181003

The

S outher n C ross

October 3 to October 9, 2018

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

No 5103

www.scross.co.za

Church called to be transparent about money

The graces of Ireland pilgrimage

Woman recalls: ‘My friend, Fr Oscar Romero’

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R10 (incl VAT RSA) associates-campaign

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After brutal attacks, Church must still serve

BY CHRISTEN TORRES

Fr Pierre Chemaly blesses apostolic nuncio Archbishop Peter Wells (left) in the church of Our Lady of Lebanon in Mulbarton, Johannesburg, before the blessing of the parish’s newlyrenovated Marian shrine. Archbishop Wells celebrated Mass with (next to him) Frs Jean Yammine and Charbel Habchi, as well as Fr Maurice Chidiac, superior of the Maronite Church in South Africa, and Fr Chemaly. Also in attendance was Lebanon’s ambassador Kabalan Frangieh, Portuguese ambassador Manuel Carvalho and consul-general Francisco Xavier de Meireles. The dignitaries were taken on a tour of the parochial primary school and had a look at the progress of the high school that is currently being built. (Photo: Mark Kisogloo)

Hurley letters come out in book STAFF REPORTER

A

BOOK of selected correspondence of Archbishop Denis Hurley from the ages of 11 to 88 will be launched in Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Johannesburg and Cape Town over the next two months.

Archbishop Hurley, who headed the archdiocese of Durban from 1946 until 1992, is widely recognised as one of the most influential South African Catholics in modern times.

“Throughout his long life he was a prolific letter-writer,” said his biographer Paddy Kearney, a co-editor of the book. From thousands of his letters to family, friends and a wide range of well-known people in powerful positions, 251 have been selected for A Life in Letters: Selected Correspondence of Denis Hurley.

“The letters reveal much about Hurley as a person and give unique insight into the dramatic events in both Church and state in South Africa over 70 years,” Mr Kearney said.

The book is the product of research done

over the past three years by the editors—Br Philippe Denis OP, Jane Argall and Mr Kearney.

It will be launched in Durban on October 8 at 18:00 at Blessed Sacrament church in Virginia and on November 9 (the 103rd anniversary of Archbishop Hurley’s birth) at 17:30 at St Joseph’s parish in Morningside.

The Johannesburg launch will be on November 21 at 19:00 at Immaculate Conception parish in Rosebank, and in Cape Town on November 27 at 17:30 at Springfield Convent School, Wynberg.

Details for the Pietermaritzburg launch are still to be confirmed.

The launch price will be R250 per copy.

T

HE brutal attack on a Pretoria study house in which a priest and a seminarian were injured in late September followed an onslaught of crimes against churches over the past few months—but “the Church will continue its work of ministry and service”, Archbishop William Slattery vowed.

In the September incident, seven robbers besieged the Wildwoods Stigmatine House in Pretoria North, shooting Fr Sylvester Motlhokoa CSS in the thigh and through the foot, and brutally attacking seminarian Nduduzo Jali with stones.

The priests and seminarians of the formation house had returned from adoration, had dinner and relaxed in front of the TV when at around 21:30 a seminarian heard footsteps outside the house.

“We said it is too early for someone to come and steal or rob us. Usually they would come at around 2am or a time like that,” Fr Harrison Mulenga CSS, the formator of the students, told The Southern Cross.

“So we ignored it because we thought it was fine.”

At around 22:00 the priests and seminarians were starting to prepare for bed when they heard their front gate shaking loudly and a gunshot go off.

“We heard a gunshot and then understood that we were under siege,” Fr Mulenga said. “So I phoned the police. When I phoned they answered quickly, and I asked them to rescue us.” He also phoned the security company—while outside Mr Jali was being stoned by the robbers.

The priest had to phone the police and security company twice more but had to wait for a long time for them to arrive, while he hid in his room.

When the police eventually arrived, the robbers fled.

Fr Mulenga then drove Fr Motlhokoa and Mr Jali to hospital.

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Police met the two injured men at the hospital. When asked why they had taken so long to arrive at the scene of the crime, a policeman reportedly responded: “We got scared when we heard the gunshots [over the phone]. We are also human beings; we are not safe here.”

The attack on the Stigmatine house came after several other attacks on churches in Pretoria.

In August, Fr Pheto Matlana of Refilwe parish was threatened with a gun to his head during a robbery in church, and in mid-September two Sisters were hijacked and taken to a remote location.

Fr Vitalis Marole of Tembisa has been held up four times in the past 12 months.

Last November the choir master of Daniel Comboni parish in Mamelodi was beaten to death in church.

Safety of Church personnel is a particular point of concern, Pretoria’s Archbishop Slattery told The Southern Cross.

The clergy is “particularly vulnerable because they have to travel a lot, and they come back in the evening alone”, he said.

“The gangsters can study their movements and ambush them.”

Archbishop Slattery urged the public to “report to the police what they know”.

However, he said, “this is possible only if the police are treating information confidentially. People are afraid to speak at the moment because then they can easily be victimised.”

He said that regardless of increasing crime, “the Church continues its work of ministry and service. The priest must share the life of his community. The priest should be the last person to leave an area of violence, just as the captain should be the last to leave the sinking ship.”

“The best security for Christian people is to care, and love each other,” Archbishop Slattery said, adding: “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

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The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

Legion of Mary celebrates its 85th anniversary in SA

BY CHRISTEN TORRES

M

ORE than 250 members of the Legion of Mary, as well as delegates from the Eastern Cape and Cape Town, attended the legion’s founding celebration at Our Mother of Perpetual Help parish in Malabar, Port Elizabeth. The event celebrated 85 years of the Legion of Mary in South Africa.

After opening prayers and rosary in the hall, a Mass was celebrated.

Lead celebrant Bishop Vincent Zungu of Port Elizabeth encouraged the Legionaries to “go out as Paul did and spread the love of Christ”.

After the Mass, parish priest Fr Joslan Goji OFM welcomed guests and was followed by addresses from a variety of speakers.

Among them was Mgr John Clarke, who spoke on the history of the Legion of Mary. He encouraged Legionaries to open up more groups in all corners of South Africa.

Legion of Mary spiritual director Fr Anthony Padua gave a talk on commitment and devotion to Our Blessed Mother. “When the going gets tough, just pray the Rosary and Our Lady will guide you,” he said.

Sr Cathy Lessing, the president of the Legion’s East London curia spoke on unity and commitment. She urged the legionaries “to always be humble; to have a zest and zeal to go out and make contact with others in kindness and love”.

Br Sagen Moodley spoke on recruitment of laity to the legion and explained that lay Catholics “can get involved in assisting their priests who are so overworked in their parishes”.

They can do so by “going out in twos to visit new parishioners, hospitals, doing a census of the parish and so on” and by “being there for the spiritual needs of the parish”.

The president of the Cape Town senatus, Celeste Pregnolato, explained why the anniversary celebration was particularly noteworthy: “This is hugely significant in that it marked the 85th anniversary of a lay society that was started in Port Elizabeth in 1933 and that is still very active today.”

‘There has been a concerted effort to try to recruit more members to the society,” Ms Pregnolato told The Southern Cross.

“It is also anticipated that we would

The Legion of Mary has celebrated 85 years in South Africa. try to revive some presidia that have stopped, attempt to start new ones in parishes where there are none, and try to increase the membership of the current presidia.”

The Legion of Mary is also conducting visits in areas like Namibia, Oudtshoorn, George, Knysna, and Mossel Bay in order to “strengthen ties with the outlying areas’’, she explained.

Noteworthy future events for the legion include the Cape Town archdiocese’s 85th founder’s anniversary in 2021, with plans already underway to mark the occasion.

Legionary Maureen Lyons echoed Ms Pregnolato’s call for people to get involved in the Legion of Mary: “The legion invites more people to get involved in the organisation’s activities, or even to start praesidia in their parishes.” n Interested people should first approach their parish priests, who will direct them to a praesidium, or go to www.legionof mary.ie, or e-mail concilium@legionof mary.ie or legionmaryct@gmail.com

LOCAL

Church called to be more transparent on money A CHARTERED accountant has called on the Southern African Church to be transparent and accountable in its finances.

Writing on the Spotlight.Africa website, Paulina French notes that the local Church has not followed the example of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has published its latest audited financial statements as well as various financial reports that detail how the Church’s resources are being used.

Ms French, who was a chartered accountant in the corporate world and now works for the Jesuit Institute, said that similar information is not “readily available publically” in the Southern African Church.

“The bishops’ conference has information about its finance department on its website but no financial statements or related reports are published,” she wrote.

“Attempts to contact the person listed as responsible for finances were in vain. This shouldn’t be necessary, as financial reports should be available to any of the Church’s stakeholders at a moment’s notice: from parishes, dioceses and the conference,” Ms French said.

She noted that the latest update of the King Code of Corporate Governance—a system of rules, practices and processes by which an organisation is directed and controlled—came into effect in April 2017 as “best practice for all entities to meet

Chartered accountant Paulina French has called for greater transparcy in the Church’s finances. (Photo: Steve Buissine) the standards it sets”.

King IV, as the 2017 update is known, “now includes sector supplements to provide guidance to various types of different entities such as Public Benefit Organisations—like the Church”, Ms French wrote.

“I would expect the Church to be focused on and driven by an ethical culture, sound and transparent management of its financial affairs, and effective control of its resources. I trust that it is all of these things, but the fact that I, as a member and stakeholder of the Church and my local parish, am not able to easily access financial reports raises my suspicion that all is not as it should be,” she said.

“Corporate governance is very relevant to the Church.

Transparency to its stakeholders on all levels, not least of all fi-

nancial, may just be the basis for rooting out the elitism and unaccountability shamefully present and identifiable in the Church of late,” she wrote.

“Just as the directors of corporate organisations are accountable to shareholders and stakeholders, so bishops and priests are accountable to the stakeholders in the Church,” Ms French said.

“The stakeholders are you and I, the people who make up the Church community, the ordinary folks who sit in the pews and help to provide the financial resources that the Church needs,” she said.

“The trust of its faithful and the indisputably proven integrity and public accountability of its ministers are key components for the success and future sustainability of our Church.”

Fun in store for fleet blessing

BY ANANdA dE ABREu

C

APE Town’s annual Blessing of the Fleet will be held at the V&A Waterfront, with Mass on October 7.

The Blessing of the Fleet takes place every year before the start of the fishing season. It is a traditional Portuguese festival held in the first week of October.

The celebrations will begin on October 6 with traditional foods and dances, a cash bar and entertainment.

This year the event will be hosted on Jetty 2 of the V&A Waterfront, opposite the Table Bay Hotel. The entrance fee is R30 per person (R20 for pensioners and children under 12).

On October 6, there will be traditional Portuguese food stalls, a motorbike parade by the local motorcycle group Amigos Portugueses, and live entertainment by Manuel Escórcio and Sam Roy, presenter of the All 80s Show on Smile FM.

On Sunday, the Mass will be followed by the ceremony to bless the fishing vessels at 10:00, followed by a boat procession.

Celebrations afterwards will include live entertainment and traditional Portuguese folk dancing, with food stalls and a cash bar open until the evening.

All proceeds go to the Portuguese Welfare Centre, which assists in caring and helping the less fortunate in the community.

Astroturf for inner-city school

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HE Denis Hurley Centre is bringing together a school and a business to promote sport in the inner city.

Continuing its policy of partnerships to help improve the city of Durban, the centre has opened a new sportsfield that will benefit hundreds of children.

St Anthony’s Primary, next door to Greyville racecourse, has over 700 learners.

It is a Catholic school with which the late Archbishop Denis Hurley was closely associated.

The school’s older learners regularly volunteer at the Denis Hurley Centre and collect food to help the homeless.

St Anthony’s premises are large but it has had no usable grass on which children can play.

But that has all changed thanks to Urban Lime, a property company specialising in urban regeneration.

Urban Lime also works closely with the Denis Hurley Centre, having helped set up the PaperMoney programme and supporting other initiatives to get homeless people into work.

The company has donated to the school a piece of astroturf of over 450m2 in size. The astroturf was previously used by Urban Lime in the iconic Church Square

St Anthony’s School chaplain Fr Anthony Kudupadam TOR, headgirl Senamile Jama and Nad Shahid from urban Lime at the opening of the schhol’s astroturf. (Photo: denis Hurley Centre) in Cape Town for a cultural event hosted earlier in the year.

The turf was officially opened

by Raymond Perrier, director of the Denis Hurley Centre, and Nad Shahid, managing director of Urban Lime Durban.

Mr Shahid was a professional cricketer for a top English club and so knows from his own ex-

perience the importance of children playing sport from a young age.

St Anthony’s principal, Bernadene Velusamy, said the learners were thrilled at the extra space for play and sports. It will be named the Fr Sabon Turf after the Oblate priest who founded the school 130 years ago.

The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

LOCAL

3

‘Holy Land Christians need our solidarity’

I

F WE are looking for an example of Christian unity in action, we should look to the Palestinian Christians, and other Christian communities in the Middle East.

This was one of the messages in a talk on Christians in the Holy Land given in Fish Hoek, Cape Town, by Günther Simmermacher, editor of The Southern Cross and author of the book The Holy Land Trek.

“It doesn’t matter to the Palestinian Christians whether you’re Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Syriac, Maronite, Protestant or whatever.

What matters is that you are a Christian,” Mr Simmermacher explained.

“They will observe their liturgical rites in their own particular way, but on their big feasts they’ll join each other for celebration.”

As a small and rapidly diminishing community, the Palestinian Christians have to stick together, Mr Simmermacher pointed out.

His talk formed part of the “Efata” series of lectures hosted by St John’s parish in Fish Hoek.

Among the audience was interim

Günther Simmermacher (front) with members of the audience for his talk on Christians in the Holy Land at Fish Hoek parish in Cape Town. (Photo: Magda Kus) parish priest Bishop Frank de Gouveia, who recently resigned as head of Oudtshoorn diocese.

In his talk, Mr Simmermacher noted that Palestinian Christians feel like they are “between the anvil and the hammer”.

“The anvil is the Muslim major-

ity in the Palestinian community,” he explained. Relations between Muslims and Christians are generally not bad, and cooperation is constructive even between Hamas and the tiny Christian minority in Gaza. But in the scramble for scarce resources and social influence, a mi-

nority will always find it more difficult to assert itself.

“The hammer is the state of Israel, which makes no distinction between Palestinian Muslims or Christians,” Mr Simmermacher said.

He outlined various forms of oppression experienced by Palestinians, including loss of land through the separation wall and illegal settlements and, for those in the West Bank and in Gaza, limitations on freedom of movement.

Mr Simmermacher explained how Israeli bureaucracy prevents Palestinian Christians from freely worshipping at their holiest sites, such as the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

“I know many Christians in Bethlehem [in the West Bank] who have never been to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is only 20km away, because Israel won’t give them a permit to enter Jerusalem.”

Noting the rapid decline of num-

bers of Christians in the Holy Land, Mr Simmermacher urged solidarity with them.

“These are the descendants of the very first Christians. Our solidarity must be with them. And your presence here tonight, to hear about their situation, is a sign of that solidarity,” he told the audience.

If the indigenous Christians of the Holy Land—often called the “Living Stones”—disappear from that region, then “all the churches and shrines we visit on pilgrimage will be just monuments”, Mr Simmermacher warned.

In a Q&A afterwards, he said travelling to the Holy Land in a group is perfectly safe. “If there are trouble spots, the guides and drivers know about it and will make a plan to ensure their pilgrims are 100% safe.”

Mr Simmermacher urged potential Holy Land pilgrims to ascertain that the tour operator uses Christian Palestinian guides. “That, too, is an important sign of solidarity,” he said.

Environment minister to be Archbishop visits Italy for Little Eden lecture buried from Pretoria cathedral S

BY CHRISTEN TORRES

T

HE Requiem Mass for a late government minister and member of the Catholic Women’s League will be held in Sacred Heart cathedral in Pretoria on October 5, with a state funeral at the same venue on October 6.

Edna Molewa, minister of environmental affairs, died on September 22 at the age of 61 of a rare form of pneumonia which she contracted on a state visit to China.

Bishop Victor Phalana of Klerksdorp, who before his episcopal appointment served in Pretoria, recalled Ms Molewa on Facebook: “She used to say to me, ‘Father, everyone in Cabinet knows that I am Catholic and they do not take chances trying to convince me to leave my faith.’”

The ANC Women’s League noted that “her faith always led her to occupy strategic leadership roles”.

They said Ms Molewa was “held in extremely high regard by international leaders”.

Born on March 23, 1957, in BelaBela (then Warmbaths) in Limpopo, Ms Molewa obtained a commerce degree from Unisa, followed by a leadership course at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

She was part of the liberation movement from 1976. From 1984 she served as chair of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers’ Union, later becoming its deputy president.

In 1994 she became the first woman to head the parliamentary portfolio committee on trade and industry, and in 1996 went on to

The late minister Edna Molewa serve as a member of the executive council on tourism, environment and conservation.

From 2004-09, Ms Molewa served as the first woman premier of North West province. She was appointed water and environmental affairs minister in 2010. The ministry was split in 2014, with Ms Molewa staying on as minister of environmental affairs until her death.

She has been credited with playing a pivotal role in the adoption of the historic climate change Paris Agreement in 2015.

Ms Molewa was also the chancellor of the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in Ga-Rankuwa.

In July, Ms Molewa received the Officier d’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur (Officer in the French Legion of Honour), one of France’s top honours.

OUTH African and international supporters visited Italy in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Domitilla Hyams, founder with her husband Danny Hyams of Johannesburg’s Little Eden Society for those with profound intellectual disability.

Domitilla Hyams was born in the town of Almenno San Bartolomeo, just outside Bergamo in northern Italy, in1918.

The anniversary celebration started with Mass followed by a talk, “The essence of the message of love of Domitilla and Danny”, by Claudio Salvetti.

The second annual Danny & Domitilla Memorial Lecture was presented by Johannesburg’s Archbishop Buti Tlhagale.

He spoke of Domitilla Hyams’ deep faith, which shaped and prepared her for the work she was to start in South Africa, and of the support of her husband Danny.

Archbishop Tlhagale told the audience that the Southern African

Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg, seen with Italian and South African representatives, at the 100th anniversary celebration of the birth of domitilla Hyams, founder with her husband danny of Johannesburg’s Little Eden Society.

Catholic Bishops’ Conference has approved the investigation into the cause of Danny and Domitilla Hyams as a couple for sainthood, and that the nihil obstat has been sent to the Vatican in Rome.

Members of the Catholic Nurses’ Guild of Southern Africa attended the International Catholic Committee of Nurses and Medico-Social Assistants’ congress at Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia. (From left) secretary Ms Morigihlane, chaplain Fr Michael Rasello, treasurer Ms Mahlatsi, KwaZulu-Natal representative Ms Thandazile, Free State representative Ms Lebata, and president Mr Nala at the conference.

Formation workshop for priests

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HE metropolitan province of Bloemfontein held a weeklong ongoing formation workshop for priests in their first five years of ordination at Eugene de Mazenod Centre, Fourteenstreams.

Nineteen young priests from five dioceses attended, along with Archbishop Jabulani Nxumalo of Bloem-

fontein, and Bishop Edward Risi of Keimoes-Upington.

Presentations were given by Fr Hugh Lagan (“Hooked: Living in a Digital World”), Bishop Risi (“Collaboration with Women in Ministry”), and Fr Patrick Rakeketsi (“Parish Life and Parish Administration”).

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The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

INTERNATIONAL

What pope did in Baltics

BY CINdY WOOdEN

P

ope Francis travelled to the north-eastern periphery of Europe to honour a faith that withstood a Nazi invasion and five decades of communist dictatorship.

The pope’s visit to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia came in the year the three Baltic nations are celebrating the 100th anniversary of their declarations of independence after World War I. While declared Soviet republics in 1940, the countries were occupied by the Nazis during World War II and then lived under Soviet rule from 1944 to 1990.

Lithuania Outside the former KGB headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania, Pope Francis paid homage to victims of totalitarianism and warned Lithuanians to be attentive to any signs of anti-Semitism or hatred.

The walls of the KGB building— a former jail and execution site— echo the cry of Jesus on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Pope Francis said.

The pope had gone to the museum after stopping to pray at a monument to more than 40 000 Jews in Vilnius killed by the Nazis.

The prayer coincided with the national commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto.

The pope spoke with priests, religious women and men, and seminarians, and he began with ad-libbed remarks.

“I want to share what I feel,” Pope Francis said. “Looking at you, I see behind you many martyrs—anonymous martyrs, in the sense that we don’t even know where they were buried.”

“Do not forget. Remember. You are children of martyrs. That is your strength,” the pope told them.

“They are saints.”

Celebrating Mass in Santakos Park in Kaunas, Pope Francis insisted that for a Christian the mistreatment Lithuanians endured first under the Nazis and then under the communists can never justify mistreating others.

Instead, the experience must make victims and survivors even more sensitive and attentive to new attempts to denigrate or dominate certain groups of people.

Latvia Pope Francis spent the day in Latvia where thousands gathered in the city centre to watch the pope and President Raimonds Vejonis lay flowers at the Freedom Monument, a towering memorial to Latvia’s independence.

The country declared a holiday in connection with his visit. The centrepiece of the pope’s visit was an ecumenical prayer service in Riga’s Lutheran cathedral. Lutherans, Catholics and Orthodox each account for 18-25% of the country’s population.

Pope Francis held a brief meeting and prayer at St James cathedral with older men and women, who, the pope said, witnessed “the horror of war, then political repression, persecution and exile”, including to Siberia.

“Neither the Nazi regime nor the Soviet regime could extinguish the faith in your hearts,” Pope Francis told the elders, who fought and suffered for freedom.

The pope celebrated Mass at the basilica of the Assumption, a shrine holding a beloved icon of the

Mother of God in Aglona, 95km from the Russian border.

Estonia In what is probably the least religious country in Europe, Pope Francis said he was surprised by how many people hold firm to their faith despite all the sexual abuse and financial scandals in the Catholic Church.

“We know—as you have told us —that many young people do not ask anything of us because they do not believe we have anything meaningful to say about their lives,” the pope said during an ecumenical meeting with young adults in Tallinn’s Kaarli Lutheran church in Estonia.

Young believers must be generous and courageous enough to share that hope with their peers, especially in a country where an estimated 75% of the population identify themselves as “non-religious”.

Pope Francis met at Tallinn’s cathedral with individuals and families assisted by Catholic charities and Catholic religious orders who shared their stories with him.

Jesus, the pope told them, calls all people to love “with a love that shatters the chains that keep us isolated and separate, and instead builds bridges; with a love that enables us to create one big family where all of us can feel at home, as in this house; with a love that exudes compassion and dignity”.

Pope Francis ended his visit in Tallinn’s Freedom Square, continuing to preach about memory, freedom and responsibility; the connection among the three was a theme that ran throughout his four-day visit.—CNS

People wait for Pope Francis’ arrival to celebrate Mass at Santakos Park in Kaunas, Lithuania.

(Left) Pope Francis prays as he visits the Shrine of Mary, Mother of God, in Vilnius, Lithuania. (Right) The pope and Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis during a ceremony at the Freedom Monument in Riga, Latvia.

China, cover-ups, corruption

BY CINdY WOOdEN

T

HE Catholic Church has grown in its understanding of the horror of clerical sexual abuse and of the “corruption” of covering it up, Pope Francis said.

Returning to Rome from his trip to the Batics, Pope Francis was asked about his remarks to young people in Tallinn, Estonia.

“The young people are scandalised by the hypocrisy of adults, they are scandalised by wars, they are scandalised by the lack of coherence, they are scandalised by corruption, and corruption is where what you underlined—sexual abuse— comes in,” the pope responded.

Whatever the statistics say about rates of clerical abuse, he said, “If there is even just one priest who abuses a boy or a girl, it is monstrous, because that man was chosen by God to lead that child to heaven.”

The fact that child abuse occurs in many environments does not in any way lessen the scandal, the pope said.

But it is not true that the Church has done nothing “to clean up”, Pope Francis said. If one looks at the Pennsylvania grand jury report re-

leased in August or other similar studies, he said, it is clear that the majority of cases occurred decades ago “because the Church realised that it had to battle it in a different way”.

“In olden times these things were covered up—but they were covered up also in families, when an uncle abused his niece, or a father raped his child; it was covered up because it was a very great shame,” Pope Francis said. “That was how people thought in the last century.”

People’s “moral consciousness” develops over time, the pope said, pointing to the death penalty as an example.

In fact, Pope Francis said, he has encouraged bishops to report cases to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and he “never, never” granted amnesty to a priest found guilty of abuse.

R

eporters also asked the pope about the Vatican-China agreement for the nomination of bishops, and about the suffering of Chinese Catholics who had risked their lives to remain faithful to the pope and not accept the communist

government’s control over the Church.

Some Catholics in China “will suffer” and feel betrayed, he said, “but they have great faith” and in the end will trust the pope.

Pope Francis praised the team of Vatican negotiators who worked “two steps forward, one step back” for ten years, but he insisted he bore all responsibility for the agreement and, especially, for regularising the situation of seven bishops who had been ordained without Vatican approval.

With every “peace treaty” and every negotiation, the pope said, “both sides lose something” and for the Vatican that was complete control over the nomination of bishops.

However, he said, people should remember that for centuries the kings of Spain and Portugal nominated the bishops of Latin America, and the Austro-Hungarian emperors did the same in their territory.

The new Vatican-Sino agreement, Pope Francis said, sets up “a dialogue on eventual candidates” for dioceses in China, “but the naming is the pope’s—let that be clear.”—CNS

People wait for Pope Francis’ arrival in Riga.

Pope Francis greets children as he arrives for an encounter with people receiving charitable assistance from the Church, at the cathedral of Ss Peter and Paul in Tallinn, Estonia. (All photos: Paul Haring/CNS)

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INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

5

Church for future: Synod to show Catholics’ needs

BY CINdY WOOdEN

T

HE Synod of Bishops is meeting from October 3-28 to look at the world and the Catholic Church through the eyes of teenagers and young adults, and find ways to encourage their enthusiasm and dreams, help them sift through the possibilities life offers them to serve others, and resist the temptations that come their way.

Pope Francis is presiding over the synod and bringing together more than 300 cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and lay experts, including young people.

In addition to their personal experience, synod participants will have at their disposal a working document that was based on: input from bishops’ conferences, religious orders, offices of the Roman curia and Catholic organisations; an online survey open to anyone 16-29 years old; and a document prepared by more than 300 young people who met in Rome in March at the invitation of the pope.

But just to make sure, young voices are still ringing in their ears, Pope Francis has invited hundreds of young people to join synod participants in the Vatican audience hall for an evening of music and of young people talking about the search for their identity, hopes for their relationships, and ideas for living a life of service and self-giving.

The theme for the synod is “Young people, the faith and vocational discernment”.

But the real topic of the synod, in essence, is: the Church, its present and its future.

Addressing the pre-synod gathering in March, Pope Francis said the Church and its members must reach out, ask what God wants of them, and continually find new ways to respond to the hopes and needs of the world’s people.

Of course, he said, everyone must “keep an eye on the roots” of the

Youth at St Joseph the Worker parish in Nairobi, Kenya. Bishops from East Africa said they will prioritise fundamentalism at the Synod of Bishops, because of its impact on young Catholics.(Photo: dai Kurokawa, EPA/CNS)

Pope Francis at a pre-synod gathering of youth delegates in Rome. This month’s Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith and vocational discernment is bringing together 300 participants from all over the world.

(Photo: Paul Haring/CNS) Church and preserve its essential teachings, but they also must find creative ways to share those teachings and reflect on how the Gospel responds to people’s questions today.

Young people, the pope said, are the ones who can help the Church fight “the logic of ‘It’s always been done this way’,” which he described as “a poison, a sweet poison that tranquilises the heart and leaves you anesthetised so you can’t walk”.

But to equip young people to take their rightful place in the Church, Church leaders must listen to them, be as honest as possible in responding to their questions, and pass on to them the art of discernment.

Discernment, according to the synod working document, is a prayerful process that “leads us to recognise—and become attuned with—the action of the Spirit in true spiritual obedience.

“In this way, it becomes openness to new things, courage to move outward, and resistance to the temptation of reducing what is new

to what we already know.”

But reaching young people, educating them in the faith, preparing them for discernment, and helping them live as Christians in the world involves addressing myriad issues, so the synod is expected to be broad.

The 300 young adults who met in Rome in March mentioned those issues, as well as others.

But underlying all their concerns was a request that Church leaders recognise them as full members of the Catholic community, take their concerns and questions seriously, and make a commitment to being real role models and mentors.

The young adults, most of whom work for the Church or are very active in their parishes or Catholic movements, said young Catholics need better education in what the Church teaches.

But they also need patient answers when they have questions about Church teaching that do not seem to coincide with the values and practices they absorb from their cultures.—CNS

Dutch bishops: Media report on abuse was old news

BY JONATHAN LuXMOORE

T

HE Dutch bishops’ conference said it had worked to prevent further sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, but said a recent report by a leading newspaper was “old news”.

“The time for praying and apologising is clearly over; we’re in a new phase of firmer commitment to prevent all abuse,” said Daphne de Roosendaal, conference spokeswoman.

“But while many people know how much the bishops have done, some media reports still give the impression cases from decades ago have only just occurred.”

A story in the NRC Handelsblad daily accused more than half of Dutch bishops of complicity in sexual abuse.

The following day, the bishops’ conference said “much of the information” provided by the newspaper had been “pub-

lic knowledge” since 2011.

It added that “insufficient care” had been taken by some bishops who knowingly or unknowingly reappointed abusing priests, but said measures to prevent and fight abuse had since been enforced by the Dutch Church, including a “very strict code of conduct”, revised in April, and “an everstricter obligation” to suspicions immediately to police.

Ms De Roosendaal said the newspaper had done its story “as a service to the people of Holland” after the grand jury report on clerical abuse in Pennsylvania. However, she added that the story had drawn its material from previous Church-commissioned reports, mostly listing “well-known cases” that had been investigated.

“Since 2010, the Church has initiated large-scale investigations, as well as a contact point for people to file complaints,

arrange mediation and seek financial compensation,” Ms De Roosendaal said.

A report by a separate Church-commissioned reporting centre on sexual abuse detailed subsequent investigations and put total agreed compensation by the end of 2017 at almost 28 million euros (R470 million).

The report said the centre’s board had been “generally positive” about the Church’s cooperation with investigations, with some Church authorities adopting an “extremely praiseworthy” attitude.

In its story, NRC Handelsblad said 20 of the Dutch Church’s 39 bishops serving from 19452010—including six still living —had been implicated in covering up abuse, with four auxiliaries suspected of personally molesting minors.

Around 16% of the 16 million inhabitants of the Netherlands are Catholic.—CNS

Indian bishop charged with rape

P

OLICE have arrested Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar, India, and charged him with the rape of a nun.

The arrest came a day after Pope Francis accepted the bishop’s request to be relieved of his duties during the investigation.

The Indian nun has accused

E African bishops to highlight fundamentalism at synod

the bishop of raping her four years ago and then sexually abusing her multiple times over the following two years. Bishop Mulakkal claims the accusations are baseless and aim to deflate the disciplinary action he had initiated against the nun.

Police in Kerala state interrogated the bishop for seven hours, reported mattersin-

dia.com.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said Bishop Mulakkal was temporarily relieved of his pastoral duties and that the retired auxiliary of Mumbai, Bishop Agnelo Rufino Gracias, would temporarily serve as apostolic administrator of Jalandhar.—CNS

BY FRANCIS NJuGuNA

D

UE to its impact on young Catholics in Africa, fundamentalism will be a topic that bishops from East Africa prioritise in their talks with other delegates during the Synod of Bishops on youth this month.

Bishops from the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa will take to the synod topics such as the impact of religious fundamentalism and Pentecostalism, the institutional vocational status of single persons with no particular consecration, training of spiritual directors, formation for active citizenry in politics, the dignity of women, and civil, social and political engagement.

Known by its acronym AMECEA, the group includes the bishops’ conferences of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Djibouti and Somalia.

Maryknoll Father Joseph Healey, a facilitator at AMECEA’s preparatory meeting on the synod,

said young Catholics in Africa want their peers to run their Small Christian Communities.

“A survey we have carried out in the AMECEA region and beyond in Africa has shown that our young people...are no longer comfortable” in Small Christian Communities run by adult Catholics, he said. “They are today calling for the formation of their own” communities.

Fr Emmanuel Chimombo of Malawi, AMECEA pastoral coordinator, said that the 12 bishops at the Nairobi meeting also discussed integral education and formation in Catholic institutions, the digital world and its impact on young people, and situations of war and violence and young migrants.

The meeting also addressed uncertainty, hope, fear, unemployment, and enjoyment of the liturgy.

The bishops considered these and other topics after they had deliberated extensively on the synod’s instrumentum laboris (“working document”), Fr Chimombo said.—CNS

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6

The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

The war on the pope

I

N HIS First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul takes angry issue with evident division among that community’s Christians (1:10-15).

“Every one of you is declaring, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ’,” Paul admonishes. He then asks: “Has Christ been split up?”

The apostle wrote his letter around 25 years after the crucifixion of the Lord. Almost 2 000 years later, division still afflicts the Body of Christ.

In the Catholic Church, the most visible sign of our unity is the pope, who is the apostolic successor of St Peter, the rock on which Christ built his Church (Mt 16:18).

Much as the Chair of St Peter unites us as Catholics, no pope will ever represent all Catholics in every position he takes. To borrow St Paul’s phrase, he can’t be all things to all men.

Pope John Paul II knew this.

He had his critics from the left on issues such as Church authority or sexual ethics, and critics from the right on questions such as ecumenism or social justice or economics.

John Paul was not particularly open to critique, and sometimes was too quick to shut down disagreements. The Church, as was often said, is not a democracy.

Even now, with a pope who is relatively tolerant of criticism, it is true that the Church is not a democracy. The people do not vote for popes nor campaign to have them vacate their office.

Of course, it is legitimate to differ with popes and to put forward reasoned arguments that express such disagreement. But in doing so, we must respect the office and its incumbent, and on matters of doctrine always appeal to the teaching authority of the Church, of which the pope is the head.

T

he social contract between the pope, the clergy and the faithful is based on respect for the Chair of St Peter, even when we hold different positions.

Alas, at present there is a deficiency in that respect. The papacy is now being treated as if it was subject to an adversarial democracy in which there must be winners and losers. Now there are even people campaigning for the pope to resign!

The ideological opposition to Pope Francis is increasingly taking on the appearance of impudent disloyalty.

At every opportunity, his opponents start fires intended to burn the Holy Father. Their strategy is taken straight from the ugly playbook of US politics.

They create a perception of chaos by mixing facts and legitimate critique with distortions, half-truths, lies and innuendo.

Frequently they use proxy issues—such as the abuse scandal or the Vatican agreement with China—to sow confusion and erode confidence in the pope to the point where all his initiatives are open to doubt.

T

hose firestarters are noisy, not least thanks to social media, but they are not representative of the multitudes of Catholics at the centre of the Church. Those Catholics love the pope, even if they may not concur with him on everything.

And they need to be awake to coordinated opposition to the pope. Without abandoning all criticism of the pontiff’s positions—no pope can be all things to all men, and Pope Francis is not immune to weaknesses—the faithful need to beware of propaganda that is intended to damage the Holy Father.

And where necessary, we must put out the fires his enemies are setting, and take great care in not feeding these fires unwittingly.

This is vital not only in solidarity with the current pope but, more importantly, to defend the papacy in general.

If we allow the office of the pope to be subject to open attack whenever one disagrees with its incumbent, then it will weaken to the point that there will always be open season on the papacy.

If the legitimate exercise of authority of one pope is weakened, the legitimate exercise of authority of all popes is weakened, and with it the papacy’s function as a seal of our unity.

The centre must hold. The alternative is a Church in which revolt, enmity and, indeed, relativism will dominate. It will be a Church of internal division and potentially schisms—a Church that defies Christ’s command to unity.

This must not happen.

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.

Saying the rosary at maximum speed? No way!

T HERE is normally a universal appeal and emphasis on the rosary over October month as we prepare for the Advent season. The popular form, I gather, is to recite the five decades of beads ending with the “Hail Holy Queen”.

There appears to be a different approach and purpose (or motivation) in saying the beads. Of course, the basic question is: do we say the rosary or do we want to pray the rosary? I was interested in recent letters to the editor on this matter.

In reply to the argument that “the rosary took too long to say”, a member of the “knights” came to the rescue declaring—even with a stopwatch, as proof to support the claim—that it took “only 12 minutes max”. That is to say, the 50 Hail Marys plus the Paters and the Glorias.

Now, surely not everyone would want to rush this beautiful prayer because of “more important matters

Clerical abuse of adults heinous too

A

S AN adult survivor of clerical sexual abuse I find it hurtful, unjust and sad that it would appear that the majority of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, from the pope down, is advocating a “zero tolerance” policy only for the clerical abuse of minors and its cover-up.

Clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up committed against adults at the hands of consecrated persons in positions of power who abuse that power and authority (for example, as spiritual directors or religious superiors or seminary staff) is as heinous a crime as the clerical sexual abuse of minors and its cover-up.

Adult clerical abuse victims could be seminarians or young priests (as uncovered recently in the McCarrick scandal and the revelations of a seminary in Chile where seminarians were abused at the hands of their spiritual director), or abused nuns (as revealed in the recent #NunsToo), or adult lay women and men abused at the hands of their spiritual directors or other clerical authority-figures.

Similar abuse of power differentials can be found in a doctor-patient or psychologist-patient situation, where the professional/authority-figure is in the position of power, and the patient, though an adult, is in a trusting and vulnerable position.

Much of the Church hierarchy and its canon lawyers seem to be attempting to obscure what actually constitutes a “vulnerable adult”.

This prevents adult victims of clerical abuse from getting justice from the Church, and the Church hierarchy from being held accountable.

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to attend to”. Or am I wrong?

I have always seen the rosary, with its recommended mysteries, to be a meditation on the life of Jesus and Mary as recorded in Holy Scripture. Time is not a factor; it is far beyond time.

It is suggested that we meditate on the joyful, sorrowful and glorious events in the lives of Jesus and his mother. The rosary beads act, somewhat, as a “counting mechanism”. Meditation simply means that we are with Mary when the archangel comes to her, we are with Elizabeth and John the Baptist when Mary calls (and that beautiful

What would Jesus Christ say to the Church’s canon lawyers, and especially those who are also clerics, at their playing around with “meanings” to try to worm the Church’s way out of giving justice to adult victims of clerical abuse?

The veiled vocabulary often used by the Church (and often by media as well), such as, “sexual harassment” or “sexual misconduct” to describe what is the clerical sexual abuse of adults, makes light of crimes. This, in turn, is deeply retraumatising to adult victims of clerical abuse and grossly disrespects and dishonours these victims’ pain. It can be experienced by these victims as further abuse and injustice suffered at the hands of the Church.

S

exual abuse is a serious crime, whether it is perpetrated against a minor or an adult. Adult victims, like minors, are equally children of God and equally to be cared for compassionately by Christ’s Church and his shepherds on earth.

There must be a call and action in the Church for zero tolerance for all clerical sexual (and other) abuse and its cover-up, whether committed against minors or adults. It is the Christ-given responsibility of the Church as an institution and all its shepherds, especially, and its community to uphold the dignity of and protect all human beings from abuse in the Church, no matter their age.

When Jesus Christ says in the Gospel, “Let the little children come to me”, is he only referring to those who are literally children in age, or to all those who approach him, and yearn and search for him with childlike trust, humility, love, faith and transparent vulnerability, no matter their age?

Every victim of clerical abuse, whether a minor or an adult, is an individual and has a name, a story, a face, a body, a mind, a heart and a soul—all of which have been deeply wounded and dragged through utter hell by consecrated persons.

No victim is just a number to be conveniently packaged by the Catholic Church and its hierarchy into “minor” or “adult”; clerical abuse and its cover-up is equally and uniquely life-damaging for each and every victim, minor or adult.

May Jesus Christ give the Church, its leaders and shepherds the courage to be true instruments of justice, because it is only in working for true justice that true healing and peace can be attained.

Name withheld 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

Magnificat), we are with the shepherds and the magi at Jesus’ birth (the incarnation), the journey with the Holy Family to meet Simeon in the Temple, and so forth.

Now, with the sorrowful mysteries we actually live the Stations of the Cross, nothing less. With Jesus in Gethsemane, with Pontius Pilate in judgment, we are inside the torture chamber, the whipping, the crown of thorns, on the Via Dolorosa in every event on that cruel journey, Calvary and the meaningful words of the dying redeemer, and so on.

Then, of course, the joy and triumphant song in the glorious news of the Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost and Mary’s crown as the worthy, suffering mother of God’s only Son. Behold that beautiful prayer called the rosary. “12 minutes max”? No way!

Fr Ralph de Hahn, Cape Town

Sexuality and chastity as gifts

I

N MY 80-odd years on this planet, I have rarely heard or read such a beautifully incisive, understanding, compassionate, and loving description of both sexuality and chastity, and their interconnectedness, as in Fr Ron Rolheiser’s column (September 19). It is finally very clear to me that one cannot have one without the other.

As Fr Rolheiser says, they are both sacred gifts from God that need to be profoundly respected, both in the secular and religious lives. They give the lie to responsible human behaviour.

To quote Fr Rolheiser: “Sexuality is sacred, never to be denigrated in the name of something higher, or reduced to the casual. Chastity is proper respect and proper patience, not just how we stand before sex, but for how we stand before all of life.”

I would suggest that this article be read by all schoolgoing children, parents, priests, teachers and catechists, for full understanding.

It is just possible that this will eventually lead to a significant reduction in unwanted pregnancies in adolescents, and a greater improvement in the relationships between married couples.

Antonio Tonin, East London

Infidelity cause of Church crisis

I

NFIDELITY rather than clericalism is the cause of the current homosexual crisis in the Church.

Infidelity, by heterodox priests and prelates, to doctrine that condemns sins of the flesh (especially sodomy, a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance).

Infidelity to canon law which calls for those who engage in sins of the flesh to be laicised instead of protected and promoted.

And infidelity to the doctrine of hell, of just punishment for sin in this life and the next. US Archbishop Fulton Sheen called a failure to punish crime not mercy, but cowardice.

Archbishop Sheen also has a beautiful meditation relating to Jesus when before Pilate: “Did you know that I was silent seven times at my trial? I spoke as a shepherd; I was silent as a sheep. I spoke as a teacher; I was silent as a lamb. My silence disturbed Pilate, but what could I say? I was guilty. I was carrying your sins. I could not make excuses.”

It was pleasing to note Cardinal Wilfrid Napier has called for the archdiocese of Durban to practise a day of fasting and abstinence on October 5. We all need to support this as there is much healing required.

Our Lady Queen of Peace, pray for us while we be obedient to your request to pray for your son’s priests.

AMJ Schlebusch, Camperdown, KZN

PERSPECTIVES

Open the Church’s eyes W E all love the image in the Gospel of the eyes of the blind being opened. But are we willing to open our eyes as a Church and see some of what we need to see, even when it is not very pleasant?

It looks as if Pope Francis is willing to in his response to the crisis caused by abuse.

We saw this in his long and honestlyworded letter “to the People of God” after the Pennsylvania report and also in his homilies in Ireland in August.

There has been an important shift: a recognition that the crimes of the abusers have been matched and made worse by the way in the Church has repeatedly turned a blind eye to the accusations.

In his document Call to Holiness (Gaudete et Exsultate, 165), Francis warns us against “a comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self-centredness”.

It is this blindness—spiritual corruption, he calls it—that has enabled priests, bishops and cardinals to fail to act when evidence stares them in the face.

The opposite of this blindness is the willingness to see mistakes (and not retreat to self-deception), to mention them by name (using truth rather than slander), to say sorry (which requires us to give up on egotism), and then to do something about them (because we are centred on others not on ourselves).

This same structure of conversion is seen in the penitential rite at Mass. It is telling that Pope Francis used that rite when in Dublin’s Phoenix Park as a chance for the hierarchical Church, of which he is the visible head, to ask for forgiveness.

It was all the more powerful because he understood that to say sorry sincerely required the added pain of listing specific faults. A generic apology is a non-apology.

For those in Ireland who have been hurt, hearing—in the pope’s voice—the specific naming of their hurt, was an important step towards forgiveness.

W

e know this better in South Africa than most because of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. For all of its shortcomings, one key aspect of TRC was the requirement for the person seeking amnesty to detail the abuse they had perpetrated.

And, of course, as Catholics we are also familiar with that model. We cannot go into the confessional and say, “Bless me Father for I have sinned” and then expect automatic absolution. A mark of the sincerity with which we approach the sacrament is our willingness to admit to God the specific sins we have committed, and we demonstrate that by speaking them out loud to the priest.

This requires a fundamental acknowledgement that I am not perfect, that I can make mistakes.

It is not coincidental that the long wait for apologies about abuse is tied up with clericalism. As Pope Francis wrote in his response to the Pennsylvania report: To say “no” to abuse is to say an emphatic “no” to all forms of clericalism.

One of the most rampant forms of clericalism is in the repeated inability of many clerics to admit when they are wrong. It is wonderful to meet a priest who has the selfawareness to know when he has messed up, or the humility to allow someone else to point that out to him. (An Anglican bishop once told me how grateful he was to have a spouse who kept him honest!)

B

ut such priests are the exceptions. An attempt by a church in Johannesburg to get honest feedback from parishioners on the quality of sermons was halted when one of the priests said he did not care what people thought about his sermons since he was ordained and they were not.

I fear that some clerics believe that they have infallibility by association. Since the pope is infallible (and they usually misunderstand what that doctrine actually

The trouble with clericalism in a nutshell: A priest said he did not care what people thought about his sermons since he was ordained and they were not.

Raymond Perrier

Faith and Society

means), they think that all ordained men also share in this protection from error. To extend the logic, presumably the closer you are to the pope (the higher up the hierarchy), the more of this infallibility by proximity you enjoy.

This applies to the heinous crimes of abuse or the covering up of abuse. But I also see it in the day-to-day failures of clerics to make good decisions or to remedy matters when they make bad decisions.

When a mistake is pointed out, their kneejerk reaction is usually to deny that there was a mistake, then to trivialise its importance, then to denigrate the person pointing out the problem, and then, if necessary, to cover it up “for the good of the institution”.

Again, self-satisfied blindness leads to, in Pope Francis’ words, “deception, slander, egotism and self-centredness”.

W

hile not a crime, one key area of blindness can be in proper oversight of the money the Church has been given.

Many dioceses have just completed Stewardship Month.

The focus of this is usually on encouraging people to be more open in what they give (and that is important). But we also need our Church leadership to be more open in how they use the funds.

That means—at parish and diocesan level—proper publication of accounts and a willingness to answer questions and provide explanations. After all, this is no less than what the Church expects of business and government!

The blindness is sometimes a failure to look. But, as we have seen with abuse, it can sometimes be a wilful blindness even to see when mistakes are pointed out.

I have seen clerics (at all levels of the hierarchy) refuse to deal with obvious examples of maladministration or corruption.

Yet we are not slow—rightly so—to detail the maladministration and corruption that we see around us.

As a country, we are still waiting for exPresident Jacob Zuma to admit to his various financial wrongs. Many in the Church are angered by this and by those who cover Continued on page 11

Something worth waiting for B OTH my mother and my eldest son have their birthdays in October, and there is exactly 50 years and a day difference in their ages.

How lovely, you might say, but when I gave birth, my Mum was quite indignant about the date.

When I’d had the first ultrasound scan during my pregnancy, we were all thrilled to find out that my due date of delivery was the same as my Mum’s birthday: October 10.

However, nature has a way of taking control in these matters and my beloved first-born arrived a day early, on the 9th of the month.

When the besotted grandparents arrived at the hospital to see their first grandchild, my mother turned to me and said indignantly: “Well, you could have waited another day!”

This has become a family joke to this day, one which my grown-up son often laughs about with his grandmother.

All of us, at some time or another, find that we have to wait for things and this can often be frustrating and sometimes stressful in varying degrees.

In fact, in a world where we all tend to demand things instantly, it is surprising

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Point of Reflection

Wait for the Lord and wait upon the Lord who is always with us, no matter what the date, Julia Bancroft advises. how much time we still spend awaiting decisions, actions, advice, news and a whole host of other things.

Y

et even in this modern world there is another aspect of our “waiting” which we understand is vital to our spiritual wellbeing and contentment.

The Lord waits for us to spend time with him. And in this waiting we know that his invitation is an open one and all we have to do is to take advantage of it.

Prayer, reflection and contemplation and being in his presence at Holy Mass are

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simple means by which we can build our relationship with Jesus Christ and spend the vital time with him, which we all need.

Furthermore, we have been assured that the Lord will come again to this world in all his glory. We may have been waiting for this to happen for nearly 2 000 years but we can still be assured that this will be the case.

And so, in recognition of this “waiting”, we must also keep our own lives in good order as we never know when this event will occur. In the words of the beautiful Taizé chant, we must “keep watch and take heart”.

And so in this lovely month of October, may we wait for the Lord and wait upon the Lord, who is always with us no matter what the date. n Julia Beacroft’s book Sanctifying The Spirit is published by Sancio Books (www.sanciobooks.com). It is also available on Amazon.

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The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

7

Michael Shackleton

Open door

Why do we ‘pray to the saints’?

A friend quotes 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ.” Her church honours the saints only as exemplars of the Christian life but never as mediators between us and God, as she claims we do. I know Christ is our only way to God, but where do the prayers of the saints come in here?

Charlene Shaw

W

HATEVER many outside the Catholic Church believe about us, we have never substituted the mediation of the saints with the unique mediation of Christ.

Catholics are familiar with Our Lord’s words to Thomas: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father other than through me” (Jn 14:6).

All prayer to God is heard only in the name of Jesus Christ. Indeed, don’t so many of our liturgical prayers conclude with: “We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord”?

So, when we pray for one another or for any favour, we are heard by the Father because our faith in Christ is the only way to him.

Pagans, religious people of all faiths or philosophers who sincerely turn to God as they accept him to be, are in practice praying in the name of Christ, whether they know it or not.

To think otherwise would be to deny what Jesus told Thomas.

We all pray for one another out of love, concern or compassion. Our prayers are Christian prayers, trusting in our mysterious but total communion together with Christ.

Deceased Christians are not separated from this communion. St Paul wrote: “Neither death nor life, nor angelic nor demonic rulers, not present nor future events, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rm 8:38).

The saints who have their place now in heaven can pray for you to God, just as your priest and parishioners pray for you.

We must not think that the saints’ prayers go behind Christ’s back. Their prayers, as explained, are made within the communion of all the baptised in Christ’s name. We and they are comprehensively the Mystical Body of Christ, which St Paul illustrates graphically in 1 Corinthians 12. Collectively and individually we are one Body, “Jews, Greeks, slaves, free; and all of us were given the same Spirit to drink”.

You ask where the prayers of the saints come in here. Well, our centuries-old liturgy assures us that after death, our life is “changed, not ended”.

The saints are now alive with the risen Christ, and “through him, and with him and in him” they pray for us just as we pray for one another today.

n Send your queries to Open Door, Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000; or e-mail: opendoor@scross.co.za; or fax (021) 465 3850. Anonymity can be preserved by arrangement, but questions must be signed, and may be edited for clarity. Only published questions will be answered.

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The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

COMMUNITY

Cape Town pilgrims at Ngome Marian shrine in KwaZulu-Natal came from the parishes of St John Bosco in Westridge, St Theresa’s in Welcome Estate, Mater dei in Parow Valley, St Mary Magdalene in Lentegeur, and St Oswald’s Anglican church in Milnerton.

Fr Anstey Kay from St Theresa’s and deacon Mervin Solomons from St John Bosco were among the group.

St John Bosco parish in Robertsham, Johannesburg, inaugurated new members into the Catholic Women’s League. Maria Morris (right), Johannesburg regional council CWL president, introduces the new members, with Robertsham branch president Matsie Mbanjwa (left). Also present at the inauguration were La Rochelle branch CWL president June Middleton, SWRRC president and honorary CWL member of 50 years Thoko Mlungwana, and Mavis Sarjoo of Eldorado Park parish. (Photo: dr Kevin Luk)

On the feast of the nativity of Our Lady, Marist Brothers Linmeyer in Johannesburg, previously named Marian College, celebrated with Mass and a picnic for staff and students.

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Rural children at Mzingweya Primary School in Esikhawini in Eshowe diocese at work on computers. (Submitted by dr CW Zondo)

PRICE CHECK

Children celebrated their First Communion at St Benedict’s cathedral in Eshowe diocese in KwaZulu-Natal. With them is cathedral administrator Fr Victor Chavunga OSB. (Submitted by Henry Chavunga)

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our Archbishop asks Meet miracle baby abuse victims to L come forward STAFF REPORTER

STAFF REPORTER

A

N archbishop has emphasised that there must be “zero tolerance for the abuse of children by consecrated persons [and] for those who cover up the abuse of children by others”, and invited those who have been abused to come forward.

In a pastoral letter addressed to the faithful of his archdiocese, Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town also called for a day of fasting and penance on September 15, the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, as a sign of solidarity with the survivors of abuse.

Archbishop Brislin noted that “the wounds of the survivors who have suffered the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests never fully heal”.

“As Church we continue to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics and all those entrusted with caring for the most vulnerable, our children,” Archbishop Brislin said.

He urged the Church to deal with the past, and strongly encouraged “those who have experienced abuse at the hands of someone in the Church...to come forward so that the Church can acknowledge the deep individual hurt caused by abuse and contribute, with humility, to the process of healing”.

The archbishop immediately stressed that the law “requires that child abuse must be reported to the civil authorities. An person who is aware of such abuse is obligated to do so.”

He noted that the scandals are causing a crisis of faith, but appealed to the faithful to see the crisis as one of human failure, not of faith itself.

“Let us hold on to the reality that it is human failure that is at the centre of this crisis, and not our faith. Let this time of difficulty return us to the essence of our belief as embodied in the Creed, the Gospel, the Eucharist.”

Quoting Pope Francis’ recent letter on abuse, Archbishop Brislin said that to overcome the crisis and “generate the necessary dynamics for sound and realistic change” must involve the participation of all the

Church’s members.

In his letter, Pope Francis identified clericalism as being at the root of the crisis and appealed for the participation of all the faithful.

“It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a Church that does not include the active participation Archbishop Brislin of all the members of God’s People,” the pope said.

“Indeed, whenever we have tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of God to small elites, we end up creating communities, projects, theological approaches, spiritualities and structures without roots, without memory, without faces, without bodies and ultimately, without lives,” Pope Francis said.

“This is clearly seen in a peculiar way of understanding the Church’s authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred.”

Archbishop Brislin joined the pope’s call for prayer, penance and fasting.

In his letter, Pope Francis said these “can awaken our conscience and arouse our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says ‘Never again’ to every form of abuse”.

It is to this end that Archbishop Brislin called for the September 15 day of penance and fasting.

“May we all abstain from some food or something enjoyable on that day,” he said.

“In this way, may we show our repentance and beg forgivenesses of our own sins and the sins of others,” he said.

“By doing so, may we show solidarity with all victims of sexual abuse and may our fast, in the words of the Holy Father, ‘make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary’,” Archbishop Brislin said.

UNA Carelse became the first “Southern Cross baby” in more than a decade when she was born in late August to our journalist Erin Carelse and her husband Brent.

In the past 25 years, only two Southern Cross staff members have given birth.

The last Southern Cross babies—a pair of twins—were born to then-administrative assistant Ugeun Finlayson in 2007.

Mrs Carelse’s pregnancy was not easy, with doctors believing at one point that she had miscarried.

The latter parts of the pregnancy and the premature birth itself—Luna’s due date was September 30!—also caused moments of grave anxiety.

But now both mother and her child— Mrs Carelse’s third—have recovered well.

Mrs Carelse said she is grateful for God’s protection and the many prayers that were said on her and Luna’s behalf.

Pope: Why I keep silent on lies

BY CINDY WOODEN

T

HE best way to respond to scandal and divisiveness, as Jesus himself showed, is to stay silent and pray, Pope Francis has said.

“With people lacking goodwill, with people who seek only scandal, with those who look only for division, who want only destruction”, he said, the best response is “silence. And prayer,” the pope said in a homily.

The pope did not refer to the now discredited allegation by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to the United States who called on Pope Francis to resign for allegedly ignoring sanctions Pope Benedict XVI had placed on then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for sexual misconduct.

Archbishop Viganò has since backtracked, saying that the sanctions were “private”.

Asked about the archbishop’s allegations, Pope Francis told reporters to read the document for themselves and make their own judgments.

The Gospel for the Mass at which the pope preached recounted Jesus’ return to Nazareth and the fury of the townspeople when he refused to perform miracles for them.

In his homily, Pope Francis said the reading should help Christians “reflect on how to

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act in daily life when there are misunderstandings”, but also to understand “how the father of lies, the accuser, the devil acts to destroy the unity of a family, of a people”.

Pope Francis said that it was with his silence that Jesus defeated the “wild dogs”, the devil, who “had sown lies in hearts”.

“It wasn’t people, it was a pack of wild dogs that chased him out of the city... With his silence [Jesus] defeats that wild pack and walks away because it was not yet his hour,” the pope said.

“This teaches us that when there is this way of acting, of not seeing the truth, silence remains,” he said.

Even in a family, he said, there are times when a discussion of politics or sports or money escalates into a truly destructive argument.

“In these discussions in which you see the devil is there and wants to destroy—silence.

Have your say, then keep quiet,” Pope Francis advised. “Because the truth is meek. The truth is silent. The truth is not noisy.”

Remaining silent and refusing to fight back is not always easy, but it is what Jesus did and it is “anchored in the strength of God”, he said.

“May the Lord grant us the grace to discern when we must speak and when we must remain silent,” the pope prayed.—CNS

Feed your soul with The

S outher n C ross

IT’S WORTH IT!

The Salesian Youth Movement of Johannesburg gathered at St Francis de Sales church in Lawley to reflect on the upcoming Synod on Youth. A short introduction was followed by group discussions, and then quiet time in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

(Submitted by Br Clarence Watts SdB)

Sacred Heart College in Observatory, Johannesburg, held a Number Fun and dress up day to give children the chance to develop an understanding of numbers through play, games and fun activities.

Six King dominican Sisters celebrated their 50, 60 and 65 years of religious life at St Mary’s in Johannesburg. All became nuns just before or while Vatican II was unfolding, and have experienced profound changes in their way of life and the ministries they have undertaken. (From left) Srs Robert, Geraldine, Stephanie, Ann, Jane and Irenea.

(Submitted by Sr Ann Wigley OP)

PILGRIMAGE

The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

9

From left: Pilgrims at Croagh Patrick • The Benedictine Kylemore Abbey • Southern Cross editor Günther Simmermacher at the Cliffs of Moher on Ireland’s West Coast • Votive items left by the faithful in the well-house of St Brigid’s Well • Fr John Shand and Bishop Victor Phalana inside dublin’s St Patrick’s cathedral. (All photos courtesy Günther Simmermacher)

The graces of Ireland pilgrimage The Southern Cross pilgrimage to Ireland in August was a journey of faith with moments of tourism — and sometimes the two happily coincided, as GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER found.

T

HE Southern Cross pilgrimage to Ireland was bookended by a visit to the Marian shrine of Knock on its anniversary and the papal Mass at Dublin’s Phoenix Park, on the second and penultimate day respectively.

These events provided the focus for the previous two articles. Of course, the group, led by Bishop Victor Phalana of Klerksdorp, had many more great spiritual and secular experiences—and in Ireland these often intersect.

One such place is St Patrick’s Rock, or the Rock of Cashel, in County Tipperary, a short way from Limerick, where we had stayed overnight in the posh Savoy Hotel.

The Rock of Cashel is the ruin of a magnificent 13th-century cathedral. There is always something romantic about ruins. One can put the human power of imagination to work, forming a picture of how things might have been when the structure was in its full glory.

Although the cathedral was the site of battle—in 1647 Oliver Cromwell’s English army massacred Irish troops, civilians and Catholic clergy who took refuge there—it was ruined not by warfare but by an Anglican archbishop of avaricious or mad disposition.

In 1749 that archbishop, Arthur Price, decided to remove the roof of what was regarded as the jewel of Ireland’s cathedrals. The lead content of the roof was valuable for the production of ammunition.

He never replaced the roof. So Cashel lost a great cathedral but gained what would become a hugely popular tourist attraction.

For Christian pilgrims, the site has religious significance. It was here that St Patrick converted the king of Munster, opening the way for the evangelisation of Ireland.

This means that St Patrick’s famous explanation of the holy trinity through the medium of a three-leafed clover, the shamrock, happened at this place.

The traces of English colonialism of Ireland are everywhere. Earlier that day, we had visited Glenstal Abbey, a Benedictine monastery and boarding school located in an old private mansion near Limerick.

Glenstal Castle was built by the English Barrington family which did not let the Irish forget that their country’s 12th-century invasion was authorised by Pope Adrian IV, the only English pontiff.

A relief in stone of King Henry II on the entrance portal to the castle indicates as much.

On the other side is Henry’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (like Henry, now without a nose). She is holding a scroll which is supposed to issue the Gaelic greeting, “Céad Míle Fáilte” (A hundred thousand welcomes”). But the local stonemason who did the carving surreptitiously changed the spelling from “fáilte” to “fealtn” to mean “A hundred thousand upsets” (or betrayals). The Barringtons evidently didn’t notice.

A fairytale abbey

Graces of pilgrimage

A day earlier our group had visited another private castle bought in the 1920s by displaced Belgian Benedictines to be turned into an abbey with a boarding school.

Kylemore Abbey, in the Connemara region of County Galway, is as pretty a sight as one will ever see.

From across the lake in front of it, the castle looks like the setting of a fairytale.

Alas, the story behind it has no happily-ever-afters. The ostentatious castle was built in 1868 by Mitchell Henry, an English politician and industrialist, as a gift to his wife Margaret. Their happiness did not last long: in 1875 Margaret died at the age of 45 while touring Egypt, and the widower thereafter spent little time at Kylemore.

In tribute to his beloved wife, Henry built a small gothic church on the grounds of Kylemore, and a mausoleum to hold her (and, eventually, his) remains.

The castle was bought in 1920 by Belgian Benedictine nuns who had lost their convent in Ypres during the battles of World War I. The nuns set up an international boarding school for girls, and a dayschool for locals. The school closed in 2010, and its premises are now used as a retreat and conference centre.

Some of the rooms used by the Henry family are open to the public, as are the chapel and the walled Victorian gardens. The large number of tourists there testify to Kylemore Abbey’s popularity. Some of them joined our group for Mass in the Pax Benedictine church on the grounds.

All pilgrimages are journeys of spiritual discovery and of graces.

On our way to the airport, Bishop Phalana invited pilgrims to testify their moments of grace, which some did.

Of course, there are many graces.

Some are obtained by a visit to a holy shrine, or by prayer and revelation, or by interaction with fellow pilgrims. Many of these graces may reveal themselves to the pilgrims long after they have returned home.

One grace we collectively experienced was the weather.

It was uncanny: whenever it rained—which was quite often—we were either travelling on the bus or otherwise indoors. When the bus stopped, it would cease raining, and resume when we were back on the bus—at least those of us who were in good time; a couple of our group were drenched in a sudden rainstorm at the previously perfectly dry Cliffs of Moher which began exactly two minutes before we were supposed to be on the bus.

Even when heavy rains were forecast on the day of the papal Mass in Dublin, the worst we suffered was a little drizzle. Thank you, St Scholastica! And thank you St Anthony for running interference when needed.

And thanks be to God for an enriching and safe pilgrimage. Moladh go deo le Dia. n This concludes Günther Simmermacher’s three-part series on the pilgrimage to Ireland. Join The Southern Cross next year in the Holy Land & Rome with Fr Russell Pollitt SJ in May and in Catholic France with Bishop Joe Sandri in October. For details see www.fowlertours.co.za

St Patrick everywhere A pilgrimage to Ireland invariably involves St Patrick. We encountered him at the Rock of Cashel, and in County Mayo at Croagh Patrick, the mount on which the evangelist spent 40 days and 40 nights in fasting and penance in 441 AD. The walk up Croagh Patrick, which measures 764m, is popular with hikers and pilgrims. Many of the latter traditionally do so barefoot to reach the small chapel on the summit, built in 1905.

Our group had no time to do that walk—around four hours either way—but had the opportunity to walk the first few steps on it.

St Patrick is also present at the splendid 13th-century Dublin cathedral bearing his name, built near where the saint performed baptisms.

It is one of Dublin’s three cathedrals, and the seat of no bishop. St Patrick’s was taken over by the Anglicans during the Reformation, as was the even older Christ Church cathedral. The latter is the seat of the Church of Ireland’s bishop of Dublin; St Patrick’s serves as the national monument for all of the country’s 12 Anglican dioceses.

The Catholic archbishop has his seat at St Mary’s pro-cathedral, which was consecrated in 1825, a time when the harsh anti-Catholic penal laws were easing (our group had the first Mass of the pilgrimage in its St Kevin’s oratory).

A pro-cathedral is a church that serves temporarily as a cathedral, pending the construction of a proper cathedral or a change in circumstances. One such change might be if the Church of Ireland were to return one of the cathedrals it took over in the Reformation to

The Southern Cross pilgrims with Benedictine Brother Colmán Ó Clabaigh at Glenstal Abbey near Limerick. the Catholic Church. side of the road from the cliffs, St St Patrick’s would be a good can- Brigid’s Well is one of Ireland’s olddidate, though one wonders what est sites of pilgrimage—indeed, it is would happen to the monuments probable that it was already a holy and graves of the many Anglican site for pre-Christian pagans. notables buried there, including the A statue of St Brigid, encased in author Jonathan Swift, who served glass, stands in a small garden from as the cathedral’s dean. which one enters a narrow wellAmong the many points of inter- house. Inside pilgrims leave votive est in St Patrick’s cathedral is an old items, and the bereaved place relics wooden door which gave rise to the of their late loved ones. At the end phrase “to chance one’s arm”. of the grotto is one of two streams In 1492, two Irish families—the of water on the site. Pilgrims tradiButlers of Ormonde and the tionally take a sip from that water.

FitzGeralds of Kildare—were inWith all these artefacts of dead volved in a violent feud which people—including rosaries, statues, forced the Butlers to take refuge in ID cards, ties, photos and funeral St Patrick’s. leaflets—the place is slightly unsetWhen the FitzGeralds turned up tling. But it is also very evidently a there, they asked the Butlers to place of healing for those who left come out with a view to negotiating these items there and prayed at the a peace. The Butlers were under- site. It is a place of grace. standably wary of being slaughtered should they do so. So the head of the FitzGeralds ordered that a hole be cut into the catheThe dral’s wooden door, and then put his hand through the door to shake the Butlers’ hands.

Reassured by this gesture of peace, the Butlers emerged to make peace.

The “Door of Reconciliation” is displayed in the cathedral.

S outher n C ross Pilgrimage 2019

St Brigid’s well Besides St Patrick, Ireland has two other patron saints: St Brigid and St Columba. We had little contact with the latter, but encountered St Brigid (c.453-c.525) a couple of times.

In Kildare the cathedral named after her (now belonging to the Church of Ireland) occupies the place where St Brigid founded Ireland’s first monastery, a complex that included houses for nuns and monks, and the oak church that gave Kildare its name (Cill Dara, which means “church of the oak”).

A model in the cathedral recreates the probable set-up of the complex, as well as the dress of the people in that time.

We also encountered St Brigid at the well named after her in Liscannor, near the magnificent Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Located unobtrusively on the

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The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

SAINTHOOD

The pope who inspired Romero and Hurley Two giants in the struggle for justice studied at the same time in Rome and took inspiration from the pope at the time, explains PAddY KEARNEY.

A

RCHBISHOPS Óscar Romero of San Salvador and Denis Hurley of Durban were both famous in their time for their prophetic witness for justice—for which the former paid with his life.

Both studied in Rome at the same time, and both were deeply influenced by Pope Pius XI (1922–39).

In the late 1930s Denis Eugene Hurley and Óscar Arnulfo Romero were young seminarians studying theology at the Gregorian University in Rome. Many years later Archbishop Hurley said that while they didn’t meet, they might well have passed each other in the corridors of that great university.

Their common admiration of Pius XI was based on that pope’s courageous opposition to the great dictators of that era: Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini.

Pius XI gave these young seminarians an outstanding example of how the Church should stand up against tyranny. It’s a lesson that later came to mind when, as archbishops, Romero faced the violent military regime of El Salvador and Hurley the brutal apartheid regime of South Africa.

In a letter to his family, Hurley described Pius XI as being “of small stature and [with] a rather small face”.

“From a distance of about 20 to 30 yards he looks about 50 years of age, [with] a slightly stern expression and a firm chin that would be the envy of any movie actor. When one has a closer look at him, however, the deep lines of worry and age appear, and sometimes he seems so tired that I’d love to take him and put him to bed,” he wrote.

“There you have the short description of the one man that Mussolini could not shift.”

Similarly, Romero is said to have developed a devotion to Pius XI, whom he called “the pontiff of imperial stature” for the way in which he confronted totalitarian regimes.

He observed Pius XI’s living example closely and regarded it as more important for his formation than the entire curriculum of his studies in Rome.

“In Rome I had to live through the drama of the Church facing the totalitarianisms of Hitler and Mussolini. I learned from the imperial Pius XI the boldness to confront those in power fearlessly and to tell them: ‘As long as I am pope, no one will laugh at the Church’,” Romero would recall.

During his years at the Gregorian, Hurley focused on the Church’s social teaching as set out in papal and other Church documents. In his fourth year of theology, he chose an optional course on Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, written to mark 40 years since the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s groundbreaking social encyclical

As young students in Rome in the 1930s, both Archbishops Romero (left) and Hurley (right) were profoundly influenced by Pope Pius XI (centre).

Rerum Novarum.

For his dissertation entitled “Economic Domination by Credit Control”, Hurley chose a passage by Pius XI. He was impressed by the angry phrases the pope used against credit control “We ate and slept and pondered over Quadragesimo Anno,” he would recall. “[T]he encyclicals of Pius XI against communism, against fascism and against Nazism...were our bread and butter, so I couldn’t imagine a seminarian in those days not being influenced in that way.”

titled Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Concern) “I was very, very convinced of [Hitler’s] evil influence in Europe at the time and saw him as a person to be utterly avoided.”

Both Romero and Hurley were in Rome at the time of Pius XI’s death in 1939 when he was putting the finishing touches to an even more scathing denunciation of Nazism than Mit Brennender Sorge. This final encyclical was suppressed by his secretary of state, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who was to succeed him as Pope Pius XII. Boycott of Hitler Pius XI “is the pope whom I adThe impact that Pius XI made on mire the most”, Romero said at that the young Hurley is clear from his pope’s tomb in January 1980, duraccount of the visit paid by Hitler to ing his last visit to Rome, just weeks Rome on May 3, 1938, for a six-day before his assassination. visit.

Romero had frequently visited Hitler wanted to be received by Pius XI’s tomb, having attended the the pope in the Vatican, but Pius XI pope’s burial on February 14, 1939. showed his total disapproval of “We saw him close up: his pale Nazism by leaving the city face...we touched his for his summer residence right hand with an indeat Castel Gandolfo, saying: Pope Pius XI on scribable emotion,” he “I cannot stay in Rome recalled. with a man who has raised Hitler: ‘I cannot Hurley, like Romero, the crooked cross against stay in Rome developed an extremely the cross of Christ.” high opinion of Pius XI, with a man much later in life calling Moreover, he gave instructions that the Vatican him the “second greatest who has raised pope Museums be closed and no of the 20th century, member of Hitler’s party the crooked after John XXIII”. allowed into any part of Perhaps other future cross against bishops studying in the Vatican.

To welcome Hitler to the cross of Rome during Pius XI’s paRome, Mussolini staged an pacy were also greatly inChrist.’ impressive military parade fluenced by the man, but we know for sure that along the Via dell’Impero, these two men—Romero a broad, modern road between the Colosseum and the mon- and Hurley—who turned out to be ument to Victor Emmanuel II. Hitler internationally known champions was given a place of honour along- of justice, took courage from their side Mussolini in the reviewing memories of those years when Pius XI was so bravely outspoken. stand.

Romero, who was assassinated That morning, Hurley was in the study hall of the Oblate Interna- while celebrating Mass on March tional Scholasticate, close to where 24, 1980, is to be canonised on October 14. these events were taking place.

And in Durban’s Emmanuel One of the scholastics came running into the hall and said to him: cathedral a shrine has been made at “Come quickly. You can see Hitler Hurley’s tomb. The faithful of the from the roof.” Following the pope’s archdiocese have been encouraged example, Hurley said: “No, I’m not to pray for his intercession—hopegoing. I don’t want to see that fully as a prelude to the initiation of his cause. man.”

May Romero and Hurley’s holiIn 1999 he explained how much he had been influenced by Pius XI: ness, courage and passion for justice “By that time...we knew that Hitler be an inspiration to many other was already something of an em- bishops, priests, nuns and lay peobodiment of evil. We didn’t know ple, especially in El Salvador and about his attitude to the Jews, but South Africa. we knew he had taken up the cudg- n Paddy Kearney is the biographer of els...against the Catholic Church Archbishop Denis Hurley and co-editor and that Pius XI had published an of a new anthology of letters by the late angry encyclical against Nazism, en- archbishop.

Leonor Chacón stands outside the small family restaurant in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, that she has turned into a shrine to Bl Óscar Romero. The soon-to-be saint used to treat the place as a refuge from the growing tension of his pastoral life. (Photo: Jo Tuckman/CNS)

My friend, Fr Oscar

BY JO TuCKMAN

L

EONOR Chacón remembers every emotion she felt on March 24, 1980, as if it were yesterday.

It started, she recalls, with the happiness that always accompanied the expectation that Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador would be coming to eat with her family in the small city of Santa Tecla, west of the Salvadoran capital.

Later there was her disappointment when the archbishop could not make it because he was committed to celebrating Mass that evening in the chapel of the cancer hospital next to where he lived.

And then there was the call informing her he had been shot while celebrating that Mass.

“I ran to the room where my husband was and we cried together,” recalled Chacón, now 80. “It was a very great pain.”

Today, El Salvador eagerly awaits the October 14 canonisation of the archbishop who began his pastoral life as a conservative priest known for his charity work and spent his final years accused of being a communist agitator for defiantly speaking out against the death squads and political repression.

But while Ms Chacón celebrates the attention focused on Bl Romero’s message of peace, he was also a dear friend who treated her little family restaurant and home behind it as a refuge from the horror.

Taking a break from making pastries she sells in glass jars on the counter of the restaurant, Ms Chacón let the anecdotes flow.

She recalled the way he would ask to be told jokes, as well as his belly laughs from the sofa when the family would clown about. She smiled fondly at the memory of the time he spent hours sitting with her father, watching telenovelas—the Latin American soapies—and at his voracious appetite for her refried beans.

“He used to say that he came here to disconnect and rest,” she said.

“He would say it was like going to the house of Martha and Mary of Bethany.”

Ms Chacón first met Romero on her wedding day in 1963. Her fiancé, Raúl, had told her about the priest who had taken him in to live in his parish in the nearby town of San Miguel when he became an orphan

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at the age of seven, so she wrote to ask him if he would marry them.

Romero did marry them and stayed for the small banquet the family threw for the newlyweds, then he whisked them off to a hotel for their wedding night, paying the bill himself.

From then on, Romero began regularly dropping by for lunch on his way to and from the capital, developing individual relationships with many of the family members, including her sister, Elvira, who became his secretary.

Ms Chacón said he preferred not to talk about politics when he visited and would brush off concerns for his safety, as he did the last time she saw him, on March 8, 1980. He dismissed the idea that he should be travelling with someone because he didn’t want to endanger anybody else.

Like many in El Salvador, Ms Chacón said the archbishop wrote his own death sentence in the homily he gave the day before his murder, in which he ordered soldiers to “stop the repression”.

“He knew they were going to kill him, but he wasn’t afraid,” she said.

“He was smiling a lot the last time he came here.”

Ms Chacón recalled the children and old people crying as thousands filed passed his coffin as it lay for five days in the San Salvador basilica.

She also described how that grief then turned to fear on the very day of his funeral in the cathedral, when snipers fired on the mourners.

Dozens died, many in the stampede to escape.

Listening to the funeral on the radio in her home, she said the transmission cut out soon after the gunfire and screams began.

A few months later, rumours circulated that anybody found with photographs of the archbishop would be killed. Her husband, who died in 2002, wanted to burn their photos, but she refused. Instead she wrapped them in cloth and put them at the bottom of a chest.

Now she has hung those same photographs proudly on the wall in a kind of shrine she shows to anybody who visits.

“He used to say that ‘there are more people who love me than hate me’, and it’s still true,” she said. “The people who come here get all emotional.”—CNS

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Vatican’s deal with China ANALYSIS BY MICHAEL SAINSBuRY

YOUR CLASSiFiEDS

MATTHEE—Merlyn. Our beloved Mother who passed on October 5, 2010. Still sadly missed by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

DiAMOND WEDDiNG ANNiVERSARY

A priest celebrates Mass in a makeshift chapel in a village near Beijing. For the first time in decades, all the Catholic bishops in China are in full communion with the pope, the Vatican has announced. (Photo: Reuters/CNS) Cardinal Parolin should resign.

Cardinal Zen, a regular participant in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, has taken his case to Pope Francis. He has long said that such a deal would see underground Catholics melt away, either to their own private places or even to join Protestant Churches—yet it is unclear how many Catholics he speaks for.

A

nd while there are no other signs that Cardinal Zen is more broadly opposed to the pope, he is quickly finding himself with perhaps unwanted supporters.

Church conservatives who are pushing back against the pope’s pastoral agenda have flocked to the cardinal’s cause.

They highlight what they say is the deal’s complicity with the escalating repression of Western religion in China, where online Bible sales and evangelisation are banned, minors forbidden to attend services, crosses torn down and churches demolished.

But it is Beijing’s increasingly horrific pogrom against ethnic Muslim Uighurs in the northwest province of Xinjiang that casts the biggest human rights and religious persecution shadow over the deal and provides ample fodder for critics. Surveillance techniques used in Xinjiang have already emerged elsewhere; the government has installed CCTV

Liturgical Calendar Year B – Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday October 7, 27th Sunday of the Year Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 128, Hebrews 2:9-11, Mark 10:2-16 Monday October 8 Galatians 1:6-12, Psalm 111:1-2, 7-10, Luke 10:25-37 Tuesday October 9, Ss Denis B and Companions, St John Leonard Galatians 1:13-24, Psalm 139:1-3, 13-15, Luke 10:38-42 Wednesday October 10, St Daniel Comboni Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14, Psalm 117, Luke 11:1-4 Thursday October 11, St John XXIII Galatians 3:1-5, Responsorial psalm Luke 1:69-75, Luke 11:5-13 Friday October 12 Galatians 3:7-14, Psalm 111:1-6, Luke 11:15-26 Saturday October 13 Galatians 3:22-29, Psalm 105:2-7, Luke 11:27-28 Sunday October 14, 28th Sunday of the Year Wisdom 7:7-11, Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-13, Mark 10:17-30

Ss John Leonard, John XXIII, daniel Comboni

cameras in some Catholic and Protestant churches.

Uighurs have been subjected to nine years of extreme repression, including mass disappearances, thousands jailed, and hundreds sentenced to death in stadium trials. Concentration camps are believed to hold up to 1 million Uighurs.

The Vatican-China statement says the deal is “pastoral, not political”. Yet everything is political in the context of the Communist Party, and Beijing’s endgame would appear to be ending Vatican ties with Taiwan, which was taken over by mainland nationalists after they lost the civil war to the communists in 1949.

For Beijing it’s all about power and control, legitimising its state-run Church; for the Vatican it’s about officially giving the government-recognised Church at least spiritual communion with Rome.

This deal has been described as interim, with reports saying it holds for two years. In that light, perhaps a more considered move would be to ignore the wave of hysteria already swelling and support Pope Francis’ hope for further progress.—CNS n Michael Sainsbury, former editorial director of the Asian Catholic news agency ucanews.com, has covered China for ten years and lived there for more than four years.

Open Church’s eyes Continued from page 7 up for him. We are also still waiting for an acknowledgement of the misuse of the country’s resources in previous decades. Some in the Church are also angered by this, and by those who pretend that there is no problem.

And as a Church in South Africa—at the level of parishes and dioceses—we are still waiting for those who are supposed to govern our resources to admit when they have made mistakes and say sorry.

Where is the anger at this? An apology and an acknowledgment would not be the end—a firm desire of amendment is the next step in confession.

But, as we have seen with the abuse tragedy, saying sorry and listing mistakes is a good beginning.

Or are we interested in curing only other people of blindness? n For more articles by Raymond Perrier, go to www.scross.co.za/category/perspectives/raymond-perrier/

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11

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iN MEMORiAM

F

INALLY, the Vatican has done a deal with China, or rather with the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which has been conducting an escalating programme of repression against religion.

The deal is already controversial and opposed by many Chinese Catholics and anti-pope conservatives. But the Vatican hopes it is just the first fruit of a long campaign.

The most recent negotiations were conducted under the supervision of Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who sealed an agreement with the communist rulers of Vietnam back in 1996.

The China agreement was made public in a short, detail-free but nuanced announcement.

The Vatican has officially recognised eight bishops appointed by the Chinese authorities, not the pope. They were previously not recognised by Rome and/or excommunicated.

Regularisation of bishops’ appointments was always a key goal of the past five years of talks.

It is believed the agreement gives the pope final veto power over the nomination of an episcopal candidate sent to Rome, putting in ink what has been effective practice for some years.

The recognition of the eight China-appointed bishops has angered leaders of China’s underground Catholics, who have refused to join the Communist Party-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association.

Underground Catholics are believed to make up as much as 50% of the country’s estimated 10-12 million Catholics.

Leaked information of the deal triggered a resistance movement publicly and aggressively prosecuted by Hong Kong’s retired bishop, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, 86, who was born in Shanghai.

“They’re giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves. It’s an incredible betrayal,” he told the news agency Reuters, adding that

The Southern Cross, October 3 to October 9, 2018

RADLOFF—Godfrey and Elsé (née Bamford). The Radloffs celebrated their wedding 60 years ago on October 4,1958, at St Michael's parish in Rondebosch, with the nuptial Mass said by Mgr J Galvin, and the bridegroom’s brothers, Chris and Jimmy, as altar servers. GLORIA IN EXCELSIS dEO!

PERSONAL

ABORTiON WARNiNG—The truth will convict a silent Church. See www.valuelife abortionisevil.co.za ABORTiON ON DEMAND— This is legalised daily murder in our nation. Our silence on this issue is the reason why it continues.

Avoid pro-abortion politicians.

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lowed by Rosary, divine Mercy prayers, then a Mass/Communion service at 17:30.

PRAYERS

PARiSH NOTiCES

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

CAPE TOWN: Retreat day/quiet prayer last Saturday of each month except december, at Springfield Convent in Wynberg, Cape Town. Hosted by CLC, 10.00-15.30. Contact Jill on 083 282 6763 or Jane on 082 783 0331.

Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Good Shepherd parish, 1 Goede Hoop St, Bothasig, welcomes all visitors. Open 24 hours a day. Phone 021 558 1412.

Helpers of God’s Precious Infants. Mass on last Saturday of every month at 9:30 at Sacred Heart church in Somerset Road, Cape Town.

Followed by vigil at abortion clinic. Contact Colette Thomas on 083 412 4836 or 021 593 9875 or Br daniel SCP on 078 739 2988.

DURBAN: Holy Mass and Novena to St Anthony at St Anthony’s parish every Tuesday at 9:00. Holy Mass and divine Mercy devotion at 17:30 on first Friday of every month. Sunday Mass at 9:00. Phone 031309 3496 or 031 209 2536.

St Anthony’s rosary group.

Every Wednesday at 18:00 at St Anthony’s church opposite Greyville racecourse. All are welcome and lifts are available. Contact Keith Chetty on 083 372 9018.

NELSPRUiT: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at St Peter’s parish every Tuesday from 8:00 to 16:45, fol-

MAY ALL i DO today begin with you, O Lord. Plant dreams and hopes within my soul, revive my tired spirit: be with me today. May all I do today continue with your help, O Lord. Be at my side and walk with me: be my support today. May all I do today reach far and wide, O Lord. My thoughts, my work, my life: make them blessings for your kingdom; let them go beyond today. O God, today is new unlike any other day, for God makes each day different. Today God's everyday grace falls on my soul like abundant seed, though I may hardly see it. Today is one of those days Jesus promised to be with me, a companion on my journey, and my life today, if I trust him, has consequences unseen. My life has a purpose. I have a mission.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. God has not created me for naught. Therefore I will trust him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. God does nothing in vain. He knows what he is about. Bl John Henry Newman

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 831. ACROSS: 1 Duke, 3 Devoting, 9 Martini, 10 Evade, 11 Teach a lesson, 13 Old hat, 15 Legato, 17 Papal address, 20 Raged, 21 Gondola, 22 Pathetic, 23 Whit. DOWN: 1 Demotion, 2 Karma, 4 Evilly, 5 Overspending, 6 In a coma, 7 Glen, 8 Light a candle, 12 Constant, 14 Draught, 16 Haggai, 18 Enoch, 19 Wrap.

Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: October 13: Bishop Mlungisi Pius Dlungwane of Mariannhill on his 71st birthday October 14: Bishop Edward Risi of Keimoes-Upington on the 18th anniversary of his episcopal ordination

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the

28th Sunday: October 14 Readings: Wisdom 7:7-11, Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-13, Mark 10:17-30

S outher n C ross

T

HE most important thing for us to do is to work out what the things that really matter in life are. That is what you get in the readings for next Sunday.

In the first reading, we have a prayer placed on the lips of the young Solomon, who when asked by God what he wanted, did not go in for grabbing power, money and fame; instead, he prayed for “prudence”, which he regarded as superior to “sceptres and thrones and wealth”. Nor did he ask God for money and precious stones, which he knew to be inferior to wisdom, “a little grain of sand, mud”.

Indeed, he puts Wisdom above “health and beauty” (perhaps this is a message for our age?), and prefers her to “light”. “Along with wisdom,” he sings, “all good things came to me, and incalculable wealth in her hands.”

He certainly knows what are the things that really matter.

So, of course, does the psalmist. In next Sunday’s song, he asks to learn how to “count our days, and so gain a heart of wisdom”.

But he is not convinced God is really listening: “Come back, Lord—how long?” is his sad plea. “Fill us with your love in the morning, and we shall rejoice and be glad all our days”.

Then he asks for a kind of equation of joy,

to balance the suffering in human life: “Make us rejoice for as many days as you afflicted us, and the years when we saw evil.”

And there, of course, is the secret, to find God at work: “Let your work be evident to your servants.” Again and again, it is learning to see the presence of God, not our own achievements: “Let the Lord’s favour be on us—establish the works of our hands upon us.”

The second reading continues our journey through Hebrews, and is immensely aware that what matters is the power of God: “God’s word is living and active, and sharper than a two-edged sword…it can judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. All creation is open to [this word]; everything is stripped bare and vulnerable to his gaze.”

Grasping that is what matters.

Sadly, the anti-hero of next Sunday’s Gospel has not really come to terms with that idea. It is the tale of the “bumptious pietist”. This one comes bouncing up to Jesus: “Running forward and genuflecting to him, he interrogated him.”

Already we can feel that things are going wrong here, and his words confirm it: “Good Teacher—what am I to do to inherit life eternal?” The form of address is a bit of a give-

W

patriarch of one particular tribe, since God is not a tribal God. As well, he’s no longer to think of just his own tribe as his family, but to think of all others, irrespective of ethnicity or faith, as also his children.

What does that mean for us? TS Eliot might answer that by saying: “Home is where we start from.” Our particular ethnic, religious, cultural, and civic roots are precious and important, but they’re not the fully mature tree into which we’re meant to grow. Our roots are where we start from.

I

Conrad

grew up a very sheltered child, in a very close family, in a very enclosed rural environment. We were all of one kind—our neighbours, my classmates, everyone I knew, all of us, we shared a common history, ethnicity, religion, cultural background, set of values, and lived in a young country, Canada, that for the most part looked exactly like we did.

I value those roots. They’re a great gift.

Those roots have given me a stability that has freed me up for the rest of my life. But they’re only my roots; precious, but merely the place where I start from.

And it’s the same for all of us. We take root inside a particular family, an ethnicity, a neighbourhood, a country, and a faith, with a particular slant on the world and, with that, some people constitute our tribe

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Sunday Reflections

away, as Jesus indicates by asking: “Why are you calling me good?”

It is not, of course, that it is inappropriate to call Jesus “good”; he is clearly that and some more. It is rather that the “bumptious pietist” is keeping God out of the matter: “No one is good except One, namely God.” So Wisdom, as Solomon, the psalmist and the author of Hebrews well knew, is a matter of putting things into context; and that means bringing God into absolutely everything.

Interestingly, Jesus then gives his questioner a list taken from the Ten Commandments (adding “do not defraud”). Oddly enough, though, the Commandments he mentions are those concerned with dealings with fellow-humans. What he does not here mention is the much longer Commandments that are instructions about our relationship with God. But the “bumptious pietist” has not worked out what really matters, and so Jesus, who “looked on him and loved him”, has to tell him what counts: “Off you go—whatever you possess, sell it, and give it to the poor.

Then you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come here, follow me.”

So there you have it, a statement of what

Called to a name-change E’RE all familiar with the incident in the Bible where God changes the name of Abram to Abraham.

The change seems so small that often it isn’t even picked up by those reading that text. What’s the difference between Abram and Abraham?

The name Abram (meaning “exalted father”) is the name given the great patriarch to whom God made the promise that one day he would be the father of all the descendants of the Jewish nation.

But later when God promises this same man that he is to be the father as well of all nations everywhere, God changes his name to Abraham: “You will no longer be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations” (Gen 17:5).

What is implied in this change? The name Abraham, in its very etymology, connotes a stretching to become something larger; he’s now to be the father of all nations. Abram, the father of one nation, now becomes Abraham (Ab hamon goyim in Hebrew), the father of all the other nations, the “goyim”.

Abraham is no longer to understand himself as the patriarch of only his own ethnic and religious family, but he’s to see himself and the faith he is entrusted with as someone and something for all nations.

He’s no longer to think of himself as the

Nicholas King SJ

What really matters

is really important.

But the “bumptious pietist” can’t cope with that: “Appalled at the word, he went off grieving. For he had many possessions.”

Now the lesson has to be drawn for us and for the disciples, of “how difficult it is for those who have possessions to enter the Kingdom of God!” Not only that, Jesus makes it all sound much worse: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.” Not surprisingly, the stunned disciples have plenty of questions. They want to ask, “So who can be saved?”, to which the answer is the (perhaps not very encouraging), “It’s impossible for human beings—but not for God.” Then their spokesman, Peter, asks: “What’s in it for us?” To that, Jesus reveals where true wisdom lies: “There is no one who has abandoned house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or estates for my sake and for the Gospel, who does not receive a hundredfold…”

What, this week, are the things that really matter to you?

Southern Crossword #831

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

and others don’t. But we grow, change, move, meet new people, and live and work with others who don’t share our background, nationality, ethnicity, skin colour, religion, or particular slant on life.

And so today we share our countries, cities, neighbourhoods and churches with the “goyim”, the people of other tribes.

And that makes for the long struggle, hopefully successful, to eventually see that those others share the same God, are also our brothers and sisters, and have lives that are just as real, important, and precious as those of our own biological, national and religious families.

Like Abraham we need a name change so that we don’t make an idol of our youthful patriotism, believing that our own tribe is special and that our own country, skin colour, background and religion give us a unique and privileged claim to God. Our world is globalising at a dizzying pace and countries, neighbourhoods and churches are becoming ever-more plural and diverse ethnically, linguistically, culturally and religiously. Our countries, neighbourhoods, workplaces and churches are literally taking on a different face.

The old sheltered communities that gave us our roots are disappearing, and for many of us this is scary and the temptation is to retrench, to go hard to the right, to militantly defend the old boundaries, and to claim God and truth more exclusively again for ourselves.

That’s understandable, but not where we’re called to be by what’s best inside our humanity and our faith. Like Abraham, we’re called to a name-change.

We’re called to cherish our heritage, country, mother tongue, culture, faith and church because only by being firmly rooted within primary community are we stable and altruistic enough to offer family to those outside of our own.

But home is where we start from. From those wonderful families that give us roots, we’re called to stretch our hearts religiously, ethnically and culturally so that everyone eventually is embraced as family.

We’re called to move from being Abram to becoming Abraham.

acrOSS

1. Nobleman who embraces the United Kingdom (4) 3. Giving time to prayer (8) 9. Saint of Tours and I meet for a drink (7) 10. Escape from Eve around the Year of Our Lord (5) 11. Reprimand in the classroom? (5,1,6) 13. Mitre that is outdated?

(3,3) 15. Go late in a flowing manner musically (6) 17. Pope’s speech where he lives (5,7) 20. Expressed great anger (5) 21. Conveyance for the Patriarch of Venice (7) 22. That epic that will arouse pity (8) 23. Small amount on Pentecost Sunday (4)

DOWN

1. Lower status than before (8) 2. Dakar man holds Buddhist belief (5) 4. Wickedly (6) 5. What the parish financial committee should not be doing (12) 6. Maniac has nothing and is unconscious (2,1,4) 7. Little valley in Ireland is partly English (4) 8. What the matchless sacristan cannot do (5,1,6) 12. Without a break and unchanging (8) 14. Chilly current of air at Pentecost? (7) 16. Minor prophet before Zechariah (6) 18. He walked with God (Gn 5) (5) 19. Cover the Christmas gift (4)

Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE LETTERS TO GOD FROM CHILDREN ear God, maybe Cain and Abel would not have killed each other if they had their own rooms.

That’s what my Mom did for me and my brother.

Mandla.

Dear God, instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don’t you keep the ones you already have? John.

Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy. Lindiwe.

Dear God, did you mean the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? Sarah.

D

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