190703

The

S outher n C ross

July 3 to July 9, 2019

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

No 5143

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Taking mission into the public square

How John Bradburne saved a family

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Page 10

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R12 (incl VAT RSA) associates-campaign

Ex-priest: Why must I live in the shadows?

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Mpako: Time will reveal plan for Pretoria

BY ERIN CARELSE

T Archbishop Dabula Mpako celebrates his first Mass as ordinary of the archdiocese of Pretoria in the cathedral of the Sacred Heart. The former bishop of Queenstown was installed to succeed Archbishop William Slattery at Zawelpoort. (Photo: Mathiebela Sebothoma)

WYD 2022 theme follows Mary

BY CouRTNEY GRoGAN

T

HE theme of World Youth Day 2022 in Lisbon will be: “Mary arose and went with haste.”

Pope Francis told the delegates of an International Youth Forum that he wants young people to reflect on this verse taken from St Luke’s biblical account of the Blessed Virgin’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth after the Annunciation, as well as two other Bible verses.

“In the two coming years, I would ask you to meditate on these two verses: ‘Young man, I say to you, arise!’ and ‘Stand up. I appoint you as a witness of what you have seen,’” the pope said.

The Portuguese capital set to host World Youth Day 2022 is just 125km by road from Fatima, one of the most-visited Marian pilgrimage sites in the world.

In Fatima, the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children in 1917.

“We were called to bring the light of Christ into the darkness of the world. You, dear young people, are called to be light in the dark night experienced by so many of

The vigil at World Youth Day in Panama City in January. The next WYD will be in 2022 in Lisbon. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) your friends who do not yet know the joy of new life in Jesus,” Pope Francis said.

He urged the youth that the more one brings Christ to others, the more one will feel his presence in their lives.

“You need one another, if you are to make a difference in a world increasingly tempted to divisiveness. Only if we journey together, will we be truly strong.”—CNA

HE new archbishop of Pretoria has said that his vision for the archdiocese’s future will be formed by his engagement with priests and laity.

Archbishop Dabula Mpako, the former bishop of Queenstown who was installed as head of Pretoria archdiocese at the church of the Beatitudes in Zwavelpoort, said that he is aware that there is an expectation of him to announce his vision, but he will have to engage with the people so that together they can reflect on what is happening. A vision will have to emerge from there.

The archdiocese of Pretoria is now entering “a new phase in its life and in its evolution as a community of faith”, Archbishop Mpako said.

“This is an era in which we are invited to renew and personally appropriate again our vision of who we are called to be as a Church and of what we are called upon to do in carrying out our mission in the present time,” he said.

“As a Church, we are today's house of God which is intended to be a house of prayer for all the people. So let us, therefore, commit ourselves as the local Church to be the envisaged house of God.” Archbishop Mpako called on all the faithful to aspire to be a local Church where everyone feels included, valued, and at home, and to ensure that no-one feels like a foreigner or outcast.

“Let us all have a strong sense of belonging to and of ownership of our archdiocese. Let us keep in mind the words repeated often by Pope Francis, that ‘the Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners’,” he said.

The archbishop noted that such a sense of belonging and ownership should naturally bring the faithful to experience themselves as one body—the Body of Christ. Such an understanding calls for the development of certain attitudes and dispositions as Catholics.

“Firstly, these have to do with how we relate to one another within the Church. St Paul says to be completely humble, and gentle. Let us strive to make our local Church such a community,” Archbishop Mpako said.

Secondly, he said, “we are to take personal responsibility for the building up of our Church”, willingly and generously building up the temple of God. The archbishop urged the people of his archdiocese to outgrow the approach of seeing the Church only as some kind of spiritual supermarket where they shop for spiritual goods to meet their spiritual needs, or as some kind of charitable organisation where they have their material needs met.

“This is evident on Sundays when people come to church just to fulfil an obligation, not even waiting for the final blessing” at the end of Mass.

“Let our approach not be, ‘what we can get from the Church’, but rather one of ‘what we can contribute as a living member’,” Archbishop Mpako said.

He reminded the congregation of what their mission as a Church is supposed to be in relation to the world.

“Our calling is not just to be a welcoming Church where everyone feels at home and valued, nor is our calling just to build up the Church community through the use of the different gifts you have been given. Rather our mission is to be, to the world, a sacrament of God’s saving and life-giving presence.”

Archbishop Mpako, who will turn 60 on September 6, succeeded Archbishop William Slattery OFM, who had served as the archdiocese’s head since 2010.

He is the fifth ordinary of Pretoria since it was erected as a vicariate in 1948 (and archdiocese as of 1951), succeeding Archbishops John Garner (1948-75), George Daniel (19752008), Paul Mandla Khumalo CMM (2008-09) and Slattery.

The Pretoria archdiocese serves about 240 000 Catholics in 67 parishes. n See also page 2

S outher n C ross Pilgrimage

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Led by Fr Lawrence Ndlovu

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The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

LOCAL

New archbishop: Hello leader, goodbye ‘cow’

BY DALuxoLo MoLoANToA

T

HE installation of Archbishop Dabula Mpako as head of the archdiocese of Pretoria was marked not only by faith but also by heartfelt tributes and good humour.

Perhaps the biggest laugh at the ceremony in the church of the Beatitudes in Zwavelpoort, Pretoria East, came when Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Mthatha, president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, described the famously loquacious outgoing Archbishop William Slattery as “a man of few words”.

For the SACBC, Bishop Sipuka thanked the archbishop of Pretoria for his eight years of service to the archdiocese. Archbishop Slattery, he joked, is a man of few words—and

“we will miss those few words”.

Bishop Sipuka said that the archbishop had been like a cow to the archdiocese, noting that a cow has many uses besides providing meat.

“A cow offers leather, milk and can also be used to draw a cart.

Archbishop Slattery has offered his life, skills and passion to the archdiocese,” the SACBC president said.

“We say thank you, Archbishop Slattery, for being our cow,” he said to much laughter from the congregation of about 2 000, which included eight bishops and two archbishops emeritus of the archdiocese, Archbishops George Daniel and Slattery.

Bishop Sipuka commended Archbishop Mpako to the faithful of Pretoria. Noting that the new archbishop had served for many years in Pretoria, including a stint

as vicar-general, the bishop said: “He has been here before, so you are getting him back.”

Bishop Sipuka said that the new archbishop’s work was cut out for him, but as Archbishop Mpako knows the archdiocese well, he will not need an extended period of acclimatisation to it.

The bishop said that the archdiocese is getting a natural-born shepherd and a skilled leader in Archbishop Mpako.

“Having been with Archbishop Mpako in the SACBC, and in our home province of the Eastern Cape, I wish to assure you as the archdiocese of Pretoria that you are getting a good pastor who ensures the wellbeing of everyone he comes across.”

Addressing the gathered faithful, Archbishop Mpako said: “I offer

myself to be your friend, companion and co-worker.”

In his homily, the new archbishop, who is also the first vicepresident of the SACBC, retraced his roots from Mthatha, in the Eastern Cape, to his days as a seminarian in Lesotho, his ordination, his appointment as a priest engaged in various roles mainly in the archdiocese of Pretoria, his appointment as bishop of Queenstown in his home province, and back to his “training ground”, the Pretoria archdiocese as its new archbishop.

“I have come full circle,” Archbishop Mpako said. “I was ordained a priest here in Pretoria. I spent all of my 25 years as a priest here in Pretoria. I now return here, to my home away from home, as your servant and archbishop,” he said.

The archbishop said that it had

been a long journey, “but, as former president Nelson Mandela once said, after climbing a great hill, one finds only that there are more hills to climb. I trust that we will succeed in ascending these hills ahead of us”.

He expressed his gratitude to the archdiocese of Queenstown, where he had spent the past eight years as a bishop, “for embracing and caring for me beyond my expectations over the period of my tenure”.

“I went to Queenstown as a novice bishop,” he said, “now I return as a seasoned bishop—sorry, make that archbishop,” he quipped.

In his role for the day as a facilitator, Fr Chris Townsend introduced a host of speakers at the end of the Mass service to speak on the new archbishop’s appointment.

Continued on page 11

Jhb talk by nuns on consecrated life

T

WO well-known Sisters will present a talk on the consecrated religious life and current developments in Johannesburg this month.

Srs Biddy Rose Tiernan and Shelagh Mary Waspe will deliver their presentation, titled “Sisters (Still) in Arms”, at an event hosted by We Are All Church SA at Rosebank church’s Harry Wilkinson Hall on Saturday, July 20 at 9:30.

Sr Tiernan, of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, has served in her congregation’s leadership several times.

Her professional background is in education, and she was the second director of the Catholic Institute of Education.

Sr Tiernan is also well-known for her

social justice ministry.

Sr Waspe, a Holy Family Sister, has a background in the medical world. A veteran of the social justice ministry, she has served as vicar for Justice & Peace in Johannesburg archdiocese.

Between them, the two Sisters have over 100 years’ experience in the consecrated religious life.

Both are founding members of Sisters for Justice, a group that has met since the early 1980s.

The organisers ask for an RSVP by July 18. Entrance is free but a donation is welcome (suggested amount R50). n RSVP Douglas Irvine at dmirvine@ mweb.co.za or SMS 082 330-3043.

Future priests: (From left) Kgaugelo Ntsie, Limpho Maoela and Tshepo Duik were ordained to the transitory diaconate in Johannesburg’s Christ the King cathedral. (Photo: Khanya Lithabe)

Docu on monks coming on TV

Passion Pilgrimage 2020

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Led by Archbishop William Slattery OFM

A

DOCUMENTARY on the monastic life in South Africa will be broadcast on SABC on Sunday, July 14, at 11:30.

Produced by Patricia Proctor, who also made recent TV documentaries on the saints and the Catholic Church’s bicentennial in South Africa, the documentary will witness a Benedictine monk making his final vows.

Among the locations is the Benedictine Inkamana Monastery in Vryheid, northern KwaZulu-Natal.

“The whole experience was amazing as they allowed us into their private cloister and dining room,” Ms Proctor told The Southern Cross.

“All the monks were so good to us; we felt we had met a group of truly holy people.”

New members of the Children of Mary Sodality at St Peter Claver Catholic church in Pimville, Soweto, were blessed by parish priest Fr Tom Segami oMI. (Photo: Sello Mokoka)

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Oudtshoorn holds mini-WYD BY oLWEN WEST

A

BOUT 250 youth and young adults experienced a World Youth Day at a smaller scale as the diocese of Oudtshoorn held a mini-WYD in George.

Held over a weekend at St Mary’s parish, the programme included praise and worship, catechism, rosary making and prayer, adoration and reconciliation, and a talent show.

Another component was social outreach. Youths were divided into groups to visit either old age homes

or houses of safety for battered and abused women.

Youth groups from Cape Town and Keimoes-Upington archdioceses, and a Society of St Vincent de Paul group from Port Elizabeth diocese, also took part.

This was Oudtshoorn diocese’s second mini-WYD, after 2017’s event at the Dysselsdorp Don Bosco Youth Centre.

The diocese is already planning its third mini-WYD, to be held in the western deanery in 2021.

The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

LOCAL

3

Dying man: I want to come to the light A

MAN dying of Aids approached missionaries during an event in Witbank and said: “I want to be clean and come to the light. Please call the priest to come and sit next to me because I don’t have any strength left in me.”

With Fr Boulos Mikhael’s help, he moved to a quiet place, where he made a confession and Fr Mikhael counselled him.

This was one of many encounters during this year’s eight-weeklong Great Mission in the Squares, which is held by the Neocatechumenal Way annually in cities around the world.

In South Africa, the mission happened simultaneously in Stellenbosch, Eersterust (Pretoria) and Witbank’s King George Park.

“Every year we go into public squares to announce the Gospel, worldwide,” said Dino Furgione, who is responsible for the Neocatechumenal Way in Southern Africa.

“It started six years ago in Rome following the desire of Pope Francis.”

Italian Anna Lala, with her husband and two youngest daughters, is in mission based in Cape Town and said the busy taxi interchange at Stellenbosch was the “square” of choice.

Fr Francesco Fabris sings the Gospel reading of the day in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, while seminarian Mattia Poropat accompanies him on guitar, during this year’s Mission in the Squares, held by the Neocatechumenal Way in cities around the world.

“We sang, we danced and we announced the Gospel. We also did morning prayers with the seminarians and priests who always accompany us,” she said.

Mrs Lala said it was by the strength of the Holy Spirit she re-

ceived at Easter that she was able to get up and go to the mission the Neocatechumenal Way holds every Saturday morning.

“It is always difficult to go, to start, because I’m thinking of all the things I want to do on a Saturday,

but the Holy Spirit led us,” she said.

“So I went there with a small heart, but I saw the many people who were suffering, the many people who needed to be saved, and I could not remain indifferent.

“There were many people who came there already drunk, in the early morning, there were many drug addicts, and they really needed this word, they really needed to hear about the resurrection of Christ to start a new life,” Mrs Lala said.

She said the experience also gave the missionaries a chance to interact and speak to people personally.

This was also Juan’s experience in Witbank, even though during the first few weeks, no one approached them in the square.

“Nobody approached us, nor stopped to listen,” he said. “But at the penitential service more than ten people stopped, listened and made a confession.”

Among these were homeless people and drug addicts, he said, as well a man who was dying but reluctant to approach to priests.

“When Fr Boulos was almost finished, a man walked in front of me; and I saw in his eyes the need for

me to approach him,” Juan said.

“So I went and discovered that he was literally dying, due to a lack of his HIV-medication.

“I asked him; ‘Do you want God to forgive all your sins and embrace your soul in heaven?’ He said, ‘Yes sir. How can I do that? How can I come to the light? How? Where?’”

“I replied: ‘Confess your sins, denounce yourself before the Lord with repentance so that when you die and sit in his presence, you will be cleansed and under the light.’”

The man then asked for a priest to help him confess.

Juan explained that this example showed why it was important to take the Gospel to people by meeting them where they are.

“Where and how does a man know, can a man know God’s love?

In a house? No, many people are homeless. In a job? No, many have no job. In a family? In a bank account?,” he asked.

“No! Only in the forgiveness of your sins,” Juan said.

“Whether you are a prostitute, have killed a man, or broken into somebody else’s house, there is the greatest manifestation of love—God loves you as you are.”

Volunteers join parish renewal I Jesus calling you to mission?’”

“Massgoers also received a handout sharing the vision and mission of the parish, as well as a prayer card highlighting our call as a community to become missionary disciples,” he said.

At the beginning of Masses, Fr Keith Gordon-Davis encouraged congregants to introduce themselves by name to those around them.

“This was met with a buzz around the church as people learnt the names of those they had seen at Mass regularly but could now put a name to. Some of us met others for the very first time,” Mr Miles said.

“Once the buzz died down Fr Keith requested that we do the same again—but now ask those people, by name, ‘Is Jesus calling

you to mission?’” he said. “And with that, the buzz was even louder than before as everyone joined in on what was a fun way of calling ourselves and others to mission,” Mr Miles explained.

Renato Acquisto of Alpha addressed the congregation on the importance of the Holy Spirit and the call on the faithful to mission.

More than 100 parishioners came forward to sign up for mission and will be invited to a mission evening and a course to discern where they might best serve. n Alpha starts on August 4 at Bryanston parish. Call Mandy on 082 452-6228 or Taryn on 083 3601636 for details. For more information on Divine Renovation, see www.maintenancetomission.co.za

St Augustine’s parish in Giyani, Tzaneen diocese, has celebrated Bl Benedict Daswa’s June 16, 1946, birthday for several years. This Mass was followed by cutting the birthday cake, plus singing and dancing. Bl Daswa’s home village of Tshitanini is also in Tzaneen diocese. (Photo: Sr Tshifhiwa Munzhedzi oP)

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N line with Canadian priest Fr James Mallon’s renowned Divine Renovation parish renewal process, an Alpha course will be run at the church of the Resurrection in Bryanston, Johannesburg, as of early August.

Parishioners are encouraged to attend along with someone they know of who is no longer going to church or not yet a Christian. Bringing people to Alpha, organisers say, is a concrete missionary step.

Tom Miles, head of regional development of Alpha Africa, which is propagating the Divine Renovation model of parish mission, said Bryanston parishioners at all Masses were greeted “by an enthusiastic team inviting them to get a nametag which included the inscription, ‘Is

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The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

INTERNATIONAL

'Robust' religious freedom Jubilee for air travellers, key to counter terrorism Loreto pilgrims in 2020

M

ANY terrorist attacks and other violence against houses of worship, religious sites and faith communities around the world “are finally receiving the attention, condemnation and committed response they deserve”, Archbishop Bernardito Auza said at the United Nations.

The archbishop, who is the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, spoke of the attacks on Catholic churches and an evangelical community in Sri Lanka, on Christians in some regions of Nigeria, in Iraq and Syria, on a synagogue in the US, and countless other such attacks. ““There is a need to focus on the responsibility and actions of states to protect all their citizens equally as well as to address with vigour the cultural factors necessary to promote tolerance and inclusivity,” Archbishop Auza said.

The archbishop outlined several actions he said were needed to achieve such tolerance and inclusivity, starting with “a robust promotion of the right to freedom of conscience, religion and belief”.

Archbishop Bernardito Auza called for fostering tolerance and inclusivity to counter terrorism and acts of violence based on religion or belief. (Photo: Kim Haughton/CNS) “A second step is guaranteeing the equality of all citizens before the law, regardless of their religious or ethnic identity, as a basic demand of justice,” Archbishop Auza stated.

Next, he said, there must be “a positive and respectful separation of religion and state. These two spheres ought to collaborate according to their specific competencies for the

good of all citizens, but they should not be confused or conflated.”

He also called for appealing “to all political, social and religious leaders to condemn the use of religion to incite hatred and violence or to justify acts of oppression, exile, murder or terrorism”, “To be effective and not alienate,” Archbishop Auza said, “this appeal must simultaneously ensure that religions themselves not be blamed for homicidal madness, but rather the blame remain with those who misinterpret or manipulate religious belief to commit evil, supposedly in God’s name, for political or ideological purposes.”

On the education front, Archbishop Auza said, “society reaps what it sows”.

Therefore, he continued, teaching in schools, pulpits and through the Internet must “not foment intransigence and extremist radicalisation” but instead train students in “dialogue, reverence for the dignity of others, reconciliation, justice, and respect for the rule of law”, he said.— CNS

M

ARKING the 100th anniversary of the declaration of Our Lady of Loreto as the patron saint of aviation and aviators, Pope Francis has authorised a special jubilee year of celebrations, especially at the Italian shrine of Our Lady of Loreto.

“The Holy Father has conceded the Laurentian Jubilee for all air travellers, both military and civilian, and for all those pilgrims to the shrine of the Holy House from every part of the world,” said Archbishop Fabio Dal Cin, the papal delegate to the shrine.

According to pious tradition, Mary’s house in Nazareth was flown by angels to Italy in 1294.

In 1920, Pope Benedict XV named Our Lady of Loreto the patron saint of aviation and those who work in aviation or travel by air.

The jubilee year will open on the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, and will conclude in 2020 on the feast of Our Lady of Loreto on December 10.

In 1991, Pope John Paul II celebrated the Loreto feast day with a Mass for pilots, flight attendants, ground crews and air traffic controllers in a hangar at Rome’s Fiumi-

Holy House of Loreto in Loreto, Italy. (Photo: CNA) cino airport.

Our Lady of Loreto, he had said, is “patron and protector of people who fly. We invoke her so that she would watch over your work, which is sometimes risky and heavy, and over all those who contribute to the good functioning of airports”.

“The complex world of air transport is certainly a large and important reality of our time,” Pope John Paul II had said.

“Employing more than 20 million men and women and transporting about a billion passengers each year, it has a profound impact on the life and habits of people.”—CNS

Ruling that mentally disabled Bishops condemn seizure woman can give birth praised of Catholic health centres E M NGLISH bishops welcomed a Court of Appeal ruling that a pregnant mentally disabled woman did not need to have an abortion.

The court overturned an earlier Court of Protection ruling that the Nigerian Catholic woman in her 20s, who cannot be named for legal reasons, must undergo the abortion because it was in her “best interests”. The woman has the mental age of between 6-9 years and at the time of the ruling was about 22 weeks pregnant.

“It is both astonishing and shocking” that England’s National Health Service “should seek to end a healthy pregnancy against the wishes of the pregnant woman, her mother, and her social worker,” said

Auxiliary Bishop John Sherrington of Westminster, who takes the lead on life issues for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

“Forcing a woman to have an abortion against her will, and that of her close family, would have infringed her human rights and the right of her unborn child to life in a family that has committed to caring for this child.

“In a free society like ours, there is a delicate balance between the rights of the individual and the powers of the state, and the initial ruling upset that balance. I am therefore pleased that the recent ruling has taken the woman’s best interests into account and has upheld her rights in this case,” he said.

“This case raises fundamental

questions of human rights, and there is now an urgent need for the government to clarify what the limits are on the powers of the state to force abortions on women who do not want them,” he said.

Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury said: “It would have been a dark day for the British legal system if the courts forced a mother against her will to have an abortion.

“The disregard of the fundamental right to life of the unborn child would be compounded by the disregard of the rights of the mother and her family,” he said. “It is impossible to comprehend how a court could also fail to take into account the damage inflicted by abortion on a woman’s health .”—CNS

BY FRANCIS NJuGuNA

EMBERS of bishops’ conferences in East Africa have condemned the Eritrea government’s seizure of health facilities belonging to the Catholic Church.

They also assured Eritrean bishops and Catholics of their solidarity after the seizure.

The Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECA) told the bishops it hoped God would “nurture you with the hope and give you the necessary courage and stamina to stand strong in defence of the rights of the Church and God’s people”.

The Eritrean government confiscated all Church-run clinics and

health centres. Government security officers are said to have removed the staff from the health centres and closed them. Patients were ordered to go home and soldiers were deployed to guard the centres, the bishops said in a letter to the ministry of health.

The Church runs more than 20 clinics in Eritrea, and many are on the property of monasteries.

“The government can say it doesn’t want the services of the Church, but asking for the property is not right,” Eritrean bishops said in the letter.

AMECEA groups bishops from Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia.—CNS

Pope calls for theological dialogue with Muslims, Jews

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OPE Francis delivered a speech calling for theological dialogue with Islam and Judaism in pontifical universities as part of “a theology of dialogue and acceptance”.

“Theology students should be educated in dialogue with Judaism and Islam to understand the common roots and differences of our religious identities, and thus contribute more effectively to building a society that values diversity and fosters respect, brotherhood and peaceful coexistence,” Pope Francis said in front of Naples’ Jesuit-run pontifical Catholic university.

“With Muslims we are called to dialogue to build the future of our societies and our cities; we are called to consider them partners to build a peaceful coexistence, even when there are shocking episodes by fanatical groups, who are enemies of dialogue, like the tragedy of last Easter in Sri Lanka,” he said.

Pope Francis’ 30-minute speech in Naples presented his vision of “theology in the context of the Mediterranean”, an area, he said, of transit, exchange, and historical conflict that is now called to be a bridge between Europe, Africa,

Pope Francis delivers speech in Naples, Italy. (Photo: Daniel Ibanez/CNA) and Asia.

“The multicultural and multi-religious reality of the new Mediterranean is formed…in the dialogue that comes from listening to the people and texts of the great monotheistic religions, and especially in listening to young people,” Francis said.

The pope’s message focused on theological study within pontifical universities as outlined in the apostolic constitution Veritatis Gaudium published in January 2018. Ver-

itatis Gaudium stipulated new norms of governance and education for all institutions that issue ecclesiastical degrees.

“In theological faculties and ecclesiastical universities, courses in Arabic and Hebrew language and culture are to be encouraged, as well as mutual understanding between Christian, Jewish and Muslim students,” he said.”

Pope Francis said that the Church needs theologians open to the inexhaustible novelties of the Spirit, who can escape the self-referential and competitive environment of academia, and act as “men and women of compassion”.

The pope also said that the contribution women are giving and can give to theology is indispensable and must be supported.

“Without communion and without compassion, constantly nourished by prayer, theology not only loses the soul, but loses … the ability to interpret reality in a Christian way,” he said.

“The first sources of theology, that is, the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, are inexhaustible and always fruitful,” Pope Francis said.—CNA

The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

INTERNATIONAL

Vatican expands abuse rules to lay movements

BY JuNNo ARoCHo ESTEVES

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ILLIONS of Catholics live their faith through their association with lay movements and Catholic groups, but some also lost their faith when they were sexually abused in those groups and felt they had nowhere to turn.

While much of the Church’s recent focus has been on clerical sexual abuse and the accountability of diocesan bishops, the Vatican is making child protection a priority for new movements and lay associations, too.

The Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life brought together close to 100 representatives of Catholic associations and movements for a meeting on abuse prevention and procedures for reporting and handling allegations.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Vatican office, told the representatives that by the end of December every movement and association in the Church must turn in formal guidelines and protocols for reporting and preventing cases of abuse.

Cardinal Farrell said some Catholics in parts of the world think holding another meeting about the abuse crisis shows that the scandal has become “a fixation”, “an unhealthy obsession” or “a pesky exaggeration”.

“In truth, the logic is exactly the reverse,” he said. “It is the abuse of power and of conscience that is an evil, an unhealthy obsession, a real manipulation, that suffocates and frustrates even the best pastoral plans, obscuring the good that the

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, brought together representatives of lay movements and associations to review child protection policies.

Church accomplishes.”

Linda Ghisoni, undersecretary for laity at the dicastery, read out the testimonies of three anonymous members of lay movements who suffered abuse and were further harmed by their group’s sense of omerta, a term that refers to the Mafia’s code of silence.

O

ne survivor wrote that while it was difficult to speak about the abuse while still being a part of the association, she understood that her “silence aggravates guilt and hinders the truth, making me an accomplice of evil and sin”.

Another survivor, who was abused by two priests—one of whom was supposed to help her re-

cover from her first abuse—said she felt she no longer had “access to God”.

She also said that she and others who have denounced abuse are targeted by critics, including “some bishops who continue to repeat that one of those priests is so good”.

Ms Ghisoni warned that groups that boast of strict orthodoxy often have an authoritarian and restrictive managerial style, one that does not include members in decision-making, thus spreading “subliminal messages that excludes those who criticise”.

Other groups that have no real structure and lax rules are equally at risk of creating an environment where sexual abuse can thrive, she added.

“Unfortunately, we see it every day: Institutions and ecclesiastical entities who were believed to be close to Church doctrine and waving the banner of orthodoxy today are under investigation for abuse,” Ms Ghisoni said.

Explaining the Church’s procedures for handling cases of abuse, Philip Milligan, head of the dicastery’s legal office, said the groups must create “clear pathways for reporting abuse”.

Mr Milligan also insisted the groups understand who is considered a “vulnerable adult” when it comes to abuse.

Seemingly “consensual sexual activity between adults can, because of the state of mind or the situation of one of the persons, actually be a situation of sexual abuse”, Mr Milligan said. Such abuse, whether committed by a cleric or a lay person, is punishable in canon law.—CNS

Protest halts Vatican football match

T

HE members of the Vatican’s womens’ football team decided not to play their first foreign match when a couple of members of the opposing team lifted their shirts to reveal slogans protesting against the Church’s opposition to abortion.

Vienna’s Mariahilf women’s team had invited the new Vatican team to Austria as part of the Vienna team’s 25th anniversary celebrations.

But during the playing of the Vatican anthem just before the match was to begin, several members of the

Mariahilf team lifted their shirts to show protests painted on their bellies and backs. One said, “My body, my rule”.

At the same time, in the stands, someone unfurled a banner reading, “Against homophobia”.

“The protest took the Vatican players who simply expected a celebration of sports by surprise,” said Vatican News. Along with their coaches, the women “made the difficult decision not to play the match so as to prevent the manipulation of

an event they had prepared for with joy”.

Just over half of the team members are Vatican employees, the others are the wives or daughters of employees.

Male Vatican employees have had teams and an intramural tournament for decades; the women formed their team early this year to play five-a-side games, but the match in Vienna was to be a regulation game with 11 players on each team.—CNS

Pope Francis leads an audience with members of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations in the Sala Regia at the Vatican.

(Photo: Vatican Media)

Pope: Doctors are servants of all, not owners of life

BY JuNNo ARoCHo ESTEVES

C

ATHOLIC doctors have a mission to show God's compassionate love to those who are suffering and to defend life at all stages, Pope Francis said.

While progress has been made in treating patients, medical professionals always must “remember that healing means respecting the gift of life from the beginning to the end”, the pope said during a meeting with members of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations.

“We are not the owners: Life is entrusted to us and doctors are its servants,” he said. “Your mission is at the same time a witness of humanity, a privileged way of making people see, of making them feel that God our father takes care of every single person, without distinction.”

Members of the association were in Rome to celebrate the organisation’s consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Noting that the first Christian communities presented Jesus as a physician, the pope said that Christ’s primary mission was to be close to the sick and the suffering, especially those “who were despised and marginalised” because of their conditions.

“In this way, Jesus breaks the judgment of condemnation that often labelled the sick person as a

Church gives comfort after Trump threats

BY RHINA GuIDoS

T

HE president’s threats came and went in tweets, but priests, women and men religious, Church-affiliated organisations and even some bishops from around the United States were left trying to dampen the fear they sparked among immigrant communities of faith.

After President Donald Trump used the social media platform Twitter to announce that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would soon be removing “millions of illegal aliens…“as fast as they come in”, panic had set in among immigrant communities bracing for roundups that would target families.

Baltimore was one of ten cities that would have been affected by the raids, according to news reports that also listed Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco and Miami as potential targets.

That day Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore visited Sacred Heart, a predominantly immigrant Latino parish. “I came to express my solidarity, my love, my care for the immigrant com-

uS President Donald Trump took to Twitter to announce a clampdown on “illegal aliens”.

(Photo:Carlos Barria, Reuters/CNS) munity,” he told the Baltimore Sun newspaper By then, Mr Trump had called off the raids in another tweet. He said that at the urging of Democrats, he would delay the action for two weeks to see if they could arrive at an agreement over asylum. If they did not agree: “Deportations start!”

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, in a letter addressed to the archdiocese’s pastors, gave advice for those ministering to immigrant communities.

“The best response is to quietly remind people that they

should remain vigilant, reduce public activities, refuse entry to anyone purporting to be law enforcement without a warrant,” he wrote.

Archbishop Wenski also reminded them of an ICE policy that tells agents to avoid apprehending in a “sensitive” location, such as a Church, and that undertaking such a major operation would prove difficult for the agency.

Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, Texas, chair of the US bishops’ conference’s Committee on Migration, said in a statement that while the bishops recognise the right of nations to control their borders, the planned “broad enforcement actions instigate panic in our communities and will not serve as an effective deterrent to irregular migration”.

“Instead, we should focus on the root causes in Central America that have compelled so many to leave their homes in search of safety and reform our immigration system with a view towards justice and the common good.

We stand ready to work with the administration and Congress to achieve those objectives,” Bishop Vasquez said.—CNS

5

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sinner,” he explained. “With this compassionate closeness, he manifests God the father’s infinite love for his most needy children.”

Jesus, Pope Francis continued, would approach those suffering from illness and care for them “with sincere love” and heal not only their bodies, but also their hearts through the forgiveness of sins.

Christ would also share “a personal relationship that was rich, not mechanical, not at a distance” with those oppressed by both physical and spiritual illness, the pope added.

“You are called to encourage, to console, to raise, to give hope,” he told the physicians. “We cannot be cured and cure without hope; in this we are all in need and grateful to God, who gives us hope.”

The style of Catholic doctors, Pope Francis said, must be one that “combines professionalism with the capacity for collaboration and ethical rigour” that benefits suffering patients.

“By continually renewing yourselves,” the pope said, “by drawing on the sources of the word of God and the sacraments, you will be able to carry out your mission well, and the Spirit will give you the gift of discernment to deal with delicate and complex situations, and to speak the right words in the right way and with the right silence at the right time.”—CNS

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The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The weight of an elephant on your back

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Where is Christ?

M

ANY deeply committed Catholics have responded to the ongoing scandals in the Church by grappling with a most important question: Why should I stay in the Church?

Introspective articles on that question have been published across the Catholic media worldwide. Almost invariably, the writers find convincing reasons why they should stay (those who do not presumably feel there is no market for their views in the Catholic press).

Some of these reflections wrestle admirably with theology, but the conclusion is simple: if we choose to leave because of the actions of humans, then we understand the Church as a mere human institution and not as the Church of God. While priests, bishops and popes are called to guide us to salvation and provide the faithful with spiritual nourishment on their earthly pilgrimage—as most do in selfless and virtuous service—our faith must be in God, not man.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Church founded by Christ.

The Church is the perfect Bride of Christ, not the institution which has always been stained by human failure.

If we see the Church as a mere human institution, then we place man before God. And when we do that, what was our faith in the first place? And what trauma makes people lose that faith?

If we leave the Catholic Church for another denomination—one with fewer public scandals, or better preaching, or more lively worship, or doctrines we like—we also relinquish the rich fruits of the Catholic faith.

Chief among these is the Real Presence in the Eucharist. If one does not believe that at its consecration the host becomes the Living Bread, then it is easy to leave that behind. But is it possible to give up the Living Bread if one truly believes in the Real Presence?

The reasons for staying in the Catholic Church are simple and obvious. So why are people leaving anyway, and possibly never coming back?

One chief reason may reside in the Church’s failure to propose Christ convincingly.

To be sure, proselytising

T

Christian communities and secular and materialistic societies are fielding counter-propositions which evidently are compelling to many people.

But the institutional Catholic Church has also helped to feed these counter-propositions—by failing to make Christ persuasively visible.

Of course, Christ is very much present in the Catholic Church.

The scandals notwithstanding, the Catholic Church is a great force for good in the world.

But what many people do see is a Church that judges, shames, condemns and excludes those who do not live up to the ideals its leaders insist on—ideals they so often fail to meet themselves.

People see hypocrisy in a Church where leaders exercise power which seeks not to persuade but to dictate; a Church whose leadership is compromised by reprehensible scandal but still feels entitled to judge the morality of others.

And when people see the Church in that way, then they may not see Christ within it.

Pope Francis has exhorted the Church to open its doors, to welcome those in search of God and to accompany people—even and especially those in most need of it—on the path to salvation.

The pope’s objective is not to create a warm and fuzzy Church—though warmth is essential—but to lead people to experience God’s life-giving presence. And we do this, Pope Francis suggests, by witnessing Christ’s infinite love and divine mercy.

But what good is it to open the doors of the Church and issue invitations to meet Christ when inside people find it difficult to locate him?

How can we propose Christ when he is obscured by control, laws, vanity, corruption, and so often even a lack of the very love he commands people to share with one another?

How can we illuminate Christ in a Church when it so often judges, shames, condemns and excludes? How can we propose Christ when we talk more about the law than we do about his love?

And how can we be surprised when people who don’t see Christ alive in our Church walk out to find him elsewhere—or, worse, give up on seeking him altogether?

HANK you for the refreshingly honest article by Jenny Uebbing, “Why I am not leaving the Church” (May 29).

Even in dispelling some longheld myths and digesting the scandal which is upsetting to all—well, she remains wanting the sacraments...wanting Jesus.

Who can and will “fire” offenders—those who take money from parishioners’ honest giving; those who wallow, like an elephant, in the mud of people’s deification of their position.

Jesus’ fear and courage on Cross

But for every bad priest there is a genuinely good one, a St Bartholomew, who, with integrity, love and no guile, comes to serve and repair so much damage.

If you want to change anything in the Catholic Church, well, you have the weight of an elephant on your back.

The Holy Spirit highlights error quickly, but to rectify it is no light matter. Like the liturgy it is weighty, cumbersome and unchanging.

There is, of course, comfort in that, but we run the risk of just

ATHER Ron Rolheiser in his column “Who wants to die like Jesus?” (June 12) presented a fascinating commentary on Iris Murdoch’s quote, “A common soldier dies without fear; Jesus died afraid.”

My sense is that Jesus’s death was unique and terrifying. I would venture that no human being, now or in the past, could have been aware of their fate as was Jesus. Throughout his adult life he knew of the ultimate fate which awaited him.

In the garden he was given a clear, terrifying and vivid vision of this fate, and because he was human sought redress, but then cried out with final acceptance: “Let it be done in accordance with your will.” Courage indeed!

Throughout his Passion he faced the seemingly endless mental and physical agony with utter calm and courage, until his cry on the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This was a cry of mental anguish and questioning rather than fear; confirming that he was fully human.

The comparison between Jesus’ Passion and the courageous soldier giving his life on the battlefield, or folks facing the pain and difficulty of lengthy illness, cannot be made.

Their courage is unquestionable, but Jesus’ Passion is not comparable to other forms of death, as fearful and painful as they might be.

His final cry on the Cross as he died confirmed his humanity.

Rex Glanville, Johannesburg

Ambitious death

I

RESPECT Fr Ron Rolheiser’s article, “Who wants to die like Jesus?”, but find it to be a rather sensitive topic.

The first question that came to my mind when I read the headline was, “Can anyone die like Jesus?”

My answer would be “No.” No one can die like Jesus, nor are we expected to. This is the whole point of Jesus’ death.

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I believe that the power of Jesus’ death lies in the fact that no one has to die like him, nor embrace it as he had to. We are called to rather live as he lived—because of the way he died.

Jesus’ fear was indeed the high point of his passion because he had to be and indeed was fully human while he is God. I find it’s too sensitive to add a greater meaning to his fear and emotions shortly before his crucifixion, rather than to acknowledge that he was indeed fully human when he gave his life for us and so be fully surrendered in our worship.

The highest point of Jesus death, for me, is the fact that he gave his life, not that he simply embraced death in fear and died in anguish.

That he gave his life is divine courage, strength and power that people/sinners are not capable of, nor are we called to demonstrate that kind supernatural power in our faith.

I find it’s more important to apply the right kind of humility in our faith even while we strive to be more like Jesus.

To imagine that we could ever be capable of dying like Jesus is quite ambitious. Isn’t it?

Elaine Chinsamy, Durban

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trundling along in semi-conscious acceptance of bad things because hey, who can change that? Who would dare?

We are all so average. For me redemption lies in never giving up in doing good.

Those bad guys…well, I am sort of sick of justifying the Church. Let people see my life and if God be pleased with it, then let it bring glory to him and all the angels and saints upon whose constant intercession we rely on for unfailing help.

Lucy Moll, Pretoria

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ATHER Ralph de Hahn asks if the Church today is what Christ had in mind (June 19).

Fr De Hahn stresses the Church’s professed commitment to alleviating the lot of the poor. But not every profession of commitment is acted out as supposed to be.

A meaningful story comes down to us from as recently as 2017. In that year the Holy See requested $25 million from the American Papal Foundation, a large charitable organisation.

The money was to be used towards a scandal-ridden Roman hospital, the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata, that was investigated by Italian authorities for embezzlement and tax fraud.

Although some members of the foundations’s board of trustees were against the donation, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the now-retired archbishop of Washington, managed to outmuscle them and the grant was approved.

One board member quit his position in protest, saying in his resignation letter: “I found this grant to be negligent in character, flawed in its diligence and contrary to the spirit of the foundation. Instead of helping the poor in a third-world country, the board approved an unprecedented huge grant to a hospital that has a history of mismanagement and bankruptcy.”

Is that what Christ had in mind about the Church today? Is this what Fr De Hahn calls the beginning of the reformation within the Church?

We know the outcome of any reformation: heresy. Let us pray for a contra-reformation subito.

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

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

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The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

PERSPECTIVES

As an ex-priest, I live in a shadow Paul R Traynor ECENTLY, a group I belong to was preparing a discussion on the place of the laity in the Church. Along with two others I was asked to prepare a short presentation to stimulate the discussion.

I was asked to contribute from the point of view of someone who had experience both of the clerical and lay states within the Church—in other words because I am a voluntarily laicised priest.

Johannesburg’s archdiocesan newspaper, ADNews, reported that I spoke of my “transition from cleric to a fettered layperson”. The description of my being a restricted layperson was precise and accurate.

In giving my short presentation I decided to share publicly for the first time the contents of the letter I had received from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments dated March 1, 2000 on my “dismissal from the clerical state and dispensation from obligations”.

I have never shared it before because the contents make it obvious that it should not be disseminated. In the intervening 19 years I have honoured that implicit confidentiality and have come to terms with the conditions of the document in my own way—as, I am sure, have tens of thousands of men in my situation over the decades.

When I came to consider the presentation I was asked to give, it somehow seemed appropriate to point to the conflicts I have experienced in living in the Church for almost 20 years while trying to honour the restrictions placed on me.

I will not quote the full document but quote selectively what I consider the main points of contradiction contained in it (I would be willing to make the document available to anyone who would like to view it).

The process and its expression may have changed in the meantime, but this is the one I have lived with and I have not been advised of any changes since.

istry, except for those matters mentioned in canons 976, 986 para 2, and therefore cannot preach a homily. He cannot function as an extraordinary minister for distribution of Holy Communion, and he cannot be given a directive office in the pastoral field; b) In the same way he cannot fulfil any duty in the seminary or in equivalent institutes; c) In institutes of higher learning, in any way dependent on ecclesiastical authority, he cannot exercise a directive position or the office of teaching; d) In institutes of higher learning not dependent on ecclesiastical authority he cannot teach a properly theological subject or one that is closely connected with it; e) In institutes of lower grade dependent on ecclesiastical authority, however, a directive post or a teaching office, a dispensed priest is bound by the same law in regard to teaching religion in institutes of the same grade not dependent on ecclesiastical authority; f) By itself a priest who is dispensed from celibacy, and all the more so if he is married, must remain absent from places in which his prior condition is known.

There follows another four paragraphs, but the above constitute the major conditions that have defined my place in the Church over the almost 20 years.

scarcity, be permitted to exercise the ministries they were ordained for. Personally I think there should be serious discussion on that point.

Some would also argue that the theological training they have received should not be invalidated or discarded. There is a wealth of knowledge and experience, gained at great expense, which has simply been discarded. Again, I would support discussion on that topic.

Many will see that the demand that a laicised priest should keep his prior condition a secret, especially if he is married, is totally unjust as it condemns him not just to a fettered Christian life but to a shadow existence within the community.

The Church’s justification for such restriction is to avoid scandalising the People of God. For the past nine years I have lived in a parish where the priest-in-charge—a convert from another denomination—is a married man with a family and I have yet to meet a parishioner who thinks it is a scandal. And why should they?

I

T

feel I should point out that I requested a dispensation after having served in various pastoral capacities in Scotland, Botswana, Ireland and South Africa over a period of 18 years and was not sanctioned or fired for misconduct. It is in that context that I question the draconian restrictions imposed on myself and many others in similar situations.

Some would argue that laicised priests should, in these times of vocational

T

he document states that the ecclesiastical authority (the bishop or, if I was a religious priest, major superior) is to exhort me earnestly “in accord with his new condition of living [as a layperson] to share the life of the People of God, to promote its development, and to show himself to be a most loving son of the Church”.

But at the same time, however, the bishop was to make known to me the following: a) “He [referring to me] remains excluded from exercise of the sacred min-

When a man leaves the priesthood, he joins the laity in the pews. But, as Paul Traynor explains, he is forced to live a shadow existence as a lay Catholic.

Point of Debate

he point I would like to make here is that as baptised members of the Church we have a right to live that baptism fully within the community of the faithful. Our status as members of the People of God, lay members of the Church, precedes any other status we may occupy within the community.

The sacrament of baptism is foundational to our dignity as Christians and should not be subjected to restrictions or be thought of as inferior in any way to that of any other baptised Christian.

The upcoming synod in the Johannesburg archdiocese asks: “What kind of Church do you want to belong to, and what are the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving that?”

I want a Church that recognises the dignity that accords to all its members, treats them with equal respect and is accountable to them.

What stands in the way is a culture of authoritarianism, defensiveness and secrecy.

I pray that a synodal approach will be successful and will be sustained both in Johannesburg archdiocese and throughout the Church.

Conversion can change the world!

Sarah-Leah T Pimentel HE film Amazing Grace (2006) recounts the efforts by William Wilberforce to convince late-18th century England to abolish the international slave trade. But it wasn’t Wilberforce’s plight that draws my attention, but rather the conversion story of the most unlikely of heroes.

John Newton was, to all intents and purposes, an unexpected candidate for a spiritual rebirth. His father was a shipping merchant. His mother died at a young age and John’s schooling was disruptive. He was Catholic by birth, but was sympathetic to the Protestants, though he wasn’t particularly zealous in his faith.

At the age of 11, Newton joined the British Royal Navy and immersed himself in the tumultuous life of a naval officer.

Biographies describe him as rebellious and headstrong, and with a great propensity for swearing which stunned even the most foul-mouthed sailor. He regularly mocked the faith of his fellow sailors and brushed God aside as nothing more than a myth.

His unruly behaviour once led to his imprisonment aboard a ship bound for Sierra Leone, where he was left to work on a plantation among the slaves.

For many years, Newton worked on slave ships—first as an officer and later as a captain—travelling to Africa to procure slaves for the Americas. He considered this a normal activity which formed part of his duties as a Royal Navy employee.

During a terrible storm at sea where it seemed that all hope was lost, Newton called out to God for mercy. The ship somehow survived—and something happened to the hardened sailor too. This event began a slow process of conversion.

The Mustard Seeds

Albert Finney as John Newton in the film Amazing Grace—a story of conversion accompanied by pentecostal zeal.

It began with an inward journey of reflecting whether someone like him was even worthy of redemption. The inner transformation gradually began to reflect in his outward life.

He abandoned his life at sea and left the slave trade. He married and took up a life of study. Together with his wife, he became involved in the life of his local church community and eventually became a pastor. He wrote hymns, of which the most famous is “Amazing Grace”.

N

ewton began to write about his experiences of the sea. As a Christian, he now saw the slave trade for what it really was—man’s inhumanity towards man— and became an abolitionist, calling for an end to slavery.

He wrote a chilling account of the hideous conditions aboard the slave ships, together with his own confession, which he said “comes too late”.

“It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an ac-

tive instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders,” he wrote.

His writings influenced William Wilberforce and others to continue their abolitionist campaign amid fierce opposition from the British parliament and the economic forces who could see their profits dwindling if they could no longer exploit the sale of human beings and the free labour they provided. Their combined efforts eventually brought about the abolition of slavery in 1807.

Newton’s story is a reminder that conversion is not a single moment. It is a series of moments over the course of a lifetime.

Conversion is also disruptive and requires courage. It increasingly challenges our paradigms, our relationships, our worldviews, our ways of life.

Conversion brings us to new convictions, even when they directly challenge what we (and society) previously thought was right, correct, and honourable.

Newton’s testimony is also a reminder that conversion is not just for moral degenerates who find their way back to God. Conversion is for all of us.

And all of us are called into the life-giving process that Newton experienced: his personal journey into right relationship with God and man also enabled him to lead others into a gradual conversion of heart and mind.

The movie relates how John Newton Continued on page 11

7

Michael Shackleton

open Door

Why do our bodies need resurrection?

In the Creed we say we believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. I believe this, but I sometimes wonder if I am being silly in asking why we will need our bodies again when we enter heaven. If the souls in heaven are with God, what is the point of being reunited with their bodies when it seems they are already blissfully happy without them? A soul waiting for the resurrection to be reunited with the body seems an impatient and unhappy soul to me?

Religious Sister

Y

OU are not being silly. Theological guesswork has raked over the same question for many years.

Some speculators have argued that, because there is no time in heaven, the souls there do not experience any sense of impatience. They do not wait at all, because they are instantly geared and ready for reunion with the body in a flash.

Jesus redeemed human beings who are made up of body and soul in an inseparable oneness.

He did not redeem souls only. Even when the soul is separated from earthly matter in death, it retains a link with its body because human beings were not created pure spirits like the angels.

We are of this earth in life and death.

In the Creed we affirm that Jesus Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. The souls in heaven are not just waiting for the resurrection.

They are waiting for the kingdom of God to be set up forever under Christ the King.

This implies that the living and the dead will possess risen bodies that have been transformed.

They will not simply be the same flesh and blood they once were. St Paul puts it this way: The Lord Jesus Christ “will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body. He will do that by the same power with which he can subdue the whole universe” (Phil 3:21).

Some theologians have objected that to say we will have a completely new body contradicts the continuity of our being one person. Others respond that the individual identity of each one of us ensures our continuity as one person.

As copies of Christ’s glorious body, our risen bodies will participate in that infinite love which vivifies the Holy Trinity, and we shall be truly one together.

The resurrection of the dead on the last day is not the last word. The whole of creation will also be renewed, as Scripture assures us (Isaiah 66:22 and Romans 8:18, for instance).

Christ’s bodily resurrection is our assurance that we are on the right track. We hope for salvation not just for our soul but for our person, body and soul, modelled on Jesus Christ and alive forever with him in a fresh and new universe.

n Send your queries to Open Door, Box 2372, Cape Town,

8000; or e-mail: opendoor@scross.co.za; or fax (021) 465 3850. Anonymity can be preserved by arrangement, but questions must be signed, and may be edited for clarity. Only published questions will be answered.

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The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

COMMUNITY

Auxiliary Bishop Duncan Tsoke with the youth of the church of the Resurrection in Dawn Park, Boksburg, Johannesburg archdiocese, on Pentecost Sunday. (Submitted by Modjadji Motupa)

Holy Family College in Glenmore, Durban, held its first internal HFC Science Expo in the school hall. Life sciences, physical sciences and geography learners from Grades 6 to 11 demonstrated their projects to staff and visitors. Grade 10s Emanuela Botaz (left) and Grace Kisonga are seen with Professor Remigijus Bubnys from Lithuania.

At St Lawrence’s Catholic church in Delft, Cape Town, 17 children celebrated their First Communion on the feast of Corpus Christi. The youngsters are pictured with Fr Telford Bray and their catechists. (Submitted by Sr Ana Maria Mainero FMA)

Headgirl Jessica Lemming and headboy Tristan Bond of De La Salle Holy Cross College in Victory Park, Johannesburg, welcomed guests at the school’s matric dance. This year’s theme was “Alice in Wonderland’s White Palace”. (Photo: Corinna Tannian)

St Monica’s church in Robertson, oudtshoorn diocese, celebrated the confirmation of five young parishioners. With diocesan administrator Fr John Atkinson are candidates Ivanese Sauls, Andrea Joseph, Christall Petersen, Zenobia Slinger and Ivanah Sauls. (Photo: olwen West)

PRICE CHECK

St Mary’s cathedral in Cape Town celebrated the confirmation of young parishioners on Youth Day. (From left) Bianca, Deacon Stephen Armstrong, Emma, Aiden, Archbishop Stephen Brislin, Sarah, Alton, Fr Luigi Benigni, and Ginika. (Photo: Michelle Perry)

The youth of St Therese’s parish in Edenvale, Johannesburg, joined the our Lady of Fatima pilgrimage walk in Malvern. (Back from left) Sibusiso and Seles, with (middle from left) Simone, Kirsten, Miranda, Cassandra, Trista, Kaylee and Catherine, and (front from left) Amy-Rose and obama.

(Submitted by Barbara K Gregory)

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What SA cleric told the pope P

This month, parishioners of Eucharistic Heart of Jesus church in Cambridge, East London, arrived for Mass to see a new mural of clouds behind the old crucifix. Parish priest Fr Varghese Kannanaickal CMI explained that the white and red recall the rays in The Divine Mercy painting: the red for blood and white for water. The dark clouds signify the day on which Jesus was crucified, but in the distance towards Jerusalem the sky is clearing to symbolise Christ’s defeat of death and the hope this brings us. The brightness at the bottom of the crucifix indicates the resurrection of Christ: darkness will not prevail; dawn is coming and the brightness of the resurrection will prevail forever. (Photo from Sharron Reynolds)

OPE Francis prays St Thomas More’s “Prayer for Good Humour” every morning, he told a South African cleric at a private audience in the Vatican.

Anglican Father Michael Lapsley, director of the Institute for Healing of Memories (IHOM), told Pope Francis about his life journey, including the experience of receiving a letter bomb from apartheid security forces in 1990: it blew off both his hands and blinded him in the left eye.

Fr Lapsley, 70, explained how the bombing led to his work in reconciliation which eventually led to the formation of the Institute for Healing of Memories, which has spread across the world from its beginnings in South Africa.

Pope Francis was visibly moved by his story, a statement from the institute said.

Fr Lapsley expressed his appreciation for the role of the pope in today’s world, especially in the way he acknowledges the pain of the human family and always insists on mercy, compassion and solidarity, particularly towards the most disadvantaged and excluded people, the statement said.

He pointed out the two most common narratives in healing of memories workshops worldwide are gender-based violence (including both domestic and sexual violence) and childhood trauma. Pope Francis was nodding in recognition.

The New Zealand-born cleric told the pope that he is serving not only as canon for healing and reconciliation at Cape Town’s Anglican St George’s cathedral but occupies the same role for the Anglican cathedral of Edmonton, Canada.

He noted that Anglican Bishop Jane Alexander of Edmonton had written several times to the pope, asking him to visit Canada and issue an apology for the abuse by religious personnel in the residential schools over many years.

Pope Francis responded that there were already plans for such a visit in the Vatican pipeline.

Fr Lapsley told the pope that indigenous peoples across the world are seeking the Catholic Church’s explicit revocation of the Doctrine of Discovery, which was used by European monarchies as of the 15th century to legitimise their colonisation of lands outside

Pope Francis and Anglican Father Michael Lapsley embrace after meeting in a private audience in the Vatican.

Europe. It was issued in Pope Alexander VI’s papal bull Inter Caetera in 1493.

Referring to Pope Francis’ visit to Mozambique in September, Fr Lapsley referred to two issues that are obstacles to the healing of the nation: the abuses by Frelimo, the dominant political party in Mozambique, notably the execution of some of its members, including a Catholic priest, Fr Mateus Pinho Gwenjere, in the 1970s.

Fr Michael gave Pope Francis a book on the life of Fr Gwenjere, written by Lawe Laweki, who sent two personal messages to the Holy Father.

Fr Lapsley also explained to Pope Francis that even after 44 years since independence, many Mozambicans still associate the Catholic Church with the colonial power, Portugal.

Referring to the desire of the IHOM to upscale its work across the world, Fr Lapsley asked Pope Francis for ways of obtaining further support from Catholic Church bodies.

Pope Francis made a number of suggestions, Continued on page 2

S o u t h e r n C r o s s Pilgrimage HOLY LAND & OBERAMMERGAU PASSION PLAY 21 Aug - 2 Sept. 2020 Led by Archbishop William Slattery OFM For more information or to book, please contact Gail at info@fowlertours.co.za or phone/WhatsApp 076 352‐3809

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IT’S WORTH IT!

The Daughters of St Francis of Assisi in Port Shepstone, umzimkulu diocese, held a spiritual workshop to share the vision of founding bishop Michael Fleischer CMM. The workshop also heralded the celebration of this year’s special Mission Month, to be held in october, with the theme “Baptised and Sent”.

The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

FAITH

9

How a heresy almost won the Church We recite the Creed every Sunday at Mass, but very nearly we would not have known Christ as divine! In his second of three articles on the Nicene Creed, MICHAEL MAYER looks at how the Arian heresy almost won–and what that would have meant for Christianity.

Scripture and Tradition. This is very important.

Heresy’s resurgence

T

HE early Christian Church was beset with heresies. In the 2nd century there was the Gnostic heresy. In the early 3rd century a grave error known as Arianism emerged.

Arianism is named after a priest from Alexandria called Arius (c.256–336). Arius challenged the belief in the pre-existence in God of Jesus and claimed that Jesus was created by God. If he was right, then Jesus could not be divine.

There’d be no Holy Trinity.

The theology of the Trinity is a complicated concept, but simply put, we speak of Jesus as Son eternally begotten, based on the Gospel of John. l “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). l “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son from the Father” (1:14).

Jesus sits over the Last Judgment, on the facade of Notre Dame cathedral l Jesus said to them, “Truly, in Paris. In the 4th century, the Church was divided over whether Christ is truly, I say to you, before Abraham divine or not. was, I am” (8:58).

English Cardinal John Henry that he was raised on the third day them, we go beyond Scripture, in Newman summed up the Arian dis- in accordance with the Scriptures, order to be pious.” pute succinctly in 1871: “The Ari- and that he appeared to Cephas, The Council Fathers obtained ans said that [Jesus] was a then to the Twelve” (15:3-5). their interpretation that underpins creature—begotten, the Catholics At Nicaea, St Athanasius of the word “consubstantial” from that he was very God.” Alexandria challenged and defeated So serious was the spread of Ari- the Arians, who were led by Bishop anism that it brought conflict be- Eusebius and Arius. Thank God! tween Western and Eastern To cement the teaching of Christianity, between clergy, and be- Christ’s divinity, a creed was agreed tween clergy and laity. Peace in the to by the Council of Nicaea (probaRoman Empire was threatened! bly already partially drawn up by To address that, Roman Emperor the likes of Athanasius and Bishop Constantine called the world’s bish- Alexander of Alexandria). ops together to resolve the disagreeKnown to us as the Nicene ments, at the First Creed, it included the Ecumenical Council of crucial anti-Arian word Had Arianism “consubstantial” Nicaea in 325 AD. (from The bishops seemed Latin consubstantialis; or won, we unclear on exactly what in Greek homoüsion), the problems were—until would be a meaning “of one subArius and his supporters stance” or “of the same presented their views be- Jewish sect or substance or essence” to fore the council. describe how Jesus relates a pagan The Arians presented a to the Father. creed, drawn up by Bishop religion with This was the crucial Eusebius of Nicomedia, to point on which the two the council stating: “The many gods. sides differed.

Son is begotten from what Arians argued that the is not”, and interpreted term “consubstantial” was unscripScripture to mean: tural, as it is not found in the Bible.

1. The Son is begotten from what However, the defenders of orthois not doxy had a solid history of the word 2. He is a thing made from Justin Martyr (100-165 AD).

3. There was when he was not In his “Logos” arguments, Justin 4. He is not God’s proper Logos. used the term usia to describe Christ 5. He was begotten by the will of and the Father having one usia the Father and by adoption from (Greek) or substance or being. That what is not. was in reaction to heretics of that 6. He is the image of the will of time who saw Christ as an influence the Father.

(Christ as inhabited by a divine 7. He is mutable and changeable. glory) and not a person—again, Jesus as not God.

Arianism was defeated at Nicaea in 325, but it was not stopped.

When Constantine finally converted to Christianity on his deathbed in 337, he was received into the Church by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had defended Arianism at Nicaea.

Within ten years of the council, Athanasius (now bishop of Alexandria) was deposed and excommunicated at the first Synod of Tyre in 335. Arianism was on the rise again.

Athanasius fought back bravely, risking his life constantly. He kept writing to the bishops around the known world in an effort to suppress Arianism. His story is well worth reading; he survived numerous attempts to jail or kill him.

Arianism in various forms triumphed in 359, with the support of Emperor Constantius II, at the Councils of Ariminum (modern Rimini, for the Western Church) and Seleucia (for the Eastern Church).

The Nicene Creed was suppressed and a new creed, signed by most of the world’s bishops, was adopted.

The doctrine of consubstantiality (or homoüsion—that the first and second persons of the Trinity are of identical essence or substance) was rejected and the idea of homoion was presented as the correct interpretation.

Homoion is a biblical word meaning “similar” or “like”. It just isn’t applied when speaking of the relationship between Son and Father in Scripture. This was sophism in action—a play of words that had one intention only: to reject the Nicene Creed.

Arianism had triumphed and the

St Athanasius in argument at the Council of Nicaea, as depicted in the 12th-century manuscripts of William of Tyre.

Church authorities had succumbed.

There followed severe upheavals across Christendom amidst a terrible 12-year Arian persecution.

Pope Liberius of Rome himself is said to have fallen into error by signing off the false creed even a year before the councils of 359.

Athanasius died in 373 after a long struggle against Arianism. He is quoted as saying during the most severe of tribulations: “Athanasius against the World.” Many times he was completely alone, like Christ immolated for his belief and trust in God. It took political power to defeat Arianism. The Roman Emperor Valens died in 378 and his successor Theodosius I restored orthodoxy.

The Nicene Creed was reconfirmed and fully reestablished at the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. Cardinal Newman was convinced that it is almost entirely because of the efforts of Athanasius that the Church was eventually redeemed: that Jesus was again worshipped as true God. We owe what we have to St Athanasius and those who refused to be broken in holding to the True Faith.

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What’s a creed?

Creeds or questions-and-answers as used in baptism were known in the Churches from as early as the 1st and 2nd century, with the belief that they originated from the time of the Apostles. The creeds and the New Testament canon were in part a response to heresy and the consequential need for the Church to state its teachings clearly.

St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is considered an extremely early creed of the Christian Church (note: a creed is a statement of belief).

In 1 Corinthians Paul says he received this information: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried,

What if heresy had won?

Had Arianism won, we would be a Jewish sect or pagan polytheistic religion, seeing Jesus as a prophet: a special prophet, a messiah (lower case), a semi-divine, even a junior god, but certainly not God. The Arian rejection of consubstantial as not from the Bible was rejected by the Council Fathers.

Cardinal Newman noted in his 1871 text, in which he channelled St Athanasius: “As to their complaint about non-scriptural phrases, they themselves are evidence of its futility. It was they who began with their impious expressions; for, after their ‘Out of nothing’, and ‘Once was not’, going beyond Scripture in order to be impious, now they make it a grievance, that, in condemning

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10

The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

FAITH

How Bradburne gave me back my husband The sainthood cause for the martyr John Bradburne will be launched in Zimbabwe in September. Here SuE GuTHRIE tells of a miracle Bradburne worked for her family.

F

Mutemwa for the funeral.

At the graveside, the presiding priest asked the mourners to turn to each other and shake hands for the peace offering. An aunt of mine, who hadn’t attended church since her wedding, stood behind Bradburne and he offered her peace with a double-handed handshake.

She called me the next day. Bradburne had had such a profound effect on her as she had met his eyes that she intended to return to church that weekend. She continued to do so until her death nine years ago.

We didn’trealise that we would not see John Bradburne again. We knew, during the war, that he was at risk living where he did, but we also knew that no one would persuade him to leave his beloved lepers.

RANK and I met during the Zimbabwean war of independence. Like every young white male at that time, upon finishing school he was immediately conscripted into the army Once his year of service was completed, the government of the time announced a continuous callup system as the war escalated, so Frank remained working and fighting with the Rhodesian Light InThree drops of blood fantry for three years.

Frank and I attended John’s fuFrank’s father, Alistair Guthrie, neral. Members of our family were was a close friend of John Brad- pallbearers, so we were sitting right burne’s, and by the time near the front of the Frank was 16, he would cathedral. often visit Bradburne at ‘Our lives were We saw the three the Mutemwa leprosy drops of fresh blood fall unmanageable, settlement. from the bottom of the He loved and adwe were coffin onto the cathedral mired Bradburne’s easy floor as the three lilies physically, spirituality and closerepresenting the Trinity ness to Mother Mary. laid on the top. mentally and were Frank wanted that We watched a priest evident spiritual essence place a white cloth over spiritually that John had but conthe blood and it soaked bankrupt.’ scription took him to up into the cloth immewar. A war that neither diately. It was only later John nor Alistair that we heard about the wanted any part of, which led to coffin inspection showing no other Frank seeing less of the two men as signs of blood and Bradburne’s the war escalated. clothing being changed prior to the Alistair died in January 1979. burial.

Since Bradburne’s death we have Bradburne walked into town from

The

there was no such thing known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Very gradually his drinking became heavier, and slowly his personality began to change. Frank became restless, irritable and discontent. The family began to walk on eggshells around him as the disease of alcoholism began to take control of his and our lives.

From being a happy couple who tried to never take each other for granted, the unpredictability of alcoholic-driven behaviour dropped us into the insanity and chaos that comes with the disease.

Gradually I gave up on God. He never answered my repeated prayer: “Fix Frank. Fix Frank. Please, fix Frank.”

I never asked God to fix me and we began to drown in the broken promises, despair, anger, and debt that inevitably accompanies alcoholic behaviour.

Our son begged to go to boarding school to escape the insanity, and our daughter became an overachiever in an effort to garner some positive attention from the alcoholic. Our lives had become unmanageable in every sense. We were physically, mentally and spiritually bankrupt.

John Bradburne and dog. In her article, Sue Guthrie describes how the intercession of Bradburne, who was martyred in Zimbabwe in 1979, brought back her husband— and God—to her. heard about miracles attributed to him and have visited Mutemwa. Inexplicably, as I sat in John’s rough tin home I cried. Not for any reason I could ever explain but wonderful tears of healing and peace.

In 1983 Frank and I decided to move to South Africa because our baby daughter was born with some medical problems that no one in Zimbabwe could resolve. It took a while to adjust to the new country but together we managed and for some time, life was good. We had our second child, whom we named Bradburn, in honour of John.

When Frank had left the army,

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Hitting a low point I began googling alcoholism and tried saving the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) website on Frank’s computer. I begged him to quit. I threatened, cajoled, pleaded, bargained, and blackmailed him.

Nothing helped.

I had become equally ill and as obsessed with his drinking as Frank was.

In 2002, I was reading about

Who was John Bradburne?

T

HE poet and martyr John Randal Bradburne was born at Skirwith, in the English county of Cumberland, on June 14, 1921. He was one of five children of Anglican clergyman Thomas William Bradburne and Erica May Hill.

Educated at Gresham’s, an independent school in Norfolk, he was a member of the institution’s Officer Training Corps. he joined the army in 1939, and served in Malaya and Burma, before being invalided home.

Something in Malaya—a conversion experience, it is said—turned him from adventurer into pilgrim.

He became a Catholic in 1947 while staying at the Benedictine Buckfast Abbey in Devon. He applied to be a Benedictine monk but the Order did not accept him because he had not been a Catholic for two years yet.

After seven months with the Carthusians, he felt the urge to travel, and for 16 years wandered between England, Italy, Greece and the Holy Land, living out of a small bag.

He lived as a hermit in England, played the organ in a small Italian village, was a sacristan at Westminster cathedral and caretaker of the cardinal’s house in Hertfordshire On Good Friday 1956, he joined the Secular Franciscan Order.

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John Bradburne online and noticed that he is able to intercede and reconnect families with lost children.

It dawned on me for the first time that Frank—my lovely, charming, clever, kind and funny Frank—was lost. He was a lost child.

I knelt down next to my bed for the first time in a long while and instead of instructing God to fix Frank, I told Bradburne that our Frank was lost and I asked him to please find him. That is all I said.

I went to bed and had the best night’s sleep I’d had in years.

When I awoke in the morning the name of a man I had not seen for over a decade and barely knew, was in my head.

About 12 years earlier, we had been at a business function and Ted had poured everyone at the table some wine. He then poured himself a cooldrink. I asked him if he didn’t drink red wine. He smiled as he told me, a complete stranger, that he did not drink at all because he was a member of a 12-Step Programme.

I turned to Frank the morning after my appeal to John and said he should call Ted about his drinking.

To my amazement, Frank got up immediately, walked through to our office and began to phone people in our industry until he located Ted, in Johannesburg.

We had lunch with Ted the next day and he spoke to Frank about alcoholism before inviting him to go to an AA meeting.

Frank went to his first meeting on June 21, 2002. One day at a time, he has not had a drink since.

John Bradburne found lost Frank. Alcohol had taken us both away from God. John found us and showed us a way back.

ix years later he wrote to his friend, Jesuit Father John Dove, in Zimbabwe, asking: “Is there a cave in Africa where I can pray?”

Soon after his arrival in Zimbabwe in 1962, he confided to a Franciscan priest that he had three wishes: to serve leprosy patients, to die a martyr, and to be buried in the habit of St Francis.

In 1969 he was appointed warden at Mutemwa Leprosy Settlement, around140km north-west of Harare.

The single-minded loving care he gave the residents eventually brought him into conflict with the management committee.

He refused to put number tags around the patients’ necks and reduce their already small diet, so he was sacked. He then lived in a prefab tin hut, lacking water and sanitation, just outside the leprosy compound.

From there he continued to help the lepers as much as he could.

As a lay member of the Third Order of St Francis, he obeyed its Rule, singing the daily office of Our Lady. He lived its hours, rising at dawn for matins and ending the day with vespers and compline. This discipline provides the context for many of his poems.

D

uring the Zimbabwean civil war, his efforts to prevent exploitation of the leprosy patients brought local hostility and suspicion. He refused to leave the place for safety.

On Sunday, September 2, 1979, the guerrillas abducted him, accusing Bradburne of being an informer. On September 5, he was shot dead.

At his Requiem Mass, eyewitnesses saw a small pool of blood which had formed beneath the coffin during the service. This was quickly covered up by one of the priests.

Afterwards, the coffin was reopened, but no sign of blood was found inside it. The mystery of the blood has never been explained.

Since Bradburne’s death many other unusual events have been reported in relation to his name.

His lasting legacy is that Mutemwa is now a place of pilgrimage, and there is a growing movement in support of his cause for sainthood, which will be launched in September—the 40th anniversary of his martyrdom.

The Southern Cross, July 3 to July 9, 2019

Nuncio: Let Mpako be ‘beacon of light’ Continued from page 2 Archbishop Peter Wells, the apostolic nuncio of the Holy See in South Africa, thanked Archbishop Slattery for his eight years of service to the archdiocese of Pretoria.

The nuncio noted that he had spent a lot of time with Archbishop Slattery, and admired “his compassion for the neediest in the city”.

“Being resident in Pretoria gives me the unique opportunity of being close to the archbishop, and I look forward to working closely with Archbishop Mpako. Let us join hands with our new archbishop, and let him become our new beacon of light, and an instrument of unity for all of God’s people,” Archbishop Wells said.

Fr Patrick Rakeketsi CSS, SACBC associate secretary-general, in a short address gave a brief background of the roots of the Catholic Church in Pretoria, starting with the foundation laid by pioneering figures such as Bishop Jolivet OMI.

Archbishop Dabula Mpako was installed as Pretoria’s new archbishop in the church of the Beatitudes in Zwavelpoort, Pretoria East. (Photo: Daluxolo Moloantoa) Fr Thabiso Ledwaba, the archdiocesan representative for clergy and religious, pointed

to four objectives which the archdiocese would collaborate on with the new archbishop.

The first was that the archdiocese pledged to be led and to serve under the leadership of Archbishop Mpako.

The second was that under a new leadership the archdiocese would cultivate a culture of acceptance where everyone felt welcomed, appreciated and valued.

The third objective would be to inculcate a practice of inclusivity, as opposed to exclusivity, in the archdiocese.

The fourth objective was to build a “living Church”, one which would constantly renew its mission, as opposed to one that was dormant and backward-looking in its approach.

The Mass was followed by lunch at a marquee set on the sprawling church grounds.

A thanksgiving Mass for all the archdiocese’s parishes will be celebrated on July 14 at the sports grounds of CBC Mount Edmund School in Silverton, Pretoria.

Word of the Week

Your prayer to cut out and collect

Ad limina: A meeting between the diocesan bishops of a country and the pope in Rome. Usually held every five years.

Liberation theology: Theology attempting to articulate faith from the perspective of a group struggling to overcome oppression—vibrant in Latin America and after Vatican II.

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 870. ACROSS: 4 Francis, 8 Aboard, 9 Mirages, 10 Madrid, 11 Decade, 12 Neophyte, 18 Surplice, 20 Preach, 21 Trills, 22 Ananias, 23 Danger, 24 Repress. DOWN: 1 Harmony, 2 Lord God, 3 Wraith, 5 Reindeer, 6 Nuance, 7 Imelda, 13 Yashmaks, 14 Village, 15 Dessert, 16 Prince, 17 Wagner, 19 Portal.

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PARISH NOtIceS

NeW PARISH NOtIceS MOSt WelcOMe: If any parish notices listed are no longer valid, call us on 021 465-5007 or e-mail us at m.leveson@scross.co.za so that we can remove them.

Also, we’d welcome new notices from parishes across Southern Africa to run free in the classifieds. cAPe tOWN: A Holy Hour Prayer for Priests is held on the second Saturday of every month at the Villa Maria shrine from 16:00 to 17:00.

The shrine is at 1 Kloof Nek Road in Tamboerskloof. The group prays for priests in the archdiocese, and elsewhere by request.

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

Conversion can change the world Liturgical Calendar Year C – Weekdays Cycle Year 1 Sunday July 7, 14th Sunday of the Year Isaiah 66:10-14, Psalm 66:1-7, 16, 20, Galatians 6:14-18, Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 Monday July 8 Genesis 28:10-22, Psalm 91:1-4, 14-15, Matthew 9:18-26 Tuesday July 9, St Augustine Zhao Rong and Co Genesis 32:22-32, Psalm 17:1-3, 6-8, 15, Matthew 9:32-38 Wednesday July 10 Genesis 41:55-57, 42, 5-7, 17-24, Psalm 33:2-3, 10-11, 18-19, Matthew 10:1-7 Thursday July 11, St Benedict Genesis 44:18-21, 23-29; 45:1-5, Psalm 105:16-21, Matthew 10:7-15 Friday July 12 Genesis 46:1-7, 28-30, Psalm 37:3-4, 18-19, 27-28, 39-40, Matthew 10:16-23 Saturday July 13, St Henry Genesis 49:29-32; 50:15-26, Psalm 105:1-4, 6-7, Matthew 10:24-33 Sunday July 14, 15th Sunday of the Year Deuteronomy 30:10-14, Psalm 69:14, 17, 30-31, 3334, 36-37, Colossians 1:15-20, Luke 10:25-37

Continued from page 7 helped the young Wilberforce to restore his commitment to campaign to abolish slavery amid all of the challenges he faced.

Together, and with others, they challenged the rationale for slavery, an economic pursuit that had been around for millennia and considered to be a perfectly legitimate form of business.

Our own times too are characterised by human injustices perpetuated by the powerful against the very weak.

The great divide between rich and poor in South Africa, and countless other countries, is one such injustice. So are xenophobic violence, violence against women, racism, homophobia, and lack of access to education and employment opportunities.

The countless wars across our continent and world so often violate the most basic rights of communities who become the pawns in political power battles.

The way we have ravaged the natural world places the survival of future generations at risk.

Newton’s conversion is an invitation for each one of us to reflect on our own worldviews and to hold them up to the mirror of

11

God’s love.

In the light of such merciful love, where in my own life or in my community have I witnessed or experienced injustice? Which aspects of my worldview are in need of conversion?

Conversion does not leave us unchanged or lukewarm. Conversion is accompanied by a pentecostal zeal to act.

I may not have the power to change legislation, but how can my actions and my choices bring about a transformation in my life and the lives of those around me?

There is power in my actions, if they become the actions of a family, a group, a community, a country.

Newton could have simply turned his life over to Christ and lived his faith privately, because after all, who was he really? A reformed sailor and pastor to a small backwater village. Instead, filled with the Holy Spirit and the power of his convictions, he helped to change the course of history.

Filled with faith, humbled by our own conversion, and imbued with the power of the Holy Spirit, we too can change our world, imbuing it with God’s love and healing the injustices of our times.

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.

PRAYeRS

sion upon me in my anxiety with my present inability to support my family. Please help me find gainful employment very soon, so that this great burden of concern will be lifted from my heart and that I am soon able to provide for those whom God has entrusted to my care. Help me guard against discouragement, so that I may emerge from this trial spiritually enriched and with even greater blessings from God. Amen.

MOSt HOlY lORD, I see your works here on earth. I stand amazed at the beauty and magnificent scenes before me. Thank you for my joy that is not claimed by life’s sadness and disappointments. I thank you for keeping me in your wings of love. You are so very precious to me and I will forever be yours in faith and hope.

Blessed be your name in all of the earth, I pray. Amen. lORD, inspire those men and women who bear the titles “husband” and “wife”.

Help them to look to You, to themselves, to one another to rediscover the fullness and mystery they once felt in their union. Let them be honest enough to ask: “Where have we been together and where are we going?” Let them be brave enough to question: “How have we failed?” Let each be foolhardy enough to say: “For me, we come first.”

Help them, together, to reexamine their commitment in the light of Your love, willingly, openly, compassionately.

cHRIStIAN MeDItAtION

by Brother Max Sculley DLS

DeAR St JOSePH, you were yourself once faced with the responsibility of providing the necessities of life for Jesus and Mary. Look down with fatherly compas-

GOD BleSS AFRIcA Guard our people, guide our leaders and give us peace.

Luke 11:1-13

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The Southern Cross is published independently by the catholic Newspaper & Publishing company ltd. Address: Po Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000. tel: (021) 465 5007 Fax: (021) 465 3850 www.scross.co.za editor: Günther Simmermacher (editor@scross.co.za), Business Manager: Pamela Davids (admin@scross.co.za), Advisory editor: Michael Shackleton, local News: Erin Carelse (e.carelse@scross.co.za) editorial: Claire Allen (c.allen@scross.co.za), Mary Leveson (m.leveson@scross.co.za), Advertising: Yolanda Timm (advertising@scross.co.za), Subscriptions: Michelle Perry (subscriptions@scross.co.za), Accounts: Desirée Chanquin (accounts@scross.co.za), Directors: R Shields (Chair), Archbishop S Brislin, S Duval, E Jackson, B Jordan, Sr H Makoro CPS, J Mathurine, G Stubbs

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the

15th Sunday: July 14 Readings: Deuteronomy 30:10-14, Psalm 69: 14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 27, Colossians 1:15-20, Luke 10:25-37

O

NE of the things that you and I have to get right is to pay attention to what God is asking of us. This, it seems, is the message of the readings for next Sunday.

The first reading is a plea to listen to God’s voice, from Moses’ final sermon to the people of God, as they wait to cross over into the Promised Land; this is how they are to live there once they cross the Jordan.

They are to “keep the commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the Law, when you come back to the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul”.

And they (we) are not to make excuses that it is all too difficult: “It is not too baffling for you or beyond your reach.” Nor is it “up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will go up there for us?’”; nor again “across the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will go across the sea for us?’”

Then comes the final nail in the argument: “For the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart for you to do it.”

So—no messing around: this is something we have to do.

The psalm, as always, is entirely attentive to what God might be saying: “I am praying

S outher n C ross

to you, Lord, for the time of your favour; in the greatness of your steadfast love, answer me with your truth and salvation.”

But he is being quite insistent: “Answer me, Lord; for your steadfast love is good, in accordance with your great compassion turn to me.”

Then he reminds God that he is in difficulty: “I am lowly and in pain; may your salvation, O God, protect me.”

And he wants his audience to be thoroughly attentive: “See you who are lowly, and rejoice, those who seek God, take heart.”

The poet is convinced God pays attention to those who feel neglected: “The Lord hears the poor and does not despise prisoners…for the Lord will save Sion and rebuild Jerusalem.”

The second reading has the odd distinction of being part of the longest sentence in the New Testament; and it is a “hymn” that is utterly attentive to the reality of Jesus Christ, as “the image of the unseen God, firstborn of all creation, because everything was created in him”.

In an interesting development of what is found elsewhere in Paul, Christ is described as “the head of the body, the Church, the beginning, the first-born from the dead”. Many

G

hell than it was about being a loving person.

As a Catholic kid, along with my peers, I worried a lot about not committing a mortal sin, that is, doing something out of selfishness or weakness that, if unconfessed before I died, would send me to hell for all eternity. My fear was that I might go to hell, rather than that I might not be a very loving person who would miss out on love and community.

And so I worried about not being bad rather than about being good. I worried that I would do something that was mortally sinful, that would send me to hell; but I didn’t worry as much about having a heart big enough to love as God loves.

I didn’t worry as much about forgiving others, about letting go of hurts, about loving those who are different from me, about being judgmental, or about being so tribal, racist, sexist, nationalistic, or narrow in my religious views that I would be uncomfortable sitting down with certain others at God’s banquet table.

‘T

he heavenly table is open to all who are willing to sit down with all.”

That’s a line from a John Shea poem and it spells out succinctly, I believe, a non-negotiable condition for going to heaven, namely, the willingness and capacity to love everyone and to sit down with everyone.

It’s non-negotiable for this reason: How

Classic Conrad

Sunday Reflections

scholars regard this as a meditation on the opening verse of the Bible; and indeed, you can feel the author struggling to find the number of different ways in which God-inChrist is “first”.

It is a wonderful piece of writing, and you could do worse in the coming week than to pay attention to the poetry, to meet the God who lies just beneath it.

The Gospel is one of Luke’s best-known parables, that of the Good Samaritan.

Notice, however, where it starts, with “a lawyer, testing him”. So we are expecting trouble; and we are not disappointed.

Here, Jesus throws the question back on the lawyer, “How do you read?” The lawyer knows his stuff; and he quotes two commandments: “Love the Lord your God…and your neighbour as yourself.”

Very calmly, Jesus suggests that he go off and do it; the lawyer, however “wanting to justify himself”, asks, perhaps a little contemptuously, “And who is my neighbour?” He gets more than he bargained for, as Jesus tells one of his thoroughly subversive parables; this one about the man unwise enough to go down the notoriously unsafe Jerusalem-Jericho road,

Fear of hell, loss of heaven ROWING up as a Catholic, like the rest of my generation, I was taught a prayer called the Act of Contrition. Every Catholic back then had to memorise it and say it during or after going to confession.

The prayer started this way: “Oh, my God, I am truly sorry for having offended thee and I detest all of my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell…”

To dread the loss of heaven and fear the pains of hell can seem like one and the same thing. They’re not. There’s a huge moral distance between dreading the loss of heaven and fearing the pains of hell.

The prayer wisely separates them.

Fear of hell is based upon a fear of punishment; dreading the loss of heaven is based upon a fear of not being a good, loving person. There’s a huge difference between living in fear of punishment and living in fear of not being a good a person.

We’re more mature, humanly and as Christians, when we’re more worried about not being loving enough than when we’re fearful that we will be punished for doing something wrong.

Growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, I breathed in the spirituality and catechesis of the Roman Catholicism of the time. In the Catholic ethos then (and this was essentially the same for Protestants and Evangelicals), the eschatological emphasis was a lot more about the fear of going to

Nicholas King SJ

Attend to what God asks

where he gets beaten up and robbed.

We watch in amusement as the “priest” and the “Levite” (I sometimes translate these as the “Archbishop” and the “Jesuit”) “pass by on the other side”.

Obviously we are then waiting for the hero of the story, and Jesus’ audience will have been guessing this will be a good Jewish layman. To their horror, the hero turns out to be a member of the hated race of Samaritans (you must fill in the blank here—which group do you hate most?).

Then, after describing the Samaritan’s generosity, Jesus throws the question back to the lawyer: “Who had acted as a neighbour to the man who had been beaten up?”

Interestingly, the lawyer cannot bring himself to mention the hated race; instead of saying “Samaritan” he says, grudgingly, “the one who did the Mercy Thing with him”. Jesus simply tells him: “Off you go—and do likewise.”

He is going to have to think very hard and pay attention to what God might be asking of him. And so are we, this week.

Southern Crossword #870

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

can we be at the heavenly table with everyone if for some reason of pride, wound, temperament, bitterness, bigotry, politics, nationalism, colour, race, religion, or history, we aren’t open to sit down with everyone?

Jesus teaches this too, just in a different way. After giving us the Lord’s Prayer, which ends with the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”, he adds this: “If you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you.”

Why can’t God forgive us if we don’t forgive others? Has God arbitrarily singled out this one condition as his pet criterion for going to heaven? No. We cannot sit at the heavenly banquet table if we are still selective as to whom we can sit down with. If, in the next life—like here in this life—we are selective as to whom we love and embrace, then heaven would be the same as earth: with factions, bitterness, grudges, hurt, and every kind of racism, sexism, nationalism, and religious fundamentalism keeping us all in our separate silos.

We can sit at the heavenly banquet only when our hearts are wide enough to embrace everyone else at the table. Heaven demands a heart open to universal embrace.

And so, as I get older, approach the end of my life and accept that I will soon face my Maker, I worry less and less about going to hell and worry more and more about the bitterness, anger, ingratitude, and non-forgiveness that still remains in me.

I worry less about committing a mortal sin and more about whether I’m gracious, respectful, and forgiving towards others.

I worry more about the loss of heaven than the pains of hell, that is, I worry that I could end up like the older brother of the prodigal son, standing outside the Father’s house, excluded by anger rather than by sin.

Still, I’m grateful for the Act of Contrition of my youth. Fear of hell isn’t a bad place from which to start.

ACrOSS

4. The pope is not this friar (7) 8. It’s said to be the kind of game to play on the ship (6) 9. Religious Instruction games are optical illusions (7) 10. You’ll find a Spanish capitalist here (6) 11. Ten counters for the prayer (6) 12. New convert, Tony Heep (8) 18. It’s worn over the cassock (8) 20. Deliver the address (6) 21. Vibrations from the choir (6) 22. He died like Sapphira (Ac 5) (7) 23. Peril in the rough garden (6) 24. Subdue the newspaper?

(7)

DOwN

1. What the choristers should sing in (7) 2. The … … Made Them All (hymn) (4,3) 3. With a religious start, it’s ghostly (6) 5. One roped in by Santa Claus (8) 6. Shade of meaning (6) 7. Blessed patroness of first holy communicants (6) 13. Shaky Sam has face covered by them (8) 14. Little town that may give all (7) 15. Last course at the last supper? (7) 16. He’s charming and could be royal (6) 17. New rag for German composer (6) 19. Doorway to the cloister (6) Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

L

AST week, a group of Catholics were talking about the sacrament of reconciliation and reminisced abut the kind of penances they have had to do.

When Dorothy spoke about her experiences, she recalled: “On New Year’s Eve in 2009 I went to confession with Fr Tom, and as my penance he told me to say a decade of the rosary.”

After the earlier round of interesting stories, the group was unimpressed by her statement.

But Dorothy continued: “Now I am glad I have only six months to go...”

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