corruption court – Church

BY ERIN CARELSE

T

HE Catholic Church has challenged candidates for the presidency of the ruling African National Congress to declare their support for the establishment of a specialised anti-corruption court.

The Justice & Peace (J&P) Commission of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference called on presidential hopefuls Cyril Ramaphosa, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and other candidates to publicly declare that, if elected, they will push for the establishment of such a court if they are elected ANC president, as this would signal to them their seriousness in the fight against political corruption.

The J&P’s call came in the wake of a Supreme Court of Appeal dismissal of a bid by President Jacob Zuma to avoid the possibility of having to face 783 corruption-related charges.

J&P chairperson Bishop Abel Gabuza of Kimberley in a statement on behalf of the SACBC called for the establishment of an anti-corruption court.

He noted that the court battles on various issues concerning the corruption allegations against the president “have been going on for more than eight years”. Should the National Prosecutions Authority (NPA) reinstate corruption charges against President Zuma, the matter may drag on for another four years, he warned.

“When allegations of corruption hang over the head of a sitting president for this long, something gives way,” Bishop Gabuza said.

“In our case, the moral fibre of our nation has suffered massive damage as a result of people losing confidence in the office of the president and its ability to fight corruption at all levels of government,” he said.

“For eight years, we have not had a president who leads credibly from the front in the fight against corruption,” Bishop Gabuza said.

The bishop noted that Church leaders are not experts in constitutional law. “However,

considering the damage that protracted corruption cases are inflicting on the moral fibre of our nation”, the Church urges constitutional experts and the law reform commission “to guide the nation on the feasibility of establishing an anti-corruption court, with specialised prosecutors that would ensure speedy and efficient disposal of corruption cases and financial crimes”.

Mike Pothier, research coordinator for the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office, agreed that a specialist court could be a useful tool in the battle against corruption. But like all courts, its effectiveness would depend on good crime investigators to gather evidence, and good prosecutors to build strong cases.

“A crucial reason for the failure to tackle corruption is that neither the police—in the form of the Hawks—nor the NPA has shown any real interest in doing their jobs” in uncovering and prosecuting corruption in the government, Mr Pothier said.

“The Hawks clearly don’t want to investigate the really big corruption cases involving highly-placed politicians and their friends, and the NPA is equally uninterested. As long as that continues to be the case, setting up an anti-corruption court is unlikely to make a big difference,” he said.

He noted that for some time now, a number of civil society groups have been calling for the creation of an ‘Anti-corruption Commission’ with the same powers as the Public Protector, independent of government and responsible only to the Constitution and to Parliament.

“Such a body could have investigative powers that would allow it to investigate corruption independently of the police, and then make binding recommendations about prosecutions,” Mr Pothier said.

“If that were to happen, then it might not be necessary to set up special courts—our existing courts and judges are more than capable of dealing with corruption cases if and when those cases are put before them.”

Pope Francis talks with a little girl during an audience with Special Olympics athletes participating in a Unified Football tournament at the Vatican. The girl presented the Holy Father with a pair of sports shoes branded “Special Olympics – Play Unified” before taking her seat next to him. (Photo: L’Osservatore Romano/CNS)

S outher n C ross in association with the Diocese of Klerksdorp The

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2

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

LOCAL

Two former SA bishops die within days

BY ERIN CARELSE

T

WO former bishops in South Africa died within a day of one another in their respective home countries.

Bishop Herbert Lenhof, retired of Queenstown, and Bishop Fulgence Le Roy, retired of Pietersburg (now Polokwane) died on October 13 and 14 respectively.

Bishop Lenhof, a Pallottine who headed Queenstown diocese from 1984 to 2009, died at 81 in Limburg, Germany. Bishop Le Roy, a Benedictine who was the first bishop of Polokwane diocese from 1988 to 2000, died at 93 in Affligem, Belgium.

Bishop Lenhof “Bishop Lenhof devoted himself to the problem of Aids, with the heart-rending reality of children orphaned as a result of the death of parents from Aids,” said Pallottine Father Barry Reabow of Queenstown.

“After the change-over to a democratic South Africa in 1994, problems for him did not cease: the ever-increasing criminality, the threats to and destruction of family life and the neglect of children were all factors weighing heavily upon him,” Fr Reabow said of his confrere.

Fr Reabow recalled Bishop Lenhof’s “untiring dedication and devotion” to his work in the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, where he was first placed in charge of the De-

partment of Spiritual Vocations, and then took over the Department of Development and Welfare, where he remained in charge for 15 years.

Born on August 20, 1936 in Völklingen, south-western Germany, Herbert Lenhof was the eldest son of four children born to Wilhelm and Elisabeth Lenhof who were deeply religious. Two of his sisters entered the consecrated life—bith, like him, in the Pallottine family.

A diligent altar server and boy scout, Bishop Lenhof joined the Society of the Catholic Apostolate, as the Pallottines are formally known, and was ordained to the priesthood on July, 18 1965.

His wish to be a missionary was granted when on June 20, 1968 he was sent out from Germany to South Africa.

From 1970-78 he was both priest-in-charge and administrator at the Glen Grey Mission Hospital, near Lady Frere, which was later taken over by the state.

After he left the hospital, Bishop John Rosner appointed him parish priest of the Ntaba Maria mission parish, and, at the same time, spiritual Director to the Ntaba Maria Sisters.

From 1978-1981 he was the major-superior of the Pallottine Fathers and Brothers in South Africa.

In 1984, Pope John Paul II named him bishop of Queenstown, succeeding his confrere Bishop Rosner on April 28, 1984.

Bishop Lenhof chose as his motto,

“You will be my Witnesses” (Acts 1:8).

Bishop Lenhof, who had long suffered ill health, retired on November 16, 2009. He later returned to Germany, taking up residence in the frail-care section of the Limburg house of the Pallottines.

“We will always be thankful to Bishop Lenhof for his gentle, selfless ministry as a Pallottine, as a dedicated priest and missionary, for his deep-seated devotion to his pastoral duty as a bishop; for his love of his people in his missionary life, for his patience in his suffering, never complaining, and for his inspired love for the charism of St Vincent Pallotti,” Fr Reabow said.

The Requiem for Bishop Lenhof was scheduled to be celebrated in the Pallottine church of St Mary’s in Limburg on October 25, followed by interment in the Pallottine cemetery there.

Bishop Le Roy Bishop Fulgence Werner Le Roy was known to many as “the friendly folk man”.

Born on August 23, 1924, in Beervelde, he was professed as a Benedictine in 1947 and ordained to the priesthood on July 20, 1952.

Within a year he was sent to South Africa as a missionary, serving in what was then called the Northern Transvaal.

Aside from his pastoral work, he taught at Turfloop University.

He was elected abbot of St Benedict’s Abbey in Polokwane in July

Bishops Fulgence Le Roy OSB (left), retired of Polokwane, and Herbert Lenhof SAC, retired of Queenstown, who died within days of another in their respective home countries.

1975, and made bishop of the titular see of Ausafa at the same time.

As abbot he led the relocation of the monastery to the Subiaco mission station, 40 km from Polokwane.

Bishop Le Roy became the first bishop of the diocese of Pietersburg, previously the prefectureapostolic of Louis Trichardt, on December 15, 1988.

Bishop Le Roy retired in December 2000 at the age of 75. He then

served as parish priest in Haenertsburg under his successor, the late Bishop Mogale Paul Nkhumishe, before returning to Belgium in 2007.

He was found dead in his room on the morning of October 14 after he did not arrive for Mass.

His Requiem Mass was celebrated at Affligem Abbey on October 21 after which he was buried at the monastery church.

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Fr Pius James D’Souza, a vicar-provincial of the Carmelite order in India, on his first trip to South Africa visited Carmelite communities in Benoni, Johannesburg and Cape Town. He is seen here celebrating Mass in Benoni with Carmelite Fathers Anthony Stephan and Arwin Tauro. Fr D’Souza ended his visit to South Africa in the Kruger National Park.

Ex-SA bishop publishes book in Germany STAFF REPORTER

T

HE former bishop of Bethlehem, Free State, has published a book in Germany about his experiences as a missionary in South Africa.

Bishop Hubert Bucher, who headed Bethlehem diocese from 1977 to 2008, now lives in a house with his sister in Nittendorf, near his Bavarian hometown of Regensburg.

His new book is based on personal documents he accumulated over the years.

Titled Ein Leben für die Mission – Meine Erlebnisse in Afrika, Briefe, Tagebücher & Biografien (A Life in Mission: My experiences in Africa; letters, diaries and biographies), it is published by the Pustet-Verlag.

It follows his story as a young missionary in Aliwal to his service as bishop of Bethlehem.

After retiring as bishop of Bethlehem, Bishop Bucher lived in Mar-

inating with his two friends who came with him to South Africa in 1956 and also became bishops: Bishop Fritz Lobinger and the late Oswald Hirmer.

The now 86-year-old bishop left for Germany earlier this year to keep his widowed sister company.

In an interview with onetz.de, Bishop Bucher recalled the importance for missionaries to assimilate in the local culture they serve.

“Some Germans never stop making comparisons, saying ‘back home it’s different’. Such people are incapable of learning. The task of the missionary is not to make Germans of others.”

He said that during apartheid, the missionaries were on the side of the oppressed. “We were impressed that the people knew no hatred, although they were so cruelly oppressed.

The interview, in German, can be accessed at wwwbit.ly/2yyYVYs

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

LOCAL

3

Church wary of religion law plan

BY ERIN CARELSE

A Zimbabwean Sr Monica Mary Ncube (left) is now leading worldwide the Congregation of Precious Blood Sisters, a congregation founded in South Africa by Abbot Franz Pfanner, as superior-general. She is seen here at the leadership team’s installation in Rome with (from left) Sr Caroline Mjomba (vicaress-general) from Kenya, Sr Walburga Ballhausen from Germany, Sr Marguerite Uy from the Philippines/Canada, and Sr Ursel Beyerle from Germany.

Rosary group prays for priests

A

KNYSNA parish has marked the 30th anniversary of its Rosary group with a Mass.

The St Boniface Rosary group was started in 1987 by the late Jill Watkins-Baker. Initially it had around six members and has since increased steadily.

Members take turns to host the weekly meeting in their homes or in the church hall. On the last Wednesday of the month they pray in the church and, if there is a priest available, there is Benediction as well.

At the celebration Mass Fr Christian Odionye SAC shared how the rosary group he joined in his home in Nigeria some 31 years ago had led to four people from that group choosing the religious life.

He also gave examples of the intercession of Our Mother in his life and that of others in the group.

He emphasised the importance of

The Knysna’s Rosary group a devotion to Mary through the Rosary and encouraged the group to persist especially in their prayers for priests.

After attacks on priests on isolated missions, the late Fr Gummersbach asked members to pray for the clergy, a practice that has expanded to cover all the priests in the diocese. Various members undertake to pray daily for particular cleric so that every priest has a praying family of two.

Fatima festival in Stellenbosch

S

TELLENBOSCH Catholic Church will host its annual festivities in honour of Our Lady of Fatima—a special event this year because of the centenaries of Our Lady’s appearance to the children of Fatima.

Our celebrations will start on Saturday, October 28 at 17:00 with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament,

ending with Benediction.

Holy Mass will then be celebrated at 18:00 and after Mass there will be festivities with music and lots to eat and drink.

On Sunday morning at 11:00 Mass will be celebrated under the trees at St Nicholas church, followed by a traditional procession with the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

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HIGH-POWERED delegation of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) made a submission to a parliamentary committee on the abuse of religion.

The SACBC delegation was among faith groups that addressed the portfolio committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs on the report of the “Commercialisation of Religion and Abuse of People’s Belief Systems”.

The Catholic delegation comprised SACBC president Archbishop Stephen Brislin, vice-president Bishop Sithembele Sipuka, and secretary-general Sr Hermenegild Makoro CPS. Recent controversial news reports about pastors have raised questions about whether religion has become a commercial institution or commodity to enrich a few.

The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL), a Chapter 9 Institutions, published a report in which it recommended to Parliament that all religious practitioners be registered under umbrella organisations.

“The report is essentially a response to the various reports of pastors making people drink petrol, spraying them with insect killer, and so on,” Mike Pothier, Research Coordinator for the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office told The Southern Cross.

“It also looks at some shady financial practices: churches ‘owned’

Archbishop Stephen Brislin, Sr Hermenegild Makoro CPS and Bishop Sithembele Sipuka with the Nelson Mandela statue in front of parliament, having just made a submission on the CRL Commission’s report on the Commercialisation of Religion and Abuse of People's Belief Systems. by pastors, private and parish bank accounts not kept separate, and so on.

“The report sets out a long list of recommendations and findings which ultimately amount to an attempt to impose regulation on the faith community—registration of ‘religious practitioners’ and ‘worship centres’, and so on,” Mr Pothier explained.

The CRL Rights Commission in its report argued that there are several reasons for the religious sector to be regulated. Therefore, after an extensive investigation, an amendment to the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities Act no. 19 of 2002 (CRL Act) was recommended to assist all reli-

gious institutions to create an environment where they, and not the state, can effectively regulate themselves.

Thereby religious bodies could hold accountable people who bring religion into disrepute, as per their various religious systems.

This, the commission argued, would ensure that freedom of religion is guaranteed and that the religious sector is given space and capacity to resolve challenges.

The Catholic Church and other faith bodies disagree with that view, Mr Pothier said.

“In our view, and that of almost everyone else in the sector, such provisions would amount to a major violation of the right to freedom of religion and worship.”

Evita wears Hurley, skattie

L

EGENDARY comedy character Evita Bezuidenhout has taken to wearing an image of the late Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban.

The alter ego of veteran comedian Pieter-Dirk Uys, Evita Bezuidenhout visited the Denis Hurley Centre in Durban and tried on a dress designed for her by the centre’s fashion consultant Julia Buttery, which contains the Hurley shweshwe. This might be a first for

a Catholic archbishop.

After visiting the Denis Hurley Centre earlier in the year, Mr Uys wanted to show his support for the centre’s work and has made a limited number of tickets available at a very special price for DHC supporters for the two first nights of Evita’s official visit to Durban.

Evita is performing in Durban from October 31 to November 17 at the Sneddon Theatre at UKZNHoward.

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Fashion consultant Julia Buttery dresses Evita Bezuidenhout in an outfit with a Hurley shweshwe.

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4

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

INTERNATIONAL

Neglected work of mercy: burying the poor dead

BY CAROL GLATZ

W

hen a friend’s beloved dog died, Adrian Cruz dug a grave, prepared a box, cleaned the dog and helped bury the animal in a way that helped his grieving friend mourn the loss of her pet.

Earlier the same day, Mr Cruz, a Catholic mortician from California, tried to comfort an acquaintance who was devastated to find out what would happen to a friend who died and whose family was unwilling to give him a proper burial.

“While driving home and thinking about that day, I realised that my friend’s pet dog had more of a dignified burial than the unclaimed bodies I buried for the government.

It troubled me, thinking of how I whispered prayers while burying these poorest of the poor as the government machines unceremoniously dumped dirt on their unmarked graves,” he said.

The work of mercy that often

gets most overlooked, he said, is burying people who died poor, estranged from family, abandoned in old age or as wards of the state or babies who were aborted.

Also, funerals, even cremation, are expensive and “churches can often drive people away from Christian burial because of the costs.

Families are often embarrassed that they can’t afford” them, Mr Cruz said.

Just as the poor and marginalised “get trampled” on when they are alive, he said, the same disregard for their dignity often awaits them after death.

The unclaimed deceased are eventually considered “a public health hazard”, he said, and the local public health agencies or coroner’s office bids out for a so-called “pauper’s burial” to funeral homes, he said.

“These unfortunates are often buried in body bags with cardboard cremation coffins, with no ceremony to mark the passing of their

life, no prayers to sooth their souls,” since they are being buried by private mortuaries by government contract.

Just interring the deceased is not enough, Mr Cruz said. “We strive to give dignity and meaning to the life of this person and the situation they are in.”

While Catholic cemeteries try to fill in some of the gaps by offering free or low-cost grave sites, a dedicated group of laity is still needed, Mr Cruz said.

“Somebody has to ‘claim’ the dead in order to properly bury them” and get a burial permit, “coffins need to be made, remains need to be transported, pallbearers need to physically carry them to the grave”.

This situation is happening often silently in every diocese, Mr Cruz said, “so there need to be Catholic funeral homes and dedicated laity to help carry out this task and pray for the poor souls in purgatory”.—CNS

Pope announces Synod of Bishops for Amazonians

BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

A

DDRESSING the challenges of evangelisation in one of the world’s most remote areas and the connection between faith and environmental concern, Pope Francis announced a special gathering of the Synod of Bishops to focus on the Amazon region.

“Accepting the wish of several episcopal conferences of Latin America as well as the voice of pastors and faithful from other parts of the world, I have decided to convene a special assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazonian region, which will take place in Rome in October 2019,” Pope Francis said.

Speaking at the end of a Mass in St Peter’s Square, the pope said the synod would seek to identify new paths of evangelisation, especially for indigenous people who are

“often forgotten and left without the prospect of a peaceful future, including because of the crisis of the Amazon forest”, which plays a vital role in the environmental health of the entire planet.

The Amazon rainforest includes territory belonging to nine countries in South America and has experienced significant deforestation, negatively impacting the indigenous populations in the area and leading to a loss of biodiversity.

The pope prayed that the synod would highlight the beauty of creation so that “all the people of the earth may praise God, the Lord of the universe, and, enlightened by him, may walk along paths of justice and peace”.

The pope had spoken about a possible synod with a variety of bishops from South America, who have been making their ad limina visits to Rome this year. The groups

included the bishops of Peru; about 60% of the country is in the Amazon.

In an interview in L’Osservatore Romano, Archbishop Salvador Pineiro Garcia-Calderon of Ayacucho, president of the Peruvian bishops’ conference, said one of the primary challenges of evangelisation in the Amazon is the difficulty in physically reaching the native populations.

For example, he said, although they are in the same Church province, one bishop is five hours away and another is 17 hours away.

The Church, he said, has been the only voice speaking out in defence of the indigenous people of the Amazon.

In the early 1900s, Pope Pius X strongly denounced the mistreatment of the native population in the rubber plantations of Peru, Archbishop Pineiro said.—CNS

A girl holds a doll representing new Spanish St Faustino Miguez before the canonisation Mass of 35 new saints in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. (Photo: Paul Haring/CNS)

35 000 see 35 new saints canonised

BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

L

IKE the Catholic Church’s newest saints, Christians are called to live their faith as a love story with God who wants a relationship that is “more than that of devoted subjects with their king”, Pope Francis said.

Without a loving relationship with God, Christian life can become empty and “an impossible ethic, a collection of rules and laws to obey for no good reason”, the pope said during Mass in St Peter’s Square.

“This is the danger: a Christian life that becomes routine, content with ‘normality’, without drive or enthusiasm, and with a short memory,” he said.

At the beginning of the Mass, Pope Francis proclaimed 35 new saints, including: the “Martyrs of Natal”, Brazil, a group of 30 priests, laymen, women and children who were killed in 1645 during a wave of anti-Catholic persecution; and the “Child Martyrs of Tlaxcala”, three children who were among Mexico’s first native converts and were killed for refusing to renounce the faith.

Tapestries hung from the façade of St Peter’s basilica bearing images of the martyrs as well as pictures of Ss Angelo da Acri, an Italian Capuchin priest known for his defence of the poor, and Faustino Miguez, a Spanish priest who started an advanced school for girls at a time when such education was limited almost exclusively to boys.

An estimated 35 000 pilgrims— many of them from the new saints’ countries of origin—attended the Mass.

In his homily, Pope Francis reflected on the day’s Gospel reading from Matthew in which Jesus recounts the parable of the wedding feast.

Noting Jesus’ emphasis on the wedding guests, the pope said that God “wants us, he goes out to seek us and he invites us” to celebrate with him.

“For him, it is not enough that we should do our duty and obey his laws,” Pope Francis said. “He desires a true communion of life with us, a relationship based on dialogue, trust and forgiveness.”

However, he continued, Jesus also warns that “the invitation can be refused” as it was by those who “made light” of the invitation or were too caught up in their own affairs to consider attending the banquet.

“This is how love grows cold, not out of malice but out of preference for what is our own: our security, our self-affirmation, our comfort,” the pope said.

“The saints who were canonised today, and especially the many martyrs, point the way,” Pope Francis said. “The robe they wore daily was the love of Jesus, that ‘mad’ love that loved us to the end and offered his forgiveness and his robe to those who crucified him.”—CNS

Head of Vatican hospital found guilty of abuse of office

BY CAROL GLATZ

A

VATICAN court found the former president of the Vatican-owned pediatric hospital guilty of abuse of office for using donations belonging to the hospital’s foundation to refurbish a Vatican-owned apartment used

by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, former Vatican secretary of state.

Originally charged with embezzlement, Giuseppe Profiti was sentenced to one year in jail and fined $6 000 (R80 000) on the reduced charge, but the sentence was suspended. The three-judge tribunal dismissed charges against Massimo Spina, the hospital’s former treasurer.

The original indictment said Mr Profiti, who was president of Bambino Gesu hospital from 2008-15, and Mr Spina extracted 420 000 euros for noninstitutional ends from 2013-14 by using hospital foundation money to refurbish Vatican property in order to benefit a construction company owned by Gianantonio

Giuseppe Profiti, former president of Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome at the Vatican court.

He was found guilty of illicit appropriation and use of funds.

(Photo: Paul Haring/CNS) Bandera. The company, Castelli Re, went bankrupt in 2014.

Mr Profiti argued in court that the money had been an investment because the apartment’s refurbished areas were to be used for fundraising events to benefit the hospital.

Vatican prosecutor, Roberto Zanotti, said in closing argu-

ments that the deal reflected “opacity, silence and poor management” in the way Vatican assets were handled.

Cardinal Bertone, who was not asked to appear in court, had said he paid 300 000 euros from his own savings for the work; however, the hospital foundation also paid the construction company 422 000 euros. Cardinal Bertone also donated 150 000 euros to the hospital because of the loss they incurred.

Mr Bandera had been asked to provide a six-figure “donation” to the hospital foundation, according to trial testimony. Mr Spina testified he tried to get the “donation” from Mr Bandera, but he cited financial difficulties with the bankruptcy.

It’s not the first time Mr Profiti faced charges of financial crimes.

He had been sentenced to six months’ house arrest while he was still hospital president after being found guilty in 2008 of taking bribes and kickbacks at a different job.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

Pope on interviews: I want to run the risk

BY CINDY WOODEN

R A marble statue of Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in September 2015 while crossing the Mediterranean Sea, is seen at the Rome headquarters of the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation. Pope Francis visited the headquarters and presented the statue as a gift to the organisation. (Photo: Paul Haring/CNS)

Fatima fulfilled: Return of Russia to Christ

BY ROBERT DUNCAN

C

ATHOLICS across Russia are celebrating the centenary of the 1917 apparitions of Mary to shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, as they also prepare to celebrate the centenary of the Communist revolution.

According to one of the children, Sr Lucia Dos Santos, Mary asked for a special consecration of Russia to prevent the country from disseminating its “errors throughout the world”, a phrase now-retired Pope Benedict XVI interpreted as referring to communism.

Mary promised that Russia would “be converted” if her request was heeded, and Catholic Archbishop Paolo Pezzi of Moscow said he had witnessed this conversion in his lifetime.

“I thank our God that I became one of the witnesses of the return of Russia to Christ,” he said. But “we should not interpret Our Lady of Fatima as foretelling Russia’s conversion to Catholicism”.

Mary “still calls Russia to convert to Christ, but she did not say what form this conversion should take”, the archbishop said.

Though Russia has no official state religion, the majority of Russians identify with Eastern Orthodoxy, a branch of Christianity that has not been in communion with Rome for nearly a thousand years.

According to a recent study less than 1% of the Russian population identifies itself as Catholic.

Archbishop Pezzi said the Catholic Church’s minority status in Russia is actually one of its greatest

assets for evangelisation.

A Catholic in Russia “cannot base his faith on the tradition of the majority or on governmental support”, Archbishop Pezzi said. “This situation is a joyful opportunity for us: We can be defenceless witnesses of our faith.”

The Italian archbishop spoke about the challenges of living the Catholic faith in modern Russia.

“Russian Catholics sometimes feel themselves not so welcome. Ordinary people have the idea that if you are Russian, you ought to be Orthodox,” Archbishop Pezzi said.

“But I think that Russian Catholics should not feel hurt” by such sentiments, he said. On the contrary, “it means that they should show in their own life that Christianity can penetrate into all cultures and all nations”.

Part of the challenge of encouraging a Catholic renaissance in Russia is administrative: Because the government favours Orthodoxy, the work of opening a new parish can be met with bureaucratic roadblocks.

“There is freedom, but there are also hardships,” said Fr Aleksandr Burgos, a priest based in St Petersburg but originally from Spain. “In some cases, there is some pressure. I serve in St Petersburg, a city with a tradition of tolerance, so for us it is easier than it is in other parts of Russia.”

Fr Burgos had recently filed an application to register his fledgling parish with the government, a process that he expected to take up to three months. If denied, his Catholic community will not be able to enjoy “full freedom”.—CNS

EPLYING to questions and giving interviews are a “pastoral risk” which Pope Francis said he is prepared to take, because it is the best way to know and respond to people's real concerns.

“I know this can make me vulnerable, but it is a risk I want to take,” the pope wrote in the introduction to a new book collecting transcripts of question-and-answer sessions he has held all over the world.

The collection in Italian, Adesso Fate le Vostre Domande (“Now, Ask Your Questions”), was edited by Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro. The pope’s introduction was published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

“I want a Church that knows how to enter into people’s conversations, that knows how to dialogue,” Pope Francis wrote.

The model is the Gospel account of the risen Lord’s meeting with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. “The Lord ‘interviews’ the disciples who are walking discouraged,” he said. “For me, the interview is part of this conversation the Church is having with men and women today.”

The interviews and Q&A sessions “always have a pastoral

K

ENYAN Catholic bishops have urged the citizens to guard the country’s peace, as a prolonged election standoff took its toll on the economy and the social conditions of ordinary people.

The bishops said the matter is grave, while highlighting growing anxiety among the people and increased polarisation along political and ethnic lines.

“God has given us only one country, our nation Kenya, and it is upon every Kenyan to stand firm and say no to everything that will take away from the peace,” the bishops said in a statement signed by Bishop Philip Anyolo, chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“If the election on October 26 goes on as scheduled, we call upon Kenyans to turn out and exercise their democratic right

peacefully,” said Bishop Anyolo.

“If for any reason the election is rescheduled, we call on Kenyans to remain calm and peaceful."

The crisis started when the Supreme Court nullified the August election of President Uhuru Kenyatta over irregularities and illegalities. The court ordered a repeat election in 60 days, but political positions have hardened, even as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission planned to conduct repeat polls.

The crisis appeared to deepen after Raila Odinga, the National Super Alliance coalition leader, withdrew from the repeat polls.

Announcing the boycott, Mr Odinga said the IEBC had failed to meet the demands he had presented to the officials’ “irreducible minimums”.

Apart from the boycott, the opposition has been threatening to disrupt the polls, but the ruling Jubilee Party insists they will

value”, Pope Francis said, and are an important part of his ministry, just like inviting a small group of people to his early morning Mass each day.

The chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives, “is, let’s say, my parish. I need that communication with people”.

And, in interviews, journalists often ask the questions that are on the minds of the faithful, he said.

The most regular appointment

he has for responding to questions is on the flights back to Rome from his foreign trips when he holds a news conference with the journalists who travel with him.

“There, too, on those trips, I like to look people in the eye and respond to their questions sincerely,” he wrote. “I know that I have to be prudent, and I hope I am. I always pray to the Holy Spirit before I start listening to the questions and responding.”

His favourite interviews, he said, are with small, neighbourhood newspapers and magazines. “There I feel even more at ease,” the pope said. “In fact, in those cases I really am listening to the questions and concerns of common people. I try to respond spontaneously, in a conversation I hope is understandable, and not with rigid formulas.”

“For me,” he said, “interviews are a dialogue, not a lesson.”

Even when the questions are submitted in advance, the pope said he does not prepare his answers. Watching the person ask the question and responding directly is important.

“Yes, I am afraid of being misinterpreted,” he said. “But, I repeat, I want to run this pastoral risk.”— CNS

Pope: Franciscans in Holy Land sow peace, fraternity

BY CAROL GLATZ

T

HE Franciscans assisting the Christian minority and caring for the churches and shrines in the Holy Land are “ambassadors” of all the people of God, Pope Francis said.

Marking the 800th anniversary of the order’s presence at the places where Jesus was born, lived and died, the pope sent a letter to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, an administratively autonomous province of the Franciscan order.

The custody keeps “the Christian witness alive, studying Scripture and welcoming pilgrims,” he said in the letter addressed to Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, the official custodian, or custos, of the Holy Land.

The pope recalled how St Francis of Assisi sent members of his recently founded order out on a mission in 1217 to all nations on earth as wit-

Kenyan bishops urge calm

BY FREDRICK NZWILI

The cover of Adesso Fate le Vostre Domande ("Now, Ask Your Questions"), a collection of interviews with Pope Francis, edited by Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro.

(Photo: CNS)

5

take place as scheduled.

The coalition has taken to street protests to force change within IEBC. The police used tear gas to disperse the protesters, who have been blocking roads, attacking civilians and looting properties. At least 33 people have been shot dead by the police, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said.

Meanwhile, a drought affecting millions of rural people is further adding weight to the crisis. Nurses and health workers are on strike, which has also left thousands of patients across the country without treatment.

“We call for an end to this neglect and abandonment of the lives and affairs of our people,” the bishops said. “This cannot continue under our watch.”

The bishops have moved to convene high-level mediation talks, while stressing dialogue as the way forward.—CNS

Franciscans attend celebrations of the anniversary of 800 Years of Franciscan presence in the Holy Land at the Church of St Saviour in Jerusalem’s Old City. (Photo:Debbie Hill/CNS) nesses of “faith, fraternity and peace.”

This broadened horizon of evangelisation “was the beginning of an extraordinary adventure,” which brought the first Franciscans to the Holy Land 800 years ago.

Today, the congregation is dedicated to living alongside brothers and sisters of different cultures, ethnicities and religions, “sowing peace, fraternity and respect,” he said.

The pope encouraged the Franciscans to continue to: be at the service of the many pilgrims visiting the holy places; study sacred Scripture and the faith’s archaeological heritage; support local church communities; help the poorest and weakest; and teach young people, “who often risk losing hope in a situation still without peace.”

“You are ambassadors of the whole people of God, who have always supported you generously, in particular through the traditional Good Friday collection” for the Holy Land and through the Vatican’s Congregation for Oriental Churches, which is currently marking the centenary of its foundation.—CNS

MARTIN LUTHER QUINCENTENNIAL EVENT

WEDNESDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2017, 7.30PM

FROM CONFLICT TO COMMUNION: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE REFORMATION

Introduction By Lutheran Rev. Dr. Claudia Nolte-Schamm: “Luther And The Reformation” Guest Lecturer: Fr Martin Badenhorst O.P. “God’s Motherhood And The Reformation” CK Storey Hall, behind Methodist Church, Main Road, Rosebank, Cape Town.

Parking and Entrance via Chapel Road WE ARE ALL CHURCH SA

6

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

The #metoo campaign

A

S the Catholic Church discovered 15 years ago, sometimes it takes just one case to blow the lid off a long-fermenting scandal.

In 2002 the investigation by the Boston Globe into the coverup of abuse of minors by clergy led to revelations of similar scandals in many countries around the world. The Catholic Church has been humiliated by the scandal of its own making, and is suffering the fall-out even now.

But the exposure of the culture that allowed for the sexual abuse of young people and its cover-up was necessary so that overdue corrective measures could be developed and implemented.

Hollywood now has its own scandal of sexual abuse and cover-ups with the recent revelations concerning movie executive Harvey Weinstein, one of the film industry’s most powerful men.

Weinstein’s abuse of young women in the film industry, ranging from indecent exposure to alleged rape, are shocking, as is the fact that many people knew about it—and even joked about it at award ceremonies. But Weinstein is not the only nor even the worst sex offender in Hollywood.

He is, in fact, just the tip of an iceberg that has been growing ever since the inception of the movie industry.

The casting couch system, whereby actresses—and actors— would be coerced to submit to sexual acts in return for advancement, has been known about and tolerated for the best part of a century. A refusal to submit to the casting couch could end a career.

Hollywood is virtually synonymous with sexual exploitation. And its practitioners have been adept at covering up that sexual abuse, with many even defending the serial rapist Bill Cosby.

The Weinstein case must become the scandal that brings down the whole predatory system of sexual exploitation in Hollywood.

But Hollywood—like other areas of celebrity culture—merely magnifies the reality of pervasive sexual abuse in many other walks of life throughout the world.

Weinstein symbolises a patriarchal system, present in many different social environments, that has always insisted on men’s sexual entitlements, one which takes for granted acts of sexual harassment and coercion, and

even blames women for their rape. That is the way it was, and that is the way it must no longer be.

The worldwide reaction by women to Weinstein suggests that these patriarchal assumptions are being challenged: by women and by men who are dismayed with the sexual exploitation of women.

The social media was awash with a #metoo campaign, whereby women who have had experience of sexual assault, abuse or harassment could simply state in a hashtag that they have been subjected to these.

For some women it has been an opportunity to tell their stories, and point out how even behaviour which many men might find innocuous had made them feel violated. Many other women who have had these experiences did not post #metoo for various reasons, none of which should be double-guessed.

The importance of #metoo, and similar campaigns which doubtless will come in the future, is in the awareness that sexual abuse happens to most women, and to women we all know. It builds awareness about the prevalence of the sexual exploitation, and the unequal power relations that feed it.

Such campaigns help to encourage women in the knowledge that their stories, which some may even be keeping as a “shameful” secret, is shared by others, and that shame rightfully resides with the perpetrator. Solidarity is a powerful healing agent.

For some women, #metoo has been an opportunity to tell that story. For men, even those who are innocent of sexual predation (or think that they are), it is a time to listen—to be silent and hear these stories, without offering justification or contextualisation or mounting the defence that not all men are like that.

It is a time for men to introspect about when they might have been the protagonist in a situation that justifies a woman to post #metoo, or were complicit in such a situation by their inaction.

In a patriarchal country like South Africa, with its high levels of sexual violence and complex sexual relations, it is especially important to take into the public forum the question of how power is institutionalised in our patriarchal society.

Atheists commit spiritual suicide

I

T seems that more and more people are either leaving their churches, opting for alternate faith beliefs, or totally giving up on their traditional religions.

Because of my curiosity regarding this phenomena and my misunderstanding thereof, I decided to look into the whys and wherefores of some alternative thinking and to try to find out what it is that is so attractive to persuade people to give up their faith.

In doing this I have included the writings of people such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Charles Darwin. Both Dawkins and Hitchens are “celebrated” atheists.

Charles Darwin seems to have been a believer yet, like many folk, a little confused with his faith.

The atheists to whom I have referred can be quite convincing to those whose faith is weak. Atheists tend to take too literally the complex literature that determines our belief systems: the Bible, the Torah, the Quran and probably others. It is so easy to quote, verbatim, certain texts, which are then pronounced

Beware fairytale wedding plans

Y

OUR columnist Nthabiseng Maphisa’s article “That quest for a fairytale wedding” (October 11) should be required reading for all marriage preparation classes.

It is calculated that in South Africa weddings can cost from R55 000 for low-end to several hundreds of thousand rands for upperend ceremonies. The rings, the honeymoon and lobola can add another R100 000 to the cost.

For a couple starting out as a family, that kind of money would be better used to secure their financial future. Often it is financial problems that can lead to divorce.

Carol-Ann Green, Johannesburg

Why we mustn’t hear Fr Martin

R

HINA Guidos' report concerning the confusion around Fr James Martin SJ (“Bishop defends priest after seminary snub”, September 27), exposed again the division in the US Catholic Church between camps seeking a reform and those defending the status quo.

Fr Martin wrote a book, Building a Bridge, that positively affirms individuals in their existing LBGT inclinations. It intends to replace the culture of alienation with a culture of merciful inclusion.

Fr Martin appeals to the Church

PRICE CHECK

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A pilgrimage with Bishop Victor Phalana Feast day at shrine of Our Lady of Knock, PAPAL MASS n Dublin*, and much more * subject to confirmation

Pope to make out-of-this-world telephone call

F

Bishop Duncan Tsoke, president of Caritas SA

The The

to enter into a relationship of respect, compassion and sensitivity with the LGBT community. He avers that the Catholic Church has misunderstood God's plan for human sexuality for her entire history.

Conservatives argue that Jesus did not come to affirm us in our sins and destructive behaviour but to redeem us. The conservatives refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2357) which states that under no circumstances homosexual acts can be approved.

After Fr Martin was appointed to the Vatican's Secretariat for Communication, evangelical theologian Prof Robert Gagnon, said: “Fr Martin has no business being in a position of responsibility in the Catholic Church, because his raison d'être appears to be the destruction of the historic Catholic (and general Christian, scriptural) position on a malefemale foundation of sexual ethics."

Professor Janet Smith, a professor of moral theology, criticised Fr Martin's slick dissent from Church teaching on sexuality and its pernicious influence.

VIVA SAFARIS KRUGER PARK with

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or

St Charles’ church in Victory Park, Johannesburg, is in a glow as 51 young people received the sacrament of confirmation by Archbishop Buti Tlhagale. (Photo: Gino Zambetti)

Catholic Ireland

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

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

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

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Caritas to go national

them feel at home in the Church.

To strengthen the participation of women and make visible their contribution to the development of families and communities.

To integrate into the religious and priestly formation the systems of the social teaching of the Church and the minima of the principles of transparent management of the property of the Church belonging to the poor.

To develop a genuine synergy of action at the level of the continent, sub-regions (zones), bishops’ conferences and dioceses, with a view to productive ecclesial communion in the service of integral human promotion.

Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of Catholic relief, development and social service organisations operating in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

The first Caritas was founded in 1897 in Germany.

In 1951 the various national Caritas organisations set up an international conference of Roman Catholic charities, and in 1954 took the name Caritas Internationalis to reflect the international presence of Caritas members on every continent Its general secretariat is located in the Palazzo San Calisto in the Vatican.

as being “obviously” unbelievable, stupid, preposterous, and so on.

Dawkins’ The God Delusion and God is Not Great by Hitchens both are scathing in their condemnation of there being a supernatural creator or God. Both are rather arrogant and demeaning in their attitude towards those who do believe in God. Dawkins, in particular, propagates atheism.

After reading and listening to and participating in a number of debates, I have concluded that atheism is ugly, arrogant and hostile and lacks true humility. Because they have limited understanding, as we all have, they have chosen to ignore their limitations and to commit spiritual suicide.

The atheists have condemned this universe to a bleak and futile end, confining the billions of years of God's evolution to be just one disastrous waste of time.

Atheists cannot explain energy, or gravity, or how DNA is programmed or how it programmes cells to do what they are designed to do. They cannot even tell how a

Murdered missioinary remembered

INKED! Declaring faith by tattoos

T

HE auxiliar y bishop of Johannesburg has been tasked to oversee the establishment of Caritas in all dioceses of the Southern African pastoral region, with a view to having the Church’s charitable arm present in all parishes.

Bishop Duncan Tsoke has been appointed president of Caritas SA, and is the liaison bishop for the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC).

The Southern African bishops had resolved to establish Caritas SA during their plenar y Session in August 2016 in Gaborone, Botswana.

Caritas has long been present in the SACBC as a desk within the Siyabhabha Trust, which continues to function as an SACBC agency for development, overseeing the disaster management within the SACBC region.

Siyabhabha has always been affiliated to Caritas Internationalis.

The difference now is that Caritas will be established as an entity in every diocese and parish in the whole SACBC region. All works of charity, such as justice, peace, social development, education, health and so on, will be coordinated under one roof and office in every diocese.

Bishop Tsoke’s three-year mandate is to enact the vision of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 motu proprio, In a (On the ntima Ecclesia Natura Ser vice of Charity) which states that “the service of charity is a constitutive element of the Church’s mission and an indispensable expression of her being”.

Last month Bishop Tsoke, SACBC president Archbishop Stephen Brislin and other SACBC representatives joined their counterparts from 43 countries of the Caritas Internationalis Africa Region in Dakar, Senegal, on the theme “Organising the Service of Charity in Africa: The Role of the Bishops.”

This followed the first such gathering in 2012, held in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Dakar meeting—which was also attended by Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Caritas Internationalis president Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, and Cardinal Dieudonne Nzapalainga of Bangui, Central Africa Republic—undertook the following commitments: To o pay more attention to migration and refugee problems, and to the consequences of political crises and natural disasters.

To be involved in the preparation and participation in the next Synod of Bishops on young people, whom the conference said are the wealth of the Church and of their nations, and to do everything possible to make

The Editor reserves the right to shorten or edit published letters. Letters below 300 words receive preference. Pseudonyms are acceptable only under special circumstances and at the Editor’s discretion.

Name and address of the writer must be supplied. No anonymous letter will be considered.

ROM the start of his pontificate, Pope Francis has gained a reputation for his phone calls to people around the world—including a priest with cancer, a Jesuit doorman, and a mother who had just lost her son.

The next call on Pope Francis’ list is going to be out of this world—literally.

Pope Francis will contact NASA’s International Space Station via a satellite call on October 26 at 17:00, according to the Vatican.

Aboard the International Space Station are a total of six astronauts, including three Americans, two Russians and one Italian who have been orbiting the earth, about 350km away.

Pope Francis’ call will mark the second time a pope has contacted astronauts in space. Pope Benedict XVI called the International Space Station in 2011 via satellite link and spoke with 12 astronauts for about 20 minutes—CNA.

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blade of grass grows. Observation, yes. Evidence, yes. Explanation, no!

Yet they profess to know conclusively that there is no God. How presumptuous? Until they can explain the very basics of science and physics, they must keep away from my spirituality which is more understandable than their lack of understanding thereof.

The theory of nothingness after death is the creed of the atheist.

How crazy and cruel it is to preach this ideology!

I have faith that there is a great heavenly life after death. I will see my God and all the saints, my late parents and some day my children and grandchildren and my many good friends.

Can the millions of moments of love and joy, and sometimes suffering and sadness, and prayer and worship, the enjoyment of music and literature, and the laughter and fun, all just come to a dead end?

I cannot accept that having lived and loved such dear and good folk that they and I will someday culminate in just a heap of ash. How sad!

Tony Meehan, Cape Town She contends that his scandalous interpretation of Catholic teaching could jeopardise the salvation of the people who hear his message.

Modifying the old saying about hating the sin and loving the sinner, Fr Martin seems to love the sinner so much that he doesn't bother mentioning the sin, for that would hurt the feelings of the well-loved sinner—and that would be against Christian charity.

JH Goossens, Pretoria

What to put in food parcels

D

URING the coming Advent and Christmas season many organisations will be giving food parcels to the needy.

Many poor people eat mainly starch such as mielie-meal and don’t get much protein. They would benefit by receiving food that is as nutritious as possible.

Such nutritious foods include long-life milk, soya mince, dried lentils, dried beans, dried split peas, tinned fish, tinned beans, peanut butter, cooking oil, enriched mieliemeal and brown rice.

Eggs, brown or wholewheat bread, and vitamin-enriched margarine could be bought and given out soon after purchase.

Tea, salt, stock cubes, and so on could be also be included. Milk chocolate with nuts has more food value than other sweets.

JM Thomson, Johannesburg

PERSPECTIVES

Is being single a vocation?

R ECENTLY, a friend sent me an article from an Irish Catholic newspaper in which the columnist stated that “there is no such thing as a vocation to the single life” because it is “not part of God’s plan for people”.

According to the writer, marriage is “man’s natural state”, but that some people are “called to forego the natural state in view of the Gospel and the Kingdom” by entering religious life.

The article says that it is misguided to talk about a vocation to the single life because it promotes “deliberate non-commitment”, adding that the high number of single people in our society is a sign of an unhealthy culture.

I was a little upset when I read it. As a single person, it is hurtful to read about myself as being incomplete or uncommitted, especially when I don’t feel that way!

The author’s comments also negate my personal life history and the reasons for my choices.

That being said, part of what the article says is valid. The Bible opens with the creation story, where after creating Adam, God says: “It is not good for the man to be alone.”

Marriage is at the heart of our human story. In our Catholic tradition, the sacrament of marriage not only binds the spouses to each other but also to God. Through their union to each other in God, they share in God’s creation because their love brings new life into the world. It is a precious vocation.

This is also why I so deeply respect those who make the free choice to join religious life by sacrificing companionship with a lifelong marriage partner and a family, choosing human aloneness to dedicate themselves entirely to God and the service of God’s people.

But none of this makes my singleness any less valid or any less a part of God’s plan of love for me.

When I was 19, I had a very strong sense—especially during my prayer time— that I would never marry. I also never experienced any real attraction towards

being a mother, even though I love children and was studying to be a teacher.

At first I rebelled against this idea, and in my less melancholic moments, shook it off as an unfounded and immature premonition. After all, I was young and had my entire life ahead of me. Surely, at some point, I would fall in love with someone who loved me too and we would get married.

Y

ears passed and I didn’t meet any potential husbands. Growing up, I had close contact with two religious communities, so when I didn’t show any particular interest in dating, the Sisters got me thinking about whether I might have a calling to religious life. Having tried to fall in love and failed, I thought that joining a convent the only option left for me.

After much prayer I soon realised that the call to religious life would mean a complete self-surrender—of my dreams for the future and my personal freedom. But since I was convinced that life only offered me two options, marriage or religious life, I resigned myself to praying for the grace to eventually relinquish everything.

After finishing my studies, I took a gap year to work as a volunteer overseas and during that time lived in close proximity to the Schoenstatt Sisters. It still stands out as the best year of my life for a number of reasons. It was also during that year that it became abundantly clear that God had

Aside from marriage and the religious life, singlehood can also be a vocation, as Sarah-Leah Pimentel explains.

Sarah-Leah Pimentel

not called me to join a religious community. That realisation brought me tremendous peace and inner consolation.

However, I returned home and found myself in limbo. Was I now supposed to run around and try to find myself a husband? Or remain single and forever feel that something was missing in my life? It never occurred to me that single life could also be a calling.

Until I attended a youth programme and for the first time, in my mid-20s, I heard a priest say that single life could also be a vocation. He made it clear: singleness out of selfishness or fear to take responsibility for myself and others is not a vocation. That, as the Irish columnist writes, is “deliberate non-commitment”.

The vocation to single life that the priest was talking about was a life of service through one’s profession and commitment to the lay apostolate of the Church.

When I heard this, I knew immediately that it fit me perfectly. I take my work seriously and enjoy my profession. I believe that my interactions with my colleagues offers an opportunity to share my Christian values.

Since I don’t have a family that needs my constant attention, I can dedicate my free time to helping in various Church ministries and being an active member within the Schoenstatt movement to which I also belong.

We talk about the desperate need for laity to be active leaders in the Church community. Many lay people have families and are limited in the amount of time that they can dedicate to Church activities. Retired people have the time but not always the energy to dedicate themselves to multiple apostolates.

This is where single people can offer the Church so much.

The Church has many alternatives for single people. Many religious movements have groups for single people where they Continued on page 11

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Christian Leadership

‘Every person has a special place in God’s plan for the development of the world and the salvation of humankind,’ writes Emmanuel Ngara. (Photo: Gerd Altmann) First, you are born in a particular society at a particular point in history and of particular parents. This is what some scholars have described as “sovereign foundations”.

Your upbringing in that society at that particular point in the development of your country and of the world, provides the environment in which you will grow as a leader.

G

od uses the circumstances of our lives to train us: thus, the good and bad experiences you go through; the people you come into contact with; the education and training you receive—all these and others combine to prepare you for leadership.

The second thing that God does to us is to give us talents. God will not call you to

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How God prepares you for leadership Emmanuel Ngara W HAT is Christian leadership? How do you know that God is calling you to leadership? This column is the first in a series that discusses the subject of Christian leadership.

Understanding Christian leadership begins with recognition of the fact that every person has a purpose in life. Every individual is unique and has a special place in God’s plan for the development of the world and the salvation of humankind.

Your calling, like that of everyone who recognises the role of God in their life, can be said to come in two related ways: First, you are called to a vocation along with other people—a vocation such as teaching, nursing or religious life. You are called, along with others, to that “general” vocation or career.

But, secondly, you are also called in a special way: to serve God in a particular way within that vocation.

The challenge is first to know your general vocation, and then to discover your particular calling; what we may refer to as “a call within a calling”.

This is sometimes not straightforward because you may at one point feel strongly that you are called to a certain career, only to find out later that you are not really meant for that way of life.

How you discover that God is calling you to a particular way of life will be the subject of another column. Our focus now is on some of the provisions that God makes for you and the conditions he sets for you when he calls you to leadership.

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

something that is completely beyond your ability.

Part of the litmus test you can use to confirm whether you are really called to what you currently believe is your vocation is to find out whether you have the tools or talents that will enable you to fulfil your role in that calling.

God also often tests those whom he has called: Abraham passed the test when he took his son to Moriah to sacrifice him; Jesus passed the test when he was tempted in the desert; he passed the test in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross.

The challenge for you and me is to pass the test, and not to fail like Adam and Eve who ate of the forbidden tree.

Finally, God does not use us like robots—things that cannot think or make choices. He calls us and provides us with some natural gifts and talents, but he also wants us to play our part in our development as leaders.

First, he wants us to discover our calling. Second, he wants us to participate in our development—to develop the qualities, character and skills that make us capable and effective leaders.

You may ask: how do I do that? We will explore that in future columns.

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Hindu nationalists burn an effigy of Cardinal Telesphore Toppo of Ranchi, India. (Photo: CNS)

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Pray with the Pope

How to be a minority General Intention: That Christians in Asia, bearing witness to the Gospel in word and deed, may promote dialogue, peace, and mutual understanding, especially with those of other religions.

O understand the Church in Asia, we have to focus on its experience as a tiny minority. We Catholics are a minority in South Africa but we make up part of the Christian majority.

To appreciate the Asian situation, we have to imagine what it might be like if Christianity were still a minority faith in comparison to traditional African religion.

The figures are contested but the percentage of Christians in China is conservatively estimated to be 2,3%. And Catholics are therefore an even more miniscule minority. How do you relate to your own people when you are so small and the majority regard you as a rather odd foreign, even barbarous sect? You obviously have to tread warily.

Minorities are rarely threats to the state but they are convenient scapegoats when the state gets unpopular. It is an age-old trick of politicians to distract discontent by conjuring up bogeymen from among minorities.

The periodic violence suffered by Christians in India, for instance, seems to stem from political weakness rather than strength. An incredibly diverse country like India is hard to unify.

The militant Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tries to unify it around Hindu identity and uses distrust of religious minorities to further this aim. This is easy to do with Christians but with a very large hundred million minority of Muslims this seems like a dangerous ploy because the Muslims are strong enough to fight back, and they have Pakistan as a natural ally.

According to the 2011 census, the number of Christians in India is around 28 million, which sounds impressive but the number almost disappears in a country of over a billion.

T

B

ut Catholics in India tend to “punch above their weight” thanks to the considerable influence of educational institutions—and this can upset the social system of caste.

If a low-caste person becomes a Christian and receives a good education which enables the convert to move up the social ladder, then this can irk and threaten people with a conservative Brahmin mentality who want society to remain the same and keep low caste people in their place.

Christians in Asia are like St Paul at the Areopagus (permanently so), striving to find common ground and common concepts with which to proclaim the Gospel. But notice that this does not mean watering the Gospel down.

The theologian Tomas Halik points out that Paul’s focus on the statue to the “unknown God” is not a random choice. The problem with the Greek gods was that they were all too well known, mere reflections of human nature, warts and all.

The God of Judeo-Christian revelation is unknown in the sense that this God is truly transcendent and only properly known through a gracious process of revelation which culminates in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

The monument to the unknown god was something the Areopagites were familiar with, but Paul tried to proclaim to them the true meaning of their “unknown”, not just a god that might have been overlooked but the one true God who is ultimately unknowable unless he graciously deigns to speak to us.

I would imagine that, politicians apart, Christians in Asia are generally respected by their neighbours. There is a dialogue of theological experts which takes place at high level conferences.

But there is another dialogue which has been called the “dialogue of life” which happens in the ordinary interactions between ordinary people who get on with the business of being good neighbours and respecting the common humanity in one another.

We pray for the dialogue which takes place at all levels for our brothers and sisters in Asia and we pray for the sensitivity to understand that what we do in our majority Christian societies can affect them as minorities.

8

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

PILGRIMAGE

Candlelight procession in Fatima, with Holy Trinity basilica in the background.

The pilgrims are told about the history of Fatima by guide Carlos Costa..

The sanctuary of Fatima is covered in mist. One can make out the modern crucifix, but the new giant rosary in front of the Paul VI Pastoral Centre is barely visible.

Pilgrimage to Fatima and Avila in pics T A pilgrim makes the penitential walk on her knees at Fatima.

In Salamanca, Spain, members of the group met up with Siyanda Mncwango , a young South African seminarian studying there to become a Mariannhill Missionaries priest. He is seen here in the historic city’s Plaza Mayor.

HIS month, a group of Southern Cross/Radio Veritas pilgrims, led by Fr Brian Mhlanga OP of Radio Veritas, travelled to Fatima to celebrate the centenary of the apparitions of Our Lady there. They took part in the candlelight processions, had Mass at the Apparition chapel where Our Lady appeared to the children, visited the tombs of the children in the basilica, saw the village in which the visionary children grew up, the spot of the August apparition, the places of the apparition of the Angel of Peace, and more.

In Portugal the journey also took them to Santarém (site of the famous Eucharistic miracle), Lisbon and Coimbra.

In Spain the group visited Avila, the town of St Teresa and St John of the Cross, where they stayed next to the ancient cathedral. In Alba de Tormes the pilgrims prayed at St Teresa’s tomb. Their journey finished with a tour of Madrid.

Fr Brian Mhlanga on the altar during an international Mass at the Apparition chapel in Fatima, at the very spot where Our Lady appeared to the three shepherd children in 1917.

Ireland in 2018

The Southern Cross is planning a very special pilgrimage to ireland, led by Bishop Victor phalana from August 18-28, 2018. it will include a visit to the shrine of our Lady of Knock on its feast day, and the closing mass of the World Family Day in Dublin (probably celebrated by pope Francis), and other great sites such as the cliffs of moher, Kylemore Abbey, Kildare, the Rock of cashel and more...

See www.fowlertours.co.za/ireland/ for itinerary

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The group walks to the church of the Eucharistic Miracle in Santarém in Portugal.

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Pilgrims outside the Old Cathedral of Coimbra, the historic Portuguese city in which the Fatima visionary Lucia dos Santos lived the last 47 years of her life in a Carmelite convent, where she died in 2005.

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

ALL SOULS

9

Catholic funerals: Some practical advice you?

• Do they operate their own mortuary and is it on their premises?

• Are they contactable 24 hours a day?

• Are they registered with the National Funeral Directors Association or similar organisation?

Many homes offer assistance when seeking advice on funeral planning, from dealing with the necessary paperwork to enable burial or cremation, placing obituaries in newspapers, arranging for vehicles and staff for funeral and graveside services, and making arrangements for the transfer of the remains for funeral and burial services.

They can offer suggestions and advise in the planning process to make sure that the loved one will receive an appropriate and meaningful funeral.

Catholic funeral liturgies are a beautiful expression of our beliefs as the faithful pass into the arms of God. ERIN CARELSE offers practical steps that can make the death of a loved one less overwhelming.

S

AYING goodbye to a loved one is never easy, and while it’s not pleasant to think about, a funeral should be a meaningful expression of love and remembrance that helps families honour the life and memory of a loved one.

Death often results in emotional and financial hardship. In many cases it is unplanned and unexpected. Those left behind are tasked with all the decision-making to ensure a dignified burial.

Pre-planning funeral arrangements and making financial plans for it will help ease the financial stress during a time of grief. A funeral plan won’t ease the pain of the loss of a loved one, but it can help to ease the path ahead and give peace of mind.

Amid the logistics of planning a funeral, Catholic families also need to plan the liturgical dimensions.

Catholic funerals are rooted in centuries-old customs and rituals and are carried out in accordance with the prescribed rites of the Church. At a time of great upheaval and emotional distress, these customs and rituals offer us stability and focus.

Dying as Catholics When death is imminent for a Catholic, it is customary for the family to call in a local priest to administer confession and final Communion or viaticum (food for the journey) to the dying person. Once death has occurred, the priest should be contacted and plans for the funeral can begin.

Some Catholics prepare for a funeral by having a vigil service, which is a liturgical evening prayer service—usually the first gathering held the evening before the funeral—and is intended to be dedicated to prayer for the deceased, or “paying respect” to the body of the deceased.

Much like a viewing or wake, family and friends gather in the home of the deceased to pay their respects to the deceased and his or her family. Elements include a com-

Overspending on funerals

When a family member dies there are practical matters that need to be attended to and its worthwhile becoming acquainted with the formalities. bination of readings, a brief homily or reflection, prayers led by an appropriate layperson and singing hymns. Often the Rosary is prayed, sometimes over several days.

There are ceremonial differences between a funeral or memorial service and these differences relate directly to the presence/absence of the remains of the deceased person.

Any prayers, such as words about the body or words anticipating burial and ritual gestures such as blessing with holy water, are omitted from the Memorial Mass. The intentions of the two ceremonies, however, are the same.

A traditional Catholic funeral Mass includes blessings directed at the body or remains, and begins with the procession from the funeral home to the church.

Once the body is received, the priest sprinkles the coffin (or urn) with holy water as a reminder of baptism, and the pall is placed on the coffin to symbolise the baptismal garment. The procession, with the ministers leading the casket to the sanctuary, begins with the opening prayer, followed by liturgies of the word and Eucharist, and final committal or

concluding rites.

The music played at the funeral Mass should be appropriate hymns, and the family may have special hymns, psalms or readings included. Laypeople may also participate as ushers, pallbearers, and readers throughout the service.

A memorial Mass, on the other hand, has alternate readings, prayers and blessings.

The funeral procession, then, makes its way from the church to the final resting place of the deceased. The committal liturgy is invoked for the salvation of the deceased, and for the consolation of the family and friends. The burial place is blessed and followed with the intercessions, the Lord’s Prayer, and the blessing which concludes the Catholic funeral rite.

There are certain days on which funeral Masses may not be held: Holy Days of Obligation, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter and the Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent and Easter.

Cremation is allowed in the Catholic Church, with more families taking that option to lessen funeral expenses. The ashes must be kept in a “sacred place” such as

church grounds, or a memorial wall, and should not be kept in private houses or scattered on land or at sea.

Funeral undertaking For many, the topic of death and funerals isn’t one that is easily embraced, and enlisting the help of a funeral home eases this burden.

These will help in making informed decisions regarding final arrangements and obviously take care of the logistics.

When choosing a funeral home, it's important that it can meet all specific needs and accommodate particular wishes, and has experience in planning the desired type of funeral you'd like.

A few important things to consider: • Does the funeral director understand your religious or cultural needs? A Catholic-run funeral home will be well equipped in offering advice and services specific to the Catholic faith.

• Where are they based and how are they equipped to assist you, and do they offer the goods and/or services that you require?

• Is there sufficient staff to assist

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Through Christ our Lord.

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Fr S’milo Mngadi, a priest in Vosloorus in Johannesburg diocese, said that in the black communities in which he grew up in and served as a priest, “funerals are community events, not just limited to the burial day. They run from the day of death right up to the unveiling of the tombstone normally a year later”.

Increasingly, he said, the tendency has been to stretch the budget to get the most expensive undertaker package—coffin, family cars, decor, graveside marquee and so on—and sumptuous lunches (followed by “after-tears” gigs, especially in townships, and a long programme of eulogies.

“The unfortunate tendency is to invest more on funeral policies than anything else,” Fr Mngadi said.

“The motto is ‘to survive while alive but, by all means, have the grand send-off’.”

The Church generally gives full burial rites to practising Catholics, he said, adding that he buries “anyone at the request of the family” to avoid any semblance of proselytising.

With many traditions, rites, personal preferences, and cultural differences, one thing rings true across all societies: a funeral should be about paying respect, celebrating the life a loved one lived.

It may mark the end of someone’s life, but it also honours a life that was lived, a life that deserves recognition because as long as there is a memory, they will live on in our hearts forever.

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10

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

ALL SOULS

Museum of visiting souls from purgatory A small museum in a Roman church is dedicated to apparitions of the dead in purgatory to the living.

HANNAH BROCKHAUS found out more.

N

ESTLED in Rome just outside the Vatican, a small unassuming museum dedicated to the souls in purgatory displays simple items such as prayer books and clothing.

Nothing too unusual, until you realise that each allegedly shows the marks of the deceased—such as inexplicably burned fingerprints— when they appeared to loved ones asking for prayers from purgatory.

The Museum of the Souls in Purgatory is located inside the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Prati, near Castel Sant’Angelo, and contains around 15 of these testimonies and artifacts, collected from around Europe by a 19th-century French Missionaries of the Sacred Heart priest, Fr Victor Jouët.

In many of the cases, it is held that the marks were left as proof that the deceased had really appeared, asking for prayers or for Masses to be said for their souls.

One artifact in the museum is the fingerprint of Sr Mary of St Luigi Gonzaga, left on a pillowcase when she appeared to Sr Margherita of the Sacred Heart on the night after she

died in 1894.

The appearance was recorded in the archives of the monastery of St Clare of the Child Jesus in Bastia, near Perugia, Italy.

According to the records, Sr Mary told Sr Margherita that she was in purgatory as expiation of her lack of patience in accepting God’s will.

Another is the prayer book of Maria Zaganti which shows three fingerprints left by her deceased friend Palmira Rastelli on March 5, 1871. The sister of the parish priest appeared to her friend to ask for Masses to be said by her brother Fr Sante Rastelli.

A mark of fiery fingerprints were also left on the German prayer book of George Schitz by his brother Joseph on December 21, 1838. He asked for prayer in expiation of his lack of piety during his life.

The Museum of the Souls in Purgatory was created by Fr Jouët in 1897. He founded in Rome the Association of the Sacred Heart of the Suffrage of the Souls of Purgatory.

The chapel the association used from 1896 to 1914 was located at the place where the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is now.

Fire in the chapel In 1897 the chapel caught fire.

When Fr Jouët rushed into the chapel, he saw the image of a human face, looking sad and melancholy, impressed upon the wall behind the altar. He believed it to be from the soul of a deceased man trying to contact those on earth.

A display in the Museum of the Souls in Purgatory in a Roman church. The displays show the marks of the deceased when they appeared to loved ones asking for prayers from purgatory. (Photo: Hannah Brockhaus) After this occurrence, the priest decided to create a museum dedicated to the artifacts of other appearances of souls in purgatory. He travelled around Europe and Italy collecting the items and testimonies.

Each piece in the museum was collected by Fr Jouët from the same person who experienced the vision.

The image of the man from the chapel can also be found there.

While he travelled around, Fr Jouët also asked for money to build a church on the site of the chapel, which he had received a message to build in a dream.

Other artifacts in the museum include the print of a hand and a cross

left on a the wooden table of Venerable Clara Isabel Fornari, abbess of the Poor Clares of the monastery of St Francis in Todi, Italy, by the deceased Fr Panzini in 1731.

There is also a copy of an Italian 10 lira banknote, one of 30 notes left at the monastery of St Leonardo in Montefalco by a deceased priest between August 18 and November 9, 1919.

What the Church teaches Catholic teaching on the afterlife is that there are three places for a soul to go after death: heaven, hell, or purgatory.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, those who go

to heaven are those “who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified to live for ever with Christ”.

Those souls that go to hell are those who have freely chosen through mortal sin “exclusion from communion with God and the blessed”.

Purgatory is a place where the souls go who die in friendship with God but are still imperfectly purified. It is where “after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven”. These souls are ensured eventual entrance into heaven, once they are purified.

The Church teaches that souls in purgatory rely on the prayers of souls still on earth to relieve some of their temporal suffering and speed their journey to heaven. In return, the souls in purgatory can also pray for those on earth.

On the feast of All Souls last year, Pope Francis offered Mass for all the departed in Flaminio cemetery in Rome.

Speaking about the sadness of losing a loved one, the pope said that “in this sadness we bring flowers as a sign of hope, and also, I dare to say, of celebration—not now, but in the future”.

“All of us will make this journey,” he said. “Sooner or later, but everyone. With pain, some more some less, but all. But with the flower of hope, with that strong thread of hope that is anchored in the hereafter.” —CNA

How ‘Saint Death’ cult grew Tweet us twitter.com/scrossZA

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BY MARY REZAC

T

HEY call her Santa Muerte (“Holy Death” or “Saint Death), but she’s no saint.

Literally.

The skeletal female figure has a growing devotion in Mexico, Central America, and some places in the United States, but don’t be fooled by the Mary-like veil or the holy-sounding name.

She’s not a recognised saint by the Catholic Church. In fact, in 2013, a Vatican official condemned devotion to her, equating it to “the celebration of devastation and of hell”.

“It’s not every day that a folk saint is actually condemned at the highest levels of the Vatican,” said Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, the only English academic book to date on the subject.

Despite her condemnation from on high, Santa Muerte remains increasingly popular among criminals, drug lords and those on the fringe of society, as well as cultural Catholics who maybe don’t know—or care— that she is condemned by the Church.

“She’s basically the poster girl of narco-satanic spirituality,” Dr Chesnut said.

According to his estimates, Santa Muerte is the fastest growing religious movement in the Americas—and it has all happened within the past 10-15 years.

“She was unknown to 99% of Mexicans before 2001, when she went public. Now I estimate there’s some 10-12 million devotees, mostly in Mexico,” he said.

Roots of Santa Muerte Although she has recently exploded in popularity, Santa Muerte has been referenced in Mexican culture since Spanish colonial times, when Catholic colonisers, looking to evangelise the native people of Mexico, brought over female Grim Reaper figures as a representation of death, Dr Chesnut said.

But the Mayan and Aztec cultures already had death deities, and so the female skeletal figure

A statue of the “demonic” Santa Muerte (Photo: Toni Francois/CNA) became adopted into the culture as a kind of hybrid death saint.

She’s also mentioned twice in the historical records of the Inquisition, when Spanish Catholic inquisitors found and destroyed a shrine to Santa Muerte in Central Mexico. After that, Santa Muerte disappeared from historical records for more than a century, only to resurface, in a relatively minor way, in the 1940s.

“From the 1940s to 1980s, researchers exclusively report Santa Muerte [being invoked] for love miracles,” Sr Chesnut said, such as women asking the folk saint to bring back their cheating husbands.

She then faded into obscurity for a few more decades, until the Mexican drug wars brought her roaring back.

Why the popularity?

Part of the attraction to Santa Muerte, as several sources familiar with the devotion explained, is that she is seen as a non-judgmental saint that can be invoked for some not-so-holy petitions.

“If somebody is going to be doing something illegal, and they want to be protected from the law enforcement, they feel awkward asking God to protect them,” explained Fr Andres Gutierrez of Rio Hondo, Texas.

“So they promise something to Santa Muerte in exchange for being protected from the law.”

Devotees also feel comfortable going to her for favours of vengeance—something they would never ask of God or a canonised saint, Dr Chesnut said.

“I think this non-judgmental saint who’s going to accept me as I am is appealing,” Dr Chesnut said, particularly to criminals or to people who don’t feel completely accepted within the Mexican Catholic or Evangelical churches.

The cultural Catholicism of Mexico and the drug wars of the past decade also made for the perfect storm for Santa Muerte to catch on, Dr Chesnut explained.

Even Mexicans who didn’t grow up going to Mass every Sunday still have a basic idea of what Catholicism entails—Mass and saints and prayers like the rosary, all things that have been hijacked and adapted by the Santa Muerte movement.

“You can almost see some of it as kind of an extreme heretical form of folk Catholicism,” he said. This, coupled with the fact that Mexican Catholics are suddenly much more familiar with death, with the recent drug wars having left up to 120 000 Mexicans dead—makes a saint of death that much more intriguing.

Santa Muerte a demon “Paradoxically, a lot of devotees who feel like death could be just around the corner—maybe they’re narcos, maybe they work in the street, maybe they’re security guards who might be gunned down - they ask Santa Muerte for protection.”

Fr Gutierrez said Santa Muerte “is literally a demon with another name”.

He noted that while Catholics who attend Mass and the sacraments on a regular basis tend to understand this about Santa Muerte, those in danger are the cultural Catholics who aren’t intentionally engaging in something harmful, but could be opening the door to spiritual harm nonetheless.

Fr. Gary Thomas, a Vaticantrained exorcist for the diocese of San José in Texas said he has prayed with people who have had demonic trouble after praying to Santa Muerte. “‘Saint Death’ is an oxymoron,” Fr Thomas said. “God is a God of the living, not the dead.”—CNA

The Southern Cross, October 25 to October 31, 2017

CLASSIFIEDS

Is being single a vocation?

Continued from page 7 can grow in community and in faith. Vatican II also restored and re-popularised an ancient Catholic sacramental tradition of consecrated virgins.

These are lay women who dedicate themselves to a life of chastity and the service of Church and neighbour.

We need to speak to our young people about vocations.

But it is unhealthy to give them only the options of marriage or religious life.

Single life is also a valid vocation, and if we spoke about it more seriously, there might be fewer angst-filled 30-and 40somethings who are made to

feel that they are selfish or that their lives are incomplete or unfulfilled because they don’t fit into the first two boxes.

I don’t know what my future holds. But I fully believe that God has led me on this journey and that this is part of his plan of love for me.

Fr Julian Black CP I RISH Passionist Father Julian Black, 81 died and was laid to rest October 14 in the diocese of Gaborone where he served as a missionary for 54 years.

He went on a mission just a year old after his priestly ordination at the age of 27 in 1963, three years prior to the country’s independence.

Botswana, then known as Bechuanaland, with no visible physical development indeed looked like a real dessert. Without any hesitation, Fr Black the pioneer, took the mission with extraordinary care in the service of others.

He worked in various places within the country, using the native language to evangelise the local people of Botswana. Young charismatic and active, Fr Black started innumerable revenue-generating projects for the locals including pottery-making, dressmaking, leathercraft and a small shop where residents could sell their wares as a source of their income.

The most successful project that he dearly loved so much was the Thamaga Pottery Centre, where he shared his skills through training the local people to do pottery work, which has now developed and remained in the care of churchmen to benefit the community.

A missionary at heart and with his hobby of exploring things, Fr Black reached a point in his life where he wanted to live the hermit life. He consulted his superiors

and expressed his great desire to get a taste of living in the actual desert, so as to immense himself into the life of contemplative prayer and meditation. He obtained permission to live in the Kalahari desert from his superiors, and this without a doubt led him to entering into closeness with God. He ministered to Basarwa people through developing a brotherly relationship with them, and showing various acts of mercy for about 14 years.

Although the culture and customs of the Basarwa are unique, that was not a challenge at all to Fr Black. He lived among them and embraced their customs.

Moreover, influenced by the mutual relationship with Basarwa, he was named Father “Axumte” which means “someone who spends time alone”.

As an artistic priest, his nephew Gareth Black recalls his uncle on his first return from Botswana.

“He taught me at the age of five how to draw elephants and bushmen, and then 33 years later I saw him teaching my two daughters to draw the elephants and bushmen.”

In simple words, this acutely demonstrates the devotion and love Fr Black had for the people of Botswana, where “he has made his home away from home”.

Years later, he ended his mission in the Kalahari Desert and returned to live in the Passionist community in Forest Hill, in the heart of Gaborone.

Liturgical Calendar Year A – Weekdays Cycle Year 1 Sunday October 29, 30th Sunday of the Year Exodus 22:21-27 (20-26), Psalms 18:2-4, 47, 51, 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10, Matthew 22:34-40 Monday October 30 Romans 8:12-17, Psalms 68:2, 4, 6-7, 20-21, Luke 13:10-17 Tuesday October 31 Romans 8:18-25, Psalms 126, Luke 13:18-21 Wednesday November 1 Romans 8:26-30, Psalms 13:4-6, Luke 13:22-30 Thursday November 2, All Souls Job 19:23-27, Psalms 23, Romans 5:5-11, Matthew 5:1-12 Friday November 3, St Martin de Porres Romans 9:1-5, Psalms 147:12-15, 19-20, Luke 14:1-6 Saturday November 4, St Charles Borromeo Romans 11:1-2, 11-12, 25-29, Psalms 94:1215, 17-18, Luke 14:1, 7-11 St Martin de Porres Sunday November 5, All Saints Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14, Psalms 24:1-6, 1 John 3: 1-3, Matthew 5:1-12

CLASSIFIEDS

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. your truth. (Psalm 86:11)

PERSONAL

PRAYERS

Passionist Father Julian Black He then transformed the place into a meditation centre, designed and built a chapel that in its architectural style reveals the Gospel planted in Botswana, the country and land the Lord promised him.

Fr Black was an artist, mystic, confessor and a spiritual mentor to hundreds of people, even people of other religions. In addition, he conducted Yoga for various groups as he spoke the language of silence and the importance of being in touch with the inner self and nature.

As years went by, he developed muscular dystrophy and his mobility began to deteriorate. Despite this he transcended his pain into grace where he accepted the change of his pace with great patience.

Amidst the pain he experienced, he never ceased to pray and bless all those who cared for him and visited him. He lived for others till his last breath.

By Sr Phatsimo Ramokgwebana

Filipino Cardinal Vidal dies at 86

C

ARDINAL Ricardo Vidal of Cebu, Philippines, died on October 18 at the age of 86 after a series of health complications.

Born on February 6, 1931, in Mogpog, Philippines, Ricardo Vidal was ordained a priest in 1956.

He served as a spiritual director of a local seminary and then as its superior, attending to the formation of candidates to the priesthood until 1971.

He was ordained a bishop in 1971 and served as coadjutor of the diocese of Malolos. Just two years later, he became archbishop of Lipa at the age of 42.

Named co-adjutor archbishop of Cebu in 1981, he became head of the archdiocese just over a year later. Pope John Paul II named him to the College of Cardinals in 1985. Cardinal Vidal retired in 2010 at the age of 79.

In a telegram to Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu, Pope Francis ex-

Listen to my prayers Lord: Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. (Psalm 86:6) Save me and keep me prayer: Preserve my life, for I am godly; save your servant, who trusts in you— you are my God. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day.

(Psalm 86:2–3) Lord, reveal yourself through me prayer: Show me a sign of your favour, that those who hate me may see and be put to shame because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me. (Psalm 86:17)

Give me your strength prayer: Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant.

(Psalm 86:16) Teach me your ways prayer: Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in

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View God’s marvellous work of healing and deliverance in various African countries since 2007. More than 20 video clips have been uploaded onto YouTube (simply go to Google and type Pious Kintu YouTube). Also you will read about African stigmatic Sr Josephine Sul of DR Congo and Padre Pio, among others. Share it with all your friends. Contacts via e-mail avemaria832@gmail.com and avemaria832 @yahoo.com and via cellphone (roaming within

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The pope also praised “his constant advocacy of dialogue and peace for all the people in the Philippines” and commended the cardinal’s soul “to the infinite love and mercy of our heavenly Father”.

Cardinal Vidal’s death leaves the College of Cardinals with 219 members, 120 of whom are younger than the age of 80 and therefore eligible to elect a new pope.— CNS

11

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the

Solemnity of All Saints: November 5 Readings: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14, Psalm 24:1-6, 1 John 3:1-3, Matthew 5:1-12

S outher n C ross

W

E need to widen our hearts; our tendency is to say: “I don’t like large crowds, just a small party of likeminded friends is enough for me.”

Next Sunday in this country, we celebrate the feast of All Saints, and the key here is to recognise that the saints are not just “People Like Us”, created in our own image and likeness, but all manner and classes of human beings; and, once we reach that exalted state, there will be no leisure for saying: “What on earth is that one doing here?”; we shall all stand side-by-side, stunned by the beauty and graciousness of God, with no time for criticising the defects of others.

Consider the first reading for the feast. It all begins with God, for we watch “an angel coming up from the East, with the seal of the living God”, and a task to “seal God’s slaves on their foreheads”. Then we hear how many: “one hundred and forty-four thousand”—and we think: “I don’t like crowds.”

But that is only the beginning, because then we see “a huge crowd which no one could count”. And they are not just People Like Us, but “from every nation and tribe and people and culture, standing before God and before the Lamb”.

Suddenly it does not matter that it is a Rainbow gathering, because they are all focused on God, and we hear the wonderful harmonies of their song: “Salvation to our God, the One who sits on the Throne—and to the Lamb.”

Do you see how that focus distracts our attention from our uncomfortable neighbours?

And all they do, in this heavenly liturgy, is this: “They stood around the Throne and the Elders and the Four Living Creatures—and they fell before the Throne, on their faces.

And they worshipped God.” Once you get that, it really does not matter who else is doing it with you. And so we listen to their song: “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen.”

Then we discover who these uncomfortable people are: “These are the ones who are coming out of the Great Tribulation and they have washed their garments and whitened them in the blood of the Lamb.” And we look at them with new respect.

So who are the people we may expect to find ourselves consorting with in this afterlife?

First of all, the psalm tells us, those who recognise the all-importance of God: “It is to the Lord that the earth belongs, and all that fills it, the world and its inhabitants.”

We might remember too that the sea seemed a terrifying phenomenon to our Jewish forebears as the poet continues: “He founded it on the seas…established it on the rivers.” So God can control even the waters.

But then comes the question for today’s feast: “Who will go up into the mountain of the Lord?” The answer is rapidly delivered: “The one whose hands are clean and whose heart is pure.”

This is clearly not “People Like Us”; instead the qualification for admission is to go searching for God: “This is the generation of those who seek him, who look for God’s face, O Jacob.”

Another word for this, of course, is “love”, the quality that makes human beings what we are (when we get it right).

That is the simple message of Sunday’s second reading: “See what great love the Father has given us.”

It is not anything that we have achieved for ourselves, we must understand; rather it is

Don’t be a gatekeeper!

N

Conrad

OBEL-PRIZE winning author Toni Morrison, assessing the times, asks this question: “Why should we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another? Why should we want to close the distance when we can close the gate?”

Except this isn’t a question, it’s a judgment. It’s a negative judgment on both our society and our churches.

Where are our hearts really at? Are we trying more to close the distance between us and what’s foreign, or are we into closing gates to keep strangers estranged?

In fairness, it might be pointed out that this has always been a struggle. There hasn’t been a golden age within which people wholeheartedly welcomed the stranger. There have been golden individuals and even golden communities who were welcoming, but never society or church as a whole.

Much as this issue is so front and centre in our politics today, as countries everywhere struggle with their immigration policies and with what to do with millions of refugees and migrants wanting to enter their country, I want to take Morrison’s challenge—to close the distance rather than close the gate—to our churches: Are we inviting in the stranger?

Or are we content to let the estranged remain outside?

There is a challenging motif within Jesus’ parable of the over-generous vineyard owner which can easily be missed because of the overall lesson within the story.

It concerns the question that the vineyard owner asks the last group of workers, those who will work for only one hour.

Nicholas King SJ

Not just ‘People Like Us’

Unlike the first group, he doesn’t ask them: “Do you want to work in my vineyard?”

Rather he asks them: “Why aren’t you working?” Their answer: “Because no one has hired us!”

Notice they don’t answer by saying that their non-employment is because they are lazy, incompetent or uninterested. Neither does the vineyard owner’s question imply that. They aren’t working simply because no one has given them the invitation to work!

Sadly, I believe this is the case for so many people who are seemingly cold or indifferent to religion and our churches. Nobody has invited them in!

And that was true too at the time of Jesus. Whole groups of people were seen as being indifferent and hostile to religion and were simply deemed sinners. This included prostitutes, tax collectors, foreigners, and criminals.

Jesus invited them in, and many of them responded with a sincerity, contrition and devotion that shamed those who considered themselves true believers. For the so-called sinners, all that stood between them and entry into the kingdom was a genuine invitation.

Why aren’t you practising a faith? No one has invited us!

I

n my own, admittedly limited, pastoral experience, I have seen a number of individuals who from childhood to early or late mid-life were indifferent to and even somewhat paranoid about religion and church. It was a world from which they had always felt excluded. But, thanks to some gracious person or fortunate circum-

Sunday Reflections

that “we have been called children of God”, who are eventually going to be “like God, because we shall see God as he is”.

There is the challenge for today, to keep our attention on God, and so (eventually) become commemorated as saints.

So who are the “saints” whom we recall today? They are the people rather improbably congratulated in the Gospel, in those haunting beatitudes that Matthew puts at the start of the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus is addressing his disciples (and apparently also the crowds), and proceeds to “congratulate” the most unlikely people: “poor in spirit, mourners, meek, hungry and thirsty for justice, merciful, pure in heart, peace-makers, persecuted and reviled”.

But we do not come to this point by setting out to make those adjectives apply to us, but by keeping our eyes on Jesus and on God. Then we shall find ourselves part of the unlikely people who gaze gloriously upon God and sing the hymn.

Pray for that, this week.

Southern Crossword #782

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

stance, at a moment, they felt invited in and they gave themselves over to their new religious family with a disarming warmth, fervour, and gratitude, often taking a fierce pride in their new identity.

Witnessing this several times, I now understand why the prostitutes and tax collectors, more than the church people at the time, believed in Jesus. He was the first religious person to truly invite them in.

Sadly, too, there’s a reverse side to this where, all too often, in all religious sincerity, we not only don’t invite certain others in, we positively close the gates on them.

We see that, for example, a number of times in the gospels where those around Jesus block others from having access to him. That is the case in the rather colourful story in Capernaum where some people are trying to bring a paralytic to Jesus but are blocked by the crowds surrounding him and consequently remove the roof in order to lower the paralytic into Jesus’ presence.

Too frequently, unknowingly, sincerely, but blindly, we are that crowd around Jesus, blocking access to him by our presence.

This is an occupational danger especially for those of us who are in ministry.

We so easily, in all sincerity, in the name of Christ, in the name of orthodox theology, and in the name of sound pastoral practice set ourselves up as gatekeepers, as guardians of our churches, through whom others must pass in order to have access to God. We need to more clearly remember that Christ is the gatekeeper—and the only gatekeeper—and we need to refresh ourselves on what that means by looking at why Jesus chased the money-changers out of the temple in John’s gospel.

They, the money-changers, had set themselves up as a medium through which people has to pass in order to offer worship to God. Jesus would have none of it.

Our mission as disciples of Jesus is not to be gatekeepers. We need instead to work at closing the distance rather than closing the gate.

AcRoss

4. Greek god ace has a remedy for all (7) 8. Drums at the folk Mass (6) 9. Light sleeper during the sermon (7) 10. A Christian symbol on the other side (6) 11. Musical notes not heard in the flats? (6) 12. One who could be roasting in the choir loft (8) 18. Event in din, etc (8) 20. Morally respectable about the money (6) 21. Truth told in the New Testament (6) 22. Clergy who are not regular (7) 22. A cafe I find myself engaged in (6) 24. Sheet advertising parish function (7)

DoWN

1. Son of David (2 Sm 13) (7) 2. Dressed in a gear to make you furious (2,1,4) 3. Presumed relationship between Mary and Elizabeth (6) 5. He’s sceptical about God (8) 6. Uncaring about right and wrong (6) 7. Free from obligation to pay tax (6) 13. Begin to admit the novice (8) 14. Garden creeper that caught out the couple (8) 15. Affected speech from tiled street (7) 16. Ever between two points.

It’s serious (6) 17. Reject and polish up once more (6) 19. Popular, like a devotional painting (6)

Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

H

AVING reviewed the parish’s activities, the bishop told his young priest: “Fr John, your idea of a drive-through confessional is wonderful.

That makes it so convenient for your parishioners.

“And it was a really good idea to have the confessional open 24 hours a day for those who do shift work,” the bishop said.

“However, Fr John, that flashing neon sign that says ‘HOOT and TELL or go to HELL’ just has got to go!”

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