190918

The

S outher n C ross

September 18 to September 24, 2019

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

Mugabe and the Catholic Church

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No 5153

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SA pilgrims on seeing the pope in Africa

Pages 8-9

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St Michael does battle for us in daily life

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Pope warns of split in the Church

BY CINDY WOODEN

P Pilgrims to the papal Mass in Mauritius had a guided tour of the Catholic sites of the capital Port Louis, including the shrine and tomb of the island’s apostle, Bl Jacques-Désiré Laval (1803-64). The group also joined 100 000 others in attending the papal Mass at Mauritius’ Marian shrine. The tour was led by Fr Rusell Pollitt SJ, and was headlined jointly by The Southern Cross, Radio Veritas and Spotlight.Africa.

Violence: ‘Society must act’ STAFF REPORTER

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Pilgrimage 2020

S outher n C ross

OUTH Africa has reached a point of intolerance for gender-based violence, child abuse and xenophobia, a priest told a day of prayer service in Soweto.

Led by Frs Lawrence Mduduzi Ndlovu, Michael Seheri, Bafana Ndlovu OMI and Teboho Matseke, the day of prayer service in St Margaret’s church in Diepkloof, Soweto, was dedicated to women and children who have died at the hands of men.

The Johannesburg priest said that the silence against domestic violence, child abuse and xenophobia must be broken, and that there must no longer be protection for perpetrators of violence targeted at the vulnerable, women and foreign nationals.

All of society has to take responsibility for ending these social ills, and not rely on government intervention, because the culprits of these offences live among people in the communities.

Fr Ndlovu pointed out that domestic violence and abuse is particularly dangerous be-

Catholics gathered at St Margaret’s church in Diepkloof, Soweto, to pray for an end to gender-based violence, child abuse and xenophobia. (Photo: Thabile Stella Mbhele) cause it normalises gender-based violence.

Victims of domestic violence shared their experiences, as did victims of xenophobic attacks who told of how they fled the wars in their countries only to face more violence in South Africa. n See page 2 for Archbishop Buti Tlhagale’s hardhitting statement on xenophobic violence.

OPE Francis has said he hopes and prays that the Catholic Church will not experience a new schism, but human freedom means people always have had and will have the “schism option”.

“I pray that there not be schism, but I am not afraid,” Pope Francis told reporters flying from Africa back to Rome with him.

Schisms have occurred throughout Church history, he said, and one thing they all have in common is having such a focus on an ideology that they begin reading Church doctrine through the lens of that fixation.

A schism is triggered when “an ideology, perhaps a correct one, infiltrates doctrine and it becomes ‘doctrine’ in quotation marks, at least for a time”, he said.

As an example of ideology, the pope cited those who say, “The pope is too communist”, because of his criticism of unbridled capitalism and its negative impact on the poor.

Yet, he pointed out, “the social things I say are the same things John Paul II said. The very same. I copy him.”

When ideology takes the place of doctrine, he said, there is the danger of a split in the Christian community.

Pope Francis said small but vociferous groups of Catholics in the United States are not the only people who criticise him—there are even people in the Roman curia who do— but he tries to learn from the criticism and to find a way to dialogue with critics who are open.

“Criticism always helps,” Pope Francis said. “When one is criticised, the first thing to do is to reflect, “Is this true; not true; to what extent” is it valid?

“Sometimes you get angry,” he said, but “there are always advantages” to be drawn from listening to critics.

Flying to Mozambique, Pope Francis created a minor furore when he described it as “an honour when Americans attack me”.

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He was responding to a reporter’s question about a book by French writer Nicolas Senèze titled Comment l’Amerique veut changer de pape (How America wanted to change popes).

Mr Senèze’s thesis is that a small group of wealthy US Catholics is engaged in a concerted effort to cast doubt on the pontificate of Pope Francis.

Clarifying his earlier comment, the pope said: “The criticism is not coming just from America, but a bit from everywhere, including the curia—but at least those who are doing it have the courage” to be public about it.

What isn’t acceptable, he said, is when one “smiles so much he shows you his teeth,” and then lists criticisms “behind your back”.

Criticism is healthy when it is open and when the person doing the critique is willing to listen to the other’s reasoning and to dialogue. “This is real criticism,” the pope said.

“Throwing a rock and then hiding your hand” is something else, he said. “This isn’t useful. It only helps closed little groups who don’t want to hear the response to their criticism.”

On the other hand, Pope Francis said, “loyal criticism” can include saying, “I don’t like this about the pope”—as long at the critic gives an explanation and is willing to hear a response.

Not waiting for or wanting a response “is to not love the Church”, he said. “It is to follow a set idea [like] changing the pope or changing his style or creating a schism.”

He spoke about another ideology he calls “rigorist”, which he defined as “the ideology of an antiseptic morality” that takes no account of the real lives of the faithful and the obligation of pastors to guide them away from sin and towards living the Gospel.

“There are many schools of rigidity within the Catholic Church today which are not in schism, but are pseudo-schismatic Christian paths, which will not end well,” Pope Francis said.

Pray in Medjugorje and visit Rome, with papal audience, Assisi, the town of St Francis, Loreto with Mary’s House.

Plus a tour of historic Split in Croatia.

Three countries in one tour!

2

The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

LOCAL

Tlhagale: Echoes of Nazis in SA T HE archbishop of Johannesburg has compared the rhetoric and actions against foreign nationals in Gauteng to “the rising tide of hatred in Nazi Germany”.

Archbishop Buti Tlhagale was speaking out following an upsurge in violence against foreign nationals which has drawn condemnation and sanction from other African states.

“We are facing a rising tide of hatred and intolerance, no different to the rising tide of hatred in Nazi Germany,” said Archbishop Tlhagale, adding: “If we do not take urgent action to stop it, there will be nothing left.”

The archbishop pointed to reports of authorities doing very little to protect the victims.

“We received reports of police standing by idly in Pretoria while shops were looted and people attacked.

“Not a single arrest was made on that day,” he said.

“Once again the authorities resort to the old explanation that this is not xenophobia, but the work of criminal elements,” Archbishop Tlhagale noted.

“Let us be absolutely clear: this is not an attempt by concerned South Africans to rid our cities of drug dealers.

“And this is not the work of a few criminal elements. It is xenophobia, plain and simple.

“If it is the work of a few criminal elements, why are South African-owned businesses not being looted as well?” the archbishop asked.

He also emphasised that the teaching of the Church is direct and uncompromising.

“More than 80% of South Africans claim to be Christian. What are our religious leaders teaching the multitudes that fill our churches every Sunday?”

Archbishop Tlhagale asked.

He quoted St Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (3:28).

“By the same token, there is neither South African nor Nigerian nor Ethiopian. We are all one in Christ Jesus,” the archbishop said.

“God makes it absolutely clear that

he has a special concern for refugees, migrants and strangers.

“Deuteronomy 10:18 says: ‘He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.’ He isn’t just concerned about the foreigners. He loves them,” Archbishop Tlhagale said.

He appealed to all people of faith, and all people of goodwill, to speak out and take action.

The Gauteng violence has provoked reaction in other African countries.

In early September, students in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, protested outside the South African high commission and also targeted South African-owned shops.

In Nigeria’s capital Abuja, and in Lagos, South African-owned businesses were targeted by protesters, who started fires and looted properties.

Football federations in Zambia and Madagascar cancelled matches against South Africa, and Air Tanzania suspended flights to Johannesburg because of the xenophobic violence.

Nine participants received certificates for completing the three-month basic sewing course run by St Patrick’s parish in La Rochelle, Johannesburg.

Sewing will help the graduates, including (right) Freeman, to financially support their families. The course, which has been running for several years and has benefited more than 150 people, is funded

by Grassroots Heroes International. Sewing teacher Marietjie is backed by parish priest Fr Jorge Guerra and Deacon Walter Middleton.

Should you be interested, contact Marietjie on 071 6791144. (Submitted by Dominique Byrne)

Napier Centre 4 Healing opens doors for post-rehab programme for addicts

BY ERIN CARELSE

(From left) Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, Mandla Cele, Fr Stephen Tully and Ian Mbalane discuss plans for the Napier Centre 4 Healing and the progress of the first residents.

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HE Napier Centre 4 Healing (NC4H), an aftercare facility for post-rehab drug-addiction patients and the main legacy project of Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, has opened its doors.

Offering a holistic approach to heal-

ing, the centre, near Verulam in KwaZuluNatal, is non-denominational and provides the secondary care that most addicts require, with the opportunity to continue residential rehabilitation for up to 12 months.

Spirituality is also integrated into the year-long rehab, with the aim of helping residents reconnect with and strengthen their relationship with God and rebuild their sense of personal worth.

NC4H welcomed a small staff team and the first two residents in June; these initial residents are now acting as “big brothers” to other young men who have joined.

Fr Stephen Tully, NC4H chief operating officer, said that the implementation of the centre has been quite conservative in the beginning because they want the staff to feel competent.

“They have been through some training but, of course, in-house training is the best training,” Fr Tully said.

The team consists of Ian and Hlengiwe Mbalane (the house parents) and Mandla Cele (the resident social worker).

Potential residents are screened by Holy Family Sister Cathy Murugan and Pearl Ramotsamai of the Denis Hurley Centre, who collaborate closely with Newlands Park, the municipally-funded detox programme in Durban.

Being based at the parish in Ekukhanyeni (which means “place of light”), the staff team also receives support from the local community, the Dominican Sisters and Fr Paulus Ndlovu.

The project is backed by a group of patrons from different faith communities. It has been brought about through an executive committee of expert volunteers (working and retired) who have focused on fundraising, building, finance, legal issues, and programme planning.

“The hope is that in the next six months we will be up to a capacity of about 12-14 residents,” Fr Tully said.

The centre management is hoping to renovate other buildings on the property to house about 30 residents.

“The final phase of the programme will include training for employment of some kind, to give recovering addicts a sense of ownership of their own lives, together with purpose and hope for the future. Our hope is for them to be selfsufficient when they leave us,” Fr Tully said.

The major challenge the centre is facing is funding and employment opportunities for residents around the Durban area. At a cost of R9 000 per month per resident, the service is not cheap. n To help with funding and future employment opportunities for the residents, contact Fr Tully at chairman@napiercentre.org

Former Miss SA/Bank executive to present Little Eden Jhb memorial lecture

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ITTLE Eden Society’s third annual Danny & Domitilla Hyams Memorial Lecture will be presented by former Miss South Africa and chief executive of Standard Bank Wealth South Africa Peggy-Sue Khumalo.

Through this event, the society shares the impact its founders have on those with profound intellectual disability and their families.

The memorial lecture alternates between South Africa and Italy, Domitilla Hyams’ birth country.

The inaugural lecture was presented by Cardinal Wilfrid Napier in 2017 when the society celebrated its 50th anniversary.

In 2018 some South African delegates travelled to Italy to attend the second memorial lecture, presented

by Archbishop Buti Tlhagale.

This year’s lecture will be on Monday, September 30, at Holy Rosary School (Bishop Shanahan Hall) in Edenvale, Johannesburg, from 17:30. n For catering purposes, please RSVP by Friday, September 20, to info@little eden.org.za or contact Gugu Mabizela on 011 609-7246.

Standard Bank executive and former Miss South Africa Peggy-Sue Khumalo will present this year’s Little Eden Society memorial lecture.

The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

LOCAL

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‘It’s complicated’: Mugabe and the Catholic Church

BY BRONWEN DACHS

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Cape Town’s Portuguese community celebrates the Blessing of the Fishing Fleet each year before the start of the fishing season. This year’s event, which includes Mass, food, entertainment and motorbike parades, will take place at the V&A Waterfront on October 5 and 6.

Portuguese community gears up for Blessing of the Fleet

BY ERIN CARELSE

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HE Portuguese Cultural and Welfare Centre of Cape Town will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of its annual Blessing of the Fishing Fleet, a traditional community festival, in October at the V&A Waterfront.

Fishermen from the Portuguese community gather each year to take part in the blessing ceremony for their fishing vessels before the fishing season.

This year the event will be hosted on Jetty 2 of the V&A Waterfront, stationed opposite the Table Bay Hotel. The festival will take place on October 5 and 6.

It opens at 12:00 on Saturday, October 5, with a number of traditional Portuguese food stalls. The arrival of a Harley Davidson parade and the motorcycle blessing is at 15:00, followed by the local motorcycle group Amigos Portuguesa’s parade, and live entertainment with a Festa do Mar disco starting from 20:00.

The Sunday kicks off with Mass at 10:30 followed by the blessing of the boats at 12:00, after which they then proceed out to sea.

Following the formalities on Sunday, there will be a celebration of eating, drinking and dancing, with live entertainment by João Quintinho and Kanimambo, traditional Portuguese folk dancing, and food stalls until the evening.

All proceeds from both events go towards the Portuguese Cultural and Welfare Centre, a team dedicated to helping members of the community who find themselves in difficult circumstances. The organisation aims to make as much of a positive difference as possible throughout the year via a variety of events and fundraisers.

The blessing of the fleet has been in existence for centuries in Mediterranean fishing communities and has been practised in Cape Town since 1989, when the local Portuguese community decided to celebrate this tradition at the Cape.

OBERT Mugabe, who led Zimbabwe to independence from Britain in 1980 and then crushed his opposition during nearly four decades of rule, always liked to be seen as a devout Catholic.

Mr Mugabe, who died at 95 on September 6, was calculated and pragmatic, using the Church when it suited him, said Jesuit Father Oskar Wermter of Harare.

Fr Wermter noted that when Mr Mugabe appeared at Masses it would attract publicity and he was always expected to address the congregation.

Mr Mugabe was educated by the Marist Brothers, but it was a Jesuit priest who first spotted his potential. Fr Jerome O’Hea SJ, the parish priest of Kutama mission station, north-east of Harare, “recognised little Robert as a clever boy and promoted him wherever he could”, Fr Wermter said.

Mr Mugabe’s mother “was a strong Catholic who had been deserted by his carpenter father”, he said.

Mr Mugabe was taught by French Canadian Marist Brothers, who ran the secondary school on the mission station.

Fr Wermter noted that all his life Mr Mugabe’s rural home was next to the mission station.

When Mugabe had completed his training as a teacher, he taught at Catholic schools in Zimbabwe before leaving for Ghana, where he met his first wife, Sally Hayfron.

They were married in a Catholic church in Harare in 1961, and three years later Mugabe was imprisoned for ten years by the Rhodesian government for opposing white rule.

During that time, Jesuit priests brought the man who eventually earned seven university degrees the materials he needed for his studies, Fr Wermter said.

After Mr Mugabe’s release in 1974, a diocesan priest and a few Dominican nuns helped smuggle him across the border into Mozambique, Fr Wermter said.

From Mozambique, Mr Mugabe

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Former Zimbabwean prime minister Robert Mugabe, who died earlier this month, always liked to be seen as a devout Catholic. (Photo: Philimon Bulawayo, Reuters/CNS) led guerrilla forces in Zimbabwe’s protracted independence war. He returned to Rhodesia in 1979 and, in 1980, was elected prime minister of the newly independent country, renamed Zimbabwe.

While in the early years of his rule Mr Mugabe was praised for building schools and hospitals and expanding social services, at the same time he was leading a brutal crackdown on opposition supporters in the predominantly Ndebele regions of Zimbabwe.

A

1997 report—compiled from witness accounts by the Catholic Commission for Justice & Peace in Zimbabwe and the Legal Resources Foundation, a group of human rights lawyers—lists more than 7 000 cases of killings, torture and human rights abuses by Zimbabwe government troops in the western Matabeleland province from 1981-87.

This report changed Mr Mugabe’s relationship with the Church, which until then had been cordial, and he “started to call the bishops sanctimonious prelates”, Fr Wermter said.

He always hit back viciously when he was criticised, the priest said, noting that while Mr Mugabe would publicly dismiss pastoral letters by Zimbabwe’s bishops that were critical of him and his government as unimportant, he was

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A group of young people from Harare, Zimbabwe, are seen at their prayer and preparation meeting for the Taizé Pilgrimage of Trust in Cape Town from September 25-29. The daily programme will include common prayers, workshops, visiting and meeting people of hope in the neighbourhood, meditative singing, and sharing faith. Participants will be accommodated in parishes and local communities. It is the first Taizé Pilgrimage of Trust in South Africa since 1995, when it was held in Johannesburg.

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“stung by their words”.

Mr Mugabe was “vain and conceited, and if you attacked him you were sure to lose”, Fr Wermter noted, citing the case of Archbishop Pius Ncube, who resigned as archbishop of Bulawayo in 2007.

Archbishop Ncube and Mr Mugabe’s relationship had grown very bitter. Mr Mugabe then “used information given to him by his secret service to destroy the man”, Fr Wermter said.

On the other hand, Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa of Harare, who died in 2003, was a friend of Mr Mugabe, and his support for the ruling party was seen by analysts as a barrier to the conference of bishops’ ability to speak with one voice against injustices.

Archbishop Chakaipa officiated at the 1996 marriage of Mr Mugabe to Grace Marufu in Katuma. At the time, they had two children together, and a third was born when Mugabe was 73 years old.

Grace was married to an air force pilot when she became Mr Mugabe’s secretary, then mistress, before Sally Mugabe died of a kidney disease in 1992.

Zimbabwe’s bishops and Southern African regional bishops’ group IMBISA, which has its headquarters in Harare, “always tried to keep up a dialogue with Mugabe”, Fr Wermter said.—CNS

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The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

INTERNATIONAL

Brazilian bishops warn of indigenous genocide

BY EDUARDO CAMPOS LIMA

A Archbishop Juan Garcia Rodriguez of Havana is among 13 new cardinals named by Pope Francis. (Photo: Fernando Medina, Reuters/CNS)

New cardinal helped rebuild Cuban church

BY CAROL GLATZ

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ITH one of the most important Marian feasts in Cuba falling just one week after it was announced that he would be made a cardinal, Cardinal-designate Juan Garcia Rodriguez said he took the news as a sign of Mary’s maternal love.

The 71-year-old archbishop of Havana, whose full name is Juan de la Caridad Garcia Rodriguez, was referring to Cuba’s patroness, la Virgen de la Caridad—Our Lady of Charity.

“Thanks be to God and Pope Francis for looking upon the Church in Cuba, which has spent the past five centuries praising God, proclaiming the Gospel, teaching the faith and doing works of charity,” he said.

The archbishop said he learned “with surprise, shock and fear” that he had been named a cardinal from Fr Ariel Suarez, rector of the minor basilica of Our Lady of Charity in Havana.

After a few seconds of not believing what the priest had told him, the cardinal-designate said he then took the news “as a sign of the Virgin’s maternal affection” for the people of Cuba, since the news came in the midst of preparations and prayers for her feast day.

He will receive his red hat in a consistory on October 5 at the Vatican.

The Cuban bishops’ conference, which he headed from 2007-10, expressed its “great joy” at the announcement.

Cardinal-designate Rodriguez was among the Cuban Church officials who worked to help hundreds of thousands of Cubans who lost their homes and belongings during one of the worst natural disasters in the country’s recent history—Hurricane Ike in September 2008.

The native of Camaguey has worked quietly to help rebuild the Cuban Church, both physically and spiritually.

Known for his missionary spirit, Archbishop Rodriguez found ways to help catechise Cuba after nearly 50 years when religious practice was discouraged by the communist government.

Born in Camaguey on July 11, 1948, he was one of the first group of priests able to complete all his studies for the priesthood on Cuban soil.

He was ordained in his home archdiocese in 1972, and served in a number of parishes there. He was also the founder and director of a school for missionaries in the archdiocese.

The archbishop was appointed auxiliary bishop of Camaguey in 1997 and was elevated to archbishop in 2002.

Pope Francis appointed him to be the archbishop of Havana in 2016.— CNS

FTER denouncing the record number of wildfires in the Amazon and the growing deforestation of the region, the Brazilian Catholic Church is pressuring the government to guarantee the safety of several Amazonian indigenous peoples, alerting the authorities of the imminent risk of genocide in northern Brazil.

“No indigenous people feels safe in Brazil right now. But the situation is particularly serious in the Amazonian state of Rondonia, where the peoples Uru-eu-wau-wau and Karipuna had their lands invaded, and in the state of Para, where the Xikrin people live,” said Archbishop Roque Paloschi of Porto Velho, president of the Indigenous Missionary Council, or CIMI, a committee of the Brazilian bishops’ conference.

CIMI released a statement condemning President Jair Bolsonaro’s verbal attacks on the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

“Amid the environmental destruction caused by deforestation and criminal wildfires, especially in the Amazonian region, he maintains an incendiary attitude, with a repugnant aggressiveness directed to the native peoples and their right to a dignified existence,” said CIMI’s statement.

Since his campaign in 2018, Mr Bolsonaro has criticised environmental legislation and the “excessive number” of indigenous reservations, promising to loosen restrictions on activities that affect the environment and to stop recognising indigenous territories.

Cleanton Curioso, a lay missionary and CIMI’s coordinator in Altamira, said Mr Bolsonaro’s comments have created a “feeling of impunity” among indigenous land invaders.

“Hundreds of illegal miners, illegal loggers, and land-grabbers invaded the indigenous reservation Trincheira Bacaja in 2016. They destroyed the forests, started wildfires and even built a village, but the au-

Shanenawa people dance during a festival to celebrate nature and ask for an end to the burning of the Amazon.The Brazilian Catholic bishops are pressuring the government to guarantee the safety of several Amazonian indigenous peoples. (Photo: Ueslei Marcelino, Reuters/CNS) thorities didn’t do anything. So now the Xikrin people have decided to expel the invaders with their own hands,” Mr Curioso said.

Dozens of Xikrin men walked several miles through the reservation and reached the invaders’ camp. They told the men to leave the area and took the invaders’ guns and the equipment used to destroy the rainforest.

“Now they’re being threatened by the invaders. There’s a big risk of violent conflict in the area, especially if the authorities fail to act,” said Mr Curioso.

About 1 200 indigenous people live in 16 villages in the reservation, which is shared by the Xikrin and two other nations.

In Rondonia, the reservation of the Karipuna people was invaded in 2015, but invaders have intensified their illegal activities—mining, logging and land-grabbing—since Bolsonaro’s election, said Sr Laura Vicuna Manso, a missionary in the region.

“The invaders use social media to threaten the Karipuna, saying

they will set fire to their villages and kill them all. As I was sleeping there, several times I could hear their machines operating and gunshots during the night.”

Sr Manso said at least 30 wildfires inside the Karipuna reservation could be spotted in satellite images.

“The invaders are certainly the perpetrators of the fires. They said on the Internet they would do it.

It’s an orchestrated criminal action,” she said.

Sr Manso said more than 110km2 of rainforest on the reservation were destroyed in recent years.

Archbishop Paloschi said he believes the interests of large-scale landowners in the Amazon are behind the deforestation and the attacks against indigenous peoples.

“Many people don't get their hands dirty, but obtain profits from such acts. Brazilian history shows us who are most privileged people are throughout the decades of destruction of the Amazon,” he said.—CNS

French cardinal dies at 96

BY CAROL GLATZ

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ARDINAL Roger Etchegaray, a longtime Vatican official and papal envoy who was sent to some of the world’s most wounded and challenging places, died in France on September 4. He was 96.

A tireless bridge builder, the French cardinal also played key roles in ecumenical relations, including with the late Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, and in interreligious dialogue; he was one of the key organisers of the first Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi in 1986, which brought 160 religious leaders together at a time of increasing world tensions and fears of nuclear war.

But it was his efforts spanning two decades as an able negotiator for Pope John Paul II that stood out the most: being sent to the Middle East to seek peace, meeting Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the hopes of avoiding war in 2003, visiting communist Cuba to meet Fidel Castro, witnessing the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda and encouraging Lebanon to rebuild after 16 years of civil war.

Born on September 25, 1922, in Espelette, France, Cardinal Etchegaray studied in Rome before and after his ordination to the priesthood in 1947.

Pope Paul VI appointed him auxiliary bishop of Paris in 1969 and, less than two years later, archbishop of Marseille.

After making him a cardinal in his first consistory as pope in 1979, Pope John Paul asked the cardinal to come to Rome in 1984 to head the thenPontifical Commission for Justice

Former papal envoy Cardinal Roger Etchegaray died at 96.

(Photo: Norbert Schiller/CNS) and Peace and the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Vatican’s aid-coordinating agency.

The cardinal celebrated Christmas midnight Mass in Havana in 1988 and met with Castro for talks.

He also was the first cardinal to visit communist China.

Seen as “the pope’s messenger”, the cardinal went to Jerusalem in 2002 to seek an end to a Israeli blockade at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI approved the cardinal’s election as vice dean of the College of Cardinals, a role he retired from at 94 in 2017.

The cardinal suffered a broken hip after a bystander rushed then 82year-old Pope Benedict during a procession into St Peter’s basilica on Christmas Eve in 2009. The pope was unharmed, but the French cardinal fell in the confusion and required a total hip replacement.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

5

Jordanian priest helps Iraqi Thousands protest law to force abortion on N Ireland refugees get work at parish

BY DALE GAVLAK

BY CHRISTINE ROUSSELLE

F

T

ENS of thousands of people took to the streets of Belfast to protest against the impending legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland. Pro-life advocates said that they fear the proposed changes in the province could be used to legalise abortion on demand throughout the entirety of the United Kingdom.

The demonstration was held in response to the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Act, passed by the UK parliament in July. That Act, passed by the national legislature, was introduced to ensure continuity of government following a protracted deadlock in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

During debate in the House of Commons, MPs from other parts of the UK voted to add provisions legalising abortion in Northern Ireland, despite a 2016 decision by the assembly to reject bringing abortion to the province.

The law, which will take effect on October 21 unless the assembly is able to resume operations, will also introduce same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland by 2020.

The March for their Lives was organised by the group Precious Life.

The group said they were “heartened and encouraged” by the strong turnout, which was estimated to be over 20 000.

The people of Northern Ireland made “a strong stand against the extreme and undemocratic legislation that Westminster is forcing on Northern Ireland”, said Bernadette Smyth, founder of Precious Life .

“We believe Northern Ireland is being used as a Trojan horse to push

Thousands took to the streets of Belfast to protest abortion laws which will be implemented without their consent. (Photo: CNA) for full ‘decriminalisation’ of abortion across the UK, a euphemism for the full legalisation of abortion through the whole nine months of pregnancy,” said Ms Smyth.

Abortion is currently legal in Great Britain to the 24th week of a pregnancy for any reason. After that time, there must be a medical reason for a woman to abort her pregnancy.

The Abortion Act of 1967 introduced the practice in England, Scotland, and Wales, but its terms did not extend to Northern Ireland, where it remains illegal, with very limited exceptions. A person who is found to be guilty of performing an abortion faces up to life in prison.

Liam Gibson, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children’s (SPUC) Northern Ireland political officer, said that he was not surprised people marched in protest at the thought of legal abortion unwittingly coming to Northern Ireland.

“It is no wonder so many thousands of ordinary people voted with

their feet. They have been outraged at the way their deeply-held views have been ignored and the existing laws threatened by a parliament hundreds of kilometres away,” said Mr Gibson.

“This Act represents the greatest tragedy for unborn babies and women in Northern Ireland. 100 000 people in Northern Ireland are alive today because Northern Ireland did not accept the same abortion law that was introduced into Britain in 1967,” he said.

John Deighan, deputy CEO of the SPUC, said that parliament had shown a disregard for the voters and the province’s right to self-governance.

“It is a testimony to the pro-life tradition of the province that so many have taken to the streets. UK politicians have perpetrated a disgraceful injustice on the people of Northern Ireland and on the defenceless children in the womb,” said Mr Deighan. —CNA

Sri Lanka has independent inquiry into bombings after Church appeal

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ARDINAL Malcolm Ranjith has finally won a concession from Sri Lanka’s government after widespread criticism of the investigation into the deadly Easter Sunday attacks.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced that a new independent commission would be appointed as a direct result of the cardinal’s plea, reported ucanews.com.

Cardinal Ranjith, president of the Sri Lankan bishops’ conference, had appealed for such a commission to bring impartiality and progress to the police investigation, ucanews.com reported. The bishops had urged the government to treat

their demand as a matter of the utmost urgency.

A nine-person group of suicide bombers affiliated with local Islamist extremist group National Thowheed Jamath blasted three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, killing 259 people, including 37 foreign nationals, and wounding at least 500. Many Christians have been too scared to attend church since the attacks.

Cardinal Ranjith insisted he would not give up his efforts to find the culprits behind the attacks.

President’s Counsel Shamil Perera, appearing on the cardinal’s behalf, told the Supreme Court that if intelligence information had been

ATHER Khalil Jaar and British humanitarian Amy Peake have teamed up in an initiative that provides a livelihood to some of his Iraqi refugee parishioners, who have run short of funds, in a crowded section of Amman, the Jordanian capital.

“We have around 800 Iraqi refugee families living in my parish in Marka. They came after ISIS took Mosul and arrived here with almost nothing,” explained Fr Jaar, who has devoted his ministry to aiding Iraqi and Syrian refugees flooding into Jordan from neighbouring conflicts for more than a decade.

“Unlike the Syrian refugees, the Iraqis are not allowed to work. They don’t receive any help from nongovernmental organisations,” he said. “So, you can imagine the situation of these families. I am looking to find a way for them to live in human dignity, to work, and to have some money,” said Fr Jaar, who grew up as a Palestinian refugee from Bethlehem, West Bank.

The Jordanian government grants work permits to some Syrian refugees, but others, such as Iraqis and Yemenis, are not officially allowed to work. But Fr Jaar explained that Iraqis working in the Church and on the compound may do so, because they are Christian and it’s a Catholic institution which has been helping them.

Fr Jaar and Ms Peake created a factory to produce high-quality washable nappies and sanitary pads

Oldest cardinal dies at 100

C

disseminated before the attack, church officials could have cancelled the ill-fated Easter services. Mr Perera told the court that fundamental freedoms had been violated by the failure to act on essential information.

Ruwan Gunasekara, police spokesman, nevertheless insisted they had been making progress and revealed that 293 people had been arrested.

"There are 178 held on detention orders and a further 115 suspects have been remanded in custody," he said.

Mr Gunasekara also said police had frozen hundreds of bank accounts belonging to 41 suspects.— CNS

OLOMBIAN Cardinal José de Jesus Pimiento Rodriguez, who participated in the Second Vatican Council, died at the age of 100.

Before his death on September 3, Cardinal Pimiento, the retired archbishop of Manizales, was the oldest cardinal in the world.

At the time of writing, the world’s oldest cardinal is Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, former secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, who is 96 years old Born in 1919, José de Jesus Pimiento Rodriguez was ordained a priest in 1941 in Bogota. After serving several assignments, including as parish priest and a professor at the seminary, he was named a bishop by Pope Pius XII in 1955.

Four years later, he was appointed bishop of Monteria by Pope John XXIII. In 1964, Pope Paul VI appointed him to lead the diocese of Garzon-Neiva. During this time, he also attended four sessions of the

Parents protest headscarf ban

A

PRESTIGIOUS Catholic school in the Senegalese capital of Dakar is going ahead with a ban on students wearing Islamic headscarves, local media is reporting.

The Sainte-Jeanne d’Arc Institute in Dakar, run by the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny, made the decision several months ago, Africanews.com reports. As a result students who came to school wearing headscarves were not allowed to remain at school.

The school includes primary, secondary, and post-baccalaureate education.

Some parents have called for government action and have threatened to file complaints against the school.

The West African country of Senegal is about 96% Muslim; the 4% or so that are Christian are mostly Catholic. The government is officially secular.—CNA

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to aid Syrian refugee residents suffering from incontinence, including traumatised children, the elderly and the disabled at Zaatari, Jordan’s biggest refugee camp for Syrians. Fr Khalil Jaar The nappies are free; the idea was to help keep the refugees from spending most of their monthly stipend on disposable nappies.

Fr Jaar said the Iraqi Christians who fled ISIS are well-educated and skilled. They want the possibility to work, rather than receiving handouts.

“I remember during a foodcoupon distribution, I saw an Iraqi man crying,” he recalled. “I asked him, ‘Has someone hurt you? Why are you are crying? Why are you sad?’ He said, ‘No, Father, I am sad for myself. The work you are doing to help these people, this used to be my work in Mosul. I was a very rich man and I used to help people.

Now, I am asking for someone to help me.’”

“My duty is to support them, to encourage them, to tell them that you are suffering, but you are suffering for a very high, noble reason: to preserve your faith,” Fr Jaar said.

“For you, for me, you are the living saints in my parish. I thank you for living with me.”—CNS

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Second Vatican Council as a council Father.

He served as president of the Colombian bishops’ conference in 1972 and, Cardinal Pimiento, three years later, was ap- who has died at pointed as 100. (Photo: CNS) bishop of the archdiocese of Manizales by Pope Paul VI. Pope John Paul II accepted his retirement in 1996 at the age of 76.

In 2015, Pope Francis announced then-Archbishop Pimiento would be among five prelates over the age of 80 to be created cardinals. Although ineligible to vote in a conclave, such nominations are used by popes to honour churchmen for their scholarship or other contributions.—CNS

6

The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

What is patriarchy?

O

NE key word in the discussions on gender-based violence is “patriarchy”.

In protests against the endemic rape crisis, domestic violence and femicide in South Africa, many voices (including this newspaper and at least one bishop) have been calling for the patriarchy to be smashed.

The resultant discourse, however, indicates that the concept of patriarchy is not universally well understood. What is it that needs dismantling?

In short, patriarchy is the social framework in which men have prevalent control over women: by law, by systemic convention, or by force. It is seen in various ways in different environments, influenced and sometimes dictated by factors such as cultural mores, economic class, and the structure of society.

Patriarchal hierarchies do not disappear when individual women assume positions of power. India and Pakistan, for example, remain profusely patriarchal societies even though they have been governed by women.

Patriarchal attitudes are still evident in societies that have actively worked to diminish male domination and gender inequality. And still, even in countries like Germany, there remains a salary gap between men and women performing the same job.

Here are some further examples, to which many more could be added, to illustrate how patriarchy is evident, in South Africa and around the world.

Patriarchy is when it is presumed that the man is the head of the household, to whom women are subordinate.

Patriarchy is when men’s primacy in the household is ascribed to nature, sometimes by the same people who are active in destroying nature by polluting and eroding it.

Patriarchy is when a woman’s value in society is dependent on her husband’s standing.

Patriarchy is when a woman’s safety is dependent on the goodwill of her male partner and male family members.

Patriarchy is when a woman is left without a home or financial security when a marriage breaks down.

Patriarchy is when sexual harassment, starting with whistling at women in the street, is seen as “just a bit of fun”.

Patriarchy is when a woman is

told to keep secret physical or sexual violence against her because reporting it might cause scandal.

Patriarchy is when a discourse about violence against women is flipped to include the observation that some men are victims of violence as well. They are, but most men don’t live in perpetual fear of assault.

Patriarchy is when a woman is blamed for her rape on the grounds of what she was wearing, how she was dancing, how late she was out, her sexual history, and so on.

Patriarchy is when a saint is celebrated for having fended off her rapist to protect her “purity”, instead of respecting her powers of forgiveness.

Patriarchy is when boys see nothing wrong with sexually harassing their girl peers or even video-recording their rape. Such mindsets do not emerge in a vacuum.

Patriarchy is when a woman is expected to be a virgin until marriage, but men are expected to “play the field”.

Patriarchy is when women earn a lower salary than men for doing the same job.

Patriarchy is when a female candidate for political office is judged by her appearance as much or more than her attributes or policies.

Patriarchy is when a record of sexual abuse or alleged rape is no obstacle for a man’s election to high political office.

Patriarchy is when a man makes jokes about sexually abusive behaviour, and all the other men laugh.

Patriarchy is when a woman breastfeeding her baby in public risks being harassed for it.

Patriarchy is when the birth of daughters is seen as a disappointment; in some countries baby girls are aborted or killed because they are not boys.

Patriarchy is when the appointment of women to leadership positions in a structure is still newsworthy, as it is in the Catholic Church.

Patriarchy is when calls to present God as feminine or gender-neutral are met with loud protests by those who insist God is a man—as if God has a gender.

Patriarchy is when men deny they are institutionally privileged.

Patriarchy is when the existence of the patriarchy is denied, despite all evidence to the contrary.

URSULINE SISTERS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

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

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

Catastrophic Amazon fires: what should we do?

I WAS pleasantly surprised and proud to find the article “Good ship Pope Francis” (August 28) because one of my German Franciscan co-Sisters is one of the 20 medical volunteers who will bring relief and healing to countless underprivileged people along the Amazon.

Sadly, the same evening, eNCA shocked me, and hopefully many other viewers, with pictures and figures of tens of thousands of forest fires in the Amazon region which threaten to result in an ecological disaster that, in turn, will have uncontrollable detrimental impacts on the health of human beings per-

Moving vision of womanly beauty

I

WISH to thank Obakeng Kgongoane for her powerful article “How to be a beautiful woman” (September 4).

I was drawn at first to the article by the magnificent work of US artist Rip Caswell, whose portrayal of the face of Our Lady appeared on the front page and with the article.

I have an enlarged version, from The Southern Cross many years ago.

To me it is the most beautiful portrayal of the Most Blessed Among Women, Mother Mary. The artist has given her an expression of strength yet vulnerability, sorrow yet peace, and immense feminine beauty.

Ms Kgongoane, in her article, challenged all of us, girls and women alike, to seek greater inner beauty rather than the hollow and brittle beauty that parades and disappoints us from screens and magazines.

And, startlingly, she directed our attention to the African context of womanhood being associated with loss, violence and erasure. I think most of us girls struggled into womanhood with much pain, misunderstanding and disappointment. But the recent exposure of the brutal violation and murder of our sisters is perhaps the worst suffering of all.

I too was amazingly blessed in an encounter with Mother Mary at Ngome, years ago, when she spoke to me from the inscription on her statue, paraphrased as, “I am called blessed because I carried the Christ within my body, but you too are blessed when you partake of the Eucharist, you carry him within you.”

Yes, our Blessed Mother Mary was chosen, but you girls and women, and even I, as an older woman, we have a choice.

We can choose to centre our lives on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be filled with him, and perhaps some of the real beauty will radiate out of us. And the joy will most certainly transform us.

Heather Withers, Johannesburg

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haps not so many years from now.

I am well aware of our South African economic situation and our challenges, especially related to water supply and energy.

However, Brazil is geographically not far from us.

As a member of BRICS, are we not expected to get involved in bringing the horrendous fires under control?

Should we not discourage the timber industry which has been robbing people, especially indigenous tribes, of their living space and livelihood for 30 years, it is said? Earlier warnings have fallen

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The image of Our Lady by artist Rip Caswell referred to in her letter by reader Heather Withers.

No parish prayer on latest violence

V

ATICAN II taught us that “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.

“To carry out such a task, the Church has always had the duty of scrutinising the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel” (Gaudium et Spes 1, 4).

Truly, the “signs of the times” in South Africa include the pandemic of gender-based violence and xenophobic attacks.

This past month, with the country reeling from the impact of the escalating numbers of women and children murdered by men, together with the xenophobic attacks in Gauteng, my parish was silent.

The presider did not mention these “signs”. They were not included in the prayers of the faithful.

However, in the “free space” for other intentions, I prayed for: • All the women who had been raped and murdered in the week before we were together in the church; • All the women who would be raped and murdered in the next seven days.

• The conversion of all the men who abuse women and children in any way.

I was baffled by the omission and spoke to the priest about it but he didn’t seem to understand the urgency. I hope my experience was unique.

We cannot preach the Gospel if we do not know and respond to the signs of the times.

Sr Sue Rakoczy IHM, Cedara, KZN

Disrespect kindles rape and murder

W

E women are angry. I can hear the men laughing already.

Who would not wish to stand up to say or do something to express the horror of what is going on in South Africa?

The sin of femicide is now occurring on a daily basis.

The recent rape and murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a 19-year-old UCT student, took place in a post office which is next door to a police station and less than five minutes’ walk from St Ignatius Catholic church in Cape Town.

on deaf ears.

Will our politicians act and do something? Can we, as the Catholic Church do something?

As we approach October, the month of Fatima, can we turn to our Blessed Lady of Fatima, who is the same as the Lady of Aparecida do Norte in Brazil, and beg her to avert a possible catastrophe of global proportions?

Do the reports rob us of sleep because we are “in this” and are co-responsible for what generations to come will face?

Sr Electa Wild OSF, Bloemfontein

The images and feelings evoked in us by this news are those of denial: we think this must surely be some form of fake news.

There is the myth that we women look for, entice, and seduce men to believe that we invite these violent advances.

It evokes memories of experiences at the hands of men in power—among clergy, government officials, in the workplace—that openly suggested their self-chosen superiority and disrespect towards women.

I recall a Neocatecumanate priest who, in response to my wellintentioned query about his wellbeing, responded by pushing his tongue out for me to have a look at his tonsils.

I recall a priest who, for a number of years, never ever addressed me by name even though we worked together on a project.

I recall a government official in a school react adversely and make inappropriate remarks when, on his arrival, he found me holding a stack of Bibles.

I recall a sales consultant in a school remark that I was one of the few women he had met who was self-disciplined. What were his expectations then of most women?

I recall an incident when I was blatantly accused of being arrogant and rude when I unsuccessfully attempted to point out to a highstanding clergyman an error made in a certain document that needed to be rectified. Because I was a woman, I was in the wrong and he had the right to insult me?

Thank God these are the only open negative experiences I have had with clergy, but, subtly, they regularly put us women down.

There is something terribly wrong in this country.

And I can assure you that most men believe this wrong has its roots in women.

Antoinette Padua, Cape Town

Why should Pell choose to resign?

R

EGARDING the upheld conviction of Cardinal George Pell in Australia, I am reminded of the unfortunate miscarriage of justice by the Australian courts in the famous “dingo” case, where a married couple were wrongly convicted for the murder of their own child, who had disappeared during a nightmare family holiday in the Outback.

They were subsequently found to have been innocent.

In the 1970s, I recall the travesty of justice in Australia of a luckless man being given a hefty jail sentence for hunting a black swan, while another got off with a suspended sentence after mowing his car into and killing a pedestrian (these were reported in the same newspaper of the day).

Has Cardinal Pell been served justice in the courts of Australia?

If his conscience is clear that justice has been denied him, then whyever should he tender his resignation, as Günther Simmermacher suggested in his column “Why Pell should resign” (August 28)?

Fr Sean Collins CSsR, Uitenhage

PERSPECTIVES

Show that we’re disciples O N a Facebook group where citizens of Cape Town are able to dialogue on living in the city, someone posted a picture of rubbish lying in the street after rubbish collection day, calling for action as homeless people are leaving the suburbs littered in filth.

One comment, by a man named Patrick, really stood out for me: “We need to pepper spray and beat up these homeless people. We shot them with paintball guns in the previous area I stayed in.”

Patrick continued: “They have no business scratching in our bins, they are destroying our suburbs. Maybe the SANDF should deal with them as they are dealing with the gangsters and drug addicts.”

I was shocked. How could someone want to inflict hurt on someone else?

Someone looking for something to eat or something of value which they could recycle and so earn a living for their families!

I do understand Patrick’s frustration. I often find my rubbish lying in the street because the homeless people didn’t care to put it back after scratching in my black wheelie bin. But to propose violence on someone who has lost everything, living it rough? I don’t think that is the unconditional love Jesus is talking about when he says: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

It seems to me that we remain divided among ourselves, 25 years after the dawn of democracy. Racism has stuck its head into society again, and it has surfaced within the Church as well.

This is an issue which we, as the newlyelected PPC of our parish, need to tackle as the first project of our term.

But we also remain divided as Church communities between “haves and have nots”.

Often when we think about “the poor”, “the lonely”, “the homeless”, we think of people “out there”. But often they are the

people right here.

Often we hear it preached from the pulpits that we should get to know the people within our Church community, that we shouldn’t just be liturgical Catholics, but Catholics who take the time out to get to know one another as well.

Get to know the highs, the lows, the suffering, the pain, the happiness and joy of one another. Not just shake the hand of our sisters and brothers at the sign of peace, but honestly, genuinely and lovingly empathise with one another fully.

To move on, we need to dialogue with one another. We need to speak and understand one another, holistically.

S

ometimes we need to get out of our boats (our comfort zones) and walk with Jesus on the water. We need to walk with him towards the conflicts, towards the lonely, towards the aged, towards the imprisoned, towards the homeless.

We need to walk with him and minister, not to the least amongst us, but to Him who lives within them.

The Eucharistic prayers, after the consecration, gives thanks “that you have

A homeless man. In his column, Keenan Williams reflects on a Facebook comment by a man who proposed violence on homeless people. (Photo: Art Tower)

Keenan Williams

The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

Michael Shackleton

Talking Faith

Open Door

held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you”.

When we minister and serve one another, we minister and serve God who lives within each and every person.

But often we don’t listen, we don’t read, and we don’t understand these words. Or we may understand them but not live them in our lives.

Recently I met a homeless man named Tyrone at one of the traffic intersections in the Cape Town CBD. Tyrone had grabbed my attention by what he had written on his piece of cardboard: “I can’t ignore my hunger the way people are ignoring me.”

I found it so profound, so honest and so very true. How often do we roll up our windows, not answer when our doors are knocked on and selfishly keep what we have been blessed with in the cupboards for moths to feast on?

It reminds me of a few years ago when I travelled to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. On one particular day I was walking towards the big Ethiopian Orthodox cathedral.

As I stood on the pavement, I looked like a lost tourist. Then a homeless man asked if he could help me with directions.

I accepted and we walked together to the cathedral.

During our conversation he thanked me for acknowledging the human within him. He then told me that his father had never been present in his life, and that his mother had died a month before we had met. He and his sister had then decided to leave their village and go to the city to look for work, but they couldn’t find anything and ended up living on the streets for the previous three weeks.

He told me that during that time, as he Continued on page 11

Do we sin when we don’t fast?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells me that the Precepts of the Church have an obligatory character (2041). I can understand that I am obligated to attend Sunday Mass because God commands me to keep the Sabbath day holy, and I sin against God if I fail. But the other precepts are formed by the Church, not God. Can I be said to sin if, for example, I don’t bother to fast and abstain on the prescribed days?

P Evans

P

UT briefly, the Precepts of the Church are fivefold. They oblige us to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, to confess our sins at least once a year, to receive the Eucharist at least during the Easter season, to observe days of fasting and abstinence, and to provide for the material needs of the Church.

The immediate object of the Precepts is to strengthen members of the Church collectively and individually as they strive to show the world about them who Christ is and what he has planned for the world’s salvation.

We are not going to be very effective in living an exemplary Christian life if we obey the Precepts of the Church only to the letter. You must have noticed that these Precepts require us to do only the barest minimum as faithful Catholics.

This is not enough.

We must observe not the letter but the spirit of the Precepts, which is to live as a Christian community, adoring God and doing his will, supporting one another in our needs and in performing works of love and care for others.

So, when you attend Mass or go to confession or fast and abstain on the fixed days, you are doing this not just as one Catholic who hopes not to sin. You are doing it in union with the vast numbers of fellow believers, altogether mutually building up the spiritual strength of the Church, which is Christ in the world.

God, of course, gave the Ten Commandments as a moral law for all humanity, not only for the People of Israel under Moses.

If we refuse to obey an explicit order by God, we must be prepared for the consequences. If we refuse to abide by any or all of the Precepts of the Church, there are also consequences. These, however, have to do with our conscience.

There is no coercion or outward penalty if we wilfully disregard the Precepts, but there is an inward call reminding us of our baptismal vows and our duties to Christ and his Church.

If we think we are on our own and not part of the communion of saints, then our conscience should be pricking us uncomfortably.

We need to talk about mental health A Raymond Perrier S a society we are getting better at talking about all kinds of subjects that were once taboo: gender-based violence, diverse sexual orientations, lifethreatening illnesses, bullying at work or at school, and addictions.

But I fear that there is one area in which social taboos still reign: depression and anxiety. Although we are slowly beginning to learn to speak out, just as with the problems I listed above, it is usually men who are slower to ask for help than women.

Talking—just speaking out loud about the problem to someone else—is one of the key steps to making the situation better.

This is not generally true of a physical illness. If I find some embarrassing rash, I have to tell one person (a doctor), but once I have the treatment I can just apply it and do not have to share the news with others.

But if I have a mental illness, keeping quiet about it, especially to people who are closest to me, is one of the surest ways to make things worse.

What drives us into this silence? I suspect that it is a fear that the condition is somehow our fault—either that it is a moral weakness or a mistake, and either of these are a cause of shame. Being rational, neither of these are likely to be true but sadly when facing depression and anxiety our abilities to process information rationally, and our confidence levels, are often undermined.

But taboos in relation to health issues can be overcome. In a previous generation cancer was almost never named, referred to mysteriously as “the Big C”. Now we talk openly about different cancers and we shave our heads or wrap trees in pink to raise funds and create awareness.

If we have friends or family suffering from cancer, we generally work hard to ensure that they do not suffer additionally from being stigmatised.

In the past few years the same has been achieved—almost—with Aids: openly talking about the need to test, promoting behaviours to prevent transmission, and encouraging people to take life-saving ARVs. We have come a long way from the early days of fear and doom.

The Church plays a key role in this. The very concepts of taboo and stigma have their roots in religious traditions that often invoke the “fear of God” as a way of preventing people doing or talking about certain things.

But—as we saw in KwaZulu-Natal in the

Faith and Society

Thabiso Sekgala was a Johannesburg photographer whose work is exhibited by the Goodman Gallery. He died at the age of 33 of suicide in 2014. response to Aids led by Archbishop Denis Hurley and other religious leaders—those same powerful forces can be used to destigmatise. Adopting further religious language, we can lead the subject from the darkness into the light.

I wonder if the silence is partly because of ignorance. The very term “mental illness” conjures up extreme images of Dickensian asylums and straitjackets.

But mental illness—like physical illness—covers a broad spectrum. There are some conditions that we do now talk about because we can name them and even point to specific medications.

Think for example of psychotic disorders or schizophrenia or even the rise in the diagnosis of ADHD among young people. The label makes it easier to name and contain.

B

ut at the other end of the spectrum, there are experiences of mental illness that start off as low-level depression, or intermittent anxiety, or a passing sense of not being entirely at ease. Often we are reluctant to seek help for fear that we will be labelled as suffering from extreme problems.

The sad irony is that, as with some physical conditions, the failure to address a small problem early on might be the very reason it becomes a bigger problem in the fullness of time.

Perhaps we should talk not of “mental illness” but “degrees of mental wellness”.

That makes it clear that there is a spectrum, that it is not automatic that a small problem will become a larger one, and that it is okay to ask for help whenever we feel a lack of mental wellness.

Some of our churches are learning how

to do this and how to signal that it is okay to ask for help, though many still have a long way to go.

One very simple idea, pioneered in Zimbabwe, is the friendship bench. In a city there are many people who are young, lonely and cut off from their families. At the same time there are older wise women who can lend an ear (and might be very keen to chat to someone).

Training such women, putting them in special uniforms and placing them on “friendship benches” has given people with low-level depression a chance to speak to someone who cares and who is happy to listen to them unburden.

A particularly good resource from the secular sphere is the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (www.sadag.org).

This organisation—through its website, local meetings and community-based activities—offers positive and realistic responses to different states of mental wellness.

For example, there are regular groups for people to come together and talk with like-minded people, in particular for vulnerable groups like LGBT teenagers or postnatal mothers. This weekend raises awareness about suicide and allows people to remember those who have been lost to suicide.

And in early October there is a bigger Mental Wellness Fair to connect people with a host of different groups and resources.

At the moment at the Durban Art Gallery is a special art exhibition to tackle the mental health stigma under the name “The Empathy and Hope Project”, which will run till September 29. The works include pieces by artists who have themselves have suffered from depression.

There could not be two better words to capture how we can respond to problems of mental wellness: show empathy to the person even before they ask for help; and signal that there are reasons to be hopeful.

These are also words that should be hardwired into the attitudes of all religious traditions.

7

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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8

The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

POPE IN AFRICA

Pope in Mozambique: The SA experience

BY ERIN CARELSE

W

HEN Pope Francis preached at the papal Mass in Zimpeto Stadium in Maputo, Mozambique, as part of his three-nation Africa tour, he spoke also to South African pilgrims in the large crowd.

In his homily, the pope encouraged the people of Mozambique to keep working for peace and reconciliation, loving their enemies, and loving one another.

“What I took from the homily was his message of hope amidst violence,” said Fr Kenneth Moteane of Rustenburg diocese.

“I couldn’t help but notice even priests nodding their heads and some even clapped their hands when the pope said: ‘No family, no group of neighbours, no ethnic group, much less a nation, has a future if the force that unites them, brings them together and resolves their differences is vengeance and hatred,’” Fr Moteane said.

“Can you imagine how I felt as a South African hearing such words? We had seen during the preceding weeks alarming levels of violence and attacks. The message really hit home—either we stand

together and find solutions, or we allow divisions to further polarise us as a nation,” the priest said.

The pope’s words issue South Africans with a challenge that we need to work towards reconciliation and peace, Fr Moteane said.

There was a strong South African presence at the Mass, with some travelling far distances by motorbike, train, car and plane to see Pope Francis.

Fr S’milo Mngadi of Johannesburg was part of a group of 417 people who came from Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and Namibia.

“On arrival, we had our own group Mass at the Vincentian parish of St John the Evangelist.

We arrived at the parish while a Requiem Mass was about to finish.

Standing at the piazza, our pilgrims spontaneously formed a guard of honour for the cortège, singing ‘Yehla Moya Oyingcwele usindis’ iAfrika’ (The Holy Spirit must come down and Africa will be saved). The family and the parishioners appreciated it,” Fr Mngadi said.

At their Mass, “the pilgrims made a very generous collection for the parish and left the clothes

Fr S’milo Mngadi of Johannesburg is caught on a TV broadcast of the papal Mass in Maputo. they had brought along for the Beira [cyclone] victims,” he said.

“We used the occasion to reflect on and pray about issues affecting our country especially xenophobia and Africanophobia,” Fr Mngadi said.

Fr Moteane said that on the way to the papal Mass he noticed the many young and old people walking to the stadium, some having

walked long distances to get there.

Despite the heavy rain, Zimpeto Stadium erupted in sound and song when Pope Francis entered.

“The Mass was celebrated in pouring rain but all sat through it,” Fr Mngadi told The Southern Cross.

“The language used was, of course, Portuguese. This was initially a turn-off for some, but all

soon learnt to live with it and not allow it to spoil their papal experience,” he said.

The South African pilgrims benefited from a welcoming reception.

“We were so fortunate to be placed at close proximity to the pope, just because we are ‘strangers’, as they called us,” said Nonhlanhla Ndaba from Umlazi, Durban.

Bongiwe Zondo from Johannesburg even saw benefit in the weather: “It was a wonderful experience, the blessings came even in the form of the rain.”

Montebello Dominican Sister Emmerentia Gumede found that the papal Mass was well organised, singling out the music for praise.

“This was a good and life-giving experience,” she said.

Fr Mngadi said he had been asked one recurrent question ever since organisation for the South African pilgrims’ trip began and during the pilgrimage in Mozambique: “When is the pope coming to South Africa? Our country needs his message of hope!”

“I had to answer them: ‘Either our bishops, the state or both should invite him. President Felix Nyusi of Mozambique did—and within a year the pope came,” Fr Mngadi said.

What pope told Mozambique W

Dancers perform before the papal Mass in Zimpeto Stadium outside Maputo, as a South African flag flies behind them. (Photo: Paul Haring/CNS)

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ITH a courtesy rarely seen at a gathering of opposing political leaders, Mozambican politicians came together a month before the October 15 general election to welcome Pope Francis and pledge to work for peace and the common good.

The pope told the political leaders, as well as other civic leaders and ambassadors, that making peace takes more courage, strength and effort than waging war does, but that Mozambique’s own recent history shows how education, health care and the local economy all benefit from peace.

Touching a theme that was repeated throughout his trip to Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius, Pope Francis urged special care of the natural environment.

Apparently referring to the practices of multinational companies, the pope said governments and citizens must beware of “a tendency toward plundering and pillaging driven by a greed generally not cultivated by the inhabitants of these lands, nor motivated by the common good of your people”.

The themes of peace, reconciliation and care for creation took centrestage again at an interreligious meeting with about 4 000 young people at Maputo’s Maxaquene Pavilion.

Pope Francis, joining the spirit of the gathering, mostly followed his prepared text, but had the young people repeat several phrases as a chant, including “Don’t give up” and “Always together”.

The pope grabbed the young people’s attention—and generated a roar of approval—by using as an example football legend Eusebio, a Mozambican who was Portugal’s superstar player in the 1960s.

Eusebio came from a poor family, but had big dreams and pursued them, the pope said.

And, he fulfilled his dream by always being part of a team.

Pope Francis also reminded the young people that, despite their religious differences, all of their faiths teach that God loves the people he created and that, in his eyes, each one has enormous worth.

At Maputo’s art deco cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the Holy Father told Church

Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Maputo, and (right) kisses a baby as he visits Zimpeto Hospital. (Photos: Paul Haring/CNS) workers to follow the example of Mary, who welcomed the news of God’s plan for her without too many questions, then set off to visit her cousin, Elizabeth.

Pope Francis met several of those newborns, offering a big smile to the proud mothers and gently stroking the chubby cheeks of the babies.

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ells pealed as the pope arate winter rain fell intermitrived at the cathedral. Once tently throughout the Mass in inside, and after he had greeted Zimpeto Stadium, at which Pope elderly missionaries and prayed Francis condemned corruption, before the Blessed Sacrament, especially because it has kept so Pope Francis was welcomed many Mozambicans in absolute with a lively dance by more poverty, despite the country’s than a dozen Sisters, all wearing natural resources. veils.

“Jesus wants to end forever Bishop Hilario da Cruz that common practice of being Massinga of Quelimane told the Christians yet living under the pope that the country law of retaliation,” the is blessed with many Holy Father said.

‘We cannot vocations to the “We cannot look to priesthood and relithe future, or build a look to the nation, an equitable gious life, but sometimes “there is a society, on the basis of future, or tendency towards violence. I cannot folworldliness or a cer- build a nation, low Jesus if I live my tain disorder”. life by the rule of ‘an Pope Francis em- on the basis eye for an eye, and a phasised the need for tooth for tooth.’” of violence’ Church workers to be At the conclusion of faithful to their vocaMass, Pope Francis tions and to return again and made a final address to the again to remembering that mo- Catholics of Mozambique, sayment when they first experienced ing he knows the sacrifice many God’s loving call. of them made in order to be He said that, after praying for present at the Mass and other the guidance of the Holy Spirit, meetings in the last two days. the Church must “find the road “I appreciate it and I thank to take in the face of new prob- you from my heart,” he said, lems, taking care not to remain adding that he is also grateful to paralysed by the mindset of op- all those who could not be presposition, division and condem- ent because of the aftermath of nation”. the recent cyclones, saying he The pope visited a hospital felt their support. and a health centre founded to “You have many reasons for care for people living with hope! It was evident and truly HIV/Aids in Zimpeto. palpable in these days. Please, Sponsored by the Rome-based hold on to hope; do not let Community of Sant’Egidio, the yourselves be robbed of it,” Pope DREAM Centre now fully staffed Francis said.

by Mozambican staff.

“And there is no better way to Sant’Egidio, a lay movement, hold on to hope than to remain helped mediate the Mozambique united, so that all the reasons peace talks in the early 1990s sustaining it will constantly conand, when the Aids pandemic solidate for a future of reconcilibegan, the community mo- ation and peace in bilised to help.

Mozambique.”—CNS/CNA

POPE IN AFRICA

The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

9

SA pilgrims to Mauritius moved by seeing pope

BY FR RUSSELL POLLITT SJ

F Pope Francis is greeted by palm-waving crowds as he arrives to celebrate Mass at the monument to Mary, Queen of Peace in Port Louis, Mauritius.

(Photo: Paul Haring/CNS)

In Madagascar, pope planted a tree of hope

BY CINDY WOODEN

I

N Madagascar, where the destruction of the environment and the suffering of the poor are inextricably bound, Pope Francis urged government officials to promote development projects that protect nature.

The crisis facing the island nation is “both social and environmental”, the pope said as he met President Andry Rajoelina—who is a Catholic—as well as politicians, diplomats and representatives of aid agencies.

Afterwards, the pope and president went outside the Ceremony Building and planted a baobab tree, a symbol of the island.

Although rich in natural resources, Madagascar is consistently ranked as one of the world’s ten poorest countries.

The country is also challenged by a frightening rate of deforestation as prized rosewood trees are cut down illegally and exported, mainly to China, and as other forest lands are cleared by poor farmers trying to eke out a living.

The pope was plainspoken, pointing out how “the last forests are menaced by forest fires, poaching [and] the unrestricted cutting down of valuable woodlands. Plant and animal biodiversity is endangered by contraband and illegal exportation”, which benefits the rich and powerful.

Standing at the Mahatazana granite quarry on a hill above Antananarivo, where the phrase “by the sweat of their brow” is a daily reality for hundreds of Madagascar’s poor, Pope Francis prayed for those whose daily bread is earned by hard physical labour and for the unemployed longing to earn a living for their families.

The pope had moved up to the quarry after visiting Akamasoa (The Community of Good Friends) which was founded by the Argentine Vincentian Father Pedro Opeka, to provide work, housing, education and healthcare to some of the country’s poorest people.

Instead of picking through rubbish, which is what the families were doing before Fr Opeka came along, now some earn a living breaking granite, while others are involved in construction or work for the community or its schools or clinics.

Speaking in the Akamasoa auditorium, Pope Francis said the community and its various activities are a sign of the reality that God lives among the poor, and it is a “tangible sign” of his love for them.

Every corner of Akamasoa, all of its schools and clinics is “a song of hope that refutes and silences any suggestion that some things are ‘inevitable’,” he said. “Let us say it forcefully: poverty is not inevitable.”

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ens of thousands of people of all ages gathered for a youth vigil on the wide-open diocesan field at

Pope Francis arrives with Fr Pedro Opeka, founder of the “Community of Good Friends”, for a meeting with members of the community.

(Photo: Paul Haring/CNS) Soamandrakizay; the older people came because the pope was celebrating Mass there the next morning.

The pope arrived as the winter sun was setting; the young people kept singing and dancing as Pope Francis toured the crowd in the popemobile.

Speaking in Italian, with a priest translating into Malagasy, the pope told the young people he knew that, deep down, they all were searching for a happiness that no one could take from them.

Sometimes, he said, it will be tempting to give up hopes and dreams for a meaningful life and for a more just world, “especially when you lack the bare necessities to make it from day to day or to pursue your studies, or when you realise that without a job, stability and social injustice, your future is blocked”.

Following Jesus means growing in friendship with him and with one’s brothers and sisters, never being content with the way things are, but not just griping about them either, Pope Francis told the young people.

Jesus calls his disciples “to be on the move, acting, committed, certain that the Lord is supporting and accompanying them”.

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lose to a million people gathered on the Soamandrakizay field for the pope’s Mass next morning. Many had spent the night, sleeping on straw mats or plastic tarps and bundled up against a windy winter chill.

In his homily, Pope Francis said that according to Jesus, “bonds of blood or membership in a particular group, clan or particular culture” have no bearing on who is blessed, whose dignity should be honoured or who, finally, will enter heaven.

“When ‘family’ becomes the decisive criterion for what we consider right and good,” the pope said, “we end up justifying and even ‘consecrating’ practices that lead to the culture of privilege and exclusion: favouritism, patronage and, as a consequence, corruption.”

The Gospel also condemns any ideology that would “abuse the name of God or of religion to justify acts of violence, segregation and even murder, exile, terrorism and marginalisation”, he said.—CNS

OR 84-year-old Marcienne Kramli, attending the papal Mass in Port Louis, Mauritius was “the most memorable experience that I have had in my life, since I was a child”.

The oldest pilgrim on pilgrimage to Mauritius—headlined by The Southern Cross, Radio Veritas and Spotlight.Africa—said that it was an honour to see the pope.

“This was the best day of my life, I was touched!” said Ms Kramli, who was born in Mauritius but has lived in South Africa for many years.

Twenty-two South Africans travelled to Mauritius where they did a tour of Catholic Mauritius, attended the papal Mass—which was part of Pope Francis’ three-nation African tour—and had a retreat on the beach.

Lina Tshabalala won her place on the tour in the Radio Veritas competition. It was the first time she had ever attended a papal Mass.

She said that she was inspired by the pope’s homily, in which he addressed youth who are left out of the economy.

“You can see on his face that he is a patient, calm and kind man,” Ms Tshabalala said.

Nthabiseng Magagula of St Therese’s in Alberton said that the experience was something she had never even dreamed of happening.

“It will stay with me until I die.

The singing was out of this world.

The fact that we were on a mountain and the pope talked about the Beatitudes to us, as Jesus did, really touched my heart,” she recalled.

South African pilgrims Tanya Manning and Lina Tshabalala seek shade as they wait for Pope Francis to arrive for the papal Mass in Port Louis. Right: The pope on the altar. (Photos: Fr Russell Pollitt SJ; Paul Haring/CNS) The Mass was celebrated on a hill overlooking the Port Louis at the open-air Mary Queen of Peace monument.

Lesdi Sojane from St Peter Claver in Soweto said that the nearest she had been to the pope was through a hymn that is sung praying for him.

“But [in Mauritius] he was amongst us; it was amazing. It is an experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life.”

She described the sight of the 100 000-plus crowd all waving palms when the Holy father arrived as “out of this world”.

“I have never seen the pope live before, this was such a blessing,” said Ntombi Nzima.

She said that Mauritius is a wonderful place and she found the people very hospitable.

Ms Nzima was struck by the fact that throughout the whole apostolic journey Pope Francis spoke to youth.

“The youth are leaving our Church and we have to find ways of keeping them in the Church.

The pope knows this, and he chooses to speak to them, to en-

courage them, and wants us to involve them so that they don’t run away from the Church.”

All those waiting for Pope Francis to arrive at the Mass were able to watch his arrival from Madagascar on a big screen.

It started to rain soon after the plane touched down. “This was a sign of blessing for him and the people of Mauritius,” said Capetonians José and Margarida de Freitas.

“It was emotional; you can’t really describe this to people who were not there. The singing and energy of the young people at the Mass contributed to the wonderful atmosphere and palpable unity.”

Vukani Dlamini, a tertiary Franciscan from Pietermaritzburg, said that being there with God’s chosen Shepherd was a life-changing moment.

“I was moved to see so many people united in celebrating the Eucharist. When the pope arrived, and everyone was waving palm branches, I wept. I am so grateful to the organisers.” n Fr Pollitt led the tour to Mauritius.

100000 at Mauritius Mass

BY CINDY WOODEN

S

TATISTICAL indicators show Mauritius’ rapid economic growth has benefited all sectors of society, lifting thousands out of poverty over the past 30 years, but Pope Francis still urged the island’s Catholics to be careful.

The danger is that “we can yield to the temptation to lose our enthusiasm for evangelisation by taking refuge in worldly securities that slowly but surely not only affect the mission, but actually hamper it and prevent it from drawing people together”, he said at Mass on a terraced hillside overlooking the capital Port Louis.

Officials said 100 000 people gathered on the hillside for the Mass. Some held umbrellas, while most were wearing straw hats to protect themselves from the sun.

The young wore baseball caps.

During his eight hours in Mauritius, Pope Francis urged the local Church and government to make greater efforts to listen to and involve the island’s young people in every aspect of life.

“This is not always easy. It means

learning to acknowledge the presence of the young and to make room for them,” he said. The young people in the crowd cheered their approval.

Mauritius has become a supersuccess story for development in Africa following efforts to diversify the economy. Rather than relying mostly on sugar cane and textiles, now the country is known for tourism, call centres and “financial services”, which make the country a tax haven for many.

Pope Francis noted, though, how unemployment still is a problem, particularly for young adults, which “not only creates uncertainty about the future, but also prevents them from believing that they play a significant part in your shared future”.

Cardinal Maurice Piat of Port Louis has written about the island’s “vocations crisis”, which Pope Francis tied to the question of economic prosperity and attention to the young.

“When we hear the threatening prognosis that ‘our numbers are decreasing’, we should be concerned not so much with the decline of

this or that mode of consecration in the Church, but with the lack of men and women who wish to experience happiness on the paths of holiness,” the pope said.

Young people need to see and be encouraged by priests and religious who give witness to the joy of a life dedicated totally to serving God and one’s brothers and sisters.

On an island colonised by the Dutch, the French and the British over the past 400 years and where colonisers brought slaves from Africa or indentured servants from India and China, the population is mixed ethnically and religiously.

According to Vatican statistics, about 28% of the population is Catholic, largely thanks to the evangelisation efforts of Bl JacquesDésiré Laval, the 19th-century “apostle of Mauritius”, whose tomb the pope visited.

Almost half of all Mauritians are Hindu, and Muslims make up about 17% of the population.

During the second reading at Pope Francis’ Mass, the crowd could hear a muezzin calling Muslims to midday prayer in the neighbourhood below.—CNS

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The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

FAITH

How St Michael protects us in life and death September 29 marks the feast of the Archangel Michael, protector of the faithful in their earthly life and after their death, as Prof MICHAEL OGUNU explains.

I

N Hebrew, the name Michael means “Who is like God?” (and my namesakes must take note of the important question mark).

Holy Scripture describes St Michael, the archangel, as the leader of the forces of heaven in their triumph over the powers of hell. He has been specially honoured and invoked as patron and protector of the Church of God from the time of the apostles.

Catholic tradition assigns to him these four offices: to fight against Satan; to rescue the souls of the faithful from his grasp especially at death; to be the special patron of the Holy Church; and to bring men’s souls to judgment.

He is held to be the special guardian of the pope and, according to St Eutropius, of the Blessed Sacrament.

St Michael is the most brilliant of the Angels mentioned in Scripture, and one of the foremost jewels in the crown of God’s glorious creation. The Church gives to Michael the highest place among the angels, as “Prince of the Heavenly Hosts”.

One of the inspiring antiphons for his festival points out that the Archangel Michael is set over paradise, and is honoured by the citi-

The abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel in France. According to a legend, the Archangel Michael appeared in 708 to Bishop Aubert of Avranches, and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. (Photo: Walkers SK)

The Archangel Michael and the devil are battling for the souls of people, depicted on the facade of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher)

zens of heaven: “He repays with blessings the honour shown him by the faithful and his prayer leads us to the kingdom of heaven.”

Michael is the head of God’s armies, champion of the people of God in the Old Testament, and mighty guardian of God’s chosen flock under the New Testament.

The Archangel Michael never ceases to wage war against his enemy and ours, the devil, whom he once vanquished in the dim and distant ages. He is the “standard-bearer of salvation”.

St Michael has appeared at different times to those who needed help and invoked his aid.

timated to the bishop that the to pray the Rosary daily during the place was under his protection month of October, asking Mary and and that it was his will that God St Michael the Archangel for proshould be worshipped there, in tection of the Church in a moment honour of himself and the angels. of “spiritual turbulence”.

It became a place of great devoPope Francis also encouraged tion and attracted many pilgrims. Catholics to end the Rosary with Time and time again, in cen- the recitation of the Prayer to St turies past, St Michael Michael the Archangel came to the rescue when composed by Pope Leo St Michael XII (see page 11 for the dreadful wars and persecutions threatened to deprayer, to cut and keep). is ever stroy Christianity.

St Michael is also He it was who, at the invisibly active helper of the sick and the command of Mary, dying. in helping Queen of Angels, came The early Christians to the assistance of Conentrusted to him the care every stantine and helped his of their sick. In the early forces to vanquish those Christian who Eastern Church the funcof the pagan Emperor tion of healer was in a invokes Maxentius in the decispecial manner attributed sive Battle of the Milvian to him. his aid Bridge on October 28, At Constantinople, he 312. was honoured as the The following year, Constan- great heavenly physician. The tine legalised Christianity.

Christians of Egypt placed their lifegiving river, the Nile, under his The invisible aide protection. In Rome his reputation But apart from the extraordinary for healing became known when cases in which the great archangel he caused the cessation of a mighty appeared to the eyes of men, he is pestilence in the days of St Gregory ever invisibly active in helping the Great. every Christian who invokes his Many other instances of a miracaid. ulous nature illustrate his power of St Michael is the guardian of curing ills which he shares with the purgatory. The Church refers to Archangel Raphael: “The Medicine him as bringing souls from earth to of God”. the throne of God. But if in his merciful designs our The priest prays at the offertory heavenly Father has decided to call of the Mass for the dead: “May the us home, St Michael continues his standard-bearer, St Michael, lead angelic ministration till he sees us them unto the holy light.” safely through the eternal portals.

In her beautiful prayers in the Our guardian in death Mass, the Church places the souls of her departed children in the He is our advocate at the hour of hands of St Michael, that he may death. “He assists at every deathlead them unto the kingdom of bed,” wrote the 19th-century everlasting light.

French Benedictine Dom Prosper The Archangel Michael has al- Guéranger, “for his special office is ways been considered by the to receive the souls of the elect, on Church of God as its special protec- their quitting the flesh”. tor. Spiritual writers assure us that “He, with loving solicitude and “as the chosen people of the Old princely hearing, presents them to Law were marvellously protected the Light Eternal and introduces

by St Michael, so we may not doubt them unto the House of God’s that this great Prince of heaven glory. The Church tells us, in the protects the Church of God in a words of her liturgy, of these prestill more signal manner.” rogatives of the great archangel.

The Church has more than ever She teaches us that he has been set special need of the powerful pro- over paradise and that God has tection of St Michael in our per- given him the charge of leading to ilous times. On all sides she is heaven the souls of them that are being assailed by strong and bitter to be received there.” enemies.

When the last hour of our In one country after another we earthly career draws near and we behold the sad spectacle of reli- are confronted by that awful mogious persecution rising to high ment when our soul must leave the pitches of hatred and insolence. body which it has loved so much to The Church should look to St pass through the narrow portal of Michael for aid that he may tri- death, satanic hosts will make a last umph over her prosecutors and attack upon our souls. that the gates of hell may not preIn that hour of supreme need, St vail against her. We’re assured that Michael, the invisible archangel, St Michael will not fail to come to ever ready to assist the faithful soul, the aid of the Church in our days as will come to our aid with his glorihe did in the days of old, if we fer- ous hosts and battle for us. vently and confidently implore He will cover us with his strong him to do so. shield and lead us safely through the midst of our enemies.

Pope Francis and Michael It is therefore a very commendOn September 29, 2018, a state- able practice daily to invoke St ment from the Vatican said that Michael to lend his assistance at Pope Francis has asked all Catholics the hour of death.

A well-known example is assisting St Joan of Arc in an extra-ordinary way in the divine missions given her to aid the French king restore peace and prosperity to his kingdom and expel his enemies from its shores.

Again, in France, he appeared on Mont-Saint-Michel, where there still exists a famous sanctuary consecrated to the archangel.

In Italy it is related that the holy archangel showed himself to the bishop of Siponto, on Monte Gargano in the kingdom of Naples where a beautiful church was dedicated to him.

In his apparition, St Michael in-

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The Southern Cross, September 18 to September 24, 2019

YOUR CLASSIFIEDS

Sr Mannes Fourie OP

D

OMINICAN Sister Mannes Fourie died on July 30 at the age of 91.

Born a twin on March 3, 1928, to Emma and Stephan Fourie, she was named Dorethea Wilhelmina. Emma died when Dorethea was three years old and Stephan took responsibility for the upbringing of the twins and their elder brothers, with the help of a governess whom he later married.

Dorethea was schooled at Sunnyside School in Pretoria and then at Volkskool in Heidelberg. Having completed her commercial junior certificate in 1945, she spent two years at Johannesburg Business College.

During their working years— seven years as typists at the Child Welfare Office in Johannesburg— the twins lived at Mazenod (now Koinonia), the Dominican hostel in Judith’s Paarl.

Having been brought up in the Dutch Reformed Church they were suspicious of the “nuns” but were surprised by the nuns’ kindness and warm welcome, and soon joined the Sisters for prayers and Mass.

They became Catholics while at Mazenod, much to the fury of their father and their Dutch Reformed minister. As time passed, their father realised how happy they were, and eventually became a Catholic himself.

Both later joined the convent, were professed on July 14, 1955, at Oakford, KwaZulu-

Natal, and made their final professions on July 16, 1958.

Dorethea was given the name Sr Mannes; her twin became Sr Dominic Mary.

They were first assigned to teach at St Mary’s at Oakford, but then sent for training in nursing at Glen Gray Mission Hospital in Queenstown. They also spent time training in midwifery at St Augustine’s in Durban and at the Queen Victoria in Johannesburg.

They were assigned to Marymount where they nursed and worked in the office, then to Marifont Maternity Hospital in Pretoria, and finally to Oakford Infirmary.

For people who could not tell the twins apart, especially hospital staff and doctors, there were many confused encounters. One would speak to Sr Mannes in the ward and then immediately meet “her” in another ward downstairs!

For those who lived with them, it became easy to distinguish who was who: Sr Dominic Mary was timid and gentle, while Sr Mannes was louder, and always seemed to protect her sister.

They were sometimes transferred to different communities and this was very difficult for them as they missed each other greatly—in those days contact was not as easy as it is today.

The twin nuns were very happy looking after their patients and spent much time caring for Eileen, the sister of Archbishop Denis Hurley, who was paralysed.

They also had a heart for the poor and would save a portion of their allowances to share with beggars on the street.

Many thought that Sr Mannes would not live long after her sister died, but she lived a long, healthy life, serving God in her Sisters and sharing God’s love with the residents of Villa Assumpta.

She picked out those who were lonely and visited them regularly while she was mobile.

Sr Mannes had a short period of illness after a fall and could no longer walk. She longed to join her sister whom she knew was preparing a place for her with the Lord. There surely was great rejoicing in heaven on July 30 when Sr Mannes found herself in God’s embrace surrounded by the many people she loved and served.

11

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PERSONAL

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Malcolm Salida 082 7845675, mjsalida@gmail.com 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 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 4124836 or 021 593 9875 or Br Daniel SCP on 078 7392988.

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 0313093496 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.

Show that we are disciples

Your prayer to cut out and collect

Pope Leo XII’s Prayer to St Michael the Archangel

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St Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle.

Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him we humbly pray.

The

And do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Liturgical Calendar Year C – Weekdays Cycle Year 1 Sunday September 22, 25th Sunday of the Year Amos 8:4-7, Psalm 113:1-2, 4-6, 7-8, 1 Timothy 2:1-8, Luke 16:1-13 Monday September 23, St Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) Ezra 1:1-6, Psalm 126, Luke 8:16-18 Tuesday September 24 Ezra 6:7-8, 12, 14-20, Psalm 122:1-5, Luke 8:19-21 Wednesday September 25 Ezra 9:5-9, Responsorial psalm Tobit 13:1-4, 6, 8 (1-5, 8), Luke 9:1-6 Thursday September 26, Ss Cosmas and Damian Haggai 1:1-8, Psalm 149:1-6, 9, Luke 9:7-9 Friday September 27, St Vincent de Paul Haggai 2:1-9 (1, 15-2, 9), Psalm 43: 1-4, Luke 9:18-22 Saturday September 28, St Wenceslaus, Ss Lawrence Ruiz and Companions

Zechariah 2:1-5, 10-11 (5-9, 14-15), Responsorial psalm Jeremiah 31:1013, Luke 9:43-45 Sunday September 29, 26th Sunday of the Year Amos 6:1, 4-7, Psalm 146:7-10, 1 Timothy 6:11-16, Luke 16:19-31

St Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)

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Continued from page 7 lived on the streets and ate other people’s scraps, people didn’t take notice of him.

They looked right through him. People lifted their noses at the stench he gave off and he would often be chased away like a dog.

Finally, he found out that I was a Catholic and he wanted to “pack his bags” and leave the Ethiopian Orthodox faith and become a Catholic then and there—because of the compassion I had shown him. I encouraged him to remain faithful to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and to continue to seek the face of God there and to serve him and his people there

We need to break down Church teaching sometimes and allow Jesus’ words in the Gospels to reign in our lives. He calls us to follow him, to give up our wealth, to love one another unconditionally, sacrificially, as he did. And by doing this, he says, “People will know you are my disciples.”

Maybe that goes also for people like Patrick, the Facebook commenter.

We need to love them, and bring them to know love and serve God in the compassion we shine into their lives by allowing Christ to live in us and us in him. n For past articles by Keenan Williams, go to www.scross.co.za/category/perspectives/ keenan-williams/

Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: September 24: Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town on his 63rd birthday September 24: Bishop Adam Musialek of De Aar on the tenth anniversary of his episcopal ordination

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 881. ACROSS: 2 Recollect, 6 Urge, 8 Stolen goods, 10 Ruction, 11 Avert, 13 Quits, 14 Iranian, 16 Out of pocket, 18 Coin, 19 Underrate. DOWN: 1 Quid pro quo, 2 Restitution, 3 Call for, 4 Lying, 5 Tend, 7 Convenience, 9 Set in stone, 12 Dracula, 15 Spear, 17 Urdu.

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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), Bishop S Sipuka, S Duval, E Jackson, B Jordan, Sr H Makoro CPS, J Mathurine, G Stubbs, C Mathieson*

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26th Sunday: September 29 Readings: Amos 6: 4-7, Psalm 146:7-10, 1 Timothy 6:11-16, Luke 16:19-31

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QUESTION frequently on people’s lips is, “Whose side is God on?” Now it is obvious that in the strictest possible sense God does not have favourites; but when you read the Bible, it sometimes feels as though God has a preference for those who are at the bottom of the heap.

And it is important to understand what is going on here; it is not so much that God favours one human being above another. It is rather that if you are surrounded by the apparent defences that wealth or status give you, it can be harder to let God into your life.

Look at the first reading for Sunday. It is from Amos in rampant form, inveighing against the rich: “Woe to those who are snugly ensconced in Sion, to those who feel so safe on Mount Samaria.”

Then we are offered a glimpse of their celebrity lifestyle: “who lie on ivory beds, stretched out on their couches, eating lambs from the flock…improvising to the sound of the harp, inventing new instruments like David, drinking wine by the vat”.

It is not in itself their luxury living that is displeasing to God, but rather that they are not in a place where they can listen to what is really going on, and so “they shall be the

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first to go into exile; their revelry is over”.

The psalm is a glimpse of the qualities of God (in contrast to those who put their trust in status and wealth), “who does justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry, the Lord who sets prisoners free, the Lord who gives sight to the blind and raises up those who are bowed down, the Lord who loves the just, the Lord who looks after immigrants, looks after the orphan and the widow, but thwarts the path of the wicked”.

Then the poet reminds us who is really in charge: “The Lord will be king forever, your God, Sion, from generation to generation.”

God’s priorities are different from ours.

In the second reading, the author is warning his audience to run away from “money”, seductive though it is, and instead to look out for what really matters: “Pursue justice, piety, faith, hope, endurance and gentleness”; then he uses an athletics metaphor: “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life, into which you were called.”

The point is that there is only one God: “the blessed and only powerful one, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One who alone possesses immortality, and lives in light

A

physical and spiritual.

So, in fact, we do feel physical things spiritually, just as we smell spiritual things through our physical senses. If this is true, and it is, then, yes, humility does give off a scent that can be sensed physically, and Isaac the Syrian’s concept is more than just a metaphor.

But it’s also a metaphor: The word “humility” takes its root in the Latin word humus, meaning soil, ground, and earth. If one goes with this definition, then the most humble person you know is the most-earthy and most-grounded person you know.

To be humble is to have one’s feet firmly planted on the ground, to be in touch with the earth, and to carry the smell of the earth. Further still, to be humble is to take one’s rightful place as a piece of the earth and not as someone or something separate from it.

T

he renowned mystic and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin expressed this sometimes in his prayers. During the years when, as a paleontologist, he worked for long stretches in the isolated deserts of China, he would sometimes compose prayers to God in a form he called “A Mass for the World”.

Speaking to God, as a priest, he would identify his voice with that of the earth itself, as that place within physical creation where the earth itself, the soil of the earth, could open itself and speak to God. As a priest, he didn’t speak for the earth; he spoke as the earth, giving it voice, in words to this effect:

Classic Conrad

“It was a bad idea when Father decided to deliver the homily through the medium of song.”

Sunday Reflections

that you cannot approach, whom no human being ever saw or could see”.

And this God is very different.

In the Gospel it certainly feels as though God is on one side and against the other; but the problem here is that God can do nothing if we make ourselves blind to the needs of our neighbours who are poor.

And the story does suggest two “sides”. On the one hand there is a “rich man”, which in Luke’s Gospel is always a bad start; and it gets worse, because “he was putting on purple and linen and partying conspicuously, every day”.

Things do not look good at present; and they get worse, because, on the other hand, there is a “destitute” person.

Unlike the rich man, he has a name, “Lazarus”, which means “God has helped”.

Not only that, but he is a very near neighbour to the rich man, “flung at his gate-house, with ulcers; he longed to eat of the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Instead, dogs came and licked his ulcers”.

So there is a powerful and dramatic contrast; and it now reaches a new level, with the advent of death: “The rich man died—and was buried.” (So he had the resources to

Do you smell of humility?

CCORDING to Isaac the Syrian, a famous 7th-century bishop and theologian, a person who’s genuinely humble gives off a certain scent that other people will sense and that even animals will pick up, so that wild animals, including snakes, will fall under its spell and never harm that person.

Here’s his logic: A humble person, he believes, has recovered the smell of paradise and in the presence of such a person one does not feel judged and has nothing to fear, and this holds true even for animals. They feel safe around a humble person and are drawn to him or her.

No wonder people like Francis of Assisi could talk to birds and befriend wolves.

But, beautiful as this all sounds, is this a pious fairytale or is it a rich, archetypal metaphor? I like to think it’s the latter: this is a rich metaphor, and perhaps even something more. Humility, indeed, does have a smell, the smell of the earth, of the soil, and of paradise.

But how? How can a spiritual quality give off a physical scent?

Well, we’re psychosomatic, creatures of both body and soul. Thus, in us, the physical and the spiritual are so much part of one and the same substance that it’s impossible to separate them out.

To say that we’re body and soul is like saying that refined sugar is white and sweet and that its whiteness and sweetness can never be put into separate piles.

They’re both inside the sugar.

We’re one substance, inseparable, body and soul, and so we’re always both

Nicholas King SJ

Wealth can hide God

arrange his own burial.)

The very next line, however, reveals, without any judgment, but as a statement of the obvious, that he was “in hell”; and, doubtless to his horror: “He sees Abraham a long way off, and Lazarus in his bosom.”

Then, instinctively reaching for the kind of resources to which he had access in life, he tells Abraham to order Lazarus to bring him a drop of water in his agony.

It turns out things are not quite so simple, because, as Abraham explains, both he and Lazarus are getting what they did not get in life.

So then the rich man, slightly less self-centred, asks for another task to be assigned to Lazarus, that of warning his five brothers. That too turns out to be not part of the script, for you cannot simply use your resources to shape the world as you wish: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not obey even if someone rises from the dead.”

Our task this week is, it seems, to make sure that as far as possible we are on the side of God.

Southern Crossword #881

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

“Lord, God, I stand before you as a microcosm of the earth itself, to give it voice: See in my openness, the world’s openness; in my infidelity, the world’s infidelity; in my sincerity, the world’s sincerity; in my hypocrisy, the world’s hypocrisy; in my generosity, the world’s generosity; in my attentiveness, the world’s attentiveness; in my distraction, the world’s distraction; in my desire to praise you, the world’s desire to praise you; and in my self-preoccupation, the world’s forgetfulness of you.

“For I am of the earth, a piece of earth, and the earth opens or closes to you through my body, my soul, and my voice.”

This is humility, an expression of genuine humility.

Humility should never be confused, as it often is, with a wounded self-image, with an excessive reticence, with timidity and fear, or with an overly sensitive selfawareness.

Too common is the notion that a humble person is one who is self-effacing to a fault, who deflects praise (even when it’s deserved), who is too shy to trust opening himself or herself in intimacy, or who is so fearful, self-conscious and worried about being shamed they never step forward and offer their gifts to the community.

These can make for a gentle and selfeffacing person, but because we are denigrating ourselves when we deny our own giftedness, our humility is false, and deep down we know it, and so this often makes for someone who nurses some notso-hidden angers and is prone to being passive aggressive.

The most humble person you know is the person who’s the most-grounded, that is, the person who knows she’s not the centre of the earth but also knows that she isn’t a second-rate piece of dirt either.

And that person will give off a scent that carries both the fragrance of paradise (of divine gift) as well as the smell of the earth.

ACROSS

2. Call to mind about liturgical prayer (9) 6. Insurgents within to encourage you (4) 8. If you possess them you have broken a Commandment (6,5) 10. Disturbance about cot ruin (7) 11. Turn away from travel lacking fifty (5) 13. Leaves the job and calls it so (5) 14. The old Persian (7) 16. Having lost money from your pants? (3,2,6) 18. Small change to pay for the icon (4) 19. Do not estimate highly (9)

DOWN

1. Ancient Roman’s tit-for-tat (4,3,3) 2. Recompense for your sin (11) 3. Make an appeal (4,3) 4. Prone to telling fibs (5) 5. Care for the sick (4) 7. It suits you when it’s at your own (11) 9. Unchanged, like the Commandments? (3,2,5) 12. He’s the typical vampire (7) 15 Reaps arranged for piercing (5) 17. In absurd utterance there’s a spoken language (4) Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

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T’S 8am on a Sunday morning, and a mother knocks on her son’s bedroom door.

“Good morning, my son, time to get up for church!” she calls.

The son barely stirs in his bed and announces: “I’m not going to Mass!”

Mother replies: “Oh yes, you are!”

Son: “No, I don’t want to go to church. They don’t like me there, and I don’t like them.”

“Get up. You are going to church for two reasons,” mother says. “Firstly, you are 50 years old.

Secondly, you are the priest!”

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