200212

The

S outher n C ross

February 12 to February 18, 2020

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

How we can put Pastoral Plan to work

No 5174

www.scross.co.za

Centenary Jubilee Year

Tribute for late Fr Albert Danker OMI

Centenary: This was Fatima’s Jacinta

Page 7

R12 (incl VAT RSA)

Page 11

Page 10

SA Youth Day 2020 in Pretoria

BY ERIN CARELSE

A scene from the 2015 Durban Passion Play, which will return this year from March 25 to April 12 at the Playhouse Drama Theatre in Durban. An abridged version of the famous Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany, it is directed this year by Dawn Haynes and Derek Griffin. (Photo courtesy Durban Catholic Players’ Guild)

Passion Play returns to Durban

BY ERIN CARELSE

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Pilgrimage 2020

S outher n C ross

VERY five years the Durban Catholic Players’ Guild presents the Durban Passion Play—and this year marks the show’s 15th production.

The play re-enacts the story of the Passion of Christ, starting from Palm Sunday and ending with the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

The first Durban Passion Play was staged under the guidance of Fr Noel Coughlan OMI in 1952 at the Greyville Racecourse, as a tribute to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in South Africa, who were celebrating their order’s centenary that year.

It was so successful that Fr Coughlan travelled to Oberammergau in Bavaria to gain permission for the Durban version of the play to be staged every five years, based on the script of the world’s most famous passion play.

Durban’s Passion Play remains the only one in the world that is officially affiliated to Oberammergau.

This year, Dawn Haynes and Derek Griffin, who have been working on the script and training the actors, are directing the play.

The cast comprises an inter-denominational group of people across demographic and age groups.

Both agree that the hard work and hundreds of hours are well worth it.

“The cast of more than 100 have been rehearsing since September, and have shown dedication and commitment to making this a memorable and deeply spiritual experience for all. The youngest in the cast is only three years old while the oldest is 86,” Ms Haynes said.

“There are many families involved and some of our cast members have performed in more than eight plays. This means they have been dedicated for more than 40 years.”

This year will see two men share the role of Jesus: Rob Paul, who played Jesus in the 2000 play, and Dale Collings, a new cast member.

The Durban Catholic Players’ Guild will be performing the Durban Passion Play in the Playhouse Drama Theatre from March 25 to April 12.

One of the highlights is a special performance for the hearing impaired on Sunday, April 4 at 14:30, where the performance will be signed. n Tickets are available at www.webtickets.co.za and block bookings are available. The whole theatre can be booked for fundraising events. For details contact Dawn Haynes at dmhaynes@ webmail.co.za

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OUTHERN Africa’s third Mini World Youth Day will be held in Pretoria from December 9-13, with the formal approval of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC).

The last Mini World Youth Day (MWYD) was held in Durban in December 2017.

More than 1 000 young people from South Africa, Botswana and eSwatini attended.

“We are grateful to the bishops of the SACBC for granting another chance for this pilgrimage to take place,” said SACBC youth chaplain Fr Mthembeni Dlamini CMM. “We invite all youth and young adults of our conference area and beyond, together with the bishops, clergy, religious, mentors and coordinators to join this pilgrimage.”

There is much the pilgrims will learn from the gathering, Fr Dlamini said.

“It’s important for young people to participate in the pilgrimage, to learn about their faith, to build cultural, racial and tribal bridges, and to make practical the universality of the Church,” Fr Dlamini told The Southern Cross.

He appealed to all parishes and dioceses to encourage young people to attend as they are expecting 7 000 or more young people in Pretoria in December.

The youth chaplain encouraged each diocese to aim at sending a minimum of 250 people.

“It’s interesting that when it comes to young people’s formation, we always see it as an expense, [but] when adults travel overseas for pilgrimages, we see it as a necessity,” Fr Dlamini noted.

“Young people’s formation is as impor-

MEDJUGORJE ROME • ASSISI • LORETO 18 - 27 May 2020 Led by Archbishop Stephen Brislin For more information or to book, please contact Gail at info@fowlertours.co.za or phone/WhatsApp 076 352-3809

www.fowlertours.co.za/medju

tant and urgent as our formation as adults.

This pilgrimage gives a special type of formation in a unique environment where young people are by themselves to learn from their bishops and from each other,” he said.

Before the participants gather in the archdiocese of Pretoria in December, they have an opportunity to take part in the “Days in the Parishes” from December 59 when they will be hosted by families, parish houses, convents and monasteries, or religious houses.

The archdiocese of Johannesburg and the dioceses of Witbank and Bethlehem have agreed to host MWYD participants during those days. Others are still to be confirmed.

The Days in the Parishes concept is inspired by the Days in the Dioceses which precede the international World Youth Days.

In a statement signed by the SACBC liaison bishop for youth Bishop Stanislaw Dziuba and Fr Dlamini, five important goals for MWYD were identified:. l It is an expression of the universal Church. All Catholics are to play a role. l It is an instrument of evangelisation in the world of youth. l It is an “epiphany” of a youthful Church—a dynamic energy. l It is an effective sign of ecclesial communion, bringing all cultures and races together. l It is a faith pilgrimage, in the spiritual and practical aspect Registration details for MWYD 2020 will be issued in early March. Dioceses are asked to set up diocesan coordination teams and send their names and contact details.

“If parishes would start now fundraising Continued on page 3

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, February 12 to February 18, 2020

LOCAL

Jesuit theologian publishes new Lenten reflections book

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POPULAR theologian has released a book of Lenten reflections with a special focus on the ecology.

In God’s Universe, Our Responsibility: 40 Days of Ecological Reflections, Jesuit Father Anthony Egan offers meditations and reflections in the light of the ecological (and humanitarian) crisis the earth faces.

The book is published by the Jesuit Institute as its annual Lent book.

Inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, Fr Egan tackles the question of how faith and science both contribute to our understanding of the universe.

He explores the legitimate questions science asks about humanity and the universe.

“The text is a journey from the beginning to the present. It looks specifically at the place of human beings and our responsibility in taking care of our common home.

This includes our responsibility to one another individually and corporately,” The Jesuit Institute said

in a press release.

The book is intended to be accessible to anyone who seeks to make a meaningful journey through Lent.

“This is a mind-opening, down-

to-earth, exploration of the intersection between faith and science,” according to reviewer Dr Martin van Nierop, managing director of Gondwana Environmental Solutions.

Themes addressed include creation, sin, relationships, suffering, betrayal, love and witness.

God’s Universe, Our Responsibility: 40 Days of Ecological Reflections includes poems, meditations on Scripture, and a question for reflection after each section.

It is aimed at both individuals and groups who seek to pray through Lent in a focused way.

“The text invites the reader to conversion—a conversion which becomes apparent when we take responsible action and adjust our lifestyles so that we become true stewards of all creation,” said Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, director of the Jesuit Institute. n The book is available from the Jesuit Institute for R120, excluding p&p. Contact Cynthia Ndala at admin@jesuitinstitute.org.za or 011 482-4237.

Renewing their vows in Mthatha at World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life are (from left) Srs Mary Shange, Martha Shezi, Celine Gomes, Irene Shange, Nicholas Mashoko, Margaret Mary Makuwerere, Pauline Mangumbi, Ambrosia Chapita, and Cecilia Mavuthela.

Mthatha celebrates vocations

BY MANDLA ZIBI

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HE 80-year-old Mt Nicholas parish in Mthatha diocese celebrated the World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life.

“The intention of celebrating the Ursuline Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary was to motivate our young girls to respond to their own calling, like Jesus who guided men who were leaving Jerusalem for Emmaus,” said Fr Teboho Makoro, who presided over the celebrations.

“We see the Ursulines guiding our girls towards embracement of the risen Lord in the spirit of Christus Vivit (Christ is Alive),” he said, referring to the title of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the youth and vocations.

The Ursulines of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose order goes back to the 1500s, run a school, St Nicholas, near Mthatha, with a few more Sisters based in Mthatha itself and in Park Rynie.

Priest to swing a leg at tea dance STAFF REPORTER

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Durban’s Denis Hurley Centre will host a retro summer afternoon jazz concert and tea dance to honour Mgr Paul Nadal’s 60 years of priesthood.

Seen here are pianist Melvin Peters, Mgr Nadal and DHC director Raymond. Perrier. (Photo: Illa Thompson)

HE Denis Hurley Centre (DHC) will host a retro summer afternoon jazz concert and old-style tea dance at the Durban Jewish Club on February 16 from 15:00 in the company of musical maestro Melvin Peters and friends.

The event will raise funds for the DHC’s projects for the homeless.

Mr Peters is a pianist, organist, jazz aficionado, teacher, performer, concert producer and musical director of St Paul’s Anglican church.

He has devised a playlist of some jazz standards and songs which, in the month of St Valentine, explore the theme of love. Featured in the band are well-known Durban-based jazz musicians Jeff Robinson on sax, Bruce Baker on drums, vocalist Deb-

bie Mari and veteran Elias Ngidi.

Tea dances comprise afternoon tea and music which can be danced to. For generations they were considered grand society occasions.

As a response to the increased popularity of ballroom and LatinAmerican dancing created by dance reality shows, the trendy London set reinvented this idea as an opportunity to practise some dance moves over a pot of tea and scones.

The afternoon will also honour Mgr Paul Nadal who celebrates 60 years as a priest.

Mgr Nadal was a close friend and coworker of Archbishop Denis Hurley and has been an untiring fundraiser for the DHC. “At 87, he is no longer running Comrades or cycling Cape Arguses—but he can lead the dancers

onto the floor,” said DHC director Raymond Perrier.

“As always with the Denis Hurley Centre, we are bringing together religious traditions: the organist from an Anglican church performing at the Jewish Club to honour a Catholic monsignor,” he added.

Tea and coffee will be served (for free) by the deaf young adults from Face2Face, the DHC’s skills development project. They will also be selling homemade cakes, muffins and popcorn. Guests are welcome to bring picnic baskets. n Tickets can be bought through Quicket or email tickets@denishurley centre.org. Tickets cost R200 for a seat at a table (or R1 800 for a whole table that seats 10-12 people). There are also non-table seats at R120.

Discounts are available for children.

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Bl Benedict Daswa church in Dundee diocese was opened by Bishop Graham Rose.

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New church in KZN dedicated to Bl Daswa

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NEW church dedicated to South Africa’s first beatus has been built in the diocese of Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal.

Bishop Graham Rose opened Bl Benedict Daswa church at Dundonald, one of the mission stations of Maria Consolata.

Priest-in-charge Fr Gaspart Anaba SAC, assistant priest Fr Francis Medou SA and parishioners welcomed the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary’s novitiate with their novice mistress, Sr Mpume Ndlovu, and Fr Gerald Gostling, from Brentwood diocese in England.

“It was a joyous moment to see the faithful of this outstation celebrating together. They suffered a lot; they congregated every Sunday in a church that was not pleasing to see, let alone celebrate Mass in,” Fr Anaba said.

The new church was successfully constructed with the help of Bishop Alan Williams of Brentwood diocese, the parishioners, Fr Anaba and Bishop Rose.

Fr Anaba said the people of Maria Consolata Mpuluzi church are particularly grateful to the benefactors from St George and the English Martyrs parish of Shoeburyness, near Southendon-Sea in Brentwood diocese.

LOCAL

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

3

Oblate warns of OR Tambo drug trafficking

BY ERIN CARELSE

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EARLY 20% of people arrested in Hong Kong in 2018/19 for possession of drugs, smuggled the substance via OR Tambo International in Johannesburg, according to a Hong Kong prison chaplain.

Fr John Wotherspoon, an Australian Oblate of Mary Immaculate who has been in Hong Kong for more than five years, was in South Africa as part of his international anti-drugs awareness campaign. He was raising awareness particularly around the recent surge in trafficking via Africa’s biggest airport.

According to Hong Kong Customs and Excise department data, two people who boarded at OR Tambo were arrested in Hong Kong airport in 2016. By 2018, there were nine such arrests, and last year 11, including two SAA flight attendants.

“All arrested [who had] boarded in Johannesburg brought quantities of cocaine ranging from around 500g to as much as 12kg, and all who admit guilt report the drugs were given to them by members of Nigerian syndicates operating in Johannesburg and Hong Kong,” Fr Wotherspoon said.

He says the problem is largely one of poor security at OR Tambo: “The prisoners who came from South Africa say getting through OR Tambo was easy, but Hong Kong airport has the most sophisticated detection systems in the world.”

The priest is lobbying for authorities around the world to take more action in the fight against drug trafficking and is calling for improved airport security, and the investigation of drug syndicates.

He also urged the South African government to negotiate a prisoner

Fr John Wotherspoon with Johannesburg Archbishop Buti Tlhagale and Oblate provincial Fr Neil Frank.

Visiting Hong Kong prison chaplain Fr Wotherspoon says nearly 20% of those arrested for drug possession in Hong Kong smuggled the drugs via OR Tambo International. transfer agreement with willing Hong Kong authorities.

The Airports Company of SA (Acsa) has slammed Fr Wotherspoon’s suggestion of a rise in drugtrafficking cases via OR Tambo.

Acsa spokesperson Betty Maloka said the claim caused reputational damage for the airport and South Africa. “The relevant agencies responsible for detecting and prevent-

ing drug trafficking and trade in illicit goods as set out in legislation and regulations are aware of the report and are attending to the matter,” she said.

Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg and Oblate provincial Fr Neil Frank met with Fr Wotherspoon and a delegation from China.

“When you meet Fr Wotherspoon you realise that this is an

Oblate who has committed himself humbly to stand for justice for the poor,” said Fr Frank.

Fr Wotherspoon says his role models are Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.

“He lives in a one-roomed dwelling in the slum area of Hong Kong, where you often find him sitting with drug addicts when he is not visiting prisons,” Fr Frank explained.

On his YouTube channel, Fr Wotherspoon has several videos and interviews, in which former prisoners explain how they fell into the trap, with the aim of warning people not to get sucked into schemes.

“His life and work is an inspiration to all of us. With many of the communities we serve in South Africa troubled by drug addiction and the drug trade, let us find the courage to stand with the unsuspecting victims,” Fr Frank said.

SA Paralympian joins Little Eden wheelchair drive Pretoria set to STAFF REPORTER

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ADIO station Kaya FM and SA Paralympic rower Sandra Khumalo will join forces with Little Eden Society to shine a light on mobility challenges faced by the disabled through the third annual Little Eden CEO Wheelchair Campaign, to be launched on March 2.

March is National Intellectual Disability Month, and the society challenges company CEOs to spend one day at work in a wheelchair to spread awareness of disabilities, and raise much-needed funds to help cover the cost of caring for 300 children and adults with intellectual disabilities at Little Eden.

More than 60% of residents rely on wheelchairs for all mobility; they have to be bathed, fed and dressed by their carers, as they are unable to do anything themselves.

Due to their level of mental functioning, these residents do not qualify to attend special-needs schools. So Little Eden is often left out in the cold when it comes to Corporate Social Investment funding, where about 94% is earmarked

SA Paralympic rower Sandra Khumalo with Little Eden resident Bright. Ms Khumalo and Kaya FM radio station have joined forces with Little Eden’s 2020 CEO Wheelchair Campaign. for education projects.

But Southern Cross readers can change this by joining the CEO Wheelchair Campaign.

Sr Annemarie Niehsen SAC returned to Germany after 52 years in South Africa. Seen are (from left) incoming St Joseph’s Home CEO Christelle Cornelius, Sr Annemarie, director Thea Patterson, chair Adrian van Stolk, and Sr Izabela Swierad, the Pallottine Sisters’ superior general in Rome.

Sister goes home after 52 years

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FTER 52 years in South Africa, the former provincial superior of the Pallottine Missionary Sisters has returned to Germany.

St Joseph’s Home for chronically ill children in Montana, Cape Town, said a special farewell to the muchloved Sr Annemarie Niehsen SAC, who served for many years on the home’s board and represented it at fundraising meetings and events.

Sr Annemarie was due to leave South Africa in 2010, but she stayed on for another ten years. Sr Izabela Swierad, the Pallottine Sisters’ superior general in Rome, referred to her as the “hero of the day”.

“We started building the house [St Joseph’s] and knew that the foundation was already there,” Sr Annemarie said, noting the support of the late Archbishop Lawrence Henry and Archbishop Stephen Brislin.

She thanked St Joseph’s director Thea Patterson, who is soon to retire, for her 18 years of service.

“We are here together today and feel part of this special family. History

will show your work,” she said.

After entering the Pallottine convent Marienborn in Limburg-an-derLahn in Germany in 1958, Sr Annemarie enrolled for nursing studies in 1963 for her professional diploma. In 1968 she was sent to the South African mission in Cape Town to help the Sisters start the new extension of St Joseph’s Sanatorium, now Vincent Pallotti Hospital.

Her responsibilities included planning and managing the operating theatres, and Sr Annemarie enrolled for a postgraduate training diploma in operating theatre technique at Groote Schuur Hospital.

During her later years she started a district practice, treating and visiting patients in their homes after they had been discharged from the Vincent Pallotti Hospital.

After retirement, she continued her calling, giving pastoral support to patients at the hospital.

“I wish you as many blessings from the Lord as you can handle,” Sr Annemarie concluded.

Little Eden said readers can visit www.littleeden.org.za, then fill in and submit the CEO Wheelchair Campaign registration form.

An invoice will be sent from the society to process a donation of R50 000 for big companies and R30 000 for smaller companies.

“Choose any suitable work day during March to participate,” Little Eden communications officer Nichollette Muthige advised.

“Take a video or pictures, write about your ‘Day in a Wheelchair’ experience, send this to info@ littleeden.org.za, and it will be published in various print media, on social media platforms and on the Little Eden website,” she said.

Contributions are tax-reclaimable and win BBBEE points.

“More than 70% of those in Little Eden’s homes have been abandoned and some come from indigent families who are not able to support them financially,” Ms Muthige said.

“Your participation literally helps change lives.” n To join this group of friends of Little Eden or for more information on the CEO Wheelchair Campaign, visit the website at www.littleeden.org.za or contact Zai Miller on 011 609-0492 or 072 127-8237, or e-mail zm@little eden.org.za

host Mini WYD Continued from page 1 and having payment plans in place, it won’t be difficult to send young people in December,” Fr Dlamini said.

“Young people, on the other hand, should also contribute from their savings—they have to learn to take responsibility for their own faith,” he said.

Regarding transport to Pretoria, Fr Dlamini said groups often book buses and have to pay for them as they park before taking them home.

He suggested groups use community buses to travel to and from Pretoria since the venue will not be far from Bosman Station, thereby reducing travel costs.

“Buses are able to negotiate with the client if you intend to fill up the bus, and they will have a bus just for your group, so you don’t have to pay for other days you are not using it,” he advised.

“The organising team is planning to have buses to transport pilgrims to their residences, places of catechesis and main venue,” Fr Dlamini added.

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The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

INTERNATIONAL

Churches reject Trump’s Holy Land plan outright

BY JuDITH SuDILOVSKY

T A man in Jiujiang, China, wears a face mask as the country is hit by the coronavirus. The Vatican has sent 600 000-700 000 protective masks to China. (Photo: Thomas Peter, Reuters/CNS)

Vatican donates masks to combat coronavirus

BY JuNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

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HE Vatican donated thousands of protective masks to several Chinese provinces affected by the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus.

The Vatican press office confirmed a report that appeared in the Chinese newspaper The Global Times, which said that the Vatican has sent 600 000-700 000 protective masks to China.

“The masks are destined for the provinces of Hubei, Zhejiang and Fujian,” the press office said. “It is a joint initiative of the Office of Papal Charities and the Chinese Church in Italy, in collaboration with the Vatican pharmacy.”

According to the Global Times report, Chinese Father Vincenzo Han Duo, vice-rector of Rome’s Pontifical Urbanian College, said the donation was made possible with the help of Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner.

The masks were paid for by the

Vatican and Chinese Christian communities in Italy, while airline companies, including China Southern Airlines, provided free shipment, the report said.

“I hope the supplies reach where they are needed as soon as possible, so that people who are suffering the disease could feel the concern from the Holy See. The whole world is standing together to fight the virus,” Fr Han told The Global Times.

During his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Francis expressed condolences to the victims of the virus and his support for efforts to fight its spread.

“I wish to be close to and pray for the people who are sick because of the virus that has spread through China,” the pope said.

“May the Lord welcome the dead into his peace, comfort families and sustain the great commitment by the Chinese community that has already been put in place to combat the epidemic.”—CNS

HE Catholic bishops in the Holy Land have rejected US President Donald Trump’s “Peace-to-Prosperity” plan as a “unilateral initiative” which does not give “dignity and rights” to the Palestinians.

“This plan will bring no solution but rather will create more tensions and probably more violence and bloodshed,” the Assembly of the Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land said in a statement.

“These proposals have to be based on equal rights and dignity,” the Catholic leaders said. Mr Trump’s plan “does not contain these conditions”.

The Church leaders said the plan endorses “almost all” the demands and political agenda of the Israelis while ignoring the demands of the Palestinian side. They said they expected that previous agreements by the two parties would “be respected and improved upon the basis of complete human equality among peoples”.

Catholic Palestinians said they fear for their future after the release of the plan.

At Our Lady of Seven Sorrows church in the West Bank village of Aboud, parishioners said they were concerned about how the plan would further whittle away their freedom of movement on a day-today basis and increase Israeli control over their lives.

Already blocked by an Israeli checkpoint at the entrance to the village, they said they worried that with the tacit permission for land annexation by what they said was a onesided proposal, more checkpoints and more settlements would be built around Aboud, making daily life even more of a struggle.

“We’d like to have a better future for our children, but I am afraid of

The Fawadleh family, Catholic Palestinians from Aboud, West Bank, stand outside Our Lady of Sorrows church. (Photo: Debbie Hill/CNS) that more young Palestinians would want to leave as their lives became more difficult.

The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem said the proposal was “utterly unacceptable” as it “legitimises, entrenches and even expands the scope of Israel’s human rights abuses”.

B’Tselem likened the areas reserved for Palestinians in the plan to the black homelands during South Africa’s apartheid regime, especially the spotted-dog geography of Bophuthatswana.

It said Palestinians would be “relegated to small, enclosed, isolated enclaves, with no control over their lives, as the plan eternalises the fragmentation of Palestinian space into disconnected slivers of territory in a sea of Israeli control”.

After the plan’s announcement, Israeli defence minister Naftali Bennett called on the interim government to move forward to annex West Bank Jewish settlements, the Jordan Valley and the area around the Dead Sea before the March 2 national elections, Israel’s third in one year.—CNS

the future,” said Boutrous Fawadleh, 50, an English teacher at the Latin Patriarchate school in Aboud and the father of three boys, ages 14, 11 and 4. “What kind of life will it be for them?” he asked.

“Before we had hopes, now we have no hopes,” Mr Fawadleh said.

“Even before this plan, people were suffering; with these measures there will be more checkpoints, more Israeli military presence, more [illegal Israeli] settlements.”

T

he village of Aboud is surrounded by three Israeli settlements and closed in by the Israeli separation barrier. Located between Ramallah and Jerusalem, Aboud—population 2 000—has had thousands of square metres of land already confiscated by Israel.

“Where is the dignity in this plan?” asked parish priest Fr Firas Aridah.

“There is no dignity, no human rights, [it] is just thinking of the Jewish people and the state of Israel and negating the rights of a whole other people on the other hand,” Fr Aridah said, adding that he was concerned

Rome’s homeless gather to pray for those who died on the streets

BY COuRTNEY MARES

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UNDREDS of homeless people and volunteers prayed together in the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere to honour those who have died on Rome’s streets.

A lit candle was placed before an icon of the merciful Christ for each of the deceased as their names were read aloud in the basilica.

The Catholic community of

Sant’Egidio organised the memorial and a lunch reception for all of the participants.

Six homeless people have died in Rome this winter, according to the Catholic movement, whose members decorated a side altar in the basilica dedicated to their memory. The community also prayed by name for other homeless people who have died in recent years.

The Sant’Egidio community was

first inspired to organise the memorial by the story of Modesta Valenti, a woman who died in front of Rome’s Termini train station on January 31, 1983, after an ambulance refused to take her to the hospital because she had lice.

Each following year, the Catholic lay movement has gathered to pray near the anniversary of Valenti’s death for those who have died on the streets.

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homeless people living in Rome, about half of whom are cared for in shelters run by charities, according to La Repubblica.

Throughout the year, Sant’Egidio volunteers aid Rome’s homeless with a meal-delivery programme, overnight shelters, and medical clinics.

In November, Pope Francis opened a four-storey homeless shelter right off the St Peter’s Square colonnade. The homeless

shelter, staffed by the Sant’Egidio community, has two floors of dormitories that can sleep 50 men and women, a kitchen to provide breakfast and dinner, and a recreation area for fellowship, educational programmes, and psychological counselling.

Sant’Egidio has also organised similar memorials for the homeless in at least five other cities around Italy, including Genoa and Turin.—CNA

Bishop investigated under new norms

BY JD FLYNN

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US bishop has become the first prelate to be investigated for covering up abuse allegations through a process developed by Pope Francis last year.

Bishop Michael Hoeppner of Crookston, Minnesota, has been accused of mishandling the cases of priests accused of sexual misconduct: the bishop is reported to have pressured an alleged victim to drop his allegation of abuse against a priest, failed to follow mandatory reporting laws, and neglected to follow protocols designed to monitor priests accused of misconduct.

In depositions released in November as part of a legal settlement, Bishop Hoeppner is seen to admit to several of the charges against him, reported Catholic News Agency.

Bishop Hoeppner, 70, is being investigated in terms of Pope Francis’ motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi.

The announcement came after several months in which

Bishop Michael Hoeppner, the first bishop to be investigated through a process developed by Pope Francis last year. local Catholics have called for the ouster of Bishop Hoeppner, who has headed the diocese since 2007, and accused him of mistreating a popular priest removed from ministry under vague terms.

Several US bishops said that they are watching the investigation against Bishop Hoeppner carefully, to see whether he is afforded the opportunity to defend himself during the investigation.

eanwhile, French cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon welcomed an appeal court judgment that overturned his suspended jail sentence for failing to report abuse, but confirmed he will ask Pope Francis to allow him to resign, Catholic News Agency reported.

Cardinal Barbarin was aquitted following the court ruling that imposed a jail term last March for failing to report the accusations against Fr Bernard Preynat, who currently awaits sentencing for abusing at least 75 boys.

The French Appeal Court released a 38-page document explaining why it found no “intentional element” indicating a cover-up by Cardinal Barbarin.

“This court decision allows me to turn a page and for the Church of Lyon to open a new chapter,” Cardinal Barbarin said.

“I will now go to Rome to renew my request. Once again, I will hand over my office as archbishop of Lyon to Pope Francis.”

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

5

Asia Bibi biography speaks of iron collar, tears in cell A Norberto Cruz da Silva, a leader in the Wapishana indigenous village of Tabalascada in the Brazilian Amazon and the local catechist coordinator.

(Photo: Paul Jeffrey/CNS)

Amazon Catholics want priests, married or not

BY LISE ALVES

C

ATHOLICS who work in the Amazon say members of small, isolated villages believe the Church could be more present in their lives if it allowed the ordination of married men—a plan being considered on a limited basis for the Amazon region.

Fr Edilberto Sena, 77, of Santarem, a priest of 49 years, who is the director of a network of radio stations throughout the Amazon region, said to allow married men to become priests would not solve all the problems, but it would help communities that have the visit of a priest only one or two times per year.

“It is a community’s right to have sacred Mass once a week,” said Fr Sena.

Bishop Edson Taschetto Damian of São Gabriel da Cachoeira said: “The priests, with great effort, are able to visit the communities three, four times a year. Catechists are the ones who keep the faith of the com-

munities alive,” he said.

Fr Sena said the idea was “not to allow priests who have gone through the seminary to get married, but to choose leaders, who are pillars of the community, and provide them with an annual monthly course, letting them go back to their communities and provide services that today, frankly, we are struggling to do”.

“We already have a structure set up in many places, with married men who already are seen as local church leaders, so why not allow them to carry on all the responsibilities?” he asked.

Josep Iborra Plans, 59, a Claretian missionary for 21 years, said that parishioners welcome the idea of having a priest present in their parish, married or not.

“The proposal around here is very welcomed. What these Catholics want is the regular presence of someone who will be able to celebrate Masses and baptisms, hear confessions, celebrate marriages,” he said.—CNS

SIA Bibi, the Catholic woman acquitted of blasphemy after spending eight years on death row in Pakistan, described herself as “a prisoner of fanaticism” in her newly published autobiography.

The mother of five was sentenced to death on insubstantial evidence in 2010 after being accused of blasphemy in a dispute over a cup of water with a Muslim coworker on a farm.

Salman Taseer, the Punjab state governor, and Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister of minority affairs, were murdered for publicly supporting her and criticising Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

Ms Bibi, 47, was acquitted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2018 and now lives in exile in Canada at an undisclosed location after moving there last May. Ucanews.com reported Ms Bibi’s autobiography, Enfin libre! (“Free at Last!”), has been written in French by journalist Isabelle-Anne Tollet, who campaigned for Ms Bibi’s freedom and is the only reporter to have met her during her stay in Canada. An English version is due out in September.

“You already know my story through the media. But you are far from understanding my daily life in prison or my new life. I became a prisoner of fanaticism. Tears were the only companions in the cell,” Ms Bibi says in the book.

She describes being chained and wearing an iron collar that prison guards could tighten with a huge nut, ucanews.com reported.

“Deep within me, a dull fear takes me toward the depths of darkness. A lacerating fear that will never leave me,” she says. “I am startled by the cry of a woman. ‘To death!’ The other women join in.

‘Hanged!’ ‘Hanged!’”

Pope Francis walks with family members of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan, during a private audience at the Vatican.”My heart broke when I had to leave without saying goodbye to my father or other members of the family,” Ms Bibi said in a new autobiography.

(Photo: Vatican Media/CNS) In Muslim-majority Pakistan, an unsubstantiated allegation of insulting Islam can lead to death at the hands of mobs.

Ms Bibi’s acquittal resulted in violent protests, led by cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, that paralysed Pakistan.

Ms Bibi argues in her book that the Christian minority still faces persecution in Pakistan.

“Even with my freedom, the climate does not seem to have changed, and Christians can expect all kinds of reprisals,” she says.

While she is grateful to Canada for giving her security and a fresh start, she regrets that she will probably never set foot in her homeland again.

“In this unknown country, I am ready for a new departure, perhaps for a new life. But at what price?”

Ms Bibi asks.

“My heart broke when I had to leave without saying goodbye to my father or other members of the family. Pakistan is my country. I love my country, but I am in exile forever.”

She refers to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws as a “Damocles sword” hanging over the heads of religious minorities.

From 1987 to 2017, at least 1 500 people were charged with blasphemy in Pakistan, while at least 75 people accused of blasphemy were murdered, according to the Centre for Social Justice.—CNS

Seminarian was killed by kidnappers Why the church at Auschwitz won’t close A

BY PETER AJAYI DADA

BY JONATHAN LuxMOORE

A

POLISH diocese that has the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau on its territory has dismissed new Jewish demands for the removal of a nearby Catholic church.

“This church isn’t on the territory of the camp, and the building didn’t belong to the camp—there’s, therefore, no basis for removing it,” said Fr Mateusz Kierczak, communications director of the Bielsko-Zywiec diocese.

The priest was responding to demands for the closure of the Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland church.

Rabbi Avi Weiss of New York said it violated a 1987 international Catholic-Jewish accord.

In an article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Rabbi Weiss said the Virgin Mary church was housed in the former headquarters of Birkenau’s Nazi commandant, where Jewish inmates were tortured and raped, and represented “the greatest violation of Holocaust memory”.

The rabbi, founder of the Hebrew Institute in New York and a longtime Jewish activist, said the church is in violation of a 1987 agreement between European cardinals and Jewish leaders that there would be “no permanent Catholic place of worship” on the Auschwitz-Birkenau site, as well as a 1972 UNESCO convention on protection of world culture.

However, Bartosz Bartyzel, spokesman for the AuschwitzBirkenau State Museum, told Catholic News Service that the building housing the Virgin Mary church is outside the camp area.

A guard tower at the AuschwitzBirkenau memorial in Poland. A diocese has dismissed demands that a nearby church be removed.

(Photo: Nancy Wiechec/CNS) He added that it had not been fully constructed at the camp’s 1945 liberation and had not, therefore, served as the commandant’s headquarters.

Fr Kierczak said: “We can’t deal with something that’s being presented emotionally. This affair has lasted for so many years, and we don’t wish to engage in another media squabble. It would serve no purpose for us to reply every time rabbis staged some protest.”

Besides Jewish inmates, who comprised 90% of Auschwitz-Birkenau’s 1,1 million victims, up to 75 000 mostly Catholic Poles were also killed by German occupiers in Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as tens of thousands of Russian POWs, Roma and other prisoners.

Jewish groups have long protested against the placing of Christian symbols at the camp, where a Catholic Carmelite convent was closed by Church leaders in 1993, and dozens of crosses were removed in 1998 after international complaints.—CNS

N 18-year-old seminarian, kidnapped along with three other seminarians, was found murdered in Nigeria, according to Aid to the Church in Need.

The Catholic charity confirmed the death of Michael Nnadi, who was kidnapped with the others on January 8 during an attack on the Good Shepherd Seminary in Kakau, in Nigeria’s Kaduna state.

“With immense sorrow, we must inform you that the last seminarian held by kidnappers, Michael, was murdered. The rector of the seminary of Kaduna identified the body in the afternoon,” Aid to the Church in Need tweeted.

The three other seminarians— Pius Kanwai, Peter Umenukor and Stephen Amos—were released in late January.

Mr Nnadi’s death is the latest in a string of attacks against Christians in Nigeria, who have been targeted by terrorist groups like Boko Haram, but also by bandits seeking to extort money from the Catholic Church.

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Augustine Akubeze of Benin City, president of the Nigerian bishops’ conference, said attacks against Christians are “due to lack of secu- Michael Nnadi rity in the entire was kidnapped and murdered. country”.

The Church, he added, lacks resources, such as video cameras in churches and seminaries, which :would be useful at least to capture some terrorists”.

Archbishop Akubeze also questioned why Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari expressed shock at the attacks.

“Many Nigerians are asking themselves if the president lives in a parallel universe,” the archbishop said. “How can he be surprised after

we have participated in numerous mass burials of Christians killed by Boko Haram?”

Archbishop Alfred Adewale Martins of Lagos warned that the federal government’s inability to protect innocent Nigerians could send the nation into anarchy.

He described Mr Nnadi as “a young man who abandoned all with the desire to serve his creator”.

Thomas Heine-Geldern, executive president of Aid to the Church in Need, said the kidnapping of the seminarians, as well as targeted attacks and murders of Christians in Nigeria remind him of the situation in Iraq before the invasion of the forces of ISIS. “Already at that stage, Christians were being abducted, robbed and murdered because there was no protection by the state,” Mr Heine-Geldern said. This must not be allowed to happen to the Christians of Nigeria. The government must act now, before it is too late.”—CNS

6

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Poison fruits of failure

T

HIRTY years ago South Africa cautiously entered a period of hope, prompted by the unbanning of the liberation movements by President FW de Klerk and the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years of incarceration in February 1990.

In his first address as a free man from the balcony of Cape Town’s City Hall, Mr Mandela called for “a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to insure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratised”.

In the latter objective, South Africa has succeeded.

We have regular elections with a universal franchise; where the ruling party has lost the mandate of the electorate it has ceded power; most of our statutory democratic institutions are working well, the press is free (the government’s efforts to the contrary notwithstanding); and our vibrant civil society has the freedom to take positions without fear of repercussion.

None of this must be taken for granted. We must celebrate our democracy and the miracle of the peaceful transition from apartheid to political freedom. But the ability to vote has failed to put food on the tables of many people.

It is a sign of dismal failure by the African National Congress— the party of Mr Mandela—that after more than 25 years of uninterrupted national rule, it presides over a ruined economy.

In 25 years, the ANC destroyed the economy by implementing wrong-headed policies, by the deployment of incompetent and frequently corrupt party loyalists and clients into sensitive positions; and—above all—by a decade of systematic looting of the state by the Zuma-led kleptocracy.

Some of these kleptocrats remain in powerful positions, undermining the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa at every turn—and rarely on questions of policy or ideology.

At the same time, none of the opposition parties have persuaded the national electorate to abandon the devil they know. They have failed to show how they might be credible or competent agents of transformation.

Thirty years ago South Africa emerged from the apartheid nightmare with a surplus of wise and principled leaders. Today we are facing a leadership crisis across

the political spectrum.

What a source of shame for the ANC especially that many voices are now observing that things were better under apartheid. Those are the voices of people who were oppressed under that evil system and even fought with the liberation movement.

What an indictment it is of the ANC’s failure to serve the people that anyone would claim that at least under apartheid, people were cared for.

Whether or not such statements correspond with reality, it is a disgrace for the ANC, and for our society at large, that there are people who have reason to say such things.

Such statements cannot be waved away as the sentiments of discontent, and retro-collaborators of the apartheid regime.

Presumably nobody who judges the services given to the oppressed under apartheid with favour against those provided by the present government has warm memories of that regime’s brutish rule.

Apartheid apologists should take no comfort from this, however. These sentiments are expressions of frustration with the ANC’s failures, not nostalgia for the old regime.

After 25 years in power, the ANC government can no longer excuse this reality on the legacy of apartheid. To be sure, that legacy is still with us, and it would be unreasonable to expect that three centuries of systematic racial domination could be undone in less than a tenth of that time.

And, indeed, those who demand that the legacy of apartheid be ignored are wrong. Bygones cannot be bygones because the bygones have yet to go by.

But even so, there has been too little progress by the government, due to often wilful ineptitude and industrial-scale corruption. For too many people, things have not improved, and—in the perception of those who say things were better under apartheid—might even have regressed.

The reaction to that reality often is unaccountably violent.

That, too, is the poisoned fruit of government’s failure.

Thirty years after the release of Mr Mandela and the hope it created, the ANC has to introspect: How did it come to pass that this once-noble party failed its great leaders of the past and the nation so abjectly?

tony Wyllie & co.

Reading God’s Word daily adds new dimension T O the highly commendable Ten New Year’s resolutions suggested

by Erin Carelse (December 25), I would like to add another one, if I may: Make time, even for a few minutes at first, to read God’s Word, the Bible, every day.

For those who do not have a daily missal, a guide to the daily readings can be easily be found on Catholic Link, issued by many parishes to publish their weekly notices, or in The Southern Cross.

It is also useful to subscribe to, or purchase at the repository or Catholic bookshops, The Living Faith booklet, which has most encouraging reflections on the read-

No more ‘Father says’ obeisance

W

HO in all seriousness wants to become Catholic nowadays?

Those who question themselves as revealed in Mphuthumi Ntabeni's great column on novelist Alice McDermot (January 29) just go back for more! Maybe it will root out all the doubts, all the wrongs?

Essentially, being a priest in the Catholic Church carries huge kudos.

Why on earth would little girls like Lucia Salazar, whom you mention in the editorial “A time to get radical” in the same edition, be allowed to go into a chapel to be molested if it were not done with the great priestly power of invulnerability of unquestionability.

Without wanting persecution of those who are priests, we truly need to demystify their role—but without cutting them out of the circle of our lives. We need to stop this topdown “Father says”-type obeisance.

Were we laity too, made in the image of God, not given faculties to discern right from wrong, and discretion from indiscretion?

Let us use these God-given faculties to serve God in simplicity and purity and with great courage to reveal what is unrevealable—to stop anything and everything evil being done in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Get real—get God! Lucy Rubin, Pretoria

Mugabe misrule the full story

Y

OUR article on Zimbabwe’s critical financial and food situation, “Zim hungers as 7 million are short on food” (January 15) is amazing!

“Amazing” in that it apparently lays the blame for Zimbabwe’s woes solely on weather conditions and global warming—there is no mention of over a quarter-century of misrule by a government that enriched

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ings for the day.

It is significant to note that the same daily Bible readings at Mass are read throughout the world, over the 24 hour period, which can be a truly unifying experience.

So I encourage you, for this year ahead, to hear from God yourself.

Make notes. Journal. Journey with God in a personal, way so that you may be filled with the Word of God which is “quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12).

It is one blessing to hear the Word of God, passively, from someone else reading it, but quite another exciting dimension to actively hear from God

Opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in Letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the Catholic hierarchy.

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

its elite at the expense of the poor.

Rhodesia/Zimbabwe used to be the “bread basket of Africa”, supplying food to the rest of the continent—now it is a “basket case”, and much of its demise is due to a tyrant reputed to be a (nominal?) Catholic.

If the report makes no mention of Mr Mugabe’s disastrous rule, then we are handed a very one-sided picture.

In common with many other African countries, until the political situation is sorted out, the economic situation will remain, and the vulnerable masses will suffer.

Geoff Harris, Rooiels, Western Cape

Yes to approval of married priests

O

NE can clearly say that the beginning of the 21st century has been an eventful time for the Catholic Church. One might say even an extraordinary time, with one pope resigning and his successor coming under criticism from senior members of the Church.

However, our incumbent curator of the Church needs to make one more important call in his papacy, and that is to approve the ordination of married priests, even if only in the Amazon region—for now.

Pope Emeritus Benedict’s comments on priestly celibacy in a recent book surely will make it more difficult for Pope Francis to think this through clearly. However, bear in mind that the ordination of married men is allowed in a very Catholic church, the Maronite Church (and in other Eastern Catholic rites).

The evolution of celibacy in the Church is difficult to follow, although it was officially introduced as

yourself. God is with us, in Jesus, the Word. “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119:105).

Truly inspirational saints and Bible heroes often quoted God’s Word with astounding consequences, even Our Lady in her Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55).

“Gather the riches of God’s promises. Nobody can take away from you those texts from the Bible you have learnt by heart,” wrote Corrie ten Boom, survivor of Ravensbrück women’s extermination camp.

Heather Withers, Johannesburg

Church policy (Canon 33) in 305 AD at the Synod of Elvira, possibly based on St Paul claiming to be celibate in his letter to the Corinthians (7:8).

However, St Paul acknowledges that not everyone has the “gift” of being celibate, and therein may lie the answer to the question of allowing married men to be ordained.

After all, one can’t argue with one of the greatest saints.

Pope Emeritus Benedict is certainly not wrong where he says, “Marriage requires man to give himself totally to his family. Since serving the Lord likewise requires the total gift of a man, it does not seem possible to carry on the two vocations simultaneously.”

Yet, there are instances, through circumstance, where a married couple could find themselves called to a “higher” vocation in the Church but one or the other are barred because of Church legalities.

We hope Pope Francis makes the right call, and we pray he will be guided by the Holy Spirit and not distracted by his critics.

Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg

Has Our Lady’s call been met?

A

T Fatima in 1917, Our Lady asked for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

Reports—inconclusive, some say—question whether or not Our Lady’s request has been met.

Our fervent prayers should be for the Holy Father to summon all bishops to Rome. Our prayers should include petitions for governments hostile to the Church to respond generously to the Holy Father’s call.

Invitations should also go out to the Orthodox, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Lutherans and Old Catholics of the Netherlands. Observer status could be offered to Muslims, Jews, Protestants and those of other faiths.

Adrian Kettle, Cape Town

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PERSPECTIVES

Let’s put new Pastoral Plan to work!

Sarah-Leah T Pimentel HE priest said: “It is not enough!”

That was the take-away line of a homily at Mass a few weeks ago.

The theme was the last instruction that Jesus gave to his apostles: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).

This is uncomfortable. It forces us out of our comfort zones. Most of us are probably far happier to keep plodding along without thinking too much.

We go to Mass on a Sunday and feel comforted by the familiar rhythms of the celebration. We may feel inspired by the hymns or perhaps a moving homily. We feel the peace of Christ in the Eucharist. An hour later, we go home and feel that we have done enough.

Yet, this is the challenge of the homily I heard. It is not enough.

If we truly want to be disciples of Christ, we need to recognise that the Great Commission is for us too. It is not only priests and religious who are called to go to the ends of the earth, to evangelise and draw people into a personal relationship with Jesus.

This is the calling for each one of us.

I know a couple who took that Great Commission seriously. They left behind their home, where they were surrounded by their family, friends and the comforts of life in a first-world country. They packed up their house and flew, with young children, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

They lived there for 15 years. During that time, they built a Christian community among the most rural of people. They brought the word of God and spiritual counsel. They responded to the practical needs of the community: education for the children, skills training for the women.

When I speak to this couple, I see great faith. I see a spirit of love and service so deep that it was willing to sacrifice everything to accept the challenge of the Great Commission.

I am inspired by them, but also recognise that I don’t have their courage and faith to leave everything behind. The good news is…this may be the calling for some.

But for others, God calls us to serve closer to home.

The new Pastoral Plan places a strong focus on the need to build stronger faith communities, by evangelising inside and

outside the walls of the Church.

The document says that all Catholics are called to be part of an “evangelising community”—a “community of missionary disciples of Jesus, busy with God’s work”.

The Pastoral Plan has eight focus areas which are explained in detail in the document. Below are my musings of how the goals of the Pastoral Plan could take shape in our parishes.

The family of God Our work of evangelisation can take root only if we first minister to each other. This includes forming strong bonds of faith among each other through faith-sharing groups and programmes such as Alpha, Life in the Spirit, Life Teen, and the many other excellent programmes that we can incorporate in the life of our parishes.

For the good of all The family of God becomes self-serving if it looks after only those already within the walls of the Church or those who meet some unspoken “standard” of perfection.

True evangelisation, however, excludes nobody. Nobody is beyond the grace of God. A Church that is truly welcoming meets people where they are at and accompanies them as Christ’s love slowly takes shape in their lives: those who are estranged or disillusioned by the Church but yet desire a deeper relationship with Christ, divorced people, LGBT people, those living with addiction, those who are grieving or living with depression…the list is endless.

Care of creation Evangelisation is not just in the words we speak, but also in how we protect the earth God has given us.

Natural resources are becoming depleted. We’ve ravaged the land and polluted the rivers and oceans. Our rampant consumerism and the industry that sustains it has affected the climate of the entire planet.

We don’t need so much stuff. This is a call to live simpler lives, to want less and live with less. It urges us to make responsible decisions about the food, clothes, and technology we buy, how we discard rubbish and things we no longer want.

Imagine if each parish had a recycling project that could also offer some form of employment to the poor?

Our source of sustenance is the Mass.

We hear the Word of God. We receive Christ in the Eucharist. At the final blessing, we are sent out to give to others what we’ve received. But we can give only if we know what we’ve received.

I’m always agreeably amazed when confirmed Catholics join an RCIA programme, often to walk with someone journeying Continued on page 11

Why we must always stick with God Fr Oskar O Wermter SJ NE of the most exciting stories in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, is the Book of Job. Job is a just man; he has faith and complete trust in God. He has been richly blessed with a large family, plenty of land to grow crops, plenty of domestic animals.

Satan challenges God to allow him to deprive Job of his rich blessings. Will Job retain his faith and trust in God, even if his children die, his crops are destroyed, and his oxen, sheep and camels—all his animals—are struck down and die?

Job replied to all this horrible misfortune by saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back again. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”

“In all this Job did not sin, nor did he say anything disrespectful of God” (Job 1:21-22).

But Job denies that his immense misfortune has been caused by his sin. He denies that he deserves to be punished.

And he does not blame Yahweh God for the loss of his children and his wealth. The Lord does not take revenge. He is not an avenger. He does not see evil in Job for which he would have to inflict even more evil on him.

We read elsewhere in the Scriptures that we are not to pay back evil with more evil (1 Thess 5:15). We should not hate even our enemy.

“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44).

We are not to judge and condemn, in the mistaken belief we can overcome evil done to us by evil we do to others.

Job believes in God and trusts him, even if there is evil in this world that God has created and given us to dwell in.

Even if the evil one tortures us, we do not turn against the Lord who gives us good gifts while permitting evil in his world. We are his and we remain his, and he does not abandon us.

Point of Reflection

“The Patient Job” by Gerard Seghers (1591–1651). Reflecting on the suffering of Job, Fr Oskar Wermter SJ writes: “Even if the evil one tortures us, we do not turn against the Lord who gives us good gifts while permitting evil in his world. We are his and we remain his, and he does not abandon us.”

There cannot be reason to turn against our Lord and Creator. “Neither death nor life...nor angels…nor powers will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39).

Y

ahweh allowed Satan to test Job by taking away his children and all his riches and possessions, though he was not to take his life (Job 1:12). Job would have had reason to resent what God allowed to happen to him. But he did not. He had no hatred, no grudge.

Even if evil overtakes us—war, famine, poverty, illness—it must not touch our faith.

Why? God himself does not turn against sinners, against the unfaithful, or transgressors of the law. He is not a vengeful tyrant who returns evil for evil, and answers provocation with anger.

The Son of God, our Lord, enters our sinful world. He was born in Bethlehem,

Christ in the World

The follies of the market

The cry of the poor The poor don’t just want food or money; they also seek companionship.

They have rich stories of having experienced God’s grace in tangible ways. Their faith would put that of many of us to shame.

Soup kitchens are a great start, but hearing the cry of the poor demands more of us. It calls us to open our hearts and truly listen to their stories. It calls us to find creative solutions to help provide for their most basic needs.

It also prompts us to ask: How can parish projects to help the poor move beyond outreach so that the poor become an integrated part of our parish lives?

the city in which the vindictive King Herod ordered the massacre of the “innocents”.

God became one of us and surrendered himself to this world of war, blood and violence.

“He took away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). He carried the burden of evil and destruction, anger and revenge. He was found in the company of sinners. He died praying for his enemies.

He did not believe that violence could be overcome by counterviolence. “All who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52). He set us free by non-violence.

Job anticipated the non-violent redeemer and unarmed liberator. God let Satan be. The Son of God did not resist violence with a call to arms. Job suffered the malice of Satan. This he did not blame on God. Job remained God’s trustful servant even in the darkness of not knowing the divine mystery.

Jesus acted like Job in his humility. For the disciples of Jesus, including ourselves, Job remains a model in his unwavering faith.

Job did not question Yahweh, he did not pretend to know God and be able to judge him. Jesus prayed: “Take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Lk 22:42).

And he died commending himself into the hands of his Abba/Father (cf. Lk 23:46).

We do not know why there is evil in God’s world, indeed in our own hearts.

Guilty or innocent, we know that nothing “separates us from the love of God present in Christ”. n Fr Oskar Wermter SJ writes from Harare.

7

Fr Pierre Goldie

The Mustard Seeds

Worship, the Word, Formation

The new Pastoral Plan, ready for distribution. In her column, Sarah-Leah Pimentel discusses ways in which parishes can implement it. (Photo: Sheldon Reddiar).

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

I

N the name of profit at all cost, we see in the business world rather disquieting practices that effectively undermine basic human dignity.

The World Health Organization reports a fall in tobacco consumption of 60 million from 2000 to 2018. There were reductions in consumption in 60% of countries.

Unfortunately, over 8 million people still die from tobacco use each year, of which 1,2 million are those exposed to second-hand smoke.

There is a company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange valued at around R1,6 trillion, which is one of the tobacco groups. What share of the 8 million deaths accrue to this group?

We can understand that some countries are heavily reliant on this industry. Phasing-out is needed. But what is effectively happening is the marketing of death.

Less knowledgeable persons and countries are taking to using tobacco products, seemingly oblivious of the immense health risk—yet the marketing goes on.

We also understand the need for an army in South Africa, but not an arms industry. To whom are weapons of death marketed? Is South Africa selling to African countries where there are armed conflicts?

Surely it is a shameful thing to have an industry dedicated to death. What about those nations who manufacture landmines?

In the 1970s, when the fuel price soared, many motorists switched to more fuel-efficient vehicles. Today the SUV is in full fashion.

To own an SUV is a sign of status, achievement. These vehicles have large engines, 6 or 8 cylinders, and pollute the atmosphere even more. Clearly status is more important than fuel economy, conservation and a healthy ecology.

The USA is distinguished for its predilection for large vehicles. Where is the noble ethic of minimising one’s carbon footprint?

I

f there are some 800 million globally who are ranked as obese in terms of the body/mass index, and the same number, 800 million, who experience food insecurity, why is there too much food for some and too little for others?

Productive facilities are dedicated to luxury goods for the fortunate, and to destructive weaponry which almost always affects the poor.

The money which states spend on weapons could relieve those living marginalised lives, who are not able to enjoy even basic human dignity in terms of nutritional food, utilities, education, medical care and a reasonable retirement.

Pope Francis calls for an inclusive economy.

We are reminded of the Catholic Social Teaching of the universal destination of goods, which today looks like so much wishful thinking.

The late Pope John Paul II concluded that future generations will judge this generation for its failure to even feed the poor, let alone contribute to a dignified living. We think of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, who lay starving outside the gates of the rich man. He was condemned not for being rich, but for ignoring Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31).

There is no room for jealousy of those with plenty. But there is a need to look beyond maximising profit, a system that is not providing what God intends everyone to enjoy.

If 100 million Christians recite the Our Father every day—5% of the total Christian population—that means there are 100 million requests for “daily bread”. Is God not providing, or is he saying we must provide fairly?

Jesus in the multiplication of the loaves says to us: “You feed them” (Lk 6:37).

8

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

COMMUNITY

The new Grade 1s at Assumption Convent School in Germiston, Johannesburg archdiocese, are seen with teachers Angela Moore (left) and Janet Brown.

St Henry’s Marist College in Glenwood, Durban, announced its leadership team for 2020. Seen with college principal Dr Stephen Leech are (from left) usiphile Dansoh (deputy headgirl), Eden Land (headgirl), Mfundo Cele (headboy) and Nicholas Foxon (deputy headboy).

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The student leaders for 2020 at Brescia House School in Bryanston, Johannesburg, are (from left) Onthatile Mokgosi (deputy headgirl), Genevieve Michael (headgirl) and Mthawelanga Agbiriogu (deputy headgirl).

Participants in an Alpha course from the parish of the Immaculate Conception in Pinetown, Durban. (Submitted

by Tamaryn van Wyk)

PRICE CHECK

The parish of Our Lady of Lebanon in Mulbarton, Johannesburg, celebrated the confirmation of 62 young people and adults. Mass was said by Auxillary Bishop Duncan Tsoke, concelebrated with superior of the Maronite Church of Southern Africa Fr Maurice Chidiac, parish priest Fr Jean Yammine, and Fr George Arouk. (Photo: Joe Henriques)

Members of the Independent Electoral Commission provincial office in the Eastern Cape presented Sr Nobulali Bulurelo of the Sr Aiden Quinlan Memorial Centre in Duncan Village, East London, with donations of clothes. The IEC office identifies a worthy cause each year as part of its social responsibility programme.

Sr Nobulali and staff are seen with IEC members. (Submitted

by Julie Stanworth)

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Three top speakers set for SA STAFF REPORTER

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P i l gr i mag e 2020

S outhern C ross

HE Jesuit Institute will bring three top speakers to South Africa this year, including one who will speak on the theme of “Suffering, Resistance and Hope in an Era of Violence”.

This will be the theme of this year’s Winter Living Theology, to be delivered by Dominican Father Carlos Mendoza Álvarez, a professor and researcher in the Department of Religious Studies at Iberoamericana University in Mexico City.

Fr Mendoza has published widely in specialised journals and has authored seven books.

He will be in South Africa from May 25 to June 30.

“In the last few years, Fr Mendoza had been accompanying people whose loved ones have disappeared in kidnappings in Mexico. This has led him to work and reflect on the question of suffering, resistance and hope in a time of global violence,” said Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, director of the Jesuit Institute.

“We thought that the question of how a good God can allow suffering and how those who suffer can hold on to hope is an important and relevant theological question for South Africa today.”

Fr Mendoza will present the Winter Living Theology in Johannesburg (June 9-11), Pretoria (June 8), Durban (June 2-4), Cape Town (June 16-18), Port Elizabeth (May 26-28), Manzini in eSwatini (June 6) and Gaborone: in Botswana (June 25).

Meanwhile, Fr Bryan Massingale will return to South Africa in July 2020. He will guest lecture at St Augustine College and will offer some public lectures during this time.

Fr Massingale delivered the Winter Living Theology in 2018 on the theme of “Racial Justice”, and returned to South Africa last year for further lectures.

Coming to South Africa this year: (from left) Fr Carlos Mendoza Álvarez OP, Fr Bryan Massingale, and Prof Massimo Faggioli.

He is a professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University in New York, and the author of Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (2010).

More details of Fr Massingale’s visit will be announced at a later stage.

The Jesuit Institute will host Italian-born and US-based Prof Massimo Faggioli from Villanova University in Philadelphia from August 9-16.

Prof Faggioli is professor of Church history, administration and the papacy. A prolific writer, he is a regular columnist for the US Catholic journal Commonweal and La Croix International in France, as well as a contributor to the Italian Catholic magazine Jesus and the Huffington Post website.

He will deliver some lectures and do dayworkshops during his time in South Africa on the subject of Vatican II and the pontificate of Pope Francis.

The Jesuit Institute hopes that Prof Faggioli will be able to offer lectures in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.

Dates and venues are to be confirmed.

“We hope that these scholars will make a valuable contribution to the Southern African Church and help us reflect on the pertinent theological issues we face in the country and in the Church,” Fr Pollitt said.

A man holds up a banner with one of the eight themes of the newly-launched Pastoral Plan, “Evangelising Community, Serving God, Humanity and all Creation”. See page 2 for more.

(Photo: Seldon Reddiar)

Giant of SA Church dies at 90

BY ERIN CARELSE

O

BLATE Father Albert Danker, one of Durban’s most revered priests, died on January 28. He was 90.

In the last few weeks before his death, Fr Danker (pictured right) had been in hospital after having suffered a stroke. He returned to Sabon House, the Oblates’ retirement home, just two days before he died.

According to the Oblate of Mary Immaculate provincial Fr Neil Frank, the late priest was loved by many.

“Fr Danker was exceptional in his preparation of liturgies and his pastoral ministry touched the lives of many. There have been many tributes while he was still alive and there will be many more to come,” Fr Frank said.

“We affectionately called him ‘Daddy Danker’ or ‘Albert the Great’ and he affectionately called us ‘savages’ or ‘animals’, always with a naughty chuckle,” said Fr Frank.

Fr Danker was born on December 8, 1929, to Henry and Lillian Danker (née Thomas), the oldest of four children in a family of Mauritian and French descent.

He attended St Augustine’s School, an institution for coloured children, which stood

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at the place now occupied by the Denis Hurley Centre, next to Emmanuel cathedral.

In a 2015 Southern Cross article, Fr Danker recalled that at a very early age, even before he went to school, he was interested in the things of the Church.

“My mother would take me to Mass and we would kneel there in the church, and I’d be listening to bells ringing and the incense would be burning. In those days the altar servers would strike the gong when the bells Continued on page 11

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 Croa a.

Three countries in one tour!

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IT’S WORTH IT!

Deacon Peter Landsberg (right) and his wife Germaine celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary with Fr Alan Moss OMI, parish priest of Christ theKing church in Wentworth, Durban.

Parishioner Annie Dierx of St Francis of Assisi church in Vanderbijlpark, Johannesburg archdiocese, started the Queen of Peace prayer group after her return from a visit to Medjugorje 30 years ago and celebrated the milestone with a Mass said by spiritual director Fr Sylvester Ponje MHM. (Photo: Bozena Kowalski)

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

FAITH

9

Two Catholic heroes killed by Nazis Among the many Catholics who died at the hands of the Nazis were two of the founders of the Young Christian Workers movement. STEFAN GIGACZ tells their story.

T

HIS year the world commemorates the liberation of Nazi concentration camps.

At the end of January we marked the liberation by Soviet troops of the infamous camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where so many people perished during the Second World War. Sadly, this was not the end for all camps. Many others would continue to die in other camps over the next few months, before the surrender by Nazi Germany in May 1945.

Among these victims were Fernand Tonnet and Paul Garcet, two members of the “founder trio” in Belgium of the Young Christian Workers movement.

They died in the Nazi death camp at Dachau, near Munich, in January and February 1945.

Fernand Tonnet Born in 1894, Fernand Tonnet met young Fr Joseph Cardijn—who much later would become a cardinal—within weeks of the latter’s appointment as a curate in the parish of Our Lady of Laeken near Brussels at Easter 1912.

He began immediately to work with his new mentor in the field of formation.

The outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 interrupted this work when Tonnet was called to arms after Germany’s invasion of Belgium.

Tonnet survived the trenches but suffered lasting damage from the effects of poison gas.

Finally in 1919 he was able to return to Laeken where he soon teamed up again with Fr Cardijn and two other young men, Paul Garcet and Jacques Meert, to launch the Jeunesse Syndicaliste (Young Trade Unionists), forerunner of the Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne, or Young Christian Workers (YCW).

For the next six years the dynamic group worked together to develop the emerging movement, eventually gaining the approval of Pope Pius XI for their initiative.

This in turn led to an explosion of growth of the YCW, with 400 new teams launched in 1925 alone.

Elected as national president at the first national congress in 1925, Tonnet continued to play a leading role. In 1927, he travelled to France to assist in the launch of the movement in Paris and Lille, where he was welcomed as the first “international president” of the emerging movement.

As the movement continued to grow, he helped organise many of its major events, including the first pilgrimage to Rome in 1929.

He also had a particular talent and interest in publishing and was instrumental in the launch of the movement’s colour magazine, JOC. Even more importantly, Tonnet played a key role in forming a whole generation of young leaders of the 1920s and ’30s—a period that has come to be recognised as a golden age of the YCW, a movement that

Paul Garcet (left) and Fernand Tonnet, two members of the “founder trio” of the Young Christian Workers movement, along with Jacques Meert and Mgr (later Cardinal) Joseph Cardijn. Both died in the Nazi concentration camp Dachau 75 years ago. (Photos courtesy YCW) would come to South Africa in the 1950s, under the leadership of the recently late Fr Albert Danker OMI. In 1934, now aged 40, he relinquished his post as president and went to work with the Christian Trade Union, where he developed a formidable reputation as an organiser and advocate for worker rights.

In 1938, he changed tack to join the Action Catholique des Hommes (Men’s Catholic Action) movement, where he again made excellent use of his talent in developing publications and resources for local teams and leaders. There he remained until his arrest in 1943.

tous, another pioneer of the movement. Together they had three children.

In 1935, he became administrative director of La Cité Nouvelle, a progressive Christian magazine while he also worked to develop a Christian Worker League.

Meanwhile, he continued to collaborate with Tonnet on the development of a network of former YCW leaders.

Sadly, much of this work was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II in September 1939.

Arrest and imprisonment

In 1940, Belgium was once again occupied by invading German Born in 1901, Paul Garcet first forces. Yet despite dangers, Tonnet came into contact with Fr Cardijn and Garcet continued their aposaround 1915 via the Pius X Eu- tolic work. charistic League in the parish.

Although they were not formal Soon after he also joined the members of the underground resistlocal “patronage”, or parish youth ance, they nevertheless took many club, where he got to know Tonnet risks to provide aid to those in need. albeit, given their age difference, Inevitably, their actions came under from afar. scrutiny.

By 1919, the war was over and Paul Garcet was the first to be arGarcet was 18. He now teamed up rested, at the beginning of June with the recently returned Tonnet 1943, for allegedly helping to proand the young metalworker Jacques vide lodging for a parachutist memMeert to work on estabber of the Resistance. lishing the Young Trade Tonnet, who had teleWhen there phoned Paul to ask his asUnionists.

Soon after, Fr Cardijn for the task, was were too few sistance found him a job as an acquick to blame himself for countant with the ChrisRed Cross the arrest. tian Trade Union Several days later, Tonparcels, Federation in Brussels, net was himself interroenabling him to devote gated by the Gestapo, much energy and time to Tonnet gave Germany’s secret police, the promotion of the accused of having up his own and new movement. failed to report the locaAt the first YCW conto another tion of the parachutist. gress in 1925, Garcet was At the beginning of Auprisoner elected national treasurer. gust, the Gestapo returned Soon after, together with again on several occasions, Tonnet and Meert, he beseeking to arrest him. Forcame a fulltime worker for the tunately, he was absent each time, movement. but it was clear that his days of freeLater, Fr Cardijn would describe dom were numbered. them as the “founder trio” of the At this point, Tonnet could have movement, with “Fernand, the sought to take refuge. However, fearhead; Paul, the heart; and Jacques, ing that others would be blamed if the hands”. Others added Fr he disappeared, Tonnet refused to Cardijn’s name to the list as the leave, despite the entreaties of his “fire” or the “soul” of the team. friends and colleagues.

As treasurer, Garcet successfully Finally, on August 10, the police tackled the difficult task of ensuring returned and arrested him. He was that the movement met its budget imprisoned at the Saint Gilles needs—always a challenge but par- prison, where Mgr Cardijn had also ticularly in those early years of rapid been interned, and where Garcet growth. and other colleagues were also being During this period, he was also held. responsible for YCW’s vocational At the end of August 1943, both orientation programme for young Tonnet and Garcet were transferred people. to the death camp at Esterwegen in Finally, in 1933, he took leave of north-western Germany.

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them began. They had their heads shaved and their clothes taken away, and were given numbers by which they would be identified.

They were both classified among the most dangerous prisoners with the initials “N.N.”, which stood for “Nacht und Nebel” (literally “night and fog”), signalling that all trace of their existence was to disappear.

As Marguerite Fiévez wrote in her biography of Tonnet, it was a kind of “death sentence without the name”, turning them into “living dead”. Together with them were a number of other former YCW leaders and chaplains.

Here they were put to work sorting cartridges and recycling materials for use by the Nazi war machine.

In response, they both looked for ways to slow down and impede the work.

Doing the least work possible, they both sought to come to the aid of other prisoners, offering them spiritual and emotional support in their distress.

Tonnet and Garcet remained at Esterwegen for seven months until on March 20, 1944 they and others were moved to another death camp, Flossenbürg at Bayreuth.

There they forced to do hard labour. In these conditions, their health slowly began to decline. On May 21, Tonnet recorded that he now weighed a mere 51,5kg.

At the end of summer 1944, this labour ended and they were both henceforth confined to their cells.

Now Tonnet and Garcet were again separated from one another.

Nevertheless, they both continued to provide moral and spiritual support to their fellow prisoners.

Finally, on November 29, 1944, the Flossenbürg camp was emptied and many prisoners transferred to the sinister camp at Dachau, about 16 km northwest of Munich, the concentration camp where German Christian opponents of the regime were mostly incarcerated.

By now, the temperature had fallen below freezing to as low as -15°C and -22°C. Here around 40 men were lodged together in three rooms. By now, most were already too feeble to work and spent the days in bed.

Tonnet was in a greatly weakened state. Nevertheless, he continued to gain the admiration of his colleagues.

“The impression I had of Fernand Tonnet at Dachau perfectly confirmed the impression I already had of him,” one former YCW chaplain and camp survivor, Fr Mauroy, later wrote.

“He was a layman extremely close to God, with a great delicacy of conscience. He was truly a fervent devotee of sanctity,” Fr Mauroy wrote.

“However, you had to discover this from the inside, without looking at the outside of a man who had already lost all the dash and dynamism he once had,” the priest concluded.

“I saw him,” recalled Jesuit theologian Fr Léon de Coninck, who later wrote of his experience in a book, Dachau, bagne pour prêtres (Dachau: Prison for priests). “He was in a terrible state, lacking clothes, worn out with fatigue and dying of hunger.”

But when food packages arrived from the Red Cross and there was one too few for the number of prisoners, Tonnet gave up his own par-

Cardinal Joseph Cardijn (18821967), who led the formation of the Young Christian Workers movement. cel in favour of another prisoner.

And when more parcels arrived later, he shared this with others.

Together again for the last time, Tonnet and Garcet continued to help organise prayer and even covert Mass services.

Death at Dachau But this did not last long. The month of January 1945 was extremely cold. Garcet had come to the end.

By January 20, he was already in a close to comatose state. On January 23, he finally succumbed with Tonnet at his side.

Tonnet’s own demise was also now only a week away as he continued to weaken to the point he could no longer eat.

“That’s it!” he told his companions on February 1. “I can’t continue. I no longer need anything!”

By the morning of February 2, he too was dead.

Less than three months later, Dachau too was liberated, this time

by American forces. But it was too late to save the YCW co-founders.

Cardijn’s tribute Mgr Cardijn, of course, never forgot Fernand Tonnet’s and Paul Garcet’s contribution.

In 1965, just after he had become a cardinal and as Vatican II neared its conclusion, he gave his backing to calls for their beatification.

“It was not primarily their arrest, stay and martyrdom in the Dachau camp that set them apart for the heroism of holiness,” Cardinal Cardijn said at the time.

“Many others have displayed a similar sublime heroism,” he noted.

“No, their whole adolescence and youth was marked by the faith and an apostolic mission, by daily recourse to the most authentic sources of holiness and apostolate, by an unparalleled charity and renouncement, by goodness, gentleness and perseverance in the service of the humblest and most abandoned,” he said.

The fact that Vatican II endorsed the lay vocation in the world that Fernand Tonnet and Paul Garcet modelled and embodied is perhaps the greatest tribute to their example, which deserves and needs to be recognised. n Stefan Gigacz is the secretary of the Australian Cardijn Institute and an honorary postdoctoral associate at the University of Divinity, Australia.

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The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

SAINTS

Remember Fatima’s St Jacinta February 20 will mark the centenary of the death of the youngest of the three visionaries of Fatima, St Jacinta Marto. MICHAEL OGuNu looks back at the life of this little girl of big faith.

D

EVOTEES of Our Lady of Fatima will mark the 100th anniversary of the death of St Jacinta Marto of Fatima on February 20, which is also the liturgical feast of Ss Jacinta and Francisco Marto, the Little Shepherds of Fatima who were canonised on May 13, 2017.

The youngest of the seven children of Manuel Pedro Marto and Olympia Jesus dos Santos, Jacinta was born on March 11, 1910, in the village of Aljustrel, near Fatima in Portugal.

She was a pretty child with a sweet singing voice and a gift for dancing the folkloric music of Portugal.

At First Communion Masses, she was among the little “angels” spreading petals before the Blessed Sacrament.

She had a marked love for Our Lord, and at the age of five she shed tears on hearing the account of his Passion, vowing that she would never sin or offend him anymore.

In the spring of 1916, as Jacinta with her brother Francisco and cousin Lucia watched their sheep, an angel appeared to them in an olive grove. He asked the children to pray with him.

The angel appeared again in midsummer at a well in Lucia’s garden, urging the children to offer sacrifices to God in reparation for sinners.

In a final appearance, at the end of the summer of 1916, the angel held a bleeding Host over a chalice, from which he gave Communion to the children.

This experience separated the three children from their playmates and prepared them for Our Lady’s apparitions to come.

The Angel of Peace taught the three shepherd children of Fatima the prayers to initiate them as adorers of the Most Holy Trinity.

The apparitions of the Angel of Peace imposed secrecy on the chil-

world to focus her attention on the things of heaven.

She searched for silence and solitude to be in contemplation. “I love the Lord so much,” she said to Lucia.

Victims of an epidemic Both Francisco and Jacinta were victims of the great 1918 influenza epidemic that swept through Europe that year, the so-called Spanish ’flu.

In October 1918, Jacinta told Lucia that Our Lady had appeared to her and promised to take her and Francisco to heaven soon.

Half a year later, on April 4, 1919, Francisco died at the age of 10.

As she fell ill in early 1920, just a few weeks before her tenth birthday, Jacinta was moved from one hospital to another in an attempt to save The three visionaries of Fatima: Lucia dos Santos (left) and Francisco her life, which she insisted was fuand Jacinta Marto, standing outside the Marto home in Aljustrel near tile.

Fatima. Francisco died at ten in 1919 and Jacinta in 1920 at the age of She developed purulent pleurisy, nine. Lucia went on to become a nun and died in 2005. a condition in which pus gathers in the area between the lungs and the inner surface of the chest wall. dren. Kneeling on the ground, the them the Good News of salvation, She endured an operation in angel bowed down until his fore- [...] the message of Fatima, a need to which two of her ribs were removed. convert and do penance, to save head touched the earth.

She could not be fully anaesthetised, Led by a supernatural impulse, many souls from going to hell,” ob- and suffered terrible pain, which she the three children did the same, and served Prof Americo Lopez Ortiz, offered to God for the conversion of repeated the words which they president of the World Apostolate of many sinners. heard the angel say: “My God, I be- Fatima.

On February 19, 1920, Jacinta “The glory of God, the salvation lieve, I adore, I hope and I love thee! asked the hospital chaplain who I beg pardon of thee for those who of souls, the importance of the Holy had heard her confession to bring do not believe, do not adore, do not Father and priests, the necessity and her Holy Communion and adminislove for the sacraments, all these hope and do not love thee.” ter extreme unction because she was took first priority in her life. She going to die “the next night”.

The children said ‘Yes’ lived the Fatima messages for the The priest told the child that her On May 13, 1917, Our Lady ap- salvation of souls around the world, condition was not that serious and peared to the three shepherd chil- demonstrating a great misthat he would return dren at Fatima, and asked if they sionary spirit,” Prof Lopez the next day. were willing to offer sacrifices to said.

The priest said The next day Jacinta Jacinta had a profound God for the conversion of sinners, was dead; she had died, and to pray the Rosary daily. They devotion that took her very he would as Our Lady told her, near to the Immaculate said “Yes”. in order to return the “alone” Jacinta was deeply affected by Heart of Mary. This love alconvert more sinners. the terrible vision of hell shown to ways led her in a profound Jacinta, before her next day. them by Our Lady in the third ap- way to the Sacred Heart of death at nine, told parition. She consequently was Jesus.

The next day Lucia, then a twelveJacinta attended daily deeply convinced of the need to girl: “Tell save poor sinners through penance Mass with a great desire of reJacinta was year-old everybody that God and sacrifices, as Our Lady had told ceiving Jesus in Holy Comgrants us graces munion in reparation for dead, as she the children to do. through the ImmacuAll three children practised poor sinners. Nothing was had predicted late Heart of Mary, that penance, but Jacinta had a special more attractive to her than people are to ask her call, for as the Congregation for the to be in the Real Presence of for them; and that the Causes of Saints reported in her be- the Eucharistic Jesus. She often said: Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate atification decree, Jacinta had “an “I love to be here so much. I have so Heart of Mary to be venerated at his much to say to Jesus.” insatiable hunger for immolation”. side. Tell them also to pray to the With immense zeal, Jacinta sepa“Jacinta was a missionary who Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, evangelised people by preaching to rated herself from the things of the since God entrusted it to her.”

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Catholic news that COUNTS

In 1937 Pope Pius XI decided that causes of canonisation for minors should not be accepted as they could not fully understand heroic virtue or practise it repeatedly, both of which are essential for canonisation.

For the next four decades, no sainthood processes for children were pursued, the National Catholic Register newspaper recalled in 1999.

In 1979, Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral of Leiria-Fatima asked all the world’s bishops to write to the pope, petitioning him to make an exception for Francisco and Jacinta.

More than 300 bishops sent letters to Pope John Paul II, writing

The tomb of St Jacinta and Sr Lucia in Fatima’s basilica of the Holy Rosary. that “the children were known, admired and attracted people to the way of sanctity. Favours were received through their intercession,” recalled Fr Luis Kandar, vice-postulator for the cause of Francisco and Jacinta.

The bishops also said that the canonisation of Francisco and Jacinta was “a pastoral necessity for the children and teenagers of the day”.

The same year, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints convened a general assembly.

Cardinals, bishops, theologians and other experts debated whether it was possible for children to display heroic virtue.

They decided that, like the very few children who have a genius for music or mathematics, “in some supernatural way, some children could be spiritual prodigies”.

Francisco and Jacinta were declared venerable in 1989, and beatified on May 13, 2000, by Pope John Paul II in Fatima. Their cousin Lucia, now a Carmelite nun, was still alive (she died in 2005).

Pope Francis canonised Francisco and Jacinta on May 13, 2017, during the centennial of the first apparition of Our Lady in Fatima.

They are the Catholic Church’s youngest saints who did not die as martyrs, with Jacinta the youngest.

Let us put into practice the Message of Fatima explained to us by Our Lady in 1917 while there is still time before it is too late.

Let us transform our hearts by daily recitation of the Rosary, meditating on the mysteries, penance, Eucharistic adoration and communion of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the First Saturdays of the month and consecrating ourselves to God through the Immaculate Heart of Mary in this time of grace and mercy that we have been granted from heaven, following in the footsteps of Ss Francisco and Jacinta Marto of Fatima. n Prof Michael Ogunu is the co-ordinator of the World Apostolate of Fatima in Africa.

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Pilgrims at the back of the house of the family of Jacinta and Francisco Marto. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher)

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2020

Fr Albert Danker OMI O BLATE Father Albert Danker died on January 28 at the age of 90 (as reported last week).

While we are sad at the death of Fr Danker, and had even prayed for a peaceful end for him, we have so much for which to celebrate his life and so many inspiring memories.

Fr Danker had been a vocation promoter, mentor and role model for many Oblates; he is remembered with much affection. He had been a much-revered pastor in the archdiocese of Durban.

He was born in Greyville, Durban, on December 8, 1929, to Henry and Lilian Danker, the oldest of four children in a family of Mauritian and French descent.

The young Fr Danker attended St Augustine’s School, an institution for coloured children.

From his early days it was clear he had the gift for working with the youth and he would leave indelible impressions on the lives of many.

Fr Danker made his first profession as an Oblate on February 27, 1951, and after completing his theological studies was ordained to the priesthood on December 10, 1955, along with two other stalwarts, fellow Oblate Fathers Charles Langois and Cyril Carey. He spent a year learning Zulu and ministering to the people at Machibisa.

Fr Danker was already earmarked for the chaplaincy to the Young Christian Workers, in preparation for which he was sent for a year to Europe to learn and experience the methodology of YCW founder Cardinal Joseph Cardijn.

When he returned, he committed himself wholeheartedly to this ministry, which in apartheid South Africa caused some consternation for the government. In order to have multiracial national conferences, venues had to be arranged in Swaziland and Lesotho.

On his return from an international YCW meeting in Europe in

1969, Fr Danker’s passport was confiscated by the South African authorities. It was a six-year battle before he could get it back.

Many people who have come through those formative years have been lifelong activists wherever they find themselves. While animating the YCW, Fr Danker was also secretary to the Oblate provincial, director of vocations and chaplain to the then-University of Natal.

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n the early 1970s, he was the first person of colour to be appointed parish priest of Our Lady of Assumption in Umbilo. After some initial resistance—remember this was the time that apartheid ideology was being entrenched even in the Church—he soon won the hearts of the people.

He did great work, particularly in promoting the lay associates called the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He would be director of the MAMI for many years, until 2008.

In 1977 Fr Danker was appointed provincial of the Natal Province of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, an office he held for six years. Some significant decisions were made during that time, in particular the start of the pre-novitiate which has had a significant number of candidates every year since then.

Fr Danker can be credited as the first to raise the idea of the

amalgamation of the South African Oblate provinces in 1983—ideas which became a reality only in 2018. He was a man of vision; yet also extremely practical in the here-and-now of the social context and of people’s personal lives.

Fr Danker was appointed parish priest of St Anne’s in Sydenham, Durban in 1983, a post he held for 25 years, until his retirement in 2008.

His impact on this community is legendary. When he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his priesthood in 2005, Durban’s Daily News reported that in his parish ministries, “many parishioners revelled in Danker’s skills of tapping into people’s talents and his good business skills”.

Fr Danker’s rounded faith and pastoral skills were centred on the liturgy. Public worship with him was always a moving experience that engaged the entire person in Vatican II’s teaching of full, conscious and active participation.

From his earliest days as a priest he animated the folk Masses which were popular with the youth. He is immortalised in the arrangement of Durban’s annual Chrism Mass—even though not many would realise his hand in marshalling the talents of people.

Fr Danker’s health deteriorated in the last few years of his life and some level of dementia set in. But he smiled his way through it all.

He eventually succumbed to his illness in the early morning of January 28. He died with the prayer “Jesus, have mercy on me” in his heart, which he had begun saying earnestly the night before.

He died peacefully, commending his spirit to the Lord.

He is survived by two sisters, Oriel and Annette, who live in England, and numerous cousins and close relatives in South Africa and Australia.

Fr Danker’s life is one which the Oblates and the Church of Durban celebrate joyfully and with much thanksgiving.

By Fr Neil Frank OMI

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IN MeMORIAM

De PALO—Cedric.

11/2/2010-11/02/2020. In loving memory of our son and brother on his 10th anniversary, so dearly loved, always in our hearts. From Craig, Edith and Marcia.

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PRAYeRS

O MOSt beautiful flower of Mount Carmel, fruitful vine, splendour of heaven, blessed Mother of the Son

of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in my necessity.

O Star of the Sea, help me and show me where you are. Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succour me in my necessity. There is none who can withstand your power, O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands. Say this prayer for three consecutive days and then publish. Leon and Karen.

Year A – Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday February 16, 6th Sunday of the Year Sirach 15:15-20 (16-21), Psalm 119: 1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34, 1 Corinthians 2:6-10, Matthew5:17-37 Monday February 17, Seven Founders of the Order of Servites James 1:1-11, Psalm 119:67-68, 71-72, 75-76, Mark 8:11-13 Tuesday February 18 James1:12-18, Psalm 94:12-15, 18-19, Mark 8:14-21 Wednesday February 19 James 1:19-27, Psalm 15:2-5, Mark 8:22-26

Thursday February 20 James 2:1-9, Psalm 34:2-7, Mark 8:27-33 Friday February 21, St Peter Damian James2:14-24, 26, Psalm112:1-6, Mark 8:34--9:1 Saturday February 22, Chair of St Peter 1 Peter 5:1-4, Psalm 23, Matthew 16:13-19 Sunday February 23, 7th Sunday of the Year Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18, Psalm 103:1-4, 8, 10, 12-13, 1 Corinthians 3:16-23, Matthew 5:38-48

Make the Pastoral Plan work Continued from page 7 into full communion with the Church. At the end of the year they often tell us how much they have learnt about the Church’s teaching.

Getting out of our comfort zone and attending a Bible course, an RCIA programme, Alpha, a retreat, talks and seminars all help to deepen our knowledge of the faith, which in turn deepens our relationship with Jesus and our ability to pass on our faith to others.

Advocacy

66 Years Ago: February 17, 1954

Seeking social justice is an extension of our worship. How can we come to Mass but be indifferent to the suffering of our brothers and sisters?

The Church must continue to be the moral voice of our society. It is our duty to speak out against injustice and what is clearly wrong.

Last year Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg spoke out against the violence and prejudice against foreign nationals. The Justice & Peace Commission defends the rights of the landless, the exploited, and the disenfranchised.

We are called to add our voice to

Cardinal detained in communist jailed Poland’s Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski is reportedly being held in the notorious Lubianka prison in Warsaw where detainees are usually “softened up” by torture before “confessions” are extracted from them, which are then produced during the trial, Polish resistance movement members said. Poland’s communist government has rejected this, as well as charges by the British government that the regime was rooting out the Catholic Church “in the last stronghold of Roman Catholicism behind the Iron Curtain”. (The cardinal would be freed in 1956. He later reported witnessing the torture of detainees but was not tortured himself.)

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Liturgical Calendar

FROM OUR VAULTS

A “small, vigorous, russett-cheeked nun in her late 60s”, Mother Lucina, is building a 30-bed hospital at Montebello in Natal. Mother Lucina is a familiar sight as she pours concrete to lay the foundation, or fits windows or door frames, or supervises her small staff of workers. The hospital will be known as Mater Misericordiae. (Now Montebello Hospital.)

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these Church-based institutions and support the work they do through financial contributions and/or our expertise in some of these areas.

Human development I would prefer to call this the holistic formation of the human person.

We can reach our full potential only if our material, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional needs are met.

We need far more retreats offered to discover who we are, and how God calls us individually to do his work.

By discovering our own God-given purpose, we can know whether we’re called to defend the rights of the homeless in our hometown or become a missionary in the DRC. This Pastoral Plan cannot be just another document that grows dust in the Southern African Church. It is, above all, a call to mission, a call to service.

It requires the guidance of our pastors, but it must be driven wholly by a laity that is on fire with the Holy Spirit to carry out the task of the Great Commission.

It is not enough. What more is God calling me to?

Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: February 19: Archbishop William Slattery OFM, retired of Pretoria, on the 26th anniversary of his episcopal ordination February 20: Bishop Zolile Peter Mpambani SCJ of Kokstad on his 63rd birthday February 21: Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban on the 19th anniversary of his elevation to the rank of cardinal

Silver jubilees for Daughters of St Francis Six Sisters of the African Daughters of St Francis of Assisi celebrated their silver jubilees at the motherhouse of the congregation at Port Shepstone.

They were the first “Silver Brides” since the foundation of the congregation in 1922 by Bishop Adalbero Fleischer of Mariannhill.

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 902. ACROSS: 1 Locust, 4 Epochs, 9 Sunday service, 10 Arrange, 11 Tidal, 12 Stage, 14 Index, 18 Peril, 19 Implore, 21 Printing press, 22 Layman, 23 Greets. DOWN: 1 Lascar, 2 Confraternity, 3 Spain, 5 Puritan, 6 Children of Eve, 7 Steals, 8 Asher, 13 Galatea, 15 Spiral, 16 Diana, 17 Census, 20 Piper.

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the

7th Sunday: February 23 Readings: Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18, Psalm 103:1-4, 8, 10, 12-13, 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 Matthew 5:38-48

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T sometimes feels as though God may be making quite impossible demands upon us; that is not really so, of course, because at the heart of the matter is the attentive holiness of God’s loving gaze upon us. This seems to be the message of next Sunday’s readings.

In the first reading, we hear a message that is almost a refrain in the Book of Leviticus: “You people are to be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy”; and then we are told what that might imply: “You are not to have hatred for your brother in your heart.” That is what holiness implies, it seems; but it is not really an impossible demand, is it?

Then it goes on: “You are not to avenge yourself, and you are not to bear a grudge against the children of your people.” And finally it is beautifully summed up in the wellknown saying “You are to love your neighbour as yourself”, and then underlined with the refrain “I am the Lord.”

That is what counts when God seems to make demands upon us: God is God, after all.

The psalm likewise demands that we pay attention to God: “Bless the Lord, my soul, and everything within me, bless God’s holy name.”

The invitation is then repeated, with an ad-

S outher n C ross

dition: “Do not forget all God’s gifts.”

This is followed by a series of descriptions of this God: “the one who forgives all your sins, who heals all your ills, who buys back your life from the Pit, who surrounds you with love and compassion”.

And the affectionate portrait of God has further details: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in steadfast love…he did not deal with us as our sins deserved, did not requite us as our deeds deserved.”

Then a lovely image for the removal of our sins: “as far as the east is from the west”, and, lovelier yet, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has on those who revere him.”

What we are invited to observe here is not the severity of God’s demands, but the intimacy of our relationship with God. In the second reading, Paul is likewise insisting on what God is like. The context here is the division in that Corinthian church, which Paul likens to “God’s Temple”.

“You are God’s Temple, and the Spirit of God lives in you,” he argues. That makes demands on us: “If a person destroys the Temple of God, God will in turn destroy that person;

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people. They strove hard to be faithful to all the precepts of their faith and were people who believed in and practised strict justice.

They didn’t make unfair calls as umpires!

But inside all that goodness they still lacked something the Sermon on the Mount invites us to—a certain magnanimity, hearts and minds big enough to rise above being slighted, bigger than a given moment.

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et me offer this example of what that can mean: John Paul II was the first pope in history to speak out unequivocally against capital punishment. It’s important to note that he didn’t say that capital punishment was wrong. Biblically we do have the right to practise it. John Paul conceded that.

However, he went on to say that, while we may in justice practise capital punishment, we shouldn’t do it because Jesus calls us to something higher, namely, to forgive sinners and not execute them.

That’s magnanimity, that’s being bigger than the moment we’re caught up within.

Thomas Aquinas, in his moral astuteness, makes a distinction that one doesn’t often hear either in Church teachings or in common sense. Thomas says a certain thing can be sin for one person and yet not for another.

In essence, something can be a sin for someone who is big-hearted, even as it is not a sin for someone who is petty and small of heart.

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Sunday Reflections

you see, God’s Temple [that is, you lot] is holy.”

And that means we are not to start priding ourselves on our own wisdom; instead, “If someone thinks that they are wise in this world’s terms, let them become stupid, that they may become wise. You see, the ‘wisdom’ of this world is stupidity in God’s eyes.”

The upshot is that “none of you is to boast among human beings. The point is that everything belongs to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Kephas (the three preachers that the Corinthians had been fighting over), or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—everything belongs to you. And you belong to Christ. And Christ belongs to God.” That is how we are to approach the demands that God may be making on us, as a gift for which we should be thoroughly grateful, not as an imposition to resent.

The Gospel for next Sunday continues Jesus’ reinterpretation of God’s Law. He does this by way of several “antitheses” (“You have heard it said…but I am saying to you”). Here we have just two of these “antitheses”.

The first concerns the command “eye for eye and tooth for tooth”, and the teaching

Can big hearts sin more?

HAT does it mean to be bighearted, magnanimous? Once during a baseball game in high school, an umpire made a very unfair call against our team.

We were indignant and began to shout angrily at him, swearing, calling him names, venting our anger.

But one of our teammates didn’t follow suit. Instead of shouting at the umpire, he kept trying to stop the rest of us from doing so. “Let it go!” he said. “Let it go—we’re bigger than this!” Bigger than what?

He wasn’t referring to the umpire’s immaturity, but to our own. And we weren’t “bigger than this”, at least not then. Certainly I wasn’t. I couldn’t swallow an injustice. I wasn’t big enough.

But something stayed with me from that incident: the challenge to “be bigger” inside the things that slight us. I don’t always succeed, but I’m a better person when I do, more big-hearted, just as I am more petty and smaller of heart when I don’t.

But just as our teammate challenged us then, we remain challenged to “be bigger” than the pettiness within a moment.

That invitation lies at the very heart of Jesus’ moral challenge in the Sermon on the Mount. There he invites us to have “a virtue that’s deeper than that of the Scribes and the Pharisees”.

And there’s more hidden in that statement than first meets the eye because the Scribes and Pharisees were very virtuous

Nicholas King SJ

We’re not allowed to hate

here (“but I say to you”) is that we are not to demand blood for blood.

Instead we are “not to resist the Evil One”; and it has some implications that Jesus’ hearers would have found quite startling.

When struck on the cheek they are to “turn the other cheek” rather than hit back.

Then if a Roman soldier conscripts them to carry stuff for a mile, they are to go two miles, which might make the soldier look quite ridiculous. Next, instead of the command to “love your neighbour and hate your enemy” they are to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”.

And why? Because that is what God is like: “You are to become children of your Father in Heaven, because he makes his sun rise on the wicked as well as the good, and his rain fall on the just as well as the unjust.”

This part of the Sermon ends with the devastating instruction: “So you are to be perfect as your Father is perfect.”

And how are you going to approach that task, this week?

Southern Crossword #902

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

Here’s an example: In a wonderfully challenging comment, Thomas once wrote that it is a sin to withhold a compliment from someone who genuinely deserves it because in doing so we are withholding from that person some of the food upon which he or she needs to live.

But Thomas is clear that this is a sin only for someone who is big-hearted, magnanimous, and at a certain level of maturity.

Someone who is immature, self-centred, and petty of heart is not held to the same moral and spiritual standard.

How is this possible—isn’t a sin a sin, irrespective of person? Not always. Whether or not something is a sin or not, and the seriousness of a sin, depends upon the depth and maturity within a relationship.

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magine this: A man and his wife have such a deep, sensitive, caring, respectful, and intimate relationship so that the tiniest expressions of affection or neglect speak loudly to each other. As they part to go their separate ways each morning they always exchange an expression of affection, as a parting ritual.

Now, should either of them neglect that expression of affection on an ordinary morning where there’s no special circumstance, it would be no small, incidental matter. Something large would be said.

Conversely, consider another couple whose relationship is not close, where there is little care, little affection, little respect, and no habit of expressing affection upon parting. Such neglect would mean nothing. No slight, no intent, no harm, no sin—just lack of care as usual.

Yes, some things can be a sin for one person and not for another.

We’re invited both by Jesus and by what’s best inside us to become big enough of heart and mind to know that it’s a sin not to give a compliment, to know that even though biblically we may do capital punishment we still shouldn’t do it, and to know that we’re better women and men when we are bigger than any slight we experience within a given moment.

ACROSS

1. John the Baptist had one with wild honey (Mt 3) (6) 4. Periods of historic times (6) 9. Religious ceremony at Wimbledon? (6,7) 10. Put in order (7) 11. Oceanic wave? (5) 12. Gates for the actors (5) 14. List of biblical books (5) 18. Immediate danger (5) 19. Pray with earnestness (7) 21. Gutenburg’s invention for biblical books (8,5) 22. One neither ordained nor professional (6) 23. Makes a friendly gesture liturgically (6)

Solutions on page 11

DOWN

1. Rascal could become a sailor (6) 2. Charitable brotherhood (13) 3. Land of St Teresa of Avila (5) 5. One readily shocked ran up it (7) 6. We cry to thee, poor banished … (Marian prayer) (8,2,3) 7. Breaks a commandment (6) 8. He would provide food fit for a king (Gn 49) (5) 13. Pygmalion’s animated statue (7) 15. Staircase in the church steeple (6) 16. Goddess of the people of Ephesus (Ac 19) (5) 17. Caesar Augustus decreed it (Lk 2) (6) 20. He will call the tune (5)

CHURCH CHUCKLE

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ATHER Bert, a notoriously bad driver, one day drove his car into a wall. Miraculously, he emerged unscathed.

A parishioner had seen the accident and rushed over. “Father, are you okay?” she asked.

“Oh yes, I’m fine, thank you,” Fr Bert replied. “I had the Lord riding with me.”

The parishioner looked at the car, and turned to the priest: “Well, Father, I think it’s better if you let him ride with me, because you are going to kill him.”

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