181024

The

S outher n C ross

October 24 to October 30, 2018

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

No 5106

www.scross.co.za

R10 (incl VAT RSA)

Eight more of world’s Top 40 Marian shrines

What we can do for souls in purgatory

Victoria goes for her big dreams

Page 10

Page 9

Month of the Rosary

Page 3

Napier: Parishes should learn from youth

by JD FlyNN

T

HE Synod of Bishops on young people can be a model for the way that Church leaders engage with youth in parishes and dioceses around the world, according to Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban.

At a press conference, the cardinal praised the contributions of 34 young people invited

by Pope Francis to be active participants in a meeting which comprises predominantly bishops.

The synod is closing on October 28.

The cardinal said that the young people are active participants in the synod, offering short speeches (called interventions), and taking part in the small discussion circles that will help to shape the synod’s final report.

“More important than just their being in the synod hall is their presence and participation in our small groups,” he said.

This is the eighth time Cardinal Napier has participated in a synod of bishops. He noted that the contribution of young Catholics in this synod makes it a very different experience from those he had previously attended.

He added that the “proactive involvement” of Pope Francis in the synod process has also made the experience unique.

Cardinal Napier said he hopes the active involvement of young people at the synod will become a model of the Church’s engagement with youth.

For most Catholics, “the daily face of the Church is the face of the priest”. For that rea-

son, synod fathers should encourage parish priests to listen to and actively engage young people in parish life and planning in the same way the synod has.

Cardinal Napier also criticised the synod’s working document for having been written from a “Eurocentric” perspective, saying that the synod’s work must take into account the situation of young people and the Church in other parts of the world, noting especially the needs of the Church in Africa.

African delegates to the meeting, he said, should “present the African reality much more clearly from our perspective”.

He noted that the document does not sufficiently recognise the impact of mass migration from Africa on the continent’s countries.

Africa is losing some of its most gifted young people to migration, he said, because of the exploitation of natural resources and the environment.

“Those who would have been living off the land are now unable to do so,” so they migrate, he said, because of the effect of deforestation and aggressive mining techniques.

The cardinal said there is another African reality.

“While many young people in the West are leaving Jesus, or at least his Church, [in Africa] young people are looking for Jesus and looking for answers to their problems” in the Church.

The growth of Christianity among young Africans, has important lessons for more developed nations, he said.—CNA

All Souls’ Mass for Southern Cross Associates

T

HE annual Mass for the deceased Associates of The Southern Cross will be said on November 2 at 13:10 at St Mary’s cathedral in Cape Town. All are welcome.

Every year two Masses are said for Associates, on All Souls’ Day for deceased Associates

and their families, and for the intentions of our Associates on January 24, the feast of the patron of journalists, St Francis de Sales.

For more about the Associates Campaign, please go to www.scross.co.za/associatescampaign/

Images of St Paul VI and St Oscar Romero are seen on a T-shirt worn to their canonisation in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican by members of a Rome parish in a suburb named after Nelson Mandela. See page 2 for Raymond Perrier’s reflection on attending the event. (Photo: Raymond Perrier)

Israel ‘no friend of Christians’

T

HE Christian mayor of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank has told Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop pretending to be a “protector of Christianity”.

In a letter, Bethlehem mayor Anton Salman responded to comments by Mr Netanyahu at a Christian media summit in Jerusalem that put the blame for the decline of Christians in Bethlehem on the Palestinian Authority.

Mr Salman denied that Christians are persecuted by Muslim Palestinians.

“The decrease in the percentage of Christians in Bethlehem, as well as in the rest of Palestine was provoked with the Nakba of 1948 and is ongoing due to Israel’s colonial plans and policies that started in 1967,” Mr Salman said, using the term used by Palestinians to describe their forced removal from areas that are now Israel.

“It is shameful that while calling himself a ‘protector of Christianity’, [Mr Netanyahu] would use Christians as a tool for his Islamophobic talking points,” the mayor said.

Mr Salman, who before taking office in 2017 was a lawyer for the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, said that if Mr Netanyahu was truly concerned about the

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situation of Palestinian Christians, “he would dismantle the annexation wall that divides Bethlehem from Jerusalem for the first time in 2 000 years of Christianity, and would stop imposing restrictions to Palestinian movement”.

The mayor also called for the return “of Bethlehem land illegally annexed to Israel for expansion of colonial settlements” on Palestinian land.

There are some 100 000 Israeli settlers surrounding Bethlehem from all sides, reducing the area of Palestinian control over the city to less than 13% of the district, “making it impossible to plan for the future of our city”, Mr Salman said.

He blamed Israel for preventing the return of Bethlehem Christians to the city, saying that thousands of Palestinian Christians living in exile cannot return “due to the Israeli control over the Palestinian population registry”.

“In Jordan alone, a few kilometres away, there are at least 20 000 Palestinian Christians from the Bethlehem area that are denied family unification and even cannot enter the city—not even to celebrate Christmas—due to the Israeli military restrictions”, Mr Salman said.

2

The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

REFLECTION

At home in the universal Church When Pope Francis canonised Archbishop Oscar Romero, Pope Paul VI and five others this month, RAyMOND PERRIER was there. Here he reflects on that experience.

T

HE meaning of Catholic is of course “universal”. It is the duty of every Catholic parish to express a sense of being universal—open to all regardless of colour, language or nationality.

But the universality of the Church is never more obviously felt than in Rome.

I was reflecting on this as I waited outside St Peter’s Square for the Mass of the canonisation of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Pope Paul VI and others.

I spent three hours standing in a queue that was going nowhere— seemingly the security guards had forgotten about our side of the square! But that gave me plenty of time to chat to all the people around me.

And we came from all corners of the globe: seminarians from Britain and Uganda, nuns from Kerala and Kentucky, lay people from different parishes across Rome, different dioceses across Italy, and different countries around the world.

I had been drawn there especially for the canonisation of St Oscar Romero. He is affectionately known as San Romero de la Americas, and there were plenty of Americans— from North, Central and South— who had come to Rome to honour him. But I was there as a Brit, of In-

(left) St Peter’s Square in Rome, with the banners of seven Catholics to be canonised, including Archbishop Oscar Romero and Pope John Paul VI. (Right) Raymond Perrier, director of the Denis Hurley Centre in Durban, at the canonisation with a cap from Rome’s Mandela parish. dian origin, living in South Africa, no less inspired by this brave bishop from Central America.

He has a huge following in Latin America—and it seemed that half of the population of El Salvador had travelled to Rome. But he was being made a saint of the Universal Church and that is why the presence of his banner in St Peter’s was so important. His name is on now on the canon of saints (hence canonisation) that applies across the world.

Universality was much more obvious in the case of St Paul VI. Not only had he been pope of the Universal Church, but he was also the first pope to travel to the United Nations and the first reigning pope to travel to Asia and Africa.

In fact, a year before he became pope in 1963, as Cardinal Montini on a visit to South Africa, he had

even blessed the foundation stone of Regina Mundi church in Soweto.

Universality was key to his overseeing the completion and implementation of the Second Vatican Council. It was Pope Paul’s desire to have universal vernacular sacred texts used by countries that shared a common language—and, in the case of English this was a job he entrusted to, among others, Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban.

T

hree of the others who were canonised that day—Francesco Spinelli, Maria Katharina Kasper and Nazaria Ignacia—well-known in their home countries of Italy, Germany and Spain respectively— have had an influence on the Universal Church through the religious orders they founded.

The last two on the list, Vin-

cenzo Romano and Nunzio Sulprizio, might have had no influence outside their local parts of Italy in their lifetimes, but their examples of fortitude and sacrifice were now being held up for the whole Church to imitate.

And a canonisation really is for the whole Church, which means both the (Catholic) West and the (Orthodox) East: what Pope John Paul II memorably called the “two lungs of the Church” (Ut Unum Sint, 54). That is why the gospel was chanted in both Latin and Greek.

I was also pleased to see the presence at the canonisation of representatives from the Church of England.

Paul VI had set in motion the joint Anglican-Catholic commission with our “separated brethren”.

St Oscar Romero is widely revered in Britain. Indeed, 20 years

ago he was already included as one of the modern martyrs immortalised on the west front of Westminster Abbey in London.

So here we were celebrating as a Universal Church, and it was wonderful to know I was adding to the universality—though I do regret not taking a South African flag to wave.

And then to reinforce this feeling of unity, I noticed Italian pilgrims behind me had the name “Mandela” on their caps.

It turned out that their suburb of Rome had been renamed Mandela in honour of our first democratic president.

Just as these other countries had nurtured heroes who could now be a gift to the whole world, it was good to know that South Africa has also nurtured a “secular saint” who is revered around the world.

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The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

3

Victoria goes for big dreams

by CHRISTEN TORRES

A

Victoria Giuricich will model her original designs at South African Fashion Week.

YOUNG Catholic in Johannesburg is introducing her own fashion designs at a private show on October 24, and is determined to become a runway model.

Victoria Giuricich, 20, is a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Rivonia. Born in 1998, she has Down syndrome.

The aspiring model will debut three of her own original designs on the ramps as part of South African Fashion Week.

Ms Giuricich has been sponsored

by Empowered Versatile Enablement (EVE), and has received mentorship from local designer Isabelle Lotter to create and showcase her three garments at her own private fashion show.

It has been a busy period for Ms Giuricich, which includes success-

fully obtaining her matric at Brescia House School in Sandton.

Recently she has taken on an apprenticeship in hairdressing as well as finishing a six-month modelling course at The Modelling Academy.

“I want to be a commercial model, and I want to become a runway model,” Ms Giuricich told The Southern Cross.

Along with modelling and hairdressing, Ms Giuricich also volunteers at the organisation Friends of Free Wildlife, where she cooks food for the animals.

“My favourite saint is St Francis of Assisi, because he loves animals.

At Friends of Free Wildlife we take care of birds and other animals like turtles, hedgehogs, ducks, squirrels,” she said, adding: “I love animals.”

The devout Catholic is currently raising funds every weekend in her parish by selling cupcakes made by

her mother Maria to fulfil another big dream. With her brother Andrea, Ms Giuricich wants to go to World Youth Day in Panama in January. “I want to go and see the pope,” she said.

Ms Giuricich said she is influenced and inspired by Madeline Stuart, the world’s first professional model with Down syndrome.

“I decided I wanted to become a model when I saw Madeline Stuart, who is my role model’’, she said.

Ms Giuricich was discovered by Pravina Young, the director of EVE, while she was doing apprentice work at the C. Connoisseurs Salon in Sandton.

EVE, an initiative which seeks to create opportunities for young men and women, is sponsoring Ms Giuricich for a five-day garment design course. The course, spread over five weeks, is presented under the mentorship of popular South

African designer Ms Lotter, founder of SIES!Isabelle.

On October 24, Ms Giuricich is scheduled to showcase her designs at her own private debut runway show, where she will model the garments on the South African Fashion Week ramp.

Lauren Winiecki, Ms Giuricich’s manager, said that the young woman has already received widespread notice.

“Different organisations want to get her as an ambassador. We are also looking at international pageants which we want her to get involved in. Vicky also recently got a call for a casting.”

Ms Giuricich has been interviewed on radio and the press has written about her.

“There’s a bunch of exciting adventures coming up. We are taking one step at a time,” Ms Winiecki said.

J&P backs miners’ class action Irish-SA links in focus T A HE Southern African bishops’ Justice & Peace Commission has announced that it is helping sick miners who are about to sue coal mining companies for failing to protect them from black lung disease.

“As Church, we are always close to the sick and the marginalised in the society. Our work with sick miners is both about healing and restoration of justice, ” said Bishop Gabuza, chair of the SACBC Justice & Peace Commission.

Pneumoconiosis, also called black lung disease, is a preventable but incurable disease which is contracted in coal mines through inadequate protection from coal dust.

“For decades, coal mining companies knowingly allowed their workers to be exposed to unsafe levels of coal dust. The mines need to take both ethical and legal responsibility for the sick miners,” Bishop Gabuza said.

South Africa is one of the countries with the highest prevalence rate of black lung disease.

“The fact that South Africa has hundreds of sick miners from the

coal industry is an indictment of corporate greed in the mining sector and its insistence on profit over the dignity of mine workers,” the bishop said.

He added that this situation is also “an indictment of the coalbased economy in South Africa.

The human cost of the coal-based economy should remind our country of the urgent need to transition to clean energy.”

The sick miners are from Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Free State, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.

“Most of the miners who become sick were sent home with little or no compensation after working in mines that have generated millions of rands for their shareholders,” Bishop Gabuza said.

N

dwamato Ratshikakale is one of the sick who will be involved as an applicant in the class action.

He worked in Tshikondeni coal mine in Limpopo for 22 years and was retrenched after contracting an occupational illness. Mr Ratshikakale received no compensation for his illness and now tries to

survive on subsistence farming.

He is one of the sick miners seeking restoration of justice.

“I have tried to get work for the last 20 years but my health has not allowed me to,” he said “My family tries to survive through subsistence farming.

Recently, the doctors have however told me to stop because of exposure to dust,” Mr Ratshikakale said.

“I am not alone. There are hundreds of us. The coal mines should be held accountable for failing to prevent and respond to our lung disease.”

Ndou Tshifhwa Constance, the widow of Pfuluwani Maulta Noel, is 51 years old and lives in Limpopo. Her husband worked on the mines for more than ten years and died from black lung disease.

He was retrenched due to his medical condition but never received any compensation.

“I have four kids. Now I struggle to survive through temporary jobs.

I hope that we win the case against the coal mines so that I can get enough money to pay for further education for my children,” she said.

STAFF REPORTER

S Catholics and Protestants stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the long struggle for Ireland’s nationhood, so did all South Africans in the struggle for their country’s liberation, according to the keynote speaker at an exhibition on the Irish and South African liberation struggles.

The exhibition, “Call for Freedom: Ireland and South Africa”, at the Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island on Cape Town’s Waterfront, is organised by the Irish South African Association.

Professor Donal McCracken, a historian at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said the Irish AntiApartheid Movement (IAAM) “was one of the most successful of external pressure groups against the apartheid government” from 1963 to the 1990s.

In part, this was due to its strong leadership in exiles such as Kader Asmal and his Irish wife Louise, Prof McCracken said. But the movement also had the support of Irish intellectuals, academics, clerics, the media and politicians.

He recalled that when Nelson

Historian Prof Donal McCracken Mandela visited Ireland in 1990 to receive the Freedom of Dublin, which he had been awarded while still jailed, “Ireland’s welcome to him rivalled only that of the famous 1963 visit to Ireland of President John F Kennedy”.

Prof McCracken noted that Denis Hurley, the future archbishop of Durban, spent his youth on Robben Island while his Skibbereen-born father tended its old lighthouse.

The exhibition will run until October 30. Entrance is free. n For more on the Irish South African Association ee www.ireland.co.za

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The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

INTERNATIONAL

Rare interview with St Oscar Romero reveals true shepherd

by JuNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

A

NEW documentary about newly canonised Oscar Romero, featuring a rare interview with him, revealed the martyred archbishop’s thoughts regarding accusations that he became too progressive.

Salvadoran Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chavez shared an excerpt of the interview with journalists during a briefing at the Vatican press office. “We had never heard this before because it was dubbed in German.

We waited 40 years to find out what Archbishop Romero said,� Cardinal Rosa Chavez said.

The cardinal, who directed the documentary Oscar Romero: A Shepherd According to the Heart of Christ, explained that in 1979 a Swiss television crew visited the future saint and asked to follow him for one week.

St Romero’s change “from a conservative bishop to a progressive bishop�, he said, “has caused so much debate� and is now answered by the slain archbishop himself. “I don’t think there has been a substantial change,� Archbishop Romero said in the interview. “It is more of an evolution in accordance with the circumstances. My goal as a priest has always been to be faithful to the vocation, to the service of the Church and the people.�

Although the Salvadoran archbishop did not view his support of the poor and the oppressed as support for a political ideology, rumours abounded both in the halls of El Salvador’s right-wing government and in the corridors of the Vatican.

St Oscar Romero is seen speaking to a Swiss journalist in this screen grab from 1979. The rare interview was released for the first time and featured in a new documentary titled Oscar Romero: A Shepherd According to the Heart of Christ.

Cardinal Rosa Chavez told journalists that the same year the documentary was filmed, St Romero met with the newly elected pope, John Paul II. The meeting, the cardinal said, was “disconcerting for Romero� because the pope scolded him for his lack of harmony with the Salvadoran bishops. At the time, several reports from the Salvadoran bishops’ conference were sent to Pope John Paul accusing Romero of causing division.

In his diary entry following the meeting, St Romero said that he was “worried to see how much the negative reports of my pastoral work had influenced the pope�.

However, Cardinal Rosa Chavez explained, after St Romero’s martyrdom, Pope John Paul realised the in-

accuracy of the reports. The pope even visited the slain archbishop’s tomb in 1983 against the wishes of the Salvadoran government and local Church leaders. “The pope went to the Blessed Sacrament and then to Romero’s tomb where he prostrated in prayer; I was very close to him and the pope said, ‘Romero is a saint’,� the cardinal recalled.

In his interview with Swiss television, St Romero said that there “has never been such a violent circumstance as it was for me when I arrived at the archdiocese. When I arrived, they were expelling priests and the month after my arrival, they killed Fr Rutilio Grande�, a Jesuit human rights activist.

St Romero told the Swiss journalist that it was not only Fr Grande’s death that pushed him to become more outspoken, but also “the need to defend the Church that is so persecuted to the point of murdering priests�.

Both reasons, he said, “push me towards a more powerful ministry in defence of the rights of the Church and the rights of men and women�.

Asked if he was scared that he would be killed like his friends, St Romero said he did not experience a “fear that inhibits me, that prevents me from working�. “I feel that while I walk along fulfilling my duty, while I go around freely being a shepherd to the communities, God is with me,�he said. “And if something happens to me, then I am prepared for everything.�—CNS

An election worker counts votes at a polling station during the presidential election in yaounde, Cameroon. Catholic bishops have complained of irregularities during the elections in Cameroon’s conflict-torn English-speaking areas, after a seminarian was killed by government troops in the latest of several anti-Church incidents. (Photo: Zohra bensem, Reuters/CNS)

Bishops: Stop election fraud and clergy attacks

by JONATHAN luxMOORE

B

ISHOPS have complained of irregularities during elections in Cameroon’s conflict-torn English-speaking areas after a seminarian was killed by government troops in the latest of several anti-Church incidents. “This presidential election took place in a social and security environment never previously experienced,� the bishops’ conference said in a report. “We urge officials charged with its organisation to take account of the failures and distortions we observed, and ensure elections are run well without irregularities in the future,�

the bishops said.

It said the Catholic Church had deployed 231 observers across Cameroon, but that 42 withdrew because of safety concerns in the English-speaking north-west and south-west regions, while others had been refused access to voting sites by “vigilante committees�.

Le Croix newspaper reported that a seminarian, Gerard Anyangwe, was shot dead by government troops in an unprovoked attack outside a church in Bamessing, “sending shock waves through the Church�, with Catholic parishioners in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions “no longer considered safe from violence�.—CNS

Film spurs hundreds of abuse allegations in Poland

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POLISH film depicting unsavoury characters as clerics has broken box office records and sparked a wave of sexual abuse allegations against clergy in the country, where 96% of the population identifies as Catholic.

The film Kler (The Clergy) portrays priests who are alcoholic, who sexually abuse minors, who carouse with women and coerce them into abortion, or who are engaged in various forms of corruption.

While the film itself is fictional, its producers have said events in the film were based on

real incidents.

The Clergy broke local box-office records, with 935 000 people seeing the movie on opening weekend.

The film may resonate so deeply in the country due to the timing of its release, which came in the midst of a global sex abuse crisis in the Church and just weeks after the Church in Poland was rocked by its own high-profile case of clerical sexual abuse.

Last month, a judge in northern Poland ruled that a religious order was responsible for damages caused by one of its priests, who reportedly kidnapped and

continuously raped a 13-year-old girl over a 10-month period.

While the priest was arrested and spent four months in jail in 2008, he was dismissed from the order only in 2017.

The religious order will pay approximately 1 million zloty (about R3,3 million), in damages in the case.

The Clergy has reportedly spurred hundreds of Polish individuals to come forward with their own allegations of abuse, both recent and historic.

Some priests in the country have dismissed the film as “vulgar clergyphobia�.—CNA

China: Vatican will ‘interfere’ in affairs

T

HE Vatican is still planning to interfere in the affairs of the Church in China, a provincial religious affairs official told local Catholic representatives at a government seminar.

Xiong Huaqi, deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee, said in a presentation: “The Vatican’s attempt to interfere with our Catholic affairs has not changed,� reported ucanews.com.

The presentation accused some Catholics of having “lost their minds� because they did not know whether to be loyal to China or the Vatican. It said they were “confused� over the

principle of the Church in China having to be self-administered and independent of foreign pressures.

It asserted that advocacy by the Vatican and negative speeches would not stop, only become “more subtle and more diversified in the future�.

More than 80 priests, nuns and lay representatives from the province participated.

People familiar with the Catholic Church in China have said that how Catholics are treated often depends on local and provincial communist officials.

The seminar was held in

Wuhan city of Hubei province, less than a month after the Vatican-China deal was reached.

Mr Huaqi asked Catholics in the province to properly regulate their religious activities and safeguard the government’s interests.

He said this should be done in the spirit of the most recent National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which stressed Sinicisation of the Church. Sinicisation means that foreign influences must be minimised in favour of adopting Chinese cultural characteristics.—CNS

Pope laicises two Chilean bishops

I

N an unprecedented move, Pope Francis removed from the priesthood two Chilean bishops accused of sexual abuse.

In a statement, the Vatican said 84-year-old Francisco Jose Cox, the former archbishop of La Serena, and 53-year-old Marco Antonio Ordenes, the former

bishop of Iquique, were dismissed from the clerical state by the pope and there would be no appeal.

The Vatican cited norms issued by now-retired Pope Benedict XVI regarding serious crimes committed by members of the clergy; the norms state that the

most serious cases are decided by the pope “when it is manifestly evident that the delict was committed and after having given the guilty party the possibility of defending himself�. “The decision adopted by the pope is not subject to appeal,� the Vatican said.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

5

Orthodox split implications unknown by bARb FRAZE

T

HE Russian Orthodox Church’s decision to sever ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople will affect ecumenical dialogue, but the long-term implications remain unknown.

Paulist Father Ron Roberson, associate director of the US bishops' Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said the split reveals disagreements on some “pretty significant issues” among more than a dozen Orthodox Churches.

At issue is the role of the ecumenical patriarch in the Orthodox Church. The patriarch—currently Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople—has always been recognised as first among equals, with the authority to organise panOrthodox activities like international dialogue with Catholics.

However, Russian Orthodox Church leaders do not believe Patriarch Bartholomew has the authority to interfere in the internal affairs of individual Orthodox Churches. They say that is what he

did when he granted canonical recognition to two independent Ukrainian Orthodox Churches.

“It could be the beginning of a schism that would be long-lasting” if others follow the lead of Moscow, Fr Roberson said.

For instance, he said, the Serbian Orthodox Church has been supportive of Moscow’s position.

“The question is, will they follow?” he asked. “Can Serbians be in communion with Constantinople and Moscow at the same time, even if Moscow and Constantinople are not in communion with each other?”

It is “unknown what the implications will be”, he said.

Fr Roberson, who has written and updated The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey, referred to a similar dispute in 1996 over the Orthodox in Estonia, a former Soviet republic. The ecumenical patriarch reconstituted a Church there over the wishes of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the end, he said, they agreed that Estonia would have a Church under Constantinople and a diocese under

the Moscow patriarchate.

In Ukraine, for decades there have been three Orthodox Churches: two self-declared autocephalous, or independent, and not considered canonical by the other Orthodox Churches. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church in communion with the Moscow patriarchate was considered canonical.

E

arlier in October, in an effort to unify the Orthodox in Ukraine, the ecumenical patriarchate’s synod recognised both independent Churches as canonical Churches and reinstated the heads of both as bishops in good standing.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow patriarchate has said it has no desire to be independent from Moscow. Some people believe some of that Church’s bishops would go to the independent Churches, Fr Roberson said, adding, “That’s pure speculation at this point.”

In severing ties with Constantinople, Moscow said it would not participate in any international dialogues if the co-chair is a bishop of the ecumenical patriarchate.

“If Moscow and Constantinople will not sit down at the same table, then any theological dialogue would be with some of the Orthodox Churches, not all of them,” Fr Roberson said. “If the Russians are missing, that is something like half of the faithful in the Orthodox world, which is very significant.”

Calls for a single Church, independent of Russian jurisdiction, intensified after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro

Poroshenko, who has backed calls for an independent Church, pledged that his government would guarantee “full respect of religious freedom for believers of all denominations”.

However, he warned against Russian attempts to “fuel a religious war” by encouraging violence at Orthodox sites and said Patriarch Bartholomew had now confirmed “clearly and unequivocally the Russian Orthodox Church has no canonical title to Orthodoxy in Ukraine”.

“Ukraine never was and never will be a canonical territory of the Russian Church,” Mr Poroshenko told a Sunday prayer service in Kiev’s St Sophia Square.—CNS

L’Arche founder Jean Vanier receives spiritual solidarity award

by DOREEN AbI RAAD

J

EAN Vanier, founder of L’Arche, is the recipient of the Spiritual Solidarity Award from Adyan, a foundation for interreligious studies and spiritual solidarity based in Lebanon.

The now 90-year-old Canadian Catholic philosopher, theologian and humanitarian founded L’Arche in 1964.

In an atmosphere of compassion, people with developmental disabilities and those who assist them share their lives together in L’Arche communities, which have spread to more than 37 countries. L’Arche (“the ark” in French) stresses the dignity and value of human life.

Fr Fadi Daou, Adyan president, and Nayla Tabbara, the foundation’s director of citizenship and diversity management, presented the award to Mr Vanier in the French town of Trosly.

In the official letter accompanying the prize, Fr Daou said Mr Vanier’s “testimony, as well as that of L’Arche communities throughout the world and throughout diverse religions and cultures, shows that the values of diversity, solidarity and human dignity are truly a path of communion and peace.

Fr Fadi Daou (right) president of Adyan, and Nayla Tabbara, also of Adyan, present the Spiritual Solidarity Award to Jean Vanier, founder of the International Federation of l’Arche Communities, in Trosly, France. (Photo: Adyan Foundation/CNS) L’Arche has shown the world how human weakness and disability can carry a new meaning for what it is to be human”.

As recipient of the award, Mr Vanier also becomes an honorary member of Adyan, which was founded in 2006.

Mr Vanier said in his remarks that the relationship between L’Arche and Adyan means a lot to him, and the award left a great impact in his heart. He added that he and all

L’Arche groups have a great desire to open up to the other, “so we help them and they help us to discover that each one of us is a very beautiful human being”.

The Spiritual Solidarity Award, now in its 11th year, aims to encourage and honour people devoted to developing and promoting solidarity and unity among citizens of different faiths, especially in the contexts of tension and violence.—CNS

Pope: Lack of progress in fighting hunger is shameful

by ANNE CONDODINA

A

T a time of technological and scientific progress, “we ought to feel shame” for not having advanced in “humanity and solidarity” enough to feed the world’s poor, Pope Francis said.

“Neither can we console ourselves simply for having faced emergencies and desperate situations of those most in need. We are all called to go further. We can and we must do better for the helpless,” the pope said in a message to world leaders attending a meeting of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome.

The organisation was

founded in 1945 to address the causes of world hunger.

The theme for 2018 is “Our actions are our future: A zero hunger world by 2030 is possible”. The 2030 agenda seeks to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

Local programmes are just as important as global commitments to ending hunger, Pope Francis said in his message.

“Global indicators are of no use if our commitment does not correspond to reality on the ground,” the pope said.

“This must be done in the context of suitable institutional, social and economic support

that offers fruitful initiatives and solutions so that the poor do not feel overlooked again.”

According to the FAO 2018 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, world hunger is on the rise again, and over 820 million people are suffering chronic undernourishment.

While one can dream of a future without hunger, the pope said, it is only reasonable to do so “when we engage in tangible processes, vital relations, effective plans and real commitments”.

The poor expect real help from world leaders, he wrote, “not mere propositions or agreements”.—CNS

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6

The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

How to do Halloween

O

VER the next couple of weeks, many South Africans, especially the young, will plan activities that mark two foreign days of festivities. Both should concern Catholics.

On November 5, fireworks will be let off in many places to mark Guy Fawkes Day, a British celebration that marks the foiled coup against the English crown

by Catholic conspirators in 1605, which was followed by more than two centuries of persecution of and discrimination against Catholics.

When the popular poem asks us to “remember the fifth of November”, Catholics must know also that it calls for “A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope…and a jolly good fire to burn him”—an anti-Catholic polemic which is still enacted in effigy in the English town of Lewes.

(A racist tradition of wearing blackface and nose rings in reference to the amaZulu was reluctantly discontinued in Lewes last year following protests by a Zulu dance troupe!)

Those who burn their fireworks on November 5 will likely expend little thought on the politics of the early 17th century, nor on the blood of Catholics that flowed in the wake of the so-called Gunpowder Plot, nor on the bizarre traditions of an obscure town in England.

Nonetheless, Catholics should be aware of what they are “celebrating” on November 5.

The same applies to the celebration of Halloween, which is becoming a tradition in South Africa and many other countries, thanks to the hegemony of US culture.

Halloween has its origins in the Catholic faith, deriving its name from “All Hallows’ Evening”, which incorporated the archaic English term for All Saints (in the old reckoning, a feast day began with sunset the evening before).

The nature of the celebrations, with the spooky costumes and trick-and-treating, has changed over the years, to the point that Halloween is now very much a secular affair.

But even the grim elements of Halloween have Christian roots. Symbols such as skulls and scythes were once used to remind the faithful of their in-

evitable death and judgment, raising the question of whether they were destined for heaven or hell.

Today these symbols are used not to remind us of our mortality—with the attendant reminder to be prepared at any time for our judgment—but for merriment.

The ghoulish costumes may give the appearance of celebrating death and even evil, which would be a reversal of the original meaning of Halloween, or All Saints, which celebrates virtue and everlasting life.

Naturally, we must be wary of any Halloween activities or symbols that glamourise or normalise the occult.

Even so, we must not be curmudgeonly about Halloween. It is a time of innocent amusement for many people, and if it is celebrated in a good spirit— and due vigilance to the obvious hazards in letting children go from house to house in the pursuit for sweets—then one should not object to that.

Indeed, in Catholic families where members wish to participate in Halloween events, it can become a teaching moment by incorporating in the celebrations the proper devotions for the feasts of All Saints and All Souls.

One can even combine the two. The skeleton outfits and fake cobwebs could make way for positive costumes and symbols. For example, one could dress up as a favourite saint— since, after all, Halloween has its origins in the celebration of the saints.

By subverting the subversion of the feast, we can reclaim it, at least among ourselves. In doing so, we shine the light of Christian discipleship into the murkiness of temporal pursuits.

On the feast of All Saints we celebrate the defeat of death, which was won through Christ’s sacrifice.

For Catholics and all Christians, this consciousness must infuse their participation in the temporal celebration of Halloween.

And however we might mark Halloween (or don’t mark it at all), let the feast of All Saints be an occasion for us to celebrate the saints, whose examples give us hope for eternal life through Christ.

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.

Capitalism hurts women most M OST people in developed countries and many millions living in towns in developing countries are aware, or becoming aware now, of the damage global capitalism is inflicting on the majority of human beings and on the earth.

This damage includes the deepening of poverty, the increasing number of poor people, and the greed with which transnational companies, such as Wilmar and Monsanto, are destroying our natural resources, for example, palm forests, soil and water.

Women are also increasingly victims of capitalism.

The leading principle of capitalism is to use whatever means to grow the market, and this has led to a loss of human dignity. It has turned people—especially the least powerful, such as women and children—into merchandise that can be traded; human trafficking and the cruelty it inflicts is on the increase.

Despite our efforts as a human community to grow, our societies are still patriarchal, and it is therefore women who are especially affected

Clear answers now on SA abuse

T

HE case of a Jesuit priest’s sexual abuse of William Segodisho in the late 1980s (October 27), which both the order and the priest himself have acknowledged to be true, raises some serious questions for the local Church—through the bishops’ conference or the Johannesburg archdiocese.

1. Was the Church aware of this alleged sexual abuse by Fr Bill McCurtain?

2. If so, what action was taken?

3. If so, what support was given to Mr Segodisho?

And key for the British Jesuit province: Was Fr McCurtain sent back to Britain to avoid harming the local Church or the order?

This case, which now has nationwide coverage, needs to be addressed by the Catholic Church with a clear statement on what was known and what actions were taken.

The worldwide reports of sexual abuse cases and their cover-ups have plunged the Church into perhaps the most serious crisis since the Reformation, and must be addressed at all levels.

Mervyn Pollitt, Waterfall, KZN

Zimbabwe ruling will burden SA

S

OUTH Africa will bear the “Zimbabwean Burden”, when many Zimbabweans living in South Africa

and humiliated by capitalism.

They unknowingly support the capitalist system, as largely underpaid workers in production in industry, commerce and agriculture—and as major consumers.

But women, by changing their behaviour and availability regarding capitalist scheming, also have the power to help change the system.

Most advertising is aimed at women, to persuade them to buy goods that do not help them as persons but claim to help them to respond to the wishes and expectations of men.

This makes women spend more time on shopping for unnecessary goods than on meeting with others to find solutions to the problems of our time, or on their personal spiritual and intellectual development.

The market promises peace of mind and self-realisation through consumption; and supermarkets are, through music, layout and advertising, becoming the churches of the consumer.

In capitalist thinking, development does not consist of genuine 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.

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

are left stateless.

The Zimbabwean government has moved to cancel citizenship of those living outside the country for five years who do not pay diaspora tax. This means an estimated million Zimbabweans in South Africa might become stateless.

South Africa and countries such as Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia should resist such a policy as they will suffer the most, having to cater for the stateless people of Zimbabwe.

Tapiwa Muskwe, London

Remove ‘Jewish sow’ sculpture

T

HERE is a campaign, which I strongly support, to have an anti-Semitic bas-relief on Martin Luther’s church in Wittenberg, Germany, relocated.

The stone image shows Jews suckling the teats of a sow as a rabbi looks intently under its leg and tail.

The following is an edited version of an article in a newsletter I received in 2017 from the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, a Lutheran Christian group in Germany, which

human empowerment of all, but of more consumption and more consumers. This perpetuates oppressive relationships between men and women; with men consuming women and their bodies as sexual merchandise.

The trade in women and girls, and lately also in very young children, for sexual exploitation has grown alarmingly.

This trade, showing the close link between patriarchy and capitalism, has been designated by the United Nations as “the slavery of the 21st century”.

Part of the background to this reality is the increasing depth and extent of women’s poverty, violence against them, and the exploitation of female sexuality as merchandise for entertainment, while yielding appreciable financial income.

The challenge of Romans 12:2 is relevant to the present form of capitalism: “Do not model your behaviour on the contemporary world, but let the renewing of your minds transform you, so that you may discern for yourselves what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and mature.”

Sr Angelika Laub OP, Pretoria

is at the forefront of the campaign to have the sculpture relocated.

“Over the past year, with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, a new spiritual battleground has been Wittenberg, the town that for Churches worldwide epitomises Reformation theology.

“High on the wall of the city church where Martin Luther preached is a sculpture with a very different message.

“It represents a grave error in Church history, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, for the 700-year-old Judensau or ‘Jewish sow’ sculpture is not only malicious but also obscene.

“On the outside of the church, God and his Chosen People are dishonoured by the sculpture. Inside, his praises are sung. A plaque in the paving stones nearby serves as a very inadequate countermeasure.

“To this day, deep roots of Christian anti-Semitism remain: they have not been radically pulled out.

Painfully aware that this is so, both Christians and Jews have campaigned tirelessly for the relocation of the sculpture.

“There is a petition to relocate the sculpture and you can sign it at www.change.orig/p/relocate-thewittenberg-judensau “What an opportunity presents itself. Healing could be brought to wounded hearts among God’s Chosen People. And the joy in heaven would be great.”

The “Jewish sow” must fall!

Käthe Deutschmann, Cape Town

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PERSPECTIVES

Why the Church must knock on doors Keenan A Williams MUSLIM friend told me the other day: “As a Church, we have become too disconnected with the faithful.”

His wife is a Catholic, who decided to keep her faith, as did he. Together the pair decided to have their daughter baptised in the Catholic Church, because they saw it as “important”.

He told me that his daughter had not been to church since her baptism as his wife doesn’t go to church. He explained that his wife felt a disconnection between the Church and its faithful.

He explained to me how the Church expects the faithful to fulfil holy days of obligation and to give of their time in ministry, but how the Church didn’t “do” anything for them.

There might be the spiritual nourishment of receiving the word of God and Christ in the Eucharist, he said, but the Church was not being physically nor emotionally supportive enough.

As I stood there listening to an “outsider” to our faith speak words of truth, I thought about how hypocritical we were at times. Often we sit in the pews listening to sermons of how we should be more caring, of giving back, comforting the lonely, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and so on. But how much of that is being practised?

In my youth, my grandmother spoke about how priests and religious would visit their home. In my neatly 15 years as a devout Catholic, my family has not been visited once by any of the priests in the parishes to which we have belonged.

We need to see more house visit. We need to see more priests and religious walking the streets visiting the faithful (may they be sick or not). A relationship,

a rapport, needs to be formed between religious and the faithful. Until that happens, we will remain disconnected as a Church community, and our numbers will continue to drop.

A few years ago, while my wife was doing her RCIA and beginning her journey in converting to Catholicism, the dominee from her previous church visited her maternal home to find out why he had not seen her in church in a while.

Finding out about her conversion, he was quite sad to be losing a congregant, but he was happy to know that she was continuing her faith journey elsewhere, and had not just turned her back on the faith.

H

ow many of our fellow Catholic brethren are what we term “annual” Catholics? How many of us haven’t been to Mass in a long, long time?

The chances of a priest or religious visiting are very slim, and the doors of these other churches (many of them founded by lapsed Catholics) are open and welcoming

“In 15 years, my family has not been visited once by the priests in the parishes to which we have belonged,” writes Keenan Williams. (Photo: Nathan Copley)

Talking Faith

the faithful to “connect”.

We can learn so much from our fellow Christian brethren and even from those of other faiths.

Look at the Jehovah’s Witnesses (who claim to be Christian but are not) who knock on doors—isn’t this something we should be doing to bring others to knowing, loving and serving Christ and his Church?

Maybe we should be more like the Seventh Day Adventists and have a combined family lunch after church on Sundays in the homes of different people, and take the Word to those who need it most.

Maybe we should be more like the Salvation Army and give more charitably?

Or maybe we should understand that as many churches broke away from the Catholic Church, they took fundamental truths of charity, love, service and connection.

In that, we need to be more connected to the people of our faith and together grow in a stronger bond of love with Jesus our Saviour and with one another.

And as my devout Muslim friend told me: we need to get walking, we need to knock on the doors of the faithful, sit down, have a cup of tea, and pray for the home and the family.

As a Church we need to be more Christcentred, seeing his true presence within the hearts of the smallest among us.

My lesson from an ear infection Sarah-Leah F Pimentel OR the past few weeks I have been struggling terribly with my ears. I picked up an ear infection while travelling for work, and it’s thrown me completely off balance, literally.

At first I didn’t notice that I wasn’t altogether well. I had a slightly sore throat but thought I’d get over it with my normal arsenal of natural products. But as my work trip progressed, I found myself getting worse.

The breaking point came during a dual-leg flight. I experienced extreme ear pain and nothing I did eased the pressure and stabbing pains inside my head. By the time I arrived at my destination, after nine hours of flying, I couldn’t hear a thing.

I was confused, dizzy and disoriented during what seemed like an interminably long drive between the airport and my hotel.

It didn’t get any better the next day or the day after that, as I struggled to hear my colleagues, or make myself intelligible while trying to deliver technical training.

In fact, I continued to feel off-balance until I finally asked to see a doctor and was given enough medication to open my own pharmacy! What had started as a sore throat had become a full blown ear infection.

As I write this, I’m still not feeling quite right, but know that if I continue to take my medication diligently, my ears will clear and the lingering infection will go away.

Why am I telling you this story? Because our spiritual lives sometimes also get thrown off balance.

We often don’t realise that we have moved away from that intimate relationship with Jesus—until something happens that knocks us off our feet.

The gradual distance between us and Christ begins with the little things. The

The Mustard Seeds

We all need something non-negotiable to catch us when we begin drifting from our faith. For Sarah-leah Pimentel, adoration is one such anchor. warmth and comfort of our beds entices us to lie in a little later, and we miss out on morning prayer. It happens once, then again, and then it becomes a regular pattern.

Or it can happen when we’re just going through the motions of our daily prayer or going to Mass, but we stop being consciously aware that this is an opportunity to connect intimately with God. We finish our time of prayer or leave Mass and find ourselves completely untouched and unchanged by the experience.

Other times, enticements lead us away from our time with God, such as choosing to binge-watch a TV series over the weekend instead of setting aside some time for prayer, or missing Mass to go to a braai or a party. “It’s just this once,” we say. And before we know it, we are missing Mass regularly.

O

ne by one, our attachments to a life of prayer slowly begin to dissipate, and one day we wake up with the sensation that all is not well with our spiritual lives.

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But still, we can’t see that the reason for this is that we’ve lost that healthy connection with Jesus. We try to find excuses—the lack of time for meaningful prayer, work and family commitments, a poor homily, a Church that no longer meets our needs, a sense that we’ve outgrown our faith.

Hopefully most of us can recognise the signs that our prayer life is slipping, and restore our time for prayer before we end up completely out of sync.

But sometimes that is precisely what happens. As our spiritual health begins to unravel, so does our capacity to remain calm in the face of difficulty. Our ability to trust in the midst of uncertainty begins to wane, and we may even begin to develop other signs of mental stress or physical illness.

When this happens, it’s a little bit like my ear infection. What started off as a slight discomfort becomes something that throws us completely off balance. Similarly, when our prayer life unravels, the rest of our lives tends to follow suit, until we find ourselves in a complete mess.

The good news is that the door is always open for us to come back. Even if we stray from the path of faithfulness, Jesus never strays from us. He is always waiting for us when we are ready to admit that we cannot continue alone and that we need his healing grace.

We can also catch ourselves before we hit rock bottom. If we have that one nonnegotiable in our prayer lives, we can Continued on page 11

The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

7

Cackie Upchurch

God And The bible

How God’s word reveals our destiny W

HEN we meet someone at a social event, one of the first questions we ask is usually, “What do you do?” or “Where do you work?”

Sometimes these kinds of conversations feel shallow. We know that our occupations do not define us. There is so much more to each of us than “what we do” for a living.

While a party or a conference may not be the place to explore the deeper questions, we do long to know who we are in a meaningful way, to be known for our deeper identity, and even to know where we are going.

These longings get to the heart of what it means to be human, and what it means to be the particular human that each of us is.

As Christians, we are no different from anyone else in our search for meaning and personal identity and destiny. But, as Christians, we have at our disposal the guiding testimony of the Scriptures. It is within these sacred stories and teachings that we begin to uncover who we are and where we are bound.

Our Bible opens with two accounts of creation. The writers offer testimony to their encounter with the God of creation who fashioned the very earth and all that is in it. These accounts do not intend to describe exactly when or how we came into being as much as they testify to the reality of God’s creative work in the world.

A constant refrain throughout the first chapter of Genesis is, “God saw that it was good.”

The world was teeming with life, crowned by the creation of human beings, made in God’s very image (Gen 1:27). Being made in God’s image means that we have within us a share or spark of divinity, and that wherever we go, we take God with us.

The psalmist reflects on God’s loving and creative acts with awe and wonder: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour” (Ps 8:3-5).

If our identity is rooted in this understanding of a God who lovingly fashioned us to bear the divine presence in our world, we recognise within ourselves a sense of our remarkable dignity.

Identity rooted in God Our identity is also tied to a dynamic relationship with the God who knows and loves us.

Again, the words of a psalm capture some of this intimate knowing: “You formed me in my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, because I am wonderfully made …

My very self you know” (Ps 139:13-14). Our Creator knows us best.

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he reminded them of God’s words, “I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor 6:18, referencing 2 Sam 7:14; Psalm 2:7; Isa 43:6 and Jer 31:9).

We are assured that followers of Jesus are children of God, intimately joined to God who allows us to call him “Abba, Father” (see Jn 1:12; Rom 8:14-15; Gal 4:7). A deep sense of belonging shapes our identity and gives us the grace to accept our high calling.

Throughout the Bible we find stories of God’s call in the lives of ordinary people who then did extraordinary things in God’s name.

• Moses went from being a shepherd on the run to a liberating force for those enslaved in Egypt; • the prophets were farmers and herdsmen and teachers who became God’s mouthpiece demanding justice and announcing mercy; • Esther was a Jewish woman married off to a Persian ruler who found herself in the position to save her people from slaughter; • Mary was a young maiden whose consent to God’s plan led to the birth of God’s son; • Paul was an observant Jew who discovered in Jesus the courage to die to self and live for Christ.

Our stories are not yet written in full but our identity is established and our destiny is secure.

We can rest assured that, aware of our dignity and bound to a loving God, we will discover our calling and grow in our ability to answer with confidence the questions: “Who am I? What is my destiny?” n This is the third in a ten-part series of articles entitled “Why We Should Bother With The Bible”, produced by Little Rock Scripture Study. This article first appeared in the Arkansas Catholic.

8

The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

COMMUNITY

Holy Rosary Primary School in Edenvale, Johannesburg, performed A Magic Carpet Ride— a modern spin on Aladdin. Seen (from left) are visual arts teacher Monica baart, Kiana da Silva, Emily Roeloefsz, Erin buffey, Tamika Naidoo, Angelique Shewring, Alexia Finlayson, Nolwazi Gxoyiya, and drama teacher Carmi dos Santos.

The Catholic Women’s league at Our lady of Fatima parish in Durban North held a “cuppa for Cansa” event after Mass.

Parishioners supported the fundraising tea for those with cancer. (Submitted by Anna Accolla)

Men of St Joseph’s Sodality from St Peter Claver parish in Maokeng, Kroonstad, visited St Paul’s parish in butha-buthe, lesotho. (Submitted

by David Rasello)

Archbishop Stephen brislin of Cape Town confirmed the Grade 11s at Christian brothers’ College St John’s in Parklands, Cape Town.

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October 17 to October 23, 2018

What’s needed for a good lay spirituality

Reg No. 1920/002058/06 No 5105

Countdown of Top 50 Marian shrines begins

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At synod, Napier hails pope’s ‘genius’

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Church’s response to abuse claim STAFF REPORTER

Fr Tulani Gubula of Queenstown diocese had the opportunity to meet Pope Francis during a reception surrounding the Synod of Bishops on Youth in the Vatican. The encounter was particularly special as it was on Fr Gubula’s birthday. The priest, who is currently studying in Rome, is serving as an assistant to the general secretariat of the synod.

Irish-SA links shown in exhibit STAFF REPORTER

A

N exhibition in Cape Town’s Waterfront depicts the various aspects of South Africa’s rich ties with Ireland—a relationship so close that South Africans need no visas to enter the Republic.

Hosted by the Irish South African Association, the “Call for Freedom: Ireland and South Africa” exhibition at the Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island opened on July 12 and will run until October 30. Entrance is free.

“In a nutshell, South Africa’s ties with Ireland are considerable and span some of the most critical decades in the lead-up to and beyond South Africa’s democracy of 1994,” the Irish South African Association said in a statement.

At a Freedom Day rally organised by the Irish anti-apartheid movement in Dublin in 1979, then-African National Congress president Oliver Tambo said that the liberation struggle in South Africa was greatly inspired by the Irish nation’s struggle for freedom.

“Ireland played such an important role in our freedom struggle,” said anti-apartheid activist and former Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs.

“Irish people had fought for their Independence. They appreciated our struggle with their hearts as well as their minds,” he said.

“It was no accident that the first draft of

the Bill of Rights was written on the kitchen table of the home of Kader and Louise Asmal in Dublin in 1988. It is wonderful that South Africans will be able to visit this exhibition and learn about a solidarity that was born out of our shared idealism,” Mr Sachs noted.

“The Irish South African Association felt that it was particularly fitting to hold this exhibition in this, the centenary year of Nelson Mandela’s birth,” said Michael O’Brien, chairperson of the Cape Town chapter.

He noted that Dublin was first city to grant Mr Mandela “Freedom of the City” status—in 1988 while Mr Mandela was still jailed.

Mr O’Brien said the exhibition includes banners reflecting South Africa’s strong links to Ireland, which have been reciprocal, noting that President Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer mediated in the Irish peace process that led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

The exhibition also includes 42 etchings which cover aspects of the 1916 Rebellion, or Easter Rising, against the British occupation in Ireland.

The Irish South African Association facilitates social contact between Irish people or those of Irish descent, and anyone who has an interest in the Irish and in Ireland. It was founded in Cape Town in 2001. In 2008 a Gauteng chapter was started, followed by a KwaZulu-Natal chapter in 2011.

For more information on the Irish South African Association see www.ireland.co.za

A

LEADING Jesuit has praised the victim of alleged abuse and rape by a priest in Johannesburg for his “dignity and compassion”.

In a letter to William Segodisho, who alleges that he had been systematically abused in the 1980s by a British Jesuit, Fr Damian Howard, provincial of the British province of the Society of Jesus, said: “You have shown both dignity and compassion throughout your long struggle to come to terms with what [the priest] did. I am profoundly moved by your generosity.”

Fr Howard expressed doubt that the priest, who is now in a nursing home, would apologise to the victim. Advising against a conversation, he wrote: “I very much want to save you further distress from this man.”

The Jesuits apologised for the abuse Mr Segodisho experienced and emphasised their “commitment to place the protection of children and vulnerable adults at the top of our list of priorities”.

The letter was published this month, after Mr Segodisho went public with his allegations of abuse, which he described in shocking detail, between 1986-89, when he was a pre-adult teenager.

All Church officials concerned have treated the allegations as credible.

The priest was sent back to Britain in 1990. The Jesuits said that they were first informed of the abuse allegations in 2001, whereupon the priest was removed from public ministry.

The Jesuits said that Mr Segodisho’s is the only complaint against the priest they have received, and pledged to cooperate with a police investigation into the case.

Mr Segodisho’s attorney, Ian Levitt, said that due to the priest’s alleged ill health, he has no high hopes for his extradition to South Africa to face criminal charges. But, he added, a civil claim is being drawn up, and will be ready in a few weeks.

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The NGO South African Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse has demanded “that the Catholic Church in South Africa and Britain release all records relating to credible allegations and investigations into this priest during his tenure at all parishes where he was active”.

Mr Segodisho alleged that the Church had repeatedly blocked his attempts over the past 17 years to get the priest reported to the police and have him extradited to South Africa to stand trial.

Fr Thabo Motshegwa‚ chair of the archdiocese of Johannesburg’s Professional Conduct Committee‚ said that “the first we heard about this case was in February. It was never formally reported to the Catholic archdiocese of Johannesburg or any of its professional conduct committees.”

He noted that the Catholic Church has special local and national professional conduct committees‚ which investigate every reported case, liaising directly with the victims‚ police‚ schools and the National Prosecuting Authority on reported cases.

The Protection of Minors policy includes strict guidelines to be adhered to by all Catholic institutions. “This is currently being updated. It involves security checks for all staff in religious institutions, from cleaners to priests,” Fr Motshegwa said.

Until recently, the Jesuits active in South Africa fell under the British province of the Society of Jesus. An investigation into Mr Segodisho’s allegations was carried out by the British province of the Society of Jesus because that province had jurisdiction over the priest.

The Society of Jesus in South Africa adheres to the protocols laid out by the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) for all Jesuits ministering in South Africa.

The SACBC’s protocols, including the procedure of reporting an allegation, are at www.sacbc.org.za/protection or e-mail communication@sacbc.org.za

=

Feed your soul with The

S outher n C ross

IT’S WORTH IT!

Star swimmer Kate beavon of St Teresa’s School in Rosebank, Johannesburg, came second in the 1 500m race at the Catholic schools’ athletics meeting at Germiston Stadium. She also represented South Africa in swimming at the youth Olympics in buenos Aires, Argentina.

Candidates in Grade 10 at St benedict’s College in bedfordview, Johannesburg, were confirmed by Archbishop buti Tlhagale. The blessed Sacrament church in Malvern East parish and parish priest Fr Tony Daniels hosted the confirmation candidates and their families and friends.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul provided tea and eats to parishioners of the Immaculate Conception church in Pinetown, near Durban. This was done in gratitude for their financial support throughout the year.

The Catholic board of Education proposed an initiative to raise awareness and funds for underprivileged Catholic schools around South Africa.

Students at Marist brothers linmeyer in Johannesburg were asked to come to school in slippers, barefoot or wearing sandals for one day and to donate R10, to remember how many children go to school daily in all weather conditions without shoes.

The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

FAITH

9

What we can do for souls in purgatory It is possible for us on earth to do something for the souls in purgatory. For All Souls Day, MICHAEl OGuNu explains how.

A

CCORDING to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, all those who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

The Church gives the name purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.

The practice of special devotion to the souls in purgatory in the month of November is an old tradition in the Catholic Church.

This article describes twelve means of relieving the suffering of the souls in purgatory, according to Catholic tradition.

1. Catholic Burial The first effect of a beloved person’s death is grieving. Then follow the preparations for burial and visits of condolence. The suffering souls do not receive the least benefit or consolation from a showy funeral.

The Church Fathers, such as St Jerome, severely condemned the practice of pompous funerals and earnestly exhorted us to aid in having burials performed according to the rites of the Church.

The ceremonies of the Church,

the bearing of the cross, the ministers in their sacred vestments, the blessings, incense, holy water, blessed candles and the consecrated ground are all replete with abundant consolation for the departed soul.

for the suffering souls. In this case the prayers of the Church ascend to heaven in favour of the person or soul intended to be helped.

2. Holy Mass

God himself in the Old Testament ordained that lights should be used in his temple and at religious rites performed there.

Under the Christian dispensation, the use of lights was retained not only when the sacred mysteries were celebrated at night during times of persecution, but also during the day. In the early Church those selected to take care of the lamps and candles were specially ordained for this purpose.

The holy sacrifice of Mass has always been considered by the Church to be the most effective means of releasing the souls of the faithful departed from their torments.

Our prayers, and still more the prayers and intercessory petitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, bring relief to the suffering souls. But what is the prayer of heaven and earth compared with Holy Mass? In prayer a creature intercedes for a creature; in Holy Mass Jesus Christ, eternal God like his Father, makes intercession for us.

This Mass is undoubtedly the most powerful means to release the holy souls from their place of torment.

3. Official Prayer The official Prayer of the Church has an essential and particular efficacy of its own. It is more powerful to obtain graces and benefits from God than the prayer offered privately by individual persons, however pious and holy they may be.

Besides the holy sacrifice of the Mass for the dead and the absolution, the Church has ordained also the recitation of a special Office of the Dead.

This is handed down to us from the earliest ages of Christianity, and gives evidence of the ardent charity and devotion with which the Church implores mercy at the

How to understand purgatory

REFlECTION by MGR M FRANCIS MANNION

O

N November 2, the Church throughout the world celebrates the commemoration of All Souls, a day which, though popular in days gone by, has been neglected in recent decades. This neglect may be a reaction to an overly negative view of purgatory and a severe notion of divine judgment.

The concept of purgatory is, however, essential to Catholic theology and practice. Granted, the concept of purgatory was often badly preached. Many people thought of purgatory, as Hungarian theologian Ladislaus Boros pointed out, as “a gigantic city of torment, a cosmic concentration camp, in which wailing, groaning, and moaning creatures are punished by God”.

Perhaps the most profound truth embodied in the doctrine of purgatory is that we are not frozen, so to speak, in the moral and human condition that obtains at the moment of death. If we arrive at death’s door as imperfect and incomplete Christians, far from the holiness of the saints, we are not condemned forever to that state.

God still reaches out to us and calls us to himself, to a completion of our lifelong journey into Christ.

Purgatory should be seen as a process of dynamic transformation and sanctification, a completion of what began in us at baptism.

Anglican theologian John Macquarrie expresses this well when he says that purgatory is one aspect of the process of sanctification whereby we are conformed to Christ. It is the completion of the process of putting on the mind and attitude of Christ.

In the 12th century, William of Auvergne described purgatory as the fulfilment of our earthly penance. If penance is understood as a process of conversion and transformation, we will come to see purgatory not as

a fearsome reality, but as the consummation of the whole movement of Christian life to salvation.

But what about the fire of purgatory? The early Church Fathers saw the fire of purgatory as a creative fire that cleansed and purified. The fire of purgatory is the living fire of the Holy Spirit, not the fire of destruction and desolation.

St Catherine of Genoa spoke of “the purgatory of God’s burning love”. We can link this with the mystical tradition which spoke of union with God as entry into a divine fire, into what St John of the Cross called “the living flame of love”.

The pain of purgatory, then, is not the pain of divine punishment and wrath, but the pain of growth and transformation, the pain of breaking out of the old self into the new. Purgatorial suffering, according to John Macquarrie, comes from “the painful surrender of the egocentred self” so that the God-centred self may emerge.

It is vital that prayer for the dead not be seen as bleak bargaining with a harsh God who casts imperfect souls into a ferocious, if temporary, pit.

It must rather be conceived of and practised as a warm and generous outpouring of love for those who have gone before us. It is an act of solidarity by which we accompany the dead on their pilgrimage to final perfection and happiness. It is a testament on our part to the worth and goodness of the departed, offered to a God who wills our salvation.

We would do well, then, to celebrate All Souls’ Day by making our own the kind of spirituality—by no means my invention—that I have set out here.

Attending Mass on All Souls’ Day and remembering our own deceased relatives and friends—indeed all souls who ever lived—throughout the month of November are practices that need to be recovered and pastorally promoted.—CNA

11. Burning of Candles

People sit next to the graves of their relatives during the Day of the Dead in Santa Maria Atzompa, Mexico, on November 1. In his article, Prof Michael Ogunu explains what we can do for the souls in purgatory.

(Photo: Jorge luis Plata, Reuters/CNS) throne of God and intercedes for her suffering children.

4. Holy Communion Frequent and worthy reception of Holy Communion is a most excellent means whereby we can pay off all our own indebtedness, and most effectually help the suffering souls.

St Bonaventure observed: “Let charity and compassion for your neighbours urge you on to approach the sacred Table; for nothing is so effectual as Holy Communion to obtain relief for the suffering souls.”

5. The Holy Rosary A most appropriate prayer for the faithful departed is the Rosary.

The Blessed Virgin herself assured us through St Dominic that “the release of the souls in purgatory is one of the chief effects of the Rosary”.

6. Prayer The two most efficient means of obtaining the grace of God for ourselves and others, and thereby gaining heaven, are the sacraments and prayer.

7. Almsgiving Almsgiving for the suffering souls help to atone for our own sins of extravagance, and sins proceeding from the abuse of wealth. The punishment of purgatory is inflicted on many a soul who during its earthly life was wanting in charity to the poor. By giving alms for the suffering souls we atone on their behalf for their want of charity while on earth.

8. Fasting By fasting we chastise our body, refuse gratification to its appetite, give strength to our soul and pleasure to the whole spiritual being.

Fasting is directed against all forbidden pleasures and enjoyments. By

fasting therefore, we atone for the sins committed by and against our body.

Instead of applying this atonement for ourselves, we can offer it to Almighty God in union with the fast of Christ in favour of the suffering souls.

9. Indulgences According to the doctrine of the Church, the guilt of sin and its eternal punishment is remitted in the sacrament of Penance.

The temporal punishment due to sin however is not always remitted entirely in the sacrament of penance. This remaining temporal punishment, as long as it is not remitted, must be suffered either in this world or in purgatory, before we can enter heaven.

An indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment due to sin which the Church grants to the faithful, provided they observe certain conditions. The entire temporal punishment is remitted by a plenary indulgence; a part of it only by a partial indulgences.

It has always been the practice of the popes to grant numerous indulgences applicable to the suffering souls; by gaining of which indulgences we cede to these imprisoned friends of God so much remission of temporal punishment as we would have obtained for ourselves.

10. Holy Water When we take holy water and sprinkle ourselves or our surroundings with it, the prayer of the Church ascends to heaven, drawing down blessings upon us and on the objects that are sprinkled with it.

Holy water may be used not only for the purpose of benefiting persons present, but may also be applied for the absent and especially

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12. Confraternities for the Relief of the Suffering Souls Confraternities for the relief of the suffering souls are pious unions or societies founded for the aid and relief of the souls in purgatory. The existence of such confraternities can be traced as far back as 700 AD, namely in Mabillon’s “Acts of the Saints of the Order of St Benedict”.

The joint intercession, the increased devotion, the multiplied grace, the virtues and merits of brethren united in God are powerful means of moving the heart of a God so fail of compassion for his children in distress.

T

he following conditions must be observed in order that our good works for the souls in purgatory may be accepted by God: • We must have the intention of resigning the merits of our good works in favour of the suffering souls. Our intention may specify a particular soul to whom we desire to apply our petitions.

• The work performed must be one of atonement. All good works are such; but they are not all equally valuable as atonement. Their atoning value depends either on the disposition of the person performing them; or it may be inherent in the works themselves as for instance Holy Mass, indulgences and the prayers of the Church.

• The good works, to be effective, must be performed in the state of grace.

The suffering souls receive no benefit of a good work performed in the state of sin, when the value of the work requires it to be performed in the state of grace. If in such a case the petition of a sinner is granted, this is not done because the work itself was worthy of the favour, but solely and purely as a result of God’s mercy.

We loved our departed ones in life, let us remember them in death.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

10

The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

FAITH

Eight more in Top 40 Marian shrines Part two of GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER’s countdown of the world’s Top 40 Marian shrines takes us to France, Egypt, Malta, Greece, Paraguay, Turkey, Spain and Belgium.

L

AST week we began our tour of the world’s Top 40 Marian shrine—mainly sites of apparitions and miracles—ranked in an approximate order of popularity and importance.

It must be stressed that the apparitions mentioned in these articles are subject of private devotion.

No Catholic is required to accept any of them as authentic or have a devotion to them, even those that are approved by the Holy See as “worthy of belief”.

But whatever views one might have of some or all Marian shrines, even when the source of the devotion may seem implausible, all of these places are sanctified by the sincere prayers of the faithful.

These 40 descriptions of Marian shrines offer just thumbnails of the various sites. Some shrines deserve to be investigated further. If one shrine or the other grabs your attention, why not read up on them, on the Internet or in the library?

So here are numbers 32-25 in our countdown of the world’s Top 40 Marian shrines.

32. La Salette, France When the weeping Virgin appeared to two peasant youths in the French village of La Salette, in south-eastern France, in September 1846, she foretold terrible punishment involving a shortage of potatoes. The following winter, there was a famine which hit France and Ireland particularly hard.

The apparition to the children, Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat, was quickly taken seriously. By 1949, three miraculous cures were reported. Within five years of the vision, after a thorough examination, the local bishop authorised veneration of Our Lady of La Salette.

Mélanie went on to become a nun who was the source of some controversy; she died in 1904 at the age of 75. Maxim lived a quiet life and died in 1875 at 39.

31. Zeitoun, Egypt There are three principal sites of modern Marian apparitions in Egypt: in Assuit, in the centre of the country (2000-01), at Warraq in Giza (2009), and in the Cairo suburb of Zeitoun. The latter at-

tracts the greatest devotion among Copts, as Egypt’s Christians (mostly Orthodox) are known—as well as among Muslims.

On several occasions between 1968-70, hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims gathered outside St Mary’s church—where tradition holds the Holy Family stayed during the Flight into Egypt—to witness inexplicable appearances in the sky above the church of a huge luminescence in the vague shape of a woman. This would happen as often as two or three times a week.

Among those who saw the apparition was Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The Coptic Church investigated these luminous phenomena in the sky, as did the Egyptian police. Nobody could explain them. Police confirmed that no device could be found within a radius of 25km which might have had the capacity to project the image. The Coptic pope approved the apparitions; the Vatican deferred to the Coptic Church.

In a country where the 20% population of Christians often feels oppressed by the Muslim majority, Our Lady of Zeitoun is a source of good interreligious relations. Many Egyptian Muslims have a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and it is not unusual to see followers of Islam enter St Mary’s church to pray.

30. Ta’ Pinu, Malta In 1575 a representative of the pope turned up on Gozo island, which is part of Malta, and ordered the demolition of several rundown churches.

One of those was the chapel of the Gentile, named after a local family. But as a worker was about to deliver the first blow in the demolition, he broke his arm. That was seen as a sign that the chapel must be retained.

Two decades later the church was renamed the church of Ta’ Pinu (meaning, of Philip). It was rebuilt in the 1610s.

Fast forward to 1883, when a peasant woman named Karmni Grima heard a female voice coming from the Ta’ Pinu chapel, calling her to enter. Inside she was asked to say three Hail Marys.

For two years Grima kept this encounter secret. When she told her friend Francesco Portelli about it, he confirmed that he too had heard that female voice at around the same time, telling him to honour the “Wound of Christ”. Portelli too had kept the encounter secret.

Shortly after that conversation, Grima’s mother was miraculously healed after praying for the intercession of the “Madonna ta’ Pinu”.

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the city of Caacupé, where it is now kept in a church built in 1980.

Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the shrine in 2015 and declared the church a minor basilica.

27. Ephesus, Turkey

Above left: The cathedral of la Salette, France; Right: The apparition of Zeitoun in Cairo. (Photos: www.saletini.cz; uncredited)

Ta’Pinu church in Gozo, Malta, and the church of Our lady of Tinos in Greece. (Photos: Mojpe; Hans-Peter Schäfer/Wikipedia)

basilica of Our lady of Miracles in Caacupé; and chapel at the House of the Virgin in Ephesus. (Photos: Santi Carneri/CNS; Martin H Fryc)

Mary’s House in Ephesus, near modern-day Izmir in Turkey, is a popular Marian pilgrimage site— the problem is that there is no evidence that Mary ever was there.

The idea that Mary lived in Ephesus is based on the tradition that John, the beloved disciple to whom Jesus entrusted the care of his mother, moved to city some time after the crucifixion.

There is no evidence that he did so before Mary fell into her eternal sleep—and we know from ancient records that this happened in Jerusalem (indeed, the text from which we know that is one of the foundations of the dogma of the Assumption).

We also don’t know when John moved to Ephesus. Since his gospel was possibly written in the city in the 90s AD, he might have come there late in life.

While there were tenuous notions as well as a local tradition of Mary’s presence in Ephesus, it was the 19th-century visions of the German nun Anne Catherine Emmerich which led to the identification of the “House of the Virgin”, which is now a hole in the ground.

The Catholic Church has not recognised Mary’s House as authentic, but three popes have visited the site: Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, and Benedict XVI in 2006.

26. Zaragoza, Spain

Our lady of the Pillars cathedral in Zaragoza, Spain; and the shrine of Our lady of the Golden Heart in beauraing, belgium. (Photos: Günther Simmermacher; beauraing shrine) Pilgrimages to the chapel began very soon after. Eventually, in 1922, the old church was demolished to make way for a more suitable church, which was completed in 1932. Pope John Paul II visited it in 1990; Benedict XVI in 2010.

29. Tinos, Greece As Fatima or Lourdes are to Catholics, so is Our Lady of Tinos to Greek Orthodox, whose devotion to Our Lady is no less than ours.

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Located in Tinos, on the Greek island of the same name, the Marian sanctuary is a complex focused on a miraculous icon of Our Lady.

The icon was found buried in the ground after the Virgin, in an apparition, directed the nun Pelagia to it in 1822. It was the day after the founding of the modern state of Greece. Our Lady of Tinos is therefore the country’s patron.

Like several other icons we encounter in this series, legend attributed the icon to St Luke himself. Referred to as the Megalóchari (“Great Grace”), the icon is believed to have led to many miracles.

The shrine church is dedicated to the Annunciation, but its principal feast is the Assumption.

28. Caacupé, Paraguay The story of devotion to Our Lady at Paraguay’s national shrine goes back to the time of South America’s evangelisation in the 1500s, when some tribes converted and others were violently opposed to Christianity.

One day, a convert named José went into a forest to find wood from which to carve a Marian statue for a chapel. Suddenly he was surrounded by hostile tribesmen. José managed to hide in a hollow tree and prayed to Our Lady, who then appeared to him in a pillar of light. José was saved and in gratitude he carved two statues of Our Lady, one for the chapel and one for his home.

Some time later, in 1603, a flood wiped out everything in the area, including José’s house. All that survived intact was his carved Mary, floating on a lake. The locals soon began venerating the statue as Our Lady of Miracles. It eventually found a permanent home in

Our Lady of the Pillars is by far the earliest recorded apparition of Our Lady, possibly taking place even during her lifetime.

The apostle James the Greater had travelled to Spain to evangelise the pagan territory—and made very little progress. Then, on the second day of the year 40 AD, as he and his companions stood on the banks of the Ebro River, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him upon a pillar of jasper and instructed him to use it to build a church at that spot.

He did as he was told, and soon the Good News spread throughout Iberia.

Where St James built that first church now stands an imposing basilica dedicated to Our Lady of the Pillars, whom St John Paul II described as the “mother of the Hispanic peoples”.

The reputed column is still venerated in the 17th century church.

It is topped by a 15th-century statue of Mary, whose vestments are changed every day. Pilgrims can touch a small section of the pillar through the back of the chapel in which it is kept.

25. Beauraing, Belgium Five children reported a total of 33 apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the Belgian village of Beauraing between November 1932 and January 1933 (just before the apparitions at Banneux, which we visited last week), mostly in the garden of the local convent school.

In this apparition, Our Lady was very kindly. She wore a heart of gold on her breast, earning her the title “Virgin of the Golden Heart”. After the visions, the children went on to live normal lives.

The last surviving visionary, Gilberte Degeimbre, died at 91 in 2015.

The local bishop forbade any veneration of the apparitions until investigations cleared the way for them in 1943. The apparitions were formally approved in 1949, by which time two miracles had been reported at the site.

Ten pilgrim routes, ranging in length from 100 metres to 11km, have been designed to lead to the sanctuary of Beauraing. n Eight more Marian shrines next week.

CLASSIFIEDS

Fr Gregory Brooke OP

D

OMINICAN Father Gregory Brooke died in Springs, Gauteng, on October 12 at the age of 84.

He had been a priest for 63 years, and had lived in community with other Dominicans in different houses in Stellenbosch, Springs and Johannesburg, as well as in Lesotho, England and the United States.

Born in Pakistan, he grew up in what was then Rhodesia, and first came to South Africa to attend university in Grahamstown. It was from there that he joined the Dominican order, which became his life.

In a sense it became his nationality, for although his passport was British, the only time he had spent in England was to complete his theological studies.

He used to say that he belonged to no particular national group.

Fr Greg had a life of fighting adversity. As a child he had to overcome a bad stutter, solving this to a large extent only after he joined the order. No one listening to his powerful preach-

ing could have known how bad it had been.

The other main difficulty, which he could not overcome, was the result of having been kicked in the stomach by a horse when he was about 12 years old. This had caused irreparable damage to his digestive system, so that much of the time he felt nauseous. But he did not let this deter him.

When nausea caused him to lie still on a bed, sometimes for two or three days at a time, one would always find him with a study book in his hands.

Apart from a great interest in science fiction, Fr Greg had two major loves. Firstly, a love of scripture, and secondly, a love of the Enneagram (nine different types or styles, with each representing a worldview and archetype that resonates with the way people think, feel and act in relation to the world, others and themselves).

He could talk about both at length, and his knowledge of scripture resulted in him being

recognised by the Catholic Bible College in Johannesburg, where for some years he was a regular lecturer.

Even his sabbatical year in the US was spent studying. When he came back, Fr Greg was an expert on St Mark’s gospel.

But before he became a lecturer and formator in the order, he worked for many years as a pastor in several parishes in the Springs/Brakpan area. To do so, he had learned Sesotho, even though he did not have a gift for languages.

Within the Dominican order, Fr Greg served at various times as novice master, postulancy director, vicarial counsellor and vicar-general.

For the last ten years of his life he was nearly blind. He did not let that prevent him from saying Mass every day for the Dominican Sisters, for whom he was chaplain, nor from preaching.

Eventually Fr Greg’s liver ceased to function properly, and his last weeks were spent in the hospital where he died.

Prayer for All Souls Lord God, you are the glory of believers and the life of the just.

Your son redeemed us by dying and rising to life again.

Since our departed brothers and sisters believed in the mystery of our resurrection, let them share the joys and blessings of the life to come.

Amen

My lessons from an ear infection Continued from page 7 catch ourselves and come back into relationship with Christ.

For me, it’s Eucharistic adoration and Sunday Mass.

I know that there will be times when I will wake up late and miss my morning prayer time.

There will be times when I will have been on the go from early morning till late at night, and I collapse on my bed and am asleep before I’ve even managed to give thanks for the day.

There will be times when something distracts my prayer time.

But I know that on a Friday night, before the start of the weekend, I will spend an hour in adoration to give thanks for the week that has been, and to connect with my Creator through prayer, a reflection, or music.

My other non-negotiable is Mass on a Sunday evening, which for me marks the start of the new week. The community worship and celebration remind me that my faith is not just personal. I use the time at Mass to pray with my fellow parishioners, to pray for those who have asked for my prayers, but also to entrust all the unknowns and encounters of the coming week into God’s hands.

What is your non-negotiable that helps you to continually come back to the love of God and to keep the balance of an ever-deepening relationship with him? n Past columns by Sarah-Leah Pimentel are at www. scross.co.za/category/perspectives/sarah-leahpimentel/

Liturgical Calendar Year B – Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday October 28, 30th Sunday of the Year Jeremiah 31:7-9, Psalm 126, Hebrews 5:1-6, Mark 10:46-52 Monday October 29 Ephesians 4:32--5:8, Psalm 1:1-4, 6, Luke 13:10-17 Tuesday October 30 Ephesians 5:21-33, Psalm 128:1-5, Luke 13:18-21 Wednesday October 31 Ephesians 6:1-9, Psalm 145:10-14, Luke 13:22-30 Thursday November 1 Ephesians 6:10-20, Psalm 144:1-2, 9-10, Luke 13:31-35 Friday November 2, All Souls Job 19:23-27, Psalm 23, Romans 5:5-11, Matthew 5:1-12 Saturday November 3, St Martin de Porres Philippians 1:18-26, Psalm 42:2-3, 5, Luke 14:1, 7-11 Sunday November 4, All Saints (transferred) Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14, Psalm 24:1-6, 1 John 3:1-3, Matthew 5:1-12

The Southern Cross, October 24 to October 30, 2018

YOUR CLASSiFiEDS

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Anniversaries • Milestones • Prayers • Accommodation • Holiday accommodation Personal • Services • Employment • Property • Parish notices • Thanks • Others Please include payment (R1,80 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

DEATHS

MCLELLAND—Elizabeth (former employee). Passed away August 31, 2018. Remembered by the directors and staff of The Southern Cross. May her dear soul rest in peace.

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.

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

HOLiDAY ACCOMMODATiON

CAPE TOWN—looking for reasonably priced accommodation over the December/January holiday period?

Come to Kolbe House, set in beautiful, spacious gardens in Rondebosch, nestled just under Devil’s Peak. Selfcatering, clean and peaceful, with spacious gardens.Safe parking. Close to all shops and public transport. Contact Pat 021 685-7370, 073 2632105 or kolbe.house@ telkomsa.net MARiANELLA GUEST HOUSE, Simon’s Town— “Come experience the peace and beauty of God with us.” Fully equipped with amazing sea views. Secure parking, ideal for rest and relaxation. Special rates for pensioners and clergy. Malcolm Salida 082 784-5675, mjsalida@gmail.com PENNiNGTON SOUTH COAST—Accommodation available beginning Decem-

ber till the 20th and then after 30th. Two bedroom, 2-bathroom, 6-sleeper. Contact barney on 082 2663614 or landline 039 975-3842.

PRAYERS

HOLY ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who invoke you, special patron in times of need. To you I have recourse from the depths of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. Please help me now in my urgent need and grant my petition. In return I promise to make your name known in distribution of this prayer that never fails. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be forever blessed and glorified. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us and grant my request (name your request). Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be. Mb.

O ViRGiN Mother, in the depths of your heart you pondered the life of the Son you brought into the world.

Give us your vision of Jesus and ask the Father to open our hearts, that we may always see his presence in our lives, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, bring us into the joy and peace of the kingdom, where Jesus is lord forever and ever.

Amen..

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 834. ACROSS: 4 Chalice, 8 Yellow, 9 Cranmer, 10 Loathe, 11 Inches, 12 Presides, 18 Wesleyan, 20 Solemn, 21 Breath, 22 Mission, 23 Newton, 24 Deanery. DOWN: 1 Cyclops, 2 Cleared, 3 Hophni, 5 Harpists, 6 Lunacy, 7 Clever, 13 Downpour, 14 Dynasty, 15 Anthony, 16 Polite, 17 Season, 19 Larder.

The

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the

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

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EXT Sunday, we in this country celebrate the feast of All Saints. In one sense, this is a celebration of all those, known and unknown, who have gone before us, and are now with God. In another sense, however, it is a celebration of what God can do through the frail material that is our human lot.

You can see something of this in each of the day’s readings. In the first reading, we are in the Book of Revelation, and we watch an angel “coming up from the rising sun”, who is carrying “the seal of the Living God”, and who is defending the “slaves of our God” from suffering the damage that is to be done to “sea and land”.

Then we hear how many come in this category: 144 000 in total, 12 000 from each of the tribes of Israel, and that means an immense tally.

But there is more, for we are then invited to look at “a great crowd, whom no one could count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing before the Throne and before the Lamb, wearing white garments and with palms in their hands”. What they are doing is singing a song to God “who sits upon the Throne”, and to “the Lamb”.

S outher n C ross

And the whole scene focuses on God (as we must, on this feast day), with the “angels” and some of the elders and the four living creatures, who “fell on their faces before the Throne and worshipped God”, and are heard singing to their God. Then we discover what God has done for them: “These are the ones who come out of the Great Tribulation and have washed their clothes and whitened them in the Lamb’s blood.”

This is God’s immense gift to the saints whom we celebrate on this day.

The psalm is likewise (and as always) utterly focused on God: “The Lord’s is the earth and all that fills it, the world and all those who live in it.”

That is what makes saints of us; although the psalmist is well aware that some kind of response is required on our part: “The clean of hand and pure of heart…they shall receive blessing from the Lord and justice from the God of their salvation.”

Then comes that wonderful (and slightly mysterious?) exhortation: “Lift up your heads, you gates, rise up, ancient doors—and

R

terness and anger, no matter how justified, are not a good place to stay. Both Jesus and what’s noble inside of us invite us to move beyond anger and indignation.

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Classic Conrad

eyond anger, beyond indignation, and beyond justified criticism of all that’s dishonest and unjust, lies an invitation to a deeper empathy.

This invitation doesn’t ask us to stop being prophetic in the face of what’s wrong, but it asks us to be prophetic in a deeper way. A prophet, as Fr Daniel Berrigan SJ so often said, makes a vow of love, not of alienation.

But that’s not easy to do. In the face of injustice, dishonesty, and wilful blindness, all our natural instincts militate against empathy. Up to a point, this is healthy and shows that we’re still morally robust. We should feel anger and indignation in the face of what’s wrong.

It’s understandable too that we might also feel some hateful, judgmental thoughts towards those whom we deem responsible.

That’s a beginning, but it’s not where we’re meant to stay. We’re called to move towards something deeper, namely, an empathy which previously we did not access.

At the truly bitter moments of our lives, when we’re feeling overwhelmed by feelings of misunderstanding, slight, injustice and rightful indignation, and we’re staring

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Sunday Reflections

the King of Glory shall enter in.”

It is all God’s doing, you see, this business of becoming saints; and that is something of which our second reading is very aware. For the priority is the “great love the Father has given us, for us to be called children of God”.

And because of what God has done and is doing: “We shall be like God, because we shall see God as God is.”

Then the Gospel for the feast is the astonishing opening of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, what we call the Beatitudes.

Jesus is congratulating, it seems, all the wrong sort of people, not because they have done anything in particular, but because of what God is doing in them: “Congratulations to the poor in spirit, because theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” It is not something that they have deserved, you see.

Likewise, when the “mourners” are going to be comforted, this is what God is going to do, to say nothing of the “meek” who will “inherit the earth”, and the “satiating” of those who hunger and thirst for justice. And what of the “merciful” who “are going to be mercied”?

This is God at work, as with those (“the

We must give up the anger ECENTLY I attended a symposium where the keynote speaker was a man exactly my age. Since we had both lived through the same cultural and religious changes in our lives, I resonated with much of what he said and with how he felt about things.

And in his assessment of both the state of affairs in our politics and our Churches today, he was pretty critical, even angry.

Not without reason. In both our governments and our Churches today there isn’t just a bitter polarisation and an absence of fundamental charity and respect, there’s also a lot of seemingly inexcusable blindness, lack of transparency, and selfserving dishonesty. Our speaker was very eager to point these out.

And for the most part, I agreed with him. I feel the same way he does. The current state of affairs, whether you’re looking at politics or the Churches, cannot but leave you feeling frustrated.

But, while I shared much of the speaker’s truth and his feelings, I didn’t share where he landed.

He landed in pessimism and anger, and also ended very negatively in terms of his attitude towards those whom he blames for the problem.

I can’t fault his truth and I can’t fault his feelings. They’re understandable. But I’m not at ease with where he landed. Bit-

Nicholas King SJ

God’s power behind saints

pure in heart”) who shall see God; that is not something that we can deserve for ourselves.

And the same has to be true of the “peacemakers” who “are going to be called ‘children of God’”. That is something that only God can do, of course.

And, likewise, it is only God who can give anyone the Kingdom of the Heavens (which is what is going to happen to those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness); all that happens to the saints is done by God, not by themselves.

So what is in it for the saints? They are to “rejoice and exult when people rebuke you and hassle you and say everything evil against you because of me”.

Why would you do such a thing? The answer is that when the horrors of that sort come upon us, God is there more powerfully than we might ever otherwise have guessed.

So this great feast of All the Saints celebrates the triumph of God’s action in our frail humanity.

That is something worth celebrating.

Southern Crossword #834

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

across at those whom we deem responsible for the situation, anger and hatred will naturally arise within us.

It’s okay to dwell on them for a time (because anger is an important mode of grieving) but, after a time, we need to move on.

The challenge then is to ask ourselves: How do I love now, given all this hatred?

What does love call me to now in this bitter situation? Where can I now find a common thread that can keep me in family with those at whom I’m angry? How do I reach through, reach through the space that now leaves me separated by my own justified feelings of anger?

And, perhaps most important of all: From where can I now find the strength to not give in to hatred and self-serving indignation?

We’ve never before been called upon to love in a situation like this. Our understanding, empathy, forgiveness and love have never before been tested in this way.

But that’s the ultimate moral challenge, the “test” that Jesus himself faced in Gethsemane. How do you love when everything around you invites you to the opposite?

Almost all of our natural instincts militate against this kind of empathy, as does almost everything around us. In the face of injustice our natural instincts spontaneously begin, one by one, to shut the doors of trust and make us judgmental.

They also invite us to feel indignation and hatred.

Now those feelings do produce a certain catharsis in us. It feels good. But that kind of cathartic feeling is a drug that doesn’t do much for us long range. We need something beyond feelings of bitterness and hatred for our long range health. Empathy is that something.

While not denying what’s wrong, nor denying the need to be prophetic in the face of all that’s wrong, empathy still calls us to a post-anger, a post-indignation, and a post-hatred.

Jesus modelled that for us and today it’s singularly the most needed thing in our society, our Churches, and our families.

ACROSS

4. Holy vessel found by Wonderland girl after church (7) 8. Cowardly aspect of the papal flag? (6) 9. Reformation’s archbishop of Canterbury (7) 10. A hotel you can turn to hate (6) 11. Measures taken in Winchester cathedral (6) 12. The priest does it sitting at Mass (8) 18. Early adherent of Methodist church (8) 20. Serious kind of liturgical procession (6) 21. The ... of Yahweh blows upon them (Is 4) (6) 22. Parish retreat that’s a big assignment? (7) 23. Isaac who became a physicist (6) 24. Yearned for clerical division of the diocese (7)

DOWN

1. Mythical one-eyed giant (7) 2. Without clutter and found not guilty (7) 3. One of Eli’s sons (1 Sm 4) (6) 5. Angelic instrumentalists (8) 6. Craziness (6) 7. 150 always quick to learn (6) 13. It was heavy enough to launch Noah’s ark (8) 14. Line of hereditary kings of Israel (7) 15. Holy Franciscan with Padua connection (7) 16. Pilot out eastwards is considerate to others (6) 17. Add salt to taste (6) 19. Store the monks’ food in it (6)

Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

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LITTLE girl asked her mother: “How did the human race appear?” The mother answered: “God made Adam and Eve and they had children and so was all mankind made.”

Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered: “Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.”

The confused girl returned to her mother and said: “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?”

The mother answered: “Well, dear, it is very simple: I told you about my side of the , and your father told you about his.”

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