200506

The

S outher n C ross

May 6 to May 12, 2020

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

No 5185

This is the new bishop of Oudtshoorn

Page 3

www.scross.co.za

R12 (incl VAT RSA)

Vatican’s ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ was to serve in SA

Page 9

Centenary Jubilee Year

Uncorked theology now digital

Page 2

Much to do before we can reopen schools

BY ERIN CARELSE

B

EFORE schools can open for both learners and staff, a huge number of procedures needs to be in place, according to the deputy-director of the Catholic Institute of Education (CIE).

Last week education ministers Angie Motshekga and Blade Nzimande announced a phasing-in of classes, with schools slated to reopen on June 1 for Grade 12 and Grade 7 pupils.

Teachers were expected back on May 18, and management teams on May 11.

Basic education minister Ms Motshekga stressed that these were “proposed dates”.

The CIE’s Ms Baker said the ministers had presented “quite a carefully crafted plan”, and are “doing the best they can in spite of a lot of the criticism being levelled at them from all quarters”.

However, she added: “Whether everything will be ready in time, that is a different question.”

Ms Motshekga said several measures to ensure that the education sector did not contribute to the spread of the virus would be put in place before learners could return.

In this regard, the education department would be working with the health and transport departments.

The Department of Basic Education has developed guidelines for schools on maintaining hygiene during the Covid-19 pandemic, giving recommendations on proper cleaning and use of personal protective equipment, based on risk exposure.

Screening of learners and educators will be done at the reopening of schools, starting with Grades 7 and 12, and temperature checks will be administered. Learners or staff members who present with raised temperatures will then be considered for isolation and testing.

Ms Baker said that the most difficult thing for schools is going to be social distancing, especially with little ones.

In terms of safety protocols, Ms Motshekga stressed that physical distancing in classrooms will include no more than two learners sharing desks. No hugging or handshakes will be allowed, and learners and teachers must wear facemasks at all times.

She also said that classrooms would be sanitised daily before the start of the school day. As far as water sanitation is concerned, the DBE will participate in an initiative to get water tanks installed at the identified schools and portable water delivered to the tanks.

Ms Baker warned that the difficulties that may ensue should not be underestimated.

The protection of teachers, staff and children must be the priority.

She noted that teachers are probably at more risk than the children. It is recommended that teachers who are over 60, an age group identified as being at high risk, don’t go back to schools.

However, it is unavoidable that schools will have to reopen, at least partially, Ms Baker noted.

“The education department just cannot afford for matriculants not to write this year, because the system cannot hold that number of young people,” she said.

In the interim, the basic education department has made provision for curriculum support during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The initiative was put in place as an intervention to bring curriculum lessons to households across the country to assist learners, as schools remain closed. This is a bid to minimise the impact of the coronavirus on basic education.

The education department has used some Continued on page 2

At a time of streamed videos, social media memes, webinars and Zoom conferences, Fr Tulani Gubula of Queenstown communicated the message for the current crisis old school style, advising the faithful to be safe and to keep faith in the Lord on a handwritten poster.

And then he posted it in the modern mission field—social media.

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The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

LOCAL

Uncorked theology goes digital STAFF REPORTER

A

DURBAN parish has taken its popular Q&A and “Theology Uncorked” sessions into the digital domain during lockdown, broadcasting on its YouTube channel.

St Joseph’s parish in Morningside launched its Q&A sessions three years ago, first in its HeBrews coffee shop holding 25 people, said parish priest Fr Brett Williams.

They proved so popular that the sessions were moved into the parish hall to accommodate the number of people wishing to attend.

Fr Williams had scheduled a couple of Q&A sessions for this year, together with monthly Theology Uncorked sessions.

The latter are “monthly gatherings, with a glass of wine and some snacks, which would allow us to go a little deeper into a topical issue or theological subject”, he explained.

“Unfortunately, we were only able to do one Theology Uncorked session—on Catholic Social Teaching—before the lockdown was imposed,” Fr Williams told The Southern Cross.

“After Easter, I thought to introduce weekly sessions so as to keep connected and involved with the parish,” he said.

These sessions take place at 19:00 on Wednesdays, live on the parish’s YouTube channel. Both Theology Uncorked and the Q&A sessions remain uploaded for later viewing (Click Here to access them, and other streamed material).

“The involvement and interest have been very good and people from all over join us—everyone is

Fr Brett Williams presents a “Theology Uncorked” session at Morningside parish in Durban just before lockdown. The popular sessions are now livestreamed on YouTube every Wednesday at 19:00, and then remain available for later viewing. most welcome,” he said.

The Theology Uncorked concept borrows from Theology on Tap, which ran for a while in Durban pubs.

“I had presented on a number of occasions at these get-togethers with the young people in different pubs around Durban, and they had proved very popular,” Fr Williams said.

The Southern Cross is our region’s only Catholic weekly, and so it is crucial in bringing Catholic news and thought to the People of God. Without it an important Catholic voice will be lost.

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“We had always provided targeted learning platforms for deepening faith and growing spirituality, but I sensed a need for something a little more substantial and perhaps academic in terms of theology and a hunger for deeper spiritual input,” he said.

“As the Church, we must concede that many Catholic Christians are not well equipped or

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properly informed on their faith and spirituality.

“We have traditionally assumed that once the sacrament of confirmation was celebrated, the growing in faith and knowledge process was complete. This situation has been the undoing of a life with and in God for many and the spiritual and moral benefits that flow from connection to Jesus and the Gospel,” Fr Williams said.

The Q&A sessions are one way of addressing this.

“We began by encouraging parishioners to submit questions, which were chosen randomly ‘from a hat’ and dealt with,” Fr Williams said.

“It would seem that people really enjoy the sessions. In fact, they have become so popular that we now have Q&A sessions for the youth/young adults in the parish.”

Anyone is able to submit their questions in the chat section or by e-mail.

“I answer all the questions as best I can and if I do not know the answer, I tell them that I will get back to them next time with an answer,” Fr Williams explained.

In order to get into greater detail on some questions, the more formal, structured Theology Uncorked sessions were launched.

“I have asked people to submit ideas for subjects for greater input and discussion so that I am able to address matters that they find interesting; I really am open to anything,” Fr Williams said.

The priest thinks that the digital sessions could continue after lockdown, as “a new way of being and doing discipleship”.

Before schools open again Continued from page 1 123 radio stations, and six different television channels with a total reach of more than 35 million people.

The radio lessons broadcast are providing curriculum support lessons to learners in various grades, including Early Childhood Development.

Ms Baker noted that there are some “incredible things” going on, with teachers giving lessons through all platforms, including Google Classroom and Zoom meetings.

However, she noted, there is a huge number of children who might not even have been informed that there are education aids on television and on the radio.

“This is what we need to promote: that the more disadvantaged schools are looked after,” she said.

“I do think that a lot of children have lost a lot of learning, and I think even for the ones that haven’t, it’s been a different time,” Ms Baker said.

“The department is going to cut the curriculum so we’ll see where we go. I wonder if learning will ever be the same again because it’s a time of change,” she said.

Then she added: “I hope it is not going to be the same.”

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The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

3

New bishop phoned nuncio: Is it real?

BY ERIN CARELSE

A

FTER the apostolic nuncio to Southern Africa called Fr Noel Andrew Rucastle to inform him of his appointment by Pope Francis as the bishop of the diocese of Oudtshoorn, he was so surprises that he followed up the next day with a message to make sure he hadn’t imagined it.

“It came as such a surprise, and so I followed up the next day with a message to [nuncio] Archbishop Peter Wells just to make sure. I said: ‘We did have that conversation yesterday, didn’t we?’” the 52year-old bishop-elect told The Southern Cross.

All the phone calls of support and well-wishes have put things into perspective for him.

“I’m very happy, mother Church in her wisdom knows what she does: that’s why you are given a week to let it all sink in,”

he said.

“Imagine you were to get the news on Sunday night and then on Monday you got this barrage of phone calls. That week [before the public announcement] is very important. You get to work through all these emotions,” Bishop-elect Rucastle said.

In the past week, he has been fervently familiarising himself with everything in regard to his new diocese.

“There is one area that I have known about for a long time, which has been a challenge in the diocese—and that is foetal alcohol syndrome,” he said. “I know that there is that but the rest I’m still in the process of learning.”

He will have meetings with people in the diocese of Oudtshoorn to familiarise himself with his new mission field.

Bishop-elect Rucastle has had some exposure to his new diocese People wait to receive food in Pretoria during the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Photo: Oupa Mokoena, RealTime Images/ Reuters/ CNS)

Covid-19 creates fears, stigma

BY BRONWEN DACHS

I

N his rural diocese, “fear, which leads to stigma” is linked to people coming from Cape Town, according to Bishop Joseph Kizito of Aliwal North.

Most of South Africa’s more than 6 300 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and related deaths are in the Western Cape, while there are no known cases in his Eastern Cape diocese, he said.

“People here are looking at people coming from Cape Town” as harbingers of death, Bishop Kizito said.

Throughout Africa, Church officials are working to fight the stigma that comes with the pandemic. But in some areas, people fear death from hunger more than death from Covid-19.

Many people who work in the cities regularly return to their rural homes in other provinces. Despite lockdown regulations barring movement between provinces—except for funerals—some minibus taxis have escaped being turned back by authorities on the road.

“The feeling here is that Cape Town has a lot more resources” to cope with the effects of the virus, Bishop Kizito said. Besides having well-equipped hospitals, the city has schools that “can cope with online learning, while here we cannot”.

“Our schools are overcrowded,” he said, noting that “there can be 50 children in a classroom, sometimes even 100, and you couldn’t even think about” setting up effective online learning.

“Not having any food to eat and the loss of income” through stringent lockdown measures are the main worries of people in Aliwal North, said Bishop Kizito.

The convent of the Holy Cross Sisters in Aliwal North has been prepared as a quarantine centre, he added, so sick people know they

have a place to go.

B

ishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg said Church and civil society groups in South Africa “have worked so hard to put an end to stigma and discrimination” against people who are HIV-positive “that I hope this will have some effect as we deal with” the Covid-19.

His team of community workers in Phokeng is working on Covid-19 messages and is “very aware of what we need to be saying” to avoid stigmatising people.

It matters that all those involved in the diocesan community programmes, which focus mainly on HIV and include health services and care for orphans, work in the communities they live in, Bishop Dowling said. “They aren’t seen as coming in from the outside to tell people what to do.”

In Zimbabwe, people seem to be unintentionally stigmatising people infected with the coronavirus “because of fear of the state of our health system”, said Yvonne Fildah Takawira-Matwaya, who chairs the Zimbabwe bishops’ Justice & Peace commission.

Harare’s designated hospital for Covid-19 patients is “seen as a death-trap”, Ms Takawira-Matwaya said.

“Before lockdown, a man who lives two streets from my home was suspected to have symptoms” of Covid-19, she said. “The messages started flowing in the neighbourhood WhatsApp group” one evening and the following day “people would not even approach the gate of his home”, she said.

Most Zimbabwean households’ income-generating activities “have come to a standstill” and people “fear hunger more than the coronavirus”, Ms Takawira-Matwaya said.

“People feel that they face death either way, but that dying of hunger is worse,” she said.—CNS

Bishop-elect Noel Rucastle as judicial vicar in the metropolitan see, the archdiocese of Cape Town.

But he had never thought that

he would be going there one day.

Bishop-elect Rucastle doesn’t know when he will officially take up his new position. “Canonically you have three months to be episcopally ordained and take up office—but now during the lockdown and with the rolling out of the different phases, who knows when this will be.”

But when the time does come, he wants his new diocese to know that he is “really looking forward to us meeting, to getting to know each other, to growing together— and most importantly for us to get to that place together in the love of God, because that’s what its all about,” Bishop-elect Rucastle said.

Born on April 22, 1968 in Upington, Northern Cape, and raised in Kimberley, Fr Rucastle was ordained to the priesthood on July 14, 2000 for the archdiocese of Cape Town.

He is currently serving in the

parish of Our Lady of Fatima in Bellville, Cape Town.

During his twenty years as a priest he also served at Corpus Christi parish in Wynberg, St Mary’s cathedral, Kraaifontein, and Hout Bay. Fr Rucastle pursued his further studies in canon law in Canada, after which he returned to the archdiocese of Cape Town where he is currently serving as a judicial vicar, heading up the marriage tribunal.

He has also served two terms as president of the Canon Law Society of Southern Africa.

He will succeed Bishop Francisco de Gouveia who retired in 2018.

At 113 343 km2, Oudtshoorn is South Africa’s largest diocese geographically.

According to 2016 figures, it serves 30 450 Catholics, about 2,7% of the population.

After feeding 2 400 families, Round 2 of food parcel drive

BY ERIN CARELSE

T

HE archdiocese of Cape Town is appealing to parishes and the faithful to contribute to the second phase of its Covid-19 food parcel campaign to feed the poor.

“The shutdown has resulted in many day workers and other disenfranchised persons not being able to place food on their tables, and our interventions have brought much relief to several families and individuals,” said Auxiliary Bishop Sylvester David.

He said that by the end of April, 2 456 parcels to the value of R402 375 were handed out. In addition, virtual vouchers for a fixed amount were sent to people in outlying areas that have been unreachable under lockdown restrictions.

Bishop David has urged the faithful to consider a regular donation to the fund during the time of lockdown when families have little or no means putting food on their tables.

“Because of the nature of the pandemic, we also see a need for people who come off the streets hungry asking for food, and we allocate a certain number for them as well. People have got absolutely nothing and are really desperate for food, it is very sad,” he said.

“Winter is coming, and in Cape Town, it can be quite severe. If people could arrange for adults’ and children’s clothing, and blankets— they don’t have to be new, just useable. It will all help,” he said.

While many may not be able to contribute financially to the campaign, Bishop David suggested that parishioners work with the St Vincent de Paul Society in their

A food parcel is handed to a recipient as part of the Covid-19 campaign of the archdiocese of Cape Town. The campaign is now entering its second phase. parishes, to help with other needs.

Speaking on life after lockdown, the bishop said: “A transformation happens when we unlearn what we’ve learnt, and relearn new values.” He hopes people will continue to help one another when there is a need.

“Inspire Children and Youth” in Riebeek Kasteel, who received parcels from the archdiocese, expressed their gratitude on Facebook: “Thank you so much to the archdiocese of Cape Town who donated 80 food parcels to the families on rural farms this past weekend. We were so excited that we began to distribute the food without any delay,” their post said.

“Little did we know just how much this act of random kindness would mean to the 80 families.

Many people cried because they had nothing and nowhere to ask for food. Some stared with disbelief until they realised that the food was for them and their families. Little children danced and started singing,” it said.

“Please know that 80 families or 424 vulnerable children, women, disabled and elderly people on rural farms are eating.”  Donations can be made to Account name: Archdiocese of Cape Town Collections; Standard Bank Thibault Square. Account 070248036. Use the reference “Food Parcels”.

4

The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

INTERNATIONAL

Vatican looks at ways to help all survive P

BY CINDY WOODEN

Br Chris Gault in front of Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Irish Dominican, who trained as a doctor, is back treating patients with Covid-19. (Photo: Mal McCann, Irish Catholic/CNS)

Irish Dominican back in scrubs

BY MICHAEL KELLY

A

N Irish Dominican Brother who trained as a doctor is back treating patients in hospital with Covid-19.

Br Chris Gault, who has been studying for the priesthood with the Dominicans, has returned to his native Belfast, Northern Ireland, and donned surgical scrubs to be part of the fight against the virus in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital where he once served.

He graduated from Queen's University in 2013 and completed foundation training as a doctor, but left medical life behind when he decided to answer a call to enter the priesthood.

Br Gault joined the Order of Preachers, making a profession of vows in 2018, and moved to Dublin to study philosophy as part of his formation.

However, when he heard calls for any available medics to return to the frontline to help in the fight against the coronavirus, he decided he had to help.

“I talked to my superiors and they were happy and encouraging,” the Dominican Brother said.

“I just volunteered. The trust and the health service are undergoing a lot of change. They are adapting to a lot of changes in these current cir-

cumstances.

“I never wavered and once the backing came, I was happy to go for it,” he said.

“My skills are quite limited in comparison to a lot of my colleagues who I met today and were so welcoming. They have been on the frontline now; their training is better than mine.

“I will be looking to support them. They are true heroes. I have a great admiration for them,” Brother Gault said.

He said it was “pretty strange” being back in scrubs. While admitting there is a learning curve, he said the training “comes back to you”.

“It is rusty, so I am very much in a support position until I get back up to speed and I can help in a more concrete way.”

He said if he had to give people a message, “it would be one of hope”.

“Staff here are committed to beating this thing, and they are committed with the help of God. I have no doubt that there is great hope,” Br Gault said.

“I would rather be living my religious life in my monastery, praying with my brothers and studying, but this was a response at a time of need,” he added. “It is extraordinary and it is temporary. While it is needed, I am here to help.”—CNS

S outher n C ross

Jubilee Year Camino to Santiagode Compostela

The

Official 7-Day Camino From Lugo to Santiago de Compostela

June 2021

Led by a spiritual director

OPE Francis and his Covid-19 response commission want to see religious, economic and social life resume, but they question the wisdom of hoping for a return to a “normal” that left so many people struggling.

“Either we are going to be remembered as the most irresponsible generation in the history of the planet, or this crisis will provide a window of opportunity to become the generation that regenerates a healthy society with healthy people, with healthy institutions and with a healthy planet,” said Fr Augusto Zampini, recently named adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

“Going back to business as usual,” he said, means continuing to support an economy based on consumption and the accumulation of wealth, which results in “unhealthy people, unhealthy institutions and a very sick planet”.

Pope Francis is hoping for something different, which is why he formed the Covid-19 response commission in early April.

A migrant child is seen outside a tent in a makeshift camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece, during the Covid-19 pandemic. (Photo: Elias Marcou, Reuters/CNS) Led by Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the integral human development dicastery, the commission has five task forces looking at everything from the immediate needs of the Church in the world’s poorest nations to opportunities to lobby governments and international organisations for policies that would create an economy that is stronger for everyone and better for the planet.

The commission involves about 40 or 50 “core members”, Fr Zampini said, but each of them is

working with a network of Catholic aid and relief agencies, bishops’ conferences, academics, researchers and think tanks.

Over the course of more than 100 years, popes and theologians have developed an articulated body of Catholic social teaching.

The teaching applies Gospel values to economic, political and social activity.

It highlights the sacredness of life and the dignity of the human person, the need for solidarity and social safety nets, the importance of labour and the rights of workers, safeguarding the environment, and a vision of the economy that is based on creating well-being for all and not wealth for just a few.

That teaching is at the heart of the reflection of the second task force, Fr Zampini’s group, which is working with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy for Life studying the pandemic itself and “reflecting on the post-Covid-19 world, particularly in the spheres of the environment, the economy, labour, healthcare, politics, communications and security”.—CNS

Bishops criticise actions of their predecessors in Nazi Germany

T

HE Catholic bishops in Germany have marked the upcoming 75th anniversary of the end of World War II by issuing a statement criticising the behaviour of their predecessors under the Nazis.

The statement said that, during the Nazi regime, the bishops did not oppose the war of annihilation started by Germany or the crimes the regime committed, and that they gave the war a religious meaning, reported German Catholic news agency KNA. Bishop Georg Batzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, said critics had accused the Church

Bishop Georg Batzing. (Photo: Harald Oppitz, KNA/CNS) of failing not only to remember its role, but also of not owning up to it.

Presenting the bishops’ statement at a video news conference, he said: “We must not sit back, but

carry the legacy into the future. This is all the more true given that Europe does not seem to be in a good state at the moment.”

Bishop Batzing added that the “old demon of division, nationalism, ethnic thinking and authoritarian rule” was raising its head in many places. “Terrifying anti-Semitism is widespread, even here in Germany”.

He said anyone who has learned the lessons of history must vehemently oppose these tendencies.

“This applies without ifs and buts to the Church, which is committed to the Gospel of peace and justice.”—CNS

Vatican says bones are not those of woman missing for 30 years

BY CINDY WOODEN

B

ECAUSE all the human bones found in a Vatican cemetery were at least 100 years old, the Vatican City State court officially closed its investigation into the possibility that some of the remains belonged to a teenage girl missing for more than 30 years.

However, a statement from the Vatican press office said that the judge’s decision still would allow the family of the young woman, Emanuela Orlandi, “to proceed privately with possible additional tests on some of the fragments already found and preserved in sealed containers” at the Vatican police office.

Emanuela, a Vatican City resident and the daughter of a Vatican employee, disappeared in

Emanuela Orlandi, Vatican City teenager missing for more than 30 years. (Photo: CNS Rome on June 22, 1983, when she was 15.

In March 2019, the family’s lawyer said the family had been sent a letter with a photo of an angel above a tomb in the Vatican’s Teutonic Cemetery.

The letter said, “Look where the angel is pointing,” according to Laura Sgro, the lawyer.

She filed a formal petition with the Vatican to investigate the matter and, following her request, the Vatican City State court ordered the opening of two tombs near the angel sculpture.

No human remains were found in either tomb during a search, so the investigators moved to two ossuaries, which are vaults containing the bones of multiple people.

Giovanni Arcudi, a forensic anthropologist, led the scientific investigation of the bones found in the ossuaries, but said he “did not find any bone structure dating back to the period after the end of the 1800s”, the Vatican said.—CNS

Covid-19 vaccine could be question of conscience

BY SIMON CALDWELL

T To book or for info contact Gail at

info@fowlertours.co.za or call 076 352-3809

www.fowlertours.co.za/camino

HERE is “no absolute duty” to boycott any Covid-19 vaccine produced with the help of cells derived from aborted foetuses, said a researcher from a Catholic bioethics institute.

Scientists from the University of Oxford, England, are conducting human trials of a possible vaccine against the coronavirus in the hope that it could be made ready for use by September.

But because researchers had used cell lines from a foetus aborted in 1972, the vaccine could present an ethical dilemma for Catholics and others opposed to abortion, said Helen Watt, a senior research fellow with the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford.

Ms Watt said it was not always wrong to use vaccines produced via cell lines obtained in this way.

“Boycotting a Covid-19 vac-

cine in the absence of an alternative is a serious action that should be carefully considered because of its potentially grave risks both for the person and for others,” she said.

Ms Watt said its use was a matter of individual conscience for Catholics, although they should strive to obtain alternative vaccines, made without foetal cells, once such vaccines arrive on the market.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

Pope Pius XII Holocaust cover-up disputed

5

BY JD FLYNN

S

CHOLARS say new charges that Pope Pius XII covered-up the Vatican’s knowledge of the Holocaust are based on exaggerated claims and do not represent the truth.

Fr Hubert Wolf, a professor of history at the University of Münster in Germany, claimed last month that in the Vatican’s recently opened archives on Pope Pius XII, he had found an anti-Semitic memo which suggested that Pope Pius XII knew about the Holocaust in Europe before the US government did, but made efforts to conceal his knowledge.

But Ronald Rychlak, author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope, said that Fr Wolf’s argument does not stand up to historical scrutiny.

What Pope Pius XII knew and did during World War II has been a source of controversy for years. That controversy was reignited in early March, when the Vatican opened to researchers its archives on Pius XII. Fr Wolf was among the researchers. But a week after the archives were opened, the coronavirus lockdown in Italy forced researchers to pause their work.

Fr Wolf told German and US media that he had found a key document which, he said, could prove that Pius XII lied to the US government by claiming in 1942 that he could not verify intelligence reports from the Jewish Agency for Palestine in Geneva, about death camps for the mass murder of Jews in Poland and Ukraine.

When US officials in September 1942 asked the Vatican to verify a report from the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Vatican officials said they could not independently confirm the information it contained regarding the existence of death camps, but that the Vatican did know, and had

Pope Francis gives his blessing from the window of the library in the Apostolic Palace after a live transmission of the “Regina Coeli”. (Photo: Vatican media/CNS)

Pope Pius XII, who led the Catholic Church from 1939-58, is pictured on March 15, 1949. (Photo: CNS) received reports, about atrocities committed by Nazi forces, adding that “the Holy See is taking advantage of every opportunity offered in order to mitigate the suffering”.

Fr Wolf pointed to a 1942 memo from a staffer in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Mgr (later Cardinal) Angelo Dell’Acqua, which apparently cautioned against verifying the report from the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

Fr Wolf told journalists that the memo warned against believing the report because Jews “easily exaggerate”.

“This is a key document that has been kept hidden from us because it is clearly anti-Semitic and provides background information on why Pius XII did not speak out against the Holocaust,” Fr Wolf told the Kirche + Leben Catholic newspaper in Münster.

G

erman journalist Michael Hesemann was also among the researchers who examined Pius XII’s archives in March. In a statement, he said that Fr Wolf has made his claim about Pius XII without understand-

ing the meaning of the memo he found, or its significance.

Mr Hesemann explained that the memo was intended to urge caution against any exaggeration.

“And indeed, the Jewish Agency’s report contained several rumours which were not true at all, as we know today. It claimed that ‘in all Eastern Poland and the occupied Russian territories, not a single Jew is alive anymore’. We know that thousands survived in the underground or became partisans.”

Mr Hesemann said that the memo “did not influence papal policy, which remained the same before and after, nor does it contain any new information. It is one man’s reminder to trust and to verify and nothing more”.

Prof Rylchak pointed out evidence, presented in his book, of Pius XII’s concern to oppose the Nazis, which he says was well-recognised by journalists and bishops during World War II. He also pointed out that Pius XII, through “a long series of communications with the American bishops”, encouraged opposition to Nazi ideology.—CNA

Catholic psychologists: How to handle Covid-19 crisis emotionally

BY DAMIAN AVEVOR

W

HILE the world awaits vaccines and medications to help end the global Covid19 pandemic, some Catholic psychologists in Ghana have expressed worry that the updates and news in the West African country are adversely affecting the emotions of citizens.

They say the psychological impact of Covid-19 has been enormous and that many Ghanaians experience increased fear whenever new cases are recorded or when a tested person is waiting for laboratory confirmation.

Such instances “can feel like torture by a million tiny cuts as our brain prefers to know an outcome, one way or another, to take the anxiety off”, said Peter Mintir

Amadu, a psychologist at the teaching hospital in Tamale and a parishioner at Our Lady of Fatima church.

ByTuesday, Ghana had reported more than 2 791 confirmed Covid19 cases, including 18 deaths.

“Fears and chills engulf us whenever we hear about some news about projected infections and deaths from trusted sources that make it appear as if there is hopelessness,” Aaron Makafui Ametorwo, a Catholic behavioural scientist working at the University of Ghana in Accra, said.

But, he added, “there is always the brightness and joy whenever some positive news comes up on Covid-19”. In all cases, he said, “our control of emotions play a critical role in keeping us in good shape”.

“Indeed, staying positive also boosts our immune system, while

A

CRIMINAL who claims to have killed the murdered Nigerian seminarian Michael Nnadi has given an interview in which he says he executed the aspiring priest because he would not stop announcing the Christian faith in captivity.

Mustapha Mohammed, who is currently in jail, gave a telephone interview to the Nigerian newspaper Daily Sun. Mustapha took responsibility for the murder, according to the

Daily Sun, because Mr Nnadi, 18 years old, “continued preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ” to his captors.

According to the newspaper, Mustapha praised Mr Nnadi’s “outstanding bravery”, and that the seminarian “told him to his face to change his evil ways or perish”.

Mr Nnadi was kidnapped by gunmen from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna on January 8, along with three other stu-

dents. The seminary, home to some 270 seminarians, is located just off the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Expressway. According to AFP, the area is “notorious for criminal gangs kidnapping travellers for ransom”.

Mustapha, 26, identified himself as the leader of a 45-member gang that preyed on people along the highway. He gave the interview from a jail in Abuja, Nigeria, where he is in police custody.—CNS

BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

E

XPRESSING his hopes for a vaccine against the coronavirus, Pope Francis also gave his support to an interreligious day of prayer and fasting for an end to the pandemic.

After reciting the “Regina Coeli” prayer, the pope said he supported the call of the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity because “prayer is a universal value”.

The day of “Prayer for Humanity”, which is set to take place on May 14, will be an opportunity for all believers “to pray, fast and do works of charity”, he said.

Expressing his closeness to the victims of Covid-19, as well as those entrusted with their care, the pope also encouraged cooperation between countries to “adequately and effectively” respond to the crisis.

“It is important to bring together scientific capacities, in a transparent and impartial way, to find vaccines and treatments, and to guarantee universal access to essential technologies that will enable every infected person, in every part of the world, to receive the necessary healthcare,” the pope said.

Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand

imam of al-Azhar, in Cairo, Egypt, also expressed his support for “the noble humanitarian call made by the committee”. In a statement posted on Facebook, he urged people to join in prayer “in order to eliminate this pandemic from the entire world” , Emirates News Agency reported.

The Higher Committee of Human Fraternity was established after Pope Francis and Sheikh el-Tayeb signed a document in 2019 on promoting dialogue and “human fraternity”.

In calling for the day of prayer and fasting, the committee said that while medicine and scientific research are key in fighting the pandemic, “we should not forget to seek refuge in God, the All-Creator, as we face such a severe crisis”.

In a tweet posted on May 3, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that “in difficult times, we must stand together for peace, humanity and solidarity”.

“I join his Holiness Pope Francis and the grand imam of al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, in their support for the ‘Prayer for Humanity’ this May 14—a moment for reflection, hope, and faith,” Guterres tweeted.—CNS

Knights of Malta grand master dies

getting worried, sad, pessimistic and negative threatens our immunity,” he said. People’s psychological state affects their physiological response to things, he said.

“That is why we are constantly encouraged to avoid spreading false or fake news; if you are not sure about the source of the information, don’t forward it on social media.”

Mr Ametorwo also advised people “to stop reading too much news on Covid-19 if you are not emotionally strong”.

He encouraged people to eat well, with lots of fruits and vegetables; exercise daily; avoid stress and rest well; try to keep a positive mindset; and follow safety protocols.— CNS

Alleged killer: Nigerian seminarian was killed for announcing Gospel

Pope prays for Covid19 vaccine to be found

F

RA’ Giacomo Dalla Torre, who led the Knights of Malta following a tumultuous period of internal tensions and rocky relations with the Vatican, died at the age of 75, the order announced.

Fra’ Dalla Torre, grand knight of the order, died in Rome on April 29 after battling “an incurable disease diagnosed a few months ago”, the Knights of Malta said in a statement.

Remembering him as “a man of great spirituality and human warmth”, the order recalled his

years of service to the city’s most vulnerable, including serving meals to the poor sleeping outside Rome’s Termini and Tiburtina train stations.

“A marked humanity and a profound dedication to charitable works have always inspired the 80th grand master of the Sovereign Order of Malta, who will be remembered by all who knew him for his human qualities and his cordial and affectionate manner,” the Knights of Malta said.—CNS

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6

The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

The

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

S outher n C ross

Ways to spread the burden of giving homilies I

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Political, not biased

T

he bishops of Germany marked the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the Third Reich with a remarkably frank statement which acknowledged the complicity of their predecessors in various Nazi crimes, in particular their uncritical position to the war.

Of course there was also much Catholic opposition to Nazism.

This week we honour many German and Austrian Catholics who were martyrs to Nazism.

We also recall the brave witness of Bishop (later Cardinal) Clemens von Galen, but he was one of only few voices in the German episcopate who dared to criticise the evil regime.

The notion of Church leaders endorsing a political line of injustice for ideological reasons or plain expedience was hardly new then, and it has hardly disappeared since.

And it should concern people of justice when Church leaders take partisan positions in politics in pursuit of an ideology or narrow interest.

Prophetic witness demands that politicians be commended for that which merits praise, and forthrightly criticised when they violate Gospel values. And the latter is much more important than the former.

In early-1930s Germany, the Catholic hierarchy prevaricated about the threat to Gospel values posed by Adolf Hitler, and some bishops supported him (at least until the Nazis turned on them).

They could not claim ignorance: Hitler had set out his evil ideology and plans in all their megalomaniac detail in his manifesto Mein Kampf. And yet bishops were willing to give him a chance—even Bishop von Galen, who later would become a thorn in Hitler’s side.

For the Church and for society today, there are lessons to be learnt from Germany’s fall to Nazism, and the slide of much of Europe into fascism in the 1930s.

In the midst of rising nationalism, a hangover of liberalising social morals, and economic insecurity—and now crisis—the propaganda of authoritarianism and fascism is gaining parliamentary foothold again in many parts of the world.

Exhibitions of coarse racism are now vote-winners. The morally corrupt are embraced by the moral puritans who are impervious to their own hypocrisy.

Voters go to the polls to express

their discontent with democracy.

Fake news causes an erosion of confidence in the media, and facts and truth become relativised, virtually optional extras.

In this world of confusion and anxiety, charlatans thrive and thugs get away with proverbial murder.

South Africa is not immune to these corrosive influences, nor to totalitarian tendencies which have found nascent expression in some of the more troubling instances of overreach during the lockdown.

The apostles of Christ must be on their guard. They must give prophetic witness. They must be prepared to speak out forthrightly for justice and all life, even if this costs them a place at the banquet.

They cannot be seen to be supporters of a particular political line other than that of the Gospel.

The apostles of Christ must speak truth to power whenever that power strikes at the Body of Christ, regardless of the consequences. They have to engage and dialogue with those in power, but they must not be their enablers, never mind advocates.

This means that sometimes the Church has to take positions which may be interpreted as partisan. But these must always be dictated by the Gospel and the teachings of the Church.

We may think here of Pope John Paul II’s opposition to the Soviet Union and his support for the Solidarity movement in Poland, or the South African Church’s contribution to the struggle against apartheid.

Of course, the pro-life Church must speak clearly and consistently on all life issues. This means that those who may agree with the Church on one life issue must be supported on it, and as forthrightly condemned when they contravene others.

The Church must be political, but it may not be partisan. It must take principled positions based on Catholic teachings (in particular the social teachings), but it may not take positions to advance party political interests.

When the Church is seen to be partisan, it loses the credibility to speak on politics. Then prophetic witness will be dismissed as interference.

History will judge those apostles of Christ who failed to give genuine prophetic witness, as the German bishops today take to task their predecessors from 90 years ago.

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

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

RESPOND to Fr Chris Chatteris’ article “How not to crash the homily” (April 15).

Perhaps part of the problem is that over the years, the homily has been designated an essential part of the Mass. As a result, the notion has arisen that one needs some kind of “anointing” before one may validly preach.

However, I do not recall homilies at weekday Masses prior to Vatican II. And I can see absolutely no theological reason to limit preaching to priests and deacons.

In other words, while the current protocols around preaching

Your Eminence, This is WAACSA

I

T is true what Cardinal Wilfrid Napier says: often much more is left unsaid than said.

In his letter “What exactly is WAACSA?” (April 29), the cardinal does not say that We Are All Church SA distanced itself from its founding principles, which were those of the international We Are Church movement, within a year of being founded in 2010.

WAACSA’s new name and first mission statement can be found in our 2011 letter to the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference on our website (www.weare allchurch.co.za/history/).

As for his accusations regarding evangelisation, the development of the faith and the authority of the laity, has the cardinal actually read our current mission statement? This is well summarised in Douglas Irvine’s letter “Our mission is focused dialogue” in the same issue as the cardinal’s own letter.

Perhaps Cardinal Napier’s most glaring omission is found in his attempt to discredit WAACSA by playing the race card.

He states that not one black person is to be found among the signatories to the founding document.

Among the hundreds of WAACSA members today can be found significant representation of the whole South African population.

Brian Robertson, Cape Town

Unworthy conduct for a cardinal

D

ID Cardinal Wilfrid Napier OFM really say in his letter “What exactly is WAACSA?” (April 29) that he will not dialogue with people because of the colour of their skin?

The cardinal concluded his letter on We Are All Church SA by speculating that the organisation’s lead-

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have been put in place to maintain good order, they can be updated and revised at the stroke of a pen without violating any theological principle whatsoever.

For example, in urban parishes (and presumably in rural parishes as well) there are often devout, well-informed and competent preachers of both genders. Why exclude such people from the preaching function?

Neither is there any reason to exclude the tasteful use of electronic media, such as Powerpoint, sound and so on. Many preachers in other Christian churches do so 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

ership is all white. Then he wrote: “I grew up under apartheid, and all that apartheid entailed, and I am certainly not going to preside over its reintroduction under whatever guise that might be.”

That can only mean one thing: Cardinal Napier, as archbishop of Durban, will not speak or listen to Catholics with whom he disagrees because, judging by their names, he thinks that they are of a certain race group.

Aren’t we supposed to be past such racially divisive rhetoric?

Also, isn’t a bishop there to serve all Catholics, and also to listen to them, regardless of their colour or opinions?

This is behaviour very unworthy of a cardinal.

Paul Colllins, Johannesburg

Print undiluted orthodoxy

S

INCE The Southern Cross has the approval of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the faithful must receive the orthodox teaching in an undiluted form.

Therefore I support Cardinal Wilfrid Napier’s proposal (April 15) on the matter of making space for the Catechism to be presented to deal with current matters that beset humanity amongst other things.

The “letters disclaimer” should also apply to that which is published by contributors and editor and as such hold them also to account to remain true to orthodox Catholic Church teaching.

Let me perorate that work published by all contributors alike remain true to orthodox Catholic Church teaching without exception

subscriptions@scross.co.za • digital.scross.co.za/subscribe

It would be wonderful to see a full or two-page presentation by prepared orthodox clergy, laity and or theologians on moral teachings of the Catholic Church, answering and dealing in an effective apologetic way with current disordered aberrations, lifestyles and practices that are being promoted and popularised as good and true by the secular world and politics.

It is time that pastors also preach about moral issues such as contraception, abortion, cohabitation and so on, which in the main seem to be overlooked for fear of hurting feelings or the possibility of members exiting the Church.

Those who don’t currently practise and vehemently oppose and disagree with Catholic orthodox teaching have for all intents and purposes left their moral compass at the door in the hope that the Church changes its teachings under duress to normalise what is incompatible with the Catechism.

Henry Sylvester, Cape Town

Southern Cross helps us pray

I

T was very charitable of The Southern Cross to give Cardinal Wilfrid Napier the prime spot in its letters page in which he could say why he doesn’t support The Southern Cross “in its present form” (April 15).

This is what I personally value about The Southern Cross: they print it all. They challenge our views as Catholics and enlighten us too.

This newspaper is not a catechetical publication by the bishops. It gives space for thought, discourse and news that might challenge us to pray more for the community, our world, and the Church.

When the cardinal takes off his clerical sunglasses he might see that (now a letter back from him, telling us he doesn’t wear sunglasses).

Thank you, Southern Cross, for this truly valuable newspaper.

Lucy Rubin, Pretoria

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with great effect.

In certain contexts, an appropriate level of congregational interaction could be used, for example sharing insights with one’s neighbour or with the rest of the congregation.

Another possibility is just having a period of silent reflection on the readings. I have experienced this as far more effective than many homilies.

Finally, dear parish priest: when you have a visitor priest, take a break and give him a chance to address your congregation.

Derrick Khourie, Johannesburg

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The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

PERSPECTIVES

Locked down and yet together Sarah-Leah I Pimentel N my January column, I said that I had made no plans for 2020. It feels a little ironic now!

Although I had not made any specific plans, I certainly had no idea that the better part of this year may very well be spent within my house. Or that my window on the world would be my computer.

There have been many frustrations, obviously. I’ve missed walks on the beach. I’ve missed meeting up with friends at coffee shops. I’ve missed Mass: receiving the Eucharist and seeing fellow parishioners. I’ve missed group meetings with my Schoenstatt women’s group.

Accompanying my RCIA class online in what should have been their last few weeks of preparation before being received into the Church was especially hard.

But despite all this, the last few weeks have been an incredibly spiritual time of reconnecting with old friends via the medium of online Mass and online prayer times.

When I moved to Cape Town a few years ago, I left behind wonderful friends in Gauteng, and people who are in many ways closer to me than family. We stayed in touch via WhatsApp and Facebook, and the occasional Skype call. However, scheduling conflicts made those moments of connection and sharing few and far between.

The lockdown has allowed me to stop.

To reconnect. On a human level, there were catchups with friends who, like me, found themselves at home.

One memorable moment was a Skype call with friends in three different countries, where we each opened up a bottle of wine and spent three hours just catching up. We were quite merry after that!

Spiritually, it has been an incredible time as well. With so many online Masses available, I was not restricted to attending Mass only at my parish.

I do continue to attend Sunday Mass with my fellow parishioners as a way of uniting with them. But I’ve also had the opportunity to attend Mass at other parishes which is an important part of my spiritual journey.

Something I am rarely able to do is attend weekday Mass. But I discovered that Fr Chris Townsend, my former parish priest in Pretoria, celebrates daily Mass every evening. It was special to join in attending Mass with him again for the first time in seven years.

shared so intimately as Fr Chris celebrates Mass at his dining room table.

It has been an experience of connecting as a family around the table of the Lord. Just like the first disciples did in their homes.

A

nother treasure was praying a decade of the rosary every night with my godson.

We are a group of four friends who share three godchildren. Currently, we live in three cities on two continents.

One mom had the idea that the kids are at a good age to learn to pray the rosary and wanted to make it a Lenten practice by getting the families on a call every day to pray a decade for the needs of the world.

By the time Easter came around, the kids had become comfortable with the prayers and format. They decided they wanted to continue this daily prayer. So every evening at 18:00, we stop what we’re doing, pray together and spend a few minutes catching up on the day.

In the Schoenstatt tradition, the movement’s founder, Fr Joseph Kentenich, used to give an evening blessing at 21:00 every night, and this tradition has continued to the present day in the Schoenstatt communities.

Fr Andrew Pastore, a Schoenstatt Father in Manchester, England, has a fiveminute evening prayer on Facebook every night—to review, give thanks, pray for specific intentions and receive a blessing. It’s a beautiful way to end the day and, once again, connect with a priest who played an important part in my spiritual life when I was younger.

These are just three of the unexpected treasures I have discovered from my online window on the world during this period of confinement.

There have been many more. But just these three have brought home to me a very important message: When we strip away the busyness and all of the commitments to which we are bound, the only thing we really need in this world—besides food and shelter—is relationship.

T

hen I discovered another gift in that daily Mass. The prayer group which I belonged to in Pretoria attend the same Mass. My god-daughter is in this group.

What a simple but deeply profound moment of connectedness to unite with my god-daughter, her parents and the other families for half an hour each evening, knowing that we’re listening to the same proclamation of readings, the same homily, and the same consecration,

“Now we cannot receive Jesus physically, but through this unity with one another, perhaps we are drawing closer to the real vision of Eucharist that Jesus had in mind,” writes Sarah-Leah Pimentel.

The Mustard Seeds

Relationship with God and relationship with one another.

I cannot remember any other point in my adult life when I consciously set aside three moments of every day to pray in community.

My individual prayer time has always been a solitary practice at the start and end of my day. It was a time for me and God. But how much richer when I can come before God tougher with the people who are closest to me.

The Christian life is not a solitary life.

Christianity is communion. We are being starved of our Eucharistic communion.

But perhaps, in our modern, individualist approach to the spiritual life, our partaking of the Eucharist prior to lockdown was a little like eating a pre-processed meal without the real nutrients or benefits.

N

ow we cannot receive Jesus physically, but through this unity with one another, perhaps we are drawing closer to the real vision of Eucharist that Jesus had in mind.

“Do this in memory of me,” Jesus said.

I’d always interpreted this line from Scripture and the Eucharistic Prayer as a moment to focus exclusively on Christ, to remember his tremendous sacrifice of love for us, but really, in that moment, for me.

A few days ago, it was as if I heard the sentence that precedes it for the first time: “Take this, all of you…”. There is a communal element.

Memory is not individual. Memory is shared experience. Memory is communal. Memory is community. Take this, all of you and do this in memory of me, gathered here with me.

I think my egocentric generation and culture has missed this. We are all called to have a personal relationship with Christ, but not a purely individualistic relationship with him. We are invited to a communal relationship that brings brothers, sisters, family, friends, strangers together into that unity in Christ, into the community and communion of God’s family.

Yes. It has been hard to not receive the Eucharist. In this time, Jesus has given me a renewed appreciation of how I should have been receiving Christ.

And I pray that when we return to our physical parishes and can receive the Eucharist again, it is with a renewed appreciation for the community, physically and spiritually present, with me. n Read more articles by Sarah-Leah Pimentel in our archives at www.scross.co.za/ category/perspectives/sarah-leah-pimentel/ or CLICK HERE.

Why I take the risk of loving others Lionel Fynn A S a Christian I am always encouraged to do my best in everything that I do, but most especially to be the best Christian I can be. This means putting my love for my neighbour above my love for myself.

If I love my neighbour, my neighbour will respond likewise and love me, and I gain a friend. But it is possible for my neighbour to respond differently, to repay my love with distain, and this will make me feel ashamed.

It is this possibility of shame which hinders my Christianity and prevents me from loving.

And it’s not only this shame, it is also within my nature to desire that which is not ordered, a thorn in my flesh which always stands in the way of my goodness.

“I do not understand my own behaviour,” wonders St Paul, “I do not act as I mean to, but I do things that I hate” (Rom 7:14-17).

Nevertheless, I am encouraged by Jesus Christ, by all the angels and saints, that persevering in goodness and in love—that persevering in being a Christian—is possible even in the face of shame, is possible even when my desires are disordered.

If they can do it, so can I, and it is God

Point of Reflection

Loving others can be risky, because they might not reciprocate—and yet, argues Lionel Fynn, we must persevere. (Photo: Nina Strehl/Unsplash) who, seeing my disordered desires and my willingness to do good, blesses me with the grace to achieve goodness.

I

n fact, my disordered desire is a challenge which I can not only overcome, but appreciate, for in humbling me it lifts me up.

At least that’s how St Paul looked at it,

this same thorn in the flesh: “Wherefore, so that I should not get above myself, I was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to batter me and prevent me from getting above myself” (2 Cor 12:7-9).

This is why I continue to love my neighbour at the risk of my love not being returned, for the value of earning a friend is greater than the risk of shame.

This is why I continue to will the good, regardless of my disordered desires, since the grace of God, promised to a humble and contrite heart, will carry me through.

Thus while we cooperate with the restrictions set before us as Christian communities in these crucial times, let us not be remiss in doing good. n Read more articles by Lionel Fynn in our archives at www.scross.co.za/category/ perspectives/lionel-fynn/ or just CLICK HERE.

7

Michael Shackleton

Open Door

When is our conscience clear?

Please help me understand how we can be guided by our conscience. The Catechism is too wordy for me. How can I be sure I have a “clear” conscience? I witness many obvious rogues unashamedly professing that their consciences are clear.

P Evans

A

SIMPLE way to explain what the Catechism tells us regarding conscience, is to start with God creating Adam and Eve: “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27).

Created in God’s image means that human persons reflect among themselves the goodness and love of their creator. Human nature tends towards what is good and lovely, and away from its opposite. The Catechism (1776) calls this a law inscribed by God in man’s heart.

On top of this natural goodness, human nature has been enriched by God’s explicit Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.

With the guidance of the Church, we know the difference between right and wrong in relation to the will of God. We are brought into a deeper understanding of the purpose of our existence, which is to know God, love him and serve him in this life in order to live with him happily in his everlasting kingdom.

Our conscience is properly clear when, if Christ were to call us to judgment here and now, we would have repented of all our sin and be prepared to enter that kingdom.

We must never try to judge another person’s state of conscience. That is God’s domain.

But sometimes the “rogues” who declare they have a clear conscience are not thinking of the final judgment that we must all undergo. They are perhaps measuring their moral conscience against a standard that is well below God’s law.

Often this could be a human law, convention, fashion or peer pressure which sets their minds at ease, even when they may suspect that it’s not in everybody’s interests.

The Church dismisses any suggestion that our judgments of conscience can be acts of independent personal opinion. Rather, every one of us has a responsibility to our Creator who is Truth itself.

We all depend on him. What one person does must ultimately be for the good of all.

When we stand in the court of divine judgment there will be no lawyers or witnesses to argue on our behalf. We are alone before God who told Moses: “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14), the unchanging Truth who cannot be deceived.

Please read the Catechism again in paragraphs 1776-1802. There is a lot there to digest but I hope my notes will help you appreciate the role conscience plays in daily Christian living. n Read more Open Door articles by Michael Shackleton in our archives at www.scross.co.za/category/ perspectives/shackleton/ or just CLICK HERE. E-mail your queries to opendoor@scross.co.za; or fax (021) 465 3850. Anonymity can be preserved by arrangement, but questions must be signed, and may be edited for clarity. Only published questions will be answered.

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8

The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

CHURCH & NAZIS

Catholic martyrs of the Third Reich Twelve years of Nazi rule produced many Catholic martyrs. GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER looks at some of those who died for resisting the regime in Germany and Austria.

W

HEN Germany’s surrender on May 7, 1945—75 years ago this week—ended the Second World War in Europe, Catholics saw a nation and their Church shattered, physically and spiritually.

After 12 years and three months of Adolf Hitler’s destructive reign, almost all German cities had been destroyed, and a generation was lost to war.

The Catholic Church suffered tremendously, even if some of its members—and more than a few hierarchs—were complicit in the Nazi regime. Millions of Catholics died on the battlefield, on execution blocks, in concentration camps.

Catholic buildings were in ruins.

Catholic communities were shattered. Of the 400 Catholic daily newspapers and journals, and more diocesan publications, none had survived (some were later revived).

The Nazi regime had targeted the Catholic Church early on. Initially, the Church won some victories, such as in its protection of Catholic schools. But bit by bit, the regime ground down the Church’s resistance, through violence, threats and expropriation of Church property.

What saved the outspoken bishops was a residue of Catholic loyalty. But Catholics who were not protected by the privilege of rank shed blood.

Early martyrs The first martyr was Erich Klausener, a 49-year-old career civil servant and leader of Catholic Action, who had acted several time against the Nazis in the years before they took power.

On June 24, 1934, he delivered a scathing anti-Nazi speech at a Catholic conference. Six days later he was shot dead in his office by SS agents in the course of the “Night of the Long Knives”.

The Nazis claimed that Klausener died by suicide. Nobody believed the lie. The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore even mocked it.

The archdiocese of Berlin was duly intimidated. Heroic witness was not for everybody.

Two other prominent Catholics were murdered a few days after Klausener. One was Adalbert Probst, the 33-year-old head of the Catholic Sports Association DJK. The other was Fritz Gerlich, the 51-year-old editor of the Catholic newspaper Der gerade Weg, who was murdered in Dachau concentration camp, where he had been detained and brutally tortured since March 1933.

Priests were persecuted, too, though initially not subject to murder as easily as lay people. Instead the Nazis intimidated, harassed and blackmailed them, or set elaborate traps to silence them.

A method of the latter was to call a priest to perform the last rites in an apartment. When the priest arrived, a prostitute would throw herself at him while a Gestapo agent

took “incriminating” photographs.

Fr Bernhard Lichtenberg of Berlin, a loud critic of the regime, was subjected to sustained harassment and mistreatment, including torture by the Gestapo.

He had been marked out for public attack by Joseph Goebbels as early as 1931, and the official harassment started in 1933. It got worse when in 1935 he lodged a complaint about the internment of prominent social-democratic politicians in concentration camps.

Fr Lichtenberg did not let the Nazis intimidate him. He was arrested in 1941, for having drafted a sermon in which he was going to tell the faithful to reject anti-Semitic propaganda. He was sentenced to two years in jail.

When Fr Lichtenberg was released, he was immediately detained and sent to Dachau. In transit to the camp, the weakened priest died at the age of 68 on November 5, 1943.

He was beatified in 1996.

Galvanised reaction These murders and persecutions galvanised a few Church leaders, such as Bishop Clemens von Galen, to speak out more forthrightly against Nazi rule (see page 9).

Bishop von Galen inspired resistance among many Catholics, including three priests in the mostly Lutheran northern city of Lübeck.

Parish priest Fr Johannes Prassek, and his two vicars, Frs Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange, were friends with the Lutheran pastor Rev Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, whom they gave copies of Bishop von Galen’s sermons.

All four were arrested between April and June 1942 and subjected to a show trial in a Nazi court which sentenced them to death.

The four were beheaded, one after the other, in a Hamburg jail on November 10, 1943. The Catholic priests were beatified in 2011.

Bishop von Galen’s sermons also helped to galvanise the White Rose resistance movement of students in Munich, led by the siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl and others. The Scholls and four others were executed in 1943 for producing and distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets.

Among the six was Willi Graf, a devout 25-year-old Catholic who in 1935 had refused to join the Hitler Youth, as was mandatory by then.

As a young student he was jailed for a few weeks for political activity.

It did not deter him. Having seen awful things in the war, he decided to become more active when he was permitted to study in Munich— where he joined the White Rose.

He was beheaded, with two of his comrades, on October 12, 1943.

Death in Dachau Fr Richard Henkes, a Pallottine priest, was a most relentless critic of the Nazis, in ways which made even his order nervous, lest it turn the regime’s attention on his confreres.

Fr Henkes’ dream had been to be a missionary in Cameroon. This is why he joined the Pallottine seminary at Vallendar, where one of his spiritual directors was future Schoenstatt founder Fr Joseph Kentenich.

Fr Henkes, a teacher, was moved from one place to the next. At all of these, he attracted the attention of the Gestapo for declaring the incompatibility between Christianity

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Gates at the main entrance to Dachau concentration camp, in 1945.

(Photo: National Archives Records of the Office of War Information) and Nazism.

When Fr Henkes was sent to occupied Czechoslovakia, a sermon which condemned the German army’s treatment of the locals got him transported to Dachau, where his old formator Fr Kentenich was interred at the same time.

Fr Henkes, then 44, became wellknown in the camp for his selfless acts of mercy, especially in caring for the victims of typhoid fever. In the end, typhoid killed him before the Nazis could, on February 22, 1945.

He was beatified in 2019.

Another “Angel of Dachau” was Mariannhill Missionaries Father Engelmar Unzeitig, who died at 34 only a week and a day after Fr Henkes, also of typhoid. Like him, Fr Unzeitig cared tenderly for the typhoid-stricken.

Fr Unzeitig had been interred in Dachau without trial, or even a charge, for almost four years. It was enough that he had preached in defence of the persecuted Jews. He was beatified in 2016.

With its founder interred there, Dachau had a Schoenstatt “wing”.

Among the priests who found themselves there was Fr Gerhard Hirschfelder, who joined the Schoenstatt Movement in the camp.

He had long spoken out against the Nazis, but what got him to Dachau was his objection to the destruction of Christian images.

He died of starvation and pneumonia on August 1, 1942. Fr Hirschfelder was beatified in 2010.

Praise God, not Hitler At least two priests were sent to Dachau and died there because they advocated on behalf of Polish forced labourers. Fr Josef Lenzel of Breslau (then German; now Wroclaw in Poland) died at 52 on July 3, 1942 from ill-treatment and exhaustion.

Shortly before that, on June 22, 1943, his fellow Breslau priest Fr August Froehlich died there at 61. The priest had encouraged others to desist from using the Nazi greeting, “Heil Hitler”, and instead use the traditional Christian greeting, “Grüss Gott” (“Praise God”).

He survived Buchenwald and Ravensbrück concentration camps but died from the bad conditions at Dachau.

Fr Alojs Andritzki, 27, came to Dachau for the crime of having presented a Christmas play in Dresden in 1940. At Christmas 1942 he fell ill with typhoid and was moved to the infirmary.

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When he asked to receive Communion, the guards mocked: “He wants Christ. We’ll give him an injection instead.” They then killed Fr Andritzki by legal injection on February 3, 1943. He was beatified in 2011.

More than a thousand priests from different countries died at Dachau, from disease or exhaustion or murder.

Hung upside down The first priest to die in a concentration camp was Fr Otto Neururer, an Austrian whose crime was to counsel a young parishioner not to marry a man of dubious morals. It turned out that the man was a friend of the local Nazi chief, and the priest was transported to Dachau and then to Buchenwald.

There he was frequently tortured.

Fr Neururer sealed his fate when he illicitly baptised a fellow inmate.

The sadistic camp commander hanged him upside down and naked. Fr Neururer died after 34 hours of agony on May 30, 1940. He was 58. The priest was beatified in 1996.

Another Austrian, Franciscan Sister Maria Restituta Kafka, was the only woman religious to receive a death sentence.

A formidable nurse in Vienna, she defied the Nazis by refusing to remove the crucifixes from hospital rooms. On Ash Wednesday 1942, Sr Maria Restituta came out of the operating theatre when she was arrested by the Gestapo. Accused of not removing the crucifixes and allegedly having dictated a poem mocking Hitler, the 48-year-old nun was sentenced to death.

Sr Maria Restituta was beheaded on March 30, 1943. She was beatified in 1998.

The ecumenist Fr Max Josef Metzger became a peace activist after serving as a chaplain in World War I, a cause in which he was encouraged by Pope Benedict XV himself. Unsurprisingly, he was opposed to the Nazis and was arrested several times by the Gestapo.

His end came when his memorandum to a Swedish bishop outlining how a defeated Germany could become part of a peace plan was intercepted.

A showtrial, presided over by the frenzied hanging judge Roland Freisler, sentenced him to death. He was executed on April 17, 1944.

Trade unionist and journalist Nikolaus Gross was also a peace campaigner. When his Catholic workers’ newspaper was banned by the regime in 1938, he continued publishing it underground. As of 1940 he was frequently raided and interrogated by the Gestapo.

His end came when he was arrested as part of the large-scale round-up following the failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, an pretext for the Nazis to purge their opponents.

Though innocent, Gross was badly tortured—journalists could expect to have their hands crushed, as had also happened to Fritz Gerlich. He was eventually sentenced to

death by the notorious Freisler, and executed on January 23, 1945. Aged 46, he left seven children behind.

Gross was beatified in 2001.

One man who was executed for actually being involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler, and leading that failed endeavour, was Claus von Stauffenberg, a young, aristocratic career officer in the Wehrmacht who earlier had been a keen Nazi.

But the evil of Nazism, including the persecution of Jews, offended Stauffenberg’s Catholic ethics, and he became a member of the wellconnected clandestine resistance group the Kreisau Circle.

After the plot to kill Hitler failed, Stauffenberg was executed by firing squad on July 21, 1944.

The Kreisau Circle’s spiritual leader was Jesuit Father Alfred Delp, whose role was to explain Catholic Social Teaching to the group and establish contacts with Catholic leadership. He was a Catholic journalist, and as a parish priest in Munich he helped to smuggle Jews to Switzerland.

Fr Delp was falsely accused of being party to the plot to kill Hitler.

In jail, the Gestapo offered him freedom if he left the Jesuits. He refused.

Fr Delp was sentenced to death

by Freisler, and executed in February 2, 1945. He was 36. The following day Freisler died in an air raid.

Refusing to fight Some Catholics died because they refused to fight for an evil regime in an evil war.

When Austrian Schoenstatt Father Franz Reinisch was called up, he refused to join the Wehrmacht.

Repeatedly he refused taking the oath of allegiance to Hitler. At his trial, Fr Reinisch said: “I am a Catholic priest with only the weapons of the Holy Spirit and the Faith; but I know what I am fighting for.” He was beheaded on August 21, 1942.

Another Austrian conscientious objector took inspiration from Fr Reinisch’s example. Franz Jägerstätter accepted death over fighting for a regime that violated his Catholic ethics. His offer to serve as a paramedic was rejected, and the 36-yearold father of three daughters was tried and executed on August 9, 1943. He was beatified in 2007.

Some people were executed for less. Fr Joseph Müller, a priest in northern Germany, died for making a joke comparing Hitler and Hermann Göring to the two thieves crucified with Christ. After a showtrial presided over by Freisler, Fr Müller was executed on September 11, 1944. As usual, Freisler sent his family a bill for the cost of the execution.

Some priests were regarded as so dangerous to the Nazis that they had to be neutralised.

Marianist Father Jakob Gapp fled the Nazis, whom he had roundly criticised in his native Austria, for Spain in 1939. But Gestapo agents tempted him out of exile by posing as two Jews who needed help to flee France. At the border he was abducted and taken to Germany.

In interrogations Fr Gapp was so steadfast in his Catholic ethics that it was decided he was too dangerous to be sent to Dachau. Instead the 46-year-old was tried and sentenced to death. Fr Gapp was executed on August 13, 1943. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1996.

Possibly the last Catholic priest to be executed was Fr Hans Maier, a charismatic Austrian patriot and underground resistance fighter who collected strategic information and passed these on to the Allies.

In the end Fr Maier was caught and put in Mauthausen concentration camp where he was tortured— including a crucifixion!—and interrogated for months, before he was executed on March 22, 1945.

These are just some of the German and Austrian Catholic martyrs to Nazism. Many more such martyrs came from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and other places.

CHURCH & NAZIS

The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

9

The bishop who took on the Nazis Becoming a bishop just after the Nazis took power in Germany, Cardinal Clemens von Galen, “The Lion of Münster”, was an outspoken critic of a regime that tended to deal harshly even with mild opposition.

W

HEN Fr Clemens August von Galen was consecrated bishop of Münster in October 1933, he chose for his episcopal motto “Nec laudibus, nec timore”—neither by praises nor by fear.

That motto, taken from the liturgy for episcopal consecration, summed up his ministry throughout Germany’s Nazi period, which had begun just over seven months before his appointment was announced on September 5, 1933.

Bishop von Galen wrote in his first pastoral letter: “Neither the praises of men nor fear of men shall move us. Rather, our glory will be to promote the praise of God, and our steadfast effort will be to walk always in a holy fear of God.” During his entire episcopacy the bishop spoke up against the Nazis’ euthanasia programme and racial theories, and defended human rights and the cause of justice.

He was among the most outspoken of Germany’s bishops during that era, and assisted in the writing of Pius XI’s 1937 anti-Nazi encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Concern).

He was made a cardinal in February 1946, just one month and a day before his death on March 22. By then the Nazis had been defeated and the western side of his country was looking forward to a democratic future.

Cardinal von Galen’ was beatified in 2005 by his fellow German, Pope Benedict XVI. Bl von Galen’s episcopal motto is a great one for any bishop, according to Fr Daniel Utrecht.

Canada-based Fr Utrecht is the author of The Lion of Münster: The Bishop Who Roared Against the Nazis.

Fr Utrecht said was drawn to write about Cardinal von Galen because he was a model bishop.

“I was telling some people about him during World Youth Day in 2005, and they said, ‘We need bishops like this; why have we never heard of this guy? Someone should write a book about him,’” he told the Catholic News Agency.

The priest had read, in the original German, a two-volume work of the documents, letters, and sermons by Bishop von Galen.

“They became more and more fascinating, and there just wasn’t much in English to read about him.

I eventually came to the conclusion that it was up to me to write an English-language biography.”

Born into nobility Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen, to give his full name, was born into a noble family on March 16, 1878.

He was educated by Jesuits in Austria, and was ordained a priest of the diocese of Münster in 1904, and served in parishes in Berlin from 1906. After World War I, he worked to create soup kitchens, aid societies, and clothing drives.

In 1929 he returned to his hometown of Münster. There he was noted for his political conservatism.

Like many of his fellow aristocrats, he rejected the liberal values of Germany’s post-World War I republic, opposed socialism, was critical of democracy, and was a staunch German nationalist.

In the later years of the Weimar Republic, Fr von Galen hesitantly supported the German Centre Party, which served as a Christian voice in defence of Catholic interests. He viewed the party as too leftwing, and was also willing to give the Nazis a hearing.

He even spoke against those scholars who had criticised the rising National Socialists of Adolf Hitler and called for “a just and objective evaluation of [Hitler’s] new

Church property (some converted by the Nazis to brothels), attacks on the Church, the conduct of the Gestapo, the concentration camps. and the forced sterilisation and euthanasia programmes.

He said that the German people were being destroyed not by the Allied bombing from the outside, but from negative forces within—the sort of language that would have resulted in execution for most people.

Hitler’s revenge fantasy

The tomb of Cardinal Clemens von Galen (inset) in Münster cathedral in Germany. As a leading bishop in Nazi Germany, he was such a thorn in the side of the regime that Adolf Hitler fantasised about executing him. political movement”.

Many bishops had barred Catholics from being members of the National Socialist movement.

But when Hitler seemingly softened his anti-religious stance and promised early in 1933 that Christianity would be prominent under Nazi rule, the bishops took him at his word and began allowing Catholics to join the Nazi movement.

Convert to anti-Nazism When Fr von Galen was made a bishop later that year—an unpopular choice, because he was seen as too authoritarian and pompous— he developed his anti-Nazi beliefs.

Within a year he clashed with government officials over the rights of Catholic schools and the Nazis’ racial and anti-Jewish ideology.

On the latter point, he noted that morality and virtue were not in any way derived from the perceived usefulness of a particular race.

Yet, Bishop von Galen also used anti-Semitic language on occasion, though none on the grotesque level of Nazi propaganda.

He issued his opening salvo when he condemned the Nazi worship of race in a pastoral letter on January 29, 1934, marking the first anniversary of Hitler assuming power.

Bishop von Galen campaigned to maintain the independence of Catholic schools, and urged Catholic parents to send their children to Church schools. He invoked the agreement the Vatican had signed with Germany, the Reichskonkordat, which assured that the Church had the right to determine its own religious instruction.

He became most outspoken against the Nazis’ involuntary euthanasia programme, under which the disabled, mentally ill, deformed, senile, those with Down syndrome, and the incurably sick were killed.

The programme began in 1939, and more than 70 000 people were murdered under it.

Bishop von Galen delivered three sermons in the summer of 1941 which condemned the arrest of Jesuits, the confiscation of

Vatican’s diplomatic superhero

BY COURTNEY MARES

I

N World War II, they called him the “Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican”– and officially he was a priest ordained for what is now the archdiocese of Cape Town.

Mgr Hugh O’Flaherty was an Irish priest who hid Italian Jews from the Nazis and then went on to baptise the former head of the Gestapo in Rome He is world-renowned for the heroism he displayed during and after the Second World War. Many of his exploits were portrayed in the 1983 movie The Scarlet and the Black. But more details could be revealed to the public, as the Vatican archives from the pontificate of Pius XII were opened to historians on March 1.

Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, access to the archives has been halted, but will resume once the relevant restrictions are lifted.

Mention of Mgr O’Flaherty’s work is sure to draw the interest of scholars.

Born in County Cork in 1898, O’Flaherty grew up in Killarney, playing golf on the course where his father worked as a steward before discerning his vocation to the priesthood.

As a seminarian, he studied theology in Rome at the Urban College of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and went on to earn doctorates in both canon law and philosophy in Rome.

His sponsor was Bishop Cornelius O’Reilly of Cape Town. So when Hugh O’Flaherty was ordained to the priesthood in 1925, he was incardinated into the South African vicariate and was supposed to come to serve in Cape Town.

But the Vatican wanted him, and in-

Mgr Hugh O’Flaherty: Instead of running parishes in Cape Town he became the “Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican”. stead of going to the Cape, he entered the Holy See’s diplomatic service.

As a Vatican diplomat he served in Haiti, Egypt, and Czechoslovakia.

D

uring World War II, Mgr O’Flaherty lived in the German College inside Vatican City State, and worked at the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, then known at the Holy Office.

The Holy See assigned him the task of visiting the Italian prisoner of war camps, bringing books, cigarettes, chocolate, and hope to the Englishspeaking Allied prisoners, according to

the Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Society.

After these visits, the priest used Vatican Radio to contact the prisoners’ relatives.

When the Nazis occupied Rome for nine months following the fall of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, Mgr O’Flaherty created what came to be known as the “Rome Escape Line”—a network of priests, diplomats, and expatriates in Rome who helped to hide more than 6 000 escaped Allied POWs and Jews in convents, monasteries and residences.

Secret meetings among members of the Rome Escape Line to exchange documents and information on safe houses took place inside St Peter’s basilica at the foot of Michaelangelo’s Pieta or near the Altar of the Chair, according to Vatican News.

The Museum of the Liberation of Rome is today located in the building that formerly served as the headquarters of the German SS, near the basilica of St John Lateran.

After the liberation in Rome in 1944, the head of the German SS, Herbert Kappler, was caught and sentenced in 1948 to life-imprisonment in solitary confinement in Italy.

Mgr O’Flaherty went to the prison to visit Kappler—who had previously threatened to torture and kill the Irish priest—every month for ten years.

In 1959, Mgr O’Flaherty baptised Kappler and received the converted war criminal into the Catholic Church.

The Vatican honoured Mgr O’Flaherty in 2016 with a plaque on the wall of the Teutonic Cemetery inside Vatican City.

The cemetery sits above the former site of Nero’s circus, where early Christians were martyred in ancient Rome.— CNA

Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and party pragmatists argued to defer hanging Bishop von Galen until after the war, so as to avoid undermining German morale in Catholic regions.

In 1942, Hitler said: “The fact that I remain silent in public over Church affairs is not in the least misunderstood by the sly foxes of the Catholic Church, and I am quite sure that a man like Bishop von Galen knows full well that after the war I shall extract retribution to the last farthing”.

From 1941, the bishop was under virtual house arrest.

His sermons were illegally disseminated in print, inspiring some German Resistance groups, including Munich’s White Rose, led by the (Lutheran) siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl.

After the sermons’ delivery, Bishop von Galen was nicknamed “The Lion of Münster”.

And after Germany’s surrender on May 7, 1945, he protested against injustices committed by the occupying Allied forces: the rape of German women by Russian soldiers and the plundering of German homes, factories, and offices by US, French and British troops.

“I see plenty of parallels today,” Fr Utrecht said. Bl von Galen’s “example of courage, and being able to speak out in defence of human life is...very much of interest today, in the fight against abortion and euthanasia, [and in] the defence of liberty, religious liberty, the defence of a place for religion in the public square is a very, very big lesson that he has for us”.

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Extra for Subscribers: The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

HISTORY

What if Nazis had invaded Vatican?

Newly-discovered papers in the Vatican Archives detail what plans were in place in case of a Nazi occupation and to protect the pope from kidnapping, as CINDY WOODEN reports.

T

HE Covid-19 pandemic came at the worst time for scholars and historians who had been waiting for the March 2 opening of the Vatican archives’ material that spans the wartime pontificate of Pope Pius XII. As part of efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the Vatican’s Apostolic Archives—made up of more than 600 archival collections—are closed until further notice.

However, one unique collection of wartime documents had been accessed and studied before the nationwide lockdown in Italy: the archives of the Pontifical Gendarmes.

The findings, including some never-before-published discoveries, were made available in a recently published book in Italian, Il Vaticano nella Tormenta (The Vatican in the Storm) by Cesare Catananti.

Known today as the Gendarmerie Corps, the centuries-old police force is charged with protecting the pope, defending the territory of Vatican City State, and maintaining law and order within its walls—which was not a tall task for a tiny territory until the storm clouds of World War II rolled in.

The job of the Vatican gendarmes suddenly became harder and riskier when Vatican City—a sovereign and neutral nation— found itself isolated and in potential danger: first when fascist Italy joined the war with the Axis powers in 1940, then when Nazi soldiers occupied Rome in 1943 ,and finally when Rome was liberated, but also occupied, by the Allies in 1944.

During that period, the gendarmes had to: • confront spies within its own ranks; • keep an eye on diplomats from Allied countries who moved their posts to safety inside Vatican City, but were also suspected of espionage; • contain damage from bombs dropping on Vatican territory; • house and feed defecting sol-

Pope Pius XII gives a blessing at the end of a radio message on September 1, 1943—one week before the Nazis occupied Rome, in a colourised photo. Newly discovered documents detail how the Vatican planned to respond to a possibly German occupation of the Vatican. (Photo: CNS) diers seeking asylum; • figure out how to deal with the unauthorised comings-and-goings of escaped prisoners of war whom an Irish monsignor was helping in a clandestine Churchrun network; • and most challenging of all: have a plan ready to defend the life and safety of Pope Pius XII from Adolf Hitler’s threat to kidnap him.

Catananti provides plenty of details of these events from 194044 in his 360-page book.

Based on internal memos, written directives the gendarmes’ received from Vatican officials, police reports and other documents found in the archives, the author also cross-referenced the accounts he found with evidence from other major archives, diaries and sworn testimonies of key protagonists.

Kidnapping the pope?

What might be most helpful to historians, who are still unsure of how credible the allegations are of a plot by Hitler to kidnap the pope, is the gendarmes’ detailed plan of action to protect the state

from incursion and the pope from capture.

While there is still no proof that the possible invasion was either an empty threat or an actual planned operation, Catananti wrote that the fear and risk were real, according to documents he found in the gendarme archives.

The draft plans drawn up in mid-August 1943 by the gendarmes with input from the Swiss Guard as well as the final formal plan approved by the Vatican secretary of state on September 1, 1943—one week before the Germans took control of Rome—are of great historical value, he wrote.

They represent, for now, “the singular and exclusive official documentation on the hypothetical invasion of the Vatican and the kidnapping of the pope”.

A key directive from the secretary of state was that the gendarmes and the Swiss Guard engage in a form of “energetic” yet “passive defence”.

All entrances and points of potential access were to be fortified with additional metal supports and even sandbags. Additional guard posts and patrols were set

up and the Vatican fire brigade was authorised to use its equipment as water cannons to keep invaders at bay.

In case of invasion If the Vatican City State border were breached, all Vatican residents were to head to the Apostolic Palace, which would then be sealed off with guards standing at the ready. Weapons could be used only for legitimate self-defence or fired only if ordered by the guards’ superiors.

Enough food and rations for everyone were to be stored in rooms in the palace under the Sistine Chapel, and staff from the maintenance department and health clinic were to have potable water and proper sanitation available.

Vatican medics and pharmacists were also to be prepared to provide medical assistance for any casualties in case of “an active defence” of the palace.

In case of an air raid, everyone had to be led out of the Apostolic Palace and to the appropriate shelters near the medieval-era St John’s Tower.

Any time guards were off duty, they had to remain in uniform and in their barracks so they could be immediately called into action, ready with their rifles and pouches of ammunition.

Though surrounded by walls, Vatican City State was not built like a fortress, and the gendarmes’ draft plans list numerous vulnerabilities, including all the gates, archways and walled sections that were easy to climb.

Small groups of armed Roman citizens made themselves available to guard the external border, particularly by the train trestle leading from Rome into Vatican City.

With Vatican guards spread out over a number of extra-territorial properties, the number of guardsmen available for the pope and palace defence plan was modest: just 200 men total from the gendarmes, Swiss Guard and fire brigade and another 20 from the ceremonial Palatine Guard.

If at any point the palace were breached, guardsmen had to be ready to go to the papal apartments, join the pope’s personal Noble Guard “and create a shield with their own body” to protect the pope.

While there was no attempted kidnapping of the pope, Vatican City State was bombed on November 5, 1943, by an unidentified low-flying aircraft. Four of the five bombs caused considerable-tominor damage to a number of buildings and infrastructure.

A number of Vatican properties throughout the city and the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo had been hit by Allies multiple times as they advanced against the Germans in 1944, resulting in hundreds of casualties. The papal villa had become a shelter for about 6 000 people—mostly women and children—who were local residents and refugees seeking protection from the pope.

Catananti wrote that the surviving documents—some were destroyed in the 1970s from water damage after a pipe burst— showed the many ways the Vatican tried to navigate two completely different tracks: enforcing respect for its sovereignty and neutrality in a time of war and opening its arms to anyone in need.

“Even if the written orders to the gendarmes were to ‘turn away’ people, the actual praxis being followed was ‘welcoming’ people.

The words of the Gospel were, in essence, the true law to be respected,” he wrote.—CNS

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FILM

Extra for Subscribers: The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

ii

Ten great movies about holiness Often one hears complaints about movies being immoral. As an antidote, JOHN MULDERIG picks his Top 10 films on the subject of personal holiness.

‘L

IFE holds only one tragedy, ultimately: not to have been a saint.”

So wrote the French man of letters Charles Péguy (1873-1914).

Yet, while its attainment may be every human being’s vocation, sanctity can be a difficult quality to capture in the dramatic arts. Thus the stage and screen alike have seen a procession of hollow holy ones and canonised cardboard.

Here in chronological order are capsule reviews of ten movies that have avoided that parade of the forgettable.

Instead, these films have successfully risen to the challenge of depicting personal holiness in a way that’s both credible and engaging.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) A silent-screen masterpiece portraying the heresy trial, confession, recantation and execution of the Maid of Orleans (played

by Maria Falconetti) in a performance of such emotional power that it still stands as the most convincing portrayal of spirituality on celluloid.

Directed by Carl Dreyer, the work is essentially the interior epic of a soul, consisting largely of close-ups of Joan’s face and those of her interrogators accomplished in a fashion which is never static as the camera explores the inner struggle between human frailties and spiritual strength.

• Click here for full movie

The Song of Bernadette (1943) Durable adaptation of the Franz Werfel novel about Bernadette Soubirous (Jennifer Jones), the French schoolgirl who in 1858 saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary at a grotto near Lourdes.

News of this is initially discredited by her stern pastor (Charles Bickford), the town prosecutor (Vincent Price) and an envious teacher (Gladys Cooper).

Directed by Henry King, the story of a young girl’s faith withstanding the disbelief of her elders is made dramatically convincing by a fine cast, evocative photography and largely unsentimental treatment.

• Click here for full movie

Monsieur Vincent (1947) Lucid, moving account of St Vincent de Paul’s work among the poor and oppressed in 17th-century France, from his first labours in a plague-ravaged village and his appeals to the conscience of the aristocracy to the founding of an order devoted to charitable works and his death in 1660.

Director Maurice Cloche portrays the poverty of the times and the cruelty of the regime in starkly convincing fashion, providing a solid historical framework.

Pierre Fresnay’s performance in the title role shines with a warm compassion and spiritual intensity which most viewers will find irresistibly compelling. High on the list of great religious movies.

The Flowers of St Francis (1950)

From top: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Becket (1964), Monsieur Vincent (1947), The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952), The Flowers of St Francis (1950), Entertaining Angels (1996), The Miracle of St Thérèse (1959), The Song of Bernadette (1943), and Of Gods and Men (2011)

This remarkable Italian production follows the beginnings of the Franciscan order as its founder sets the example of humility, simplicity and obedience for his first followers at Portiuncula, a little chapel near Assisi, from which they depart into the world to preach peace.

Directed by Roberto Rossellini from a script co-written with Federico Fellini, the movie’s form is as simple and sincere as the subject of the narrative which relates a series of little incidents realistically, yet

Paul Scofield (right) as St Thomas More and Robert Shaw as King Henry VIII in 1966’s A Man For All Seasons. marvellously conveyed with an infectious sense of joy by an anonymous cast of monks from a Roman monastery.

• Click here for full movie (Italian)

The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952) In The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, when young children report seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1917 Portugal, they is harassed, then arrested by atheistic government officials but nothing can stop the crowds of faithful from coming to the site in expectation of a miracle.

Directed by John Brahm, the religious story is treated with reverence yet is dramatically interesting, with such characters as the good-hearted thief (Gilbert Roland) who helps her. Inspirational fare.

• Click here for full movie

The Miracle of St Thérèse (1959) Engrossing French production dramatising the life of the saint known as the Little Flower, who entered the Carmelite cloister in Lisieux at the age of 14, died of tuberculosis in 1897 at age 24 and was canonised in 1925.

Director André Haguet makes a serious, largely successful attempt to picture the saint’s life within her religious community and the meaning of her “little way” to spiritual perfection, with a winning performance by France Descaut in the title role, and fine use of the visuals to convey the period and the interior life of a young woman who became a saint.

• Click here for full movie (Tip: In YouTube click CC for English subtitles)

Becket (1964) Superb adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s classic play about the deep friendship and later conflict between England’s King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and his friend Sir Thomas Becket (Richard Burton), later a saint, and how their days of drinking and womanising came to an end when the monarch appointed Becket archbishop of Canterbury, leading to Becket’s spiritual transformation and ultimate martyrdom.

Director Peter Glenville’s film is rather stagy and leisurely paced, but the Oscarwinning dialogue is uncommonly literate, and the performances are brilliant. It includes some crass expressions and (by today’s standards) tame sexuality.

• Click here for full movie

A Man for All Seasons (1966) Engrossing drama of the last seven years

in the life of Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII’s chancellor, who met a martyr’s death rather than compromise his conscience during a period of religious turmoil.

Robert Bolt’s script is masterfully directed by Fred Zinnemann, with a standout performance by Paul Scofield in the title role as the Catholic politician in times of the British Reformation, among other notable performances from a uniformly fine cast.

The historical dramatisation achieves an authentic human dimension that makes its 16th-century events more accessible and its issues more universal. It’s profoundly entertaining but heavygoing for children.

Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story (1996) Entertaining Angels is a compelling dramatisation of the early life of Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day (Moira Kelly) as a young journalist whose agonising over failed love affairs leads her to reflect on her life. In doing so, she discovers God, then meets Peter Maurin (Martin Sheen) and puts his ideas of social justice into practice during the economic depression in the US of the 1930s.

Directed by Michael Ray Rhodes, the biographical movie depicts a woman’s spiritual journey in convincing dramatic fashion, though it is largely interior, deeply religious and specifically Catholic in its sensibilities.

Of Gods and Men (2011) Brilliant dramatisation of real events, recounting the fate of a small community of French Trappists (led by Lambert Wilson and including Michael Lonsdale) living in Algeria during that nation’s civil war in the 1990s.

Targeted by violent Muslim extremists, the monks must decide whether to continue their medical and social work for the local population or abandon them by fleeing to safety.

Using the tools of the monastic life itself, director Xavier Beauvois finds a path to the heart of the Gospel through simplicity, a compassionate sense of brotherhood and an atmosphere of prayer enriched by sacred music and potent silence.

The result, a profound meditation on the cost of discipleship, is a viewing experience from which every adult as well as many mature teens can expect to profit.— CNS

Love the movies? Click here and read about legendary director Martin Scorsese talking about his pilgrimage of Catholic faith

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The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

FAITH

Unemployed? There’s a saint for that In this time of economic crisis, Catholics who have lost their jobs and income have a patron saint to turn to. Here we introduce St Cajetan.

S

INCE the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, millions worldwide have filed for unemployment, and more are without income because benefits don’t apply to them.

As with most things, the Catholic Church has a saint for these times. St Cajetan, the patron saint of the unemployed, knew something of poverty and pestilence.

He was the son of a nobleman, worked for a pope, became a priest, was a conduit of miraculous healings, founded a bank, and was a friend to the poor.

St Cajetan was born on October 6, 1487 in Vicenza, Italy. He was the youngest of three sons born to Gaspar, the count of Thiene, and Maria Porto, a devout woman who consecrated Cajetan to the Blessed Virgin Mary at a young age and saw to it that he received a religious education and upbringing.

His father died when he was just two years old.

In his 20s, Cajetan received degrees in both civil and canon law from the University of Padua, and shortly thereafter moved to Rome, where he worked in the court of Pope Julius II. Working in the chancery of the Pontifical States, he helped prevent a war between the Republic of Venice and the Vatican State.

When Pope Julius II died, Cajetan resigned his position in order to study for the priesthood back in northern Italy, and he was ordained in 1516 at the age of 36.

A great reformer Soon after he became a priest, Cajetan and a small group of likeminded priests founded the Con-

town of Venice, an international trade hub.

In 1533, the pope sent Cajetan to Naples, where he founded another oratory. The corresponding church, San Paolo Maggiore, became an important hub of Catholic reformation.

While in Naples, Cajetan also founded a charitable nonprofit bank designed to protect the poor from usury (the lending of money at exorbitant rates of interest).

Eventually, the institution became the Bank of Naples.

While in Naples, Cajetan became dangerously sick. He offered his sufferings for the conversion of the people of Naples, reportedly refusing to be transferred from the planks of wood that served as his bed, so that he had more suffering to offer.

gregation of Clerics Regular, a community of priests seeking to live like the apostles.

Like their contemporary Martin Luther, Cajetan and his companions were seeking to reform the Church, and especially the clergy— but unlike Luther and his followers, they believed this reformation could take place from within the Church itself.

The Congregation of Clerics Regular became known as the Theatines, after the title of one of the co-founders, Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, bishop of Chieti (Theate in Latin), who later became Pope Paul IV. The order was canonically erected by Pope Clement VII in 1524.

Members took their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience seriously.

St Cajetan asked that the order live poverty so strictly that they not even beg for alms, but rely totally on the providence of whatever God chose to send them to sustain themselves.

“His principal aim was to save souls,” Fr Francis Xavier Weninger wrote of St Cajetan in 1876.

Cajetan and his order sought to do so primarily through living moral lives, preaching, sacred studies, and tending to the sick and the poor.

Miraculous intercession

Tough on himself St Cajetan was particularly severe with himself, always wearing a hairshirt and partaking in prayers and devotions late at night and early in the morning with just a short rest on a bed of straw in between.

He was also said to have visions of Mary. In particular on one Christmas Eve, Cajetan had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary carrying the Christ child, and placing him in St Cajetan’s arms.

Cajetan was also known for some miraculous cures in his lifetime, including the healing of the foot of a priest of his order that had been scheduled to be amputated.

The Theatine order became known as strong Catholic reformers

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St Cajetan (1480-1547) was a religious reformer and co-founder of the Theatine order. He is the patron saint of unemployed and job seekers, as well as of bankers and gamblers (the latter to help them in their addiction, not as a bringer luck). even before the Protestant Reformation had fully taken hold.

In 1527, the house of the Theatine order in Rome was sacked by troops of French Emperor Charles V, and the members fled to Venice.

According to some accounts, one of the soldiers had been acquainted with Cajetan, and believed the priest was hiding riches from his past life of nobility, and thus treated

him cruelly and imprisoned him before he was allowed to rejoin his order.

At the age of 42, Cajetan founded a hospital for “incurables” in Venice, and worked to comfort and heal the sick during times of pestilence.

Many of the sick he tended to were victims of the bubonic plague, which resurfaced frequently in the

He died on August 7, 1547, and is buried in the San Paolo Maggiore basilica in Naples.

According to some accounts, the spiritual, political and social strife in the city of Naples ceased shortly after Cajetan’s death, confirming to many the holiness of his life.

St Cajetan was beatified by Urban VIII in 1629.

St Cajetan was invoked when the plague struck Naples hard in 1656.

According to a testimony written by the leader of a hospital in Naples at the time, and commemorated in an artistic depiction, 600-700 people were dying of the plague daily, when the city celebrated the feast of then-Blessed Cajetan with a Mass and music and confession.

That day, there was no death recorded, and the plague soon subsided in the city.

St Cajetan was canonised by Pope Clement X in 1671. His feast day is August 7.

He is the patron saint of jobseekers and the unemployed, as well as multiple countries, including Italy, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, and the Philippines.

St Cajetan’s order, the Theatines, continues to serve the Church today.—CNA

Prayer to Saint Cajetan Glorious St Cajetan, acclaimed by all people to be the Father of Providence because you provide miraculous aid to all who come to you in need, I stand here before you today, asking that you present to the Lord the requests that I confidently deposit in your hands.

May these graces that I now request help me to always see the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, knowing that God who dresses with beauty the flowers of the field and abundantly feeds the birds of the sky will give me all other things. Amen SAVE SEVEN LIVES

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The Southern Cross, May 6 to May 12, 2020

YOUR CLASSIFIEDS

Fr Edward Dougherty SJ

F

ATHER Edward C Dougherty, a US Jesuit who previously taught at St Joseph’s Theological Institute in Cedara, KwaZulu-Natal, died on April 28 at the age of 79.

Fr Dougherty came to South Africa in the 1990s and stayed for 11 years, teaching sacred scripture at St Joseph’s.

Born in Philadelphia on February 28, 1941, he entered the Jesuit novitiate of St Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, in 1959. He was ordained a priest on June 3, 1972.

Following ordination, Fr Dougherty taught religion and Latin for six years at Georgetown Prep near Washington, DC. Then, following several years in special studies, he taught theology for a year at St Joseph’s Uni-

versity before serving at his old novitiate for four years.

After three years of directing retreats, in 1993 he accepted the

assignment to teach sacred scripture at St Joseph’s, where his students came from many African countries and from all over the world. He trained many future priests at the scholasticate.

After a much-deserved sabbatical, Fr Dougherty returned to parochial ministry, serving a seven-year term in the Jesuit parishes of St Ignatius in Port Tobacco, Maryland, the oldest Catholic parish in continuous service in the United States. During that time he was also superior of the Jesuit community in southern Maryland.

In 2013, he moved back to Philadelphia to serve as a priest at Old St Joseph’s parish, the city’s oldest Catholic church.

Early this year Fr Dougherty retired from active ministry.

Southern CrossWord solutions

In a newly published biography, Pope Benedict said the Catholic Church is threatened by a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanist ideologies”. (Photo: Paul Haring/CNS)

Pope Benedict: World is threatened by humanism

I

N a newly published biography, Retired Pope Benedict XVI said the Catholic Church is threatened by a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanist ideologies”.

The retired pope, 93, said: “Modern society is in the process of formulating an anti-Christian creed, and resisting this creed is punished by social excommunication.”

He added: “Events have shown by now that the crisis of faith has above all led to a crisis of Christian existence.”

German Catholic news agency KNA reported the remarks were published in the final chapter of a biography by bestselling author Peter Seewald.

In the interview, not published before, the former pope said he had written a spiritual testament. This will presumably not be revealed until after his death, KNA reported.

Pope Benedict also explained the reasons for his resignation as pope in 2013. He denied that it was because of corruption in the Vatican or the “Vatileaks” scandal. Instead, he said it had become increasingly clear to him that, in addition to possible dementia,

“other forms of insufficient ability to hold office properly are also possible”.

The former pope revealed that he, like Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, had signed a conditional declaration of resignation “in the event of illness that rendered the proper performance of duties impossible”.

Of criticism of his resignation, he said that the office of a “pope emeritus” he had created should be compared to that of a bishop who had retired for age reasons. This could also be applied to the bishop of Rome. It prevented “any notion of a coexistence of two popes: a diocese can have only one incumbent.

At the same time, it expresses a spiritual bond that can never be taken away.”

The former pope also likened his situation to that of an old farmer in Bavaria who has passed his farm to his son, lives in a small house next to it and has ceded his fatherly and commanding rights.

Referring to his relationship with his successor, he said he thanked God that the “warm-hearted devotion of Pope Francis” enabled him to implement the idea of a pope emeritus.—CNS

Liturgical Calendar Year A – Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday May 10, 5th Sunday of Easter Acts 6:1-7, Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19, 1 Peter 2:4-9, John 14:1-12 Monday May 11 Acts 14:5-18, Psalm 115:1-4, 15-16, John 14:21-26 Tuesday May 12, Ss Nereus and Achilleus, St Pancras Acts 14:19-28, Psalm 145:10-13, 21, John 14:27-31 Wednesday May 13, Our Lady of Fatima Acts 15:1-6, Psalm 122:1-5, John 15:1-8 or Isaiah 61:9-11, Psalm 45:11-12, 14-17,

Luke 11:27-28 Thursday May14, St Matthias Acts 1:15-17, 20-26, Psalm 113:1-8, John 15:9-17 Friday May 15 Acts 15:22-31, Psalm 57:8-12, John 15:12-17 Saturday May 16 Acts 16:1-10, Psalm 100:1-3, 5, John 15:18-21 Sunday May 17, 6th Sunday of Easter Acts 8:5-8, 14-17, Psalm 66:1-7, 16, 20, 1 Peter 3:15-18, John 14:15-21

SOLUTIONS TO 914. ACROSS: 1 Page, 3 Stooping, 9 Relapse, 10 Gusty, 11 Crown princes, 13 Praise, 15 Clothe, 17 Theology book, 20 Trevi, 21 Cornice, 22 Greenery, 23 Emus.

DOWN: 1 Pericope, 2 Gallo, 4 Theory, 5 Organ players, 6 Inspect, 7 Guys, 8 Spanish onion, 12 Reckless, 14 Athlete, 16 Concur, 18 Opium, 19 Stag.

11

Anniversaries • Milestones • Prayers • Accommodation • Holiday accommodation Personal • Services • Employment • Property • Parish notices • Thanks • Others Please include payment (R2.00 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

PRAYERS

PRAYER TO THE HOLY SPIRIT: Holy Spirit, thou who makes us see all and shows us the way to reach our ideals, and in all aspects of our lives is with us granting the divine gift to forgive and forget, and in all aspects of our lives is also with us protecting us and opening ways which we never thought existed, we praise and glorify thee and hereby commit never to be separated from thee, casting aside all material desires. We pray to be with thee and our loved ones in thy perpetual glory. Say the above for three consecutive days, and without asking further the wish will be realised, no matter how difficult it may seem. Take the obligation to advertise and make public this prayer as soon as your wish has been granted to his glory.

MOST HOLY LORD, I see your works here on earth. I stand amazed at the beauty and magnificent scenes before me. Thank you for my joy that is not claimed by life’s sadness and disappointments. I thank you for

keeping me in your wings of love. You are so very precious to me and I will forever be yours in faith and hope. Blessed be your name in all of the earth, I pray. Amen.

LORD, inspire those men and women who bear the titles “husband” and “wife”.

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

this earth. Cast a merciful glance upon those who are suffering, struggling against difficulties, with their lips constant pressed against life’s bitter cup. Have pity on those who love each other and are separated.

Have pity on our rebellious hearts. Have pity on our weak faith. Have pity on those we love. Have pity on those who weep, on those who pray, on those who fear. Grant hope and peace to all. Amen.

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Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: May 8: Bishop José Ponce de León ICM of Manzini, Eswatini, on his 59th birthday May 9: Bishop Adam Musialek SCJ of De Aar on his 63rd birthday May 12: Archbishop Peter Wells, apostolic nuncio to South Africa, on his 57th birthday

FROM OUR VAULTS 68 Years Ago: May 7, 1952

SA gets new patron at Durban congress The Church in South Africa celebrated its dedication to a new patron, Our Lady of the Assumption, with a special Marian congress in Durban. About 20 000 attended the first Mass of the congress, celebrated by Bishop Bruno Hippel of Oudtshoorn, and 30 000 attended a Mass celebrated by Bishop Elmar Schmidt of Mariannhill. The congress closed with a procession through the streets of Durban to Albert Park Oval, where Archbishop Denis Hurley read out in four languages Pope Pius XII’s message declaring Mary Assumed into Heaven patroness of South Africa.

The first Durban Passion Play is held A four-page supplement introduces the cast of the first Durban Passion Play, based on the famed Oberammergau Passion Play and produced by Fr Noel Coughlin OMI, with David Horner as Christ and Monica O’Regan as Mary, mother of Christ. A record crowd of over 40 000 saw a performance of Durban’s first Passion Play presented at the Greyville racecourse.

Two events strengthen SA Church In his editorial, Fr Louis Stubbs writes that two recent events have strengthened the Catholic Church in South Africa. One is the introduction of the Afrikaans review Die Brug, which will bring the message of the Church to Afrikaans-speakers. The other is the consecration of Our Lady of the Assumption as South Africa’s patron.

“Let us hope that the day will come when we shall have a national shrine of the Assumption.”

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Editor: Günther Simmermacher (editor@scross.co.za), Business Manager: Pamela Davids (admin@scross.co.za), Advisory Editor: Michael Shackleton, Local News: Erin Carelse (e.carelse@scross.co.za) Editorial: Claire Allen (c.allen@scross.co.za), Mary Leveson (m.leveson@scross.co.za), Advertising: Yolanda Timm (advertising@scross.co.za), Subscriptions: Michelle Perry (subscriptions@scross.co.za), Accounts: Desirée Chanquin (accounts@scross.co.za), Directors: R Shields (Chair), Bishop S Sipuka, S Duval, E Jackson, B Jordan, Sr H Makoro CPS, C Mathieson, G Stubbs

Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, staff or directors of The Southern Cross.

The Southern Cross is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations of South Africa.

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the

6th Sunday of Easter: May 17 Readings: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17, Psalm 66:1-7, 16, 20, 1 Peter 3:15-18, John 14:15-21

S outher n C ross

W

ITH astonishing rapidity, we are now drawing near to the end of the Easter season, and beginning to look forward to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.

But what is this “Holy Spirit”? The New Testament knows all about it, but never quite tells us what it does. We have to squeeze the text for what it can say to us about the Spirit.

In the first reading for next Sunday, we watch the work of the Spirit as “Philip went down to the city of Samaria [that unlikely place] and was proclaiming the Messiah to them”. The results were spectacular: “Many people who had unclean spirits were coming out with a loud shout; and many paralysed and lame people were healed.” Then [and for Luke this is a sure sign of the Spirit]: “There was much joy in that city.”

But there is more to come, for the news reaches Headquarters in Jerusalem, so Peter and John are sent down as an official Commission of Enquiry.

They “prayed over them that they might receive the Holy Spirit…then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit”.

We notice that Luke does not tell us what it is like when you get the Spirit; he is, however, absolutely certain that it had happened

to these foreigners.

The psalm does not directly mention the Holy Spirit, of course, but we can deduce from its poetry some of the effects of that Spirit: “Sing a joyful song to God, all the earth, make music to the glory of his name.”

Then the poet invites us: “Say to God, ‘How fearful your deeds; let all the earth bow down before You.’” Then we are reminded (by the Spirit, of course) of what God did in the Good Old Days: “He changed the sea into dry land; they crossed the River on foot—let us rejoice in him.”

Then there is a proclamation from the singer (filled by the Spirit): “Come and hear what he did for my soul.”

Finally, it ends in spirit-filled joy: “Blessed be God who did not refuse my prayer or deny me his steadfast love.”

In the second reading, likewise, continuing our journey through 1 Peter, the Spirit is not directly mentioned, but once more we can see what the Spirit does: “Keep the Lord Christ holy in your hearts, always ready to make your defence for the one who asks you for an account of the hope that is in you.”

That ability to speak out is a gift of the

A

I recall too as a graduate student sitting in on a series of lectures by the renowned Polish psychiatrist Kasmir Dabrowski, who had written a number of books around a concept he termed “positive disintegration”.

His essential thesis was that it is only by falling apart that we ever grow to higher levels of maturity and wisdom.

Once, during a lecture, Dabrowski was asked: “Why do we grow through the disintegrating experiences such as falling ill, falling apart, or being humiliated? Would it not be more logical to grow through the positive experiences of being loved, being affirmed, being successful, being healthy, and being admired? Shouldn’t that fire gratitude inside us and, acting out of that gratitude, shouldn’t we become more generous and wise?”

He gave this response: “Ideally, maturity and wisdom should grow out of experiences of strength and success; and maybe in some instances they do. However, as a psychiatrist, all I can say is that in 40 years of clinical practice I have never seen it. I have only seen people transformed to higher levels of maturity through the experience of breaking down.”

J

Conrad

esus, it would seem, agrees. Take, for example, the incident in the Gospels where James and John come and ask whether they might be given the seats at his right hand and left hand when he

The

Sunday Reflections

Spirit, as is the way we are to do it: “with meekness and fear, with a clean conscience”.

And we may also suffer: “It is better for us to suffer for doing good, if that is what God’s Will wants, than for doing evil.”

The point is that we have to recognise that “Christ suffered once for sinners, the Just One for the unjust, to bring you to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but restored to life in the Spirit”.

That is what the Spirit does for us.

In the Gospel for next Sunday we are once more in the Upper Room, listening to Jesus’ discourse on the night before he dies. Here he is unmistakably speaking of the Spirit.

First, the familiar exhortation, “If you love me, then you will keep my commands.”

Then he speaks of the Paraclete: “I am going to ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.”

Jesus’ followers, on the other hand, do know him, because “he remains with you, and is in you”.

Most precious of all is the firm assertion

How fever can make us wiser FTER recovering from a serious illness, author John Updike wrote a poem he called “Fever”. It ends this way: “But it is a truth long known that some secrets are hidden from health.”

Deep down we already know this, but as a personal truth this is not something we appropriate in a classroom, from parents or mentors, or even from religious teaching.

These just tell us that this is true, but knowing it does not itself impart wisdom.

Wisdom is acquired, as Updike says, through a personal experience of serious illness, serious loss, or serious humiliation.

The late psychologist James Hillman, writing as an agnostic, came to the same conclusion. I remember hearing him at a large conference where he challenged his audience with words to this effect: Think back, honestly and with courage, and ask yourself: What are the experiences in your life that have made you deep, that have given you character? In almost every case, you will have to admit that it was some humiliation or abuse you had to endure, some experience of powerlessness, helplessness, frustration, illness, or exclusion.

It is not the things that brought glory or adulation into your life that gave you depth and character, the time you were the valedictorian for your class or the time you were the star athlete. These did not bring you depth. Rather the experience of powerlessness, inferiority, is what made you wise.

Nicholas King SJ

Just what is the Spirit?

that God has not abandoned us (that is what the Spirit has done): “I am not going to leave you as orphans—I am coming to you.” The gift of reminding us that we are part of the family is one of the qualities of the Spirit.

Then there is another, related quality, the gift of knowing the relationship of Jesus and his Father: “On that day, you will know that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.”

That is something that only the Spirit can give. And this section of the Gospel concludes: “The one who has my commandments and keeps them, that is the one who loves me. Now the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love that person and show myself to that person.”

So there you have the Spirit, at work in the lives of each of us, in a very intimate and unmistakable way.

During this week, you could do a great deal worse than to examine what you understand by the Spirit, and how the Spirit is and has always been at work in your life.

Southern Crossword #914

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

comes into his glory.

It is significant that he takes their question seriously. He does not (in this instance) chide them for seeking their own glory; what he does instead is redefine glory and the route to it.

He asks them: “Can you drink the cup?”

They, naïve as to what is being asked of them, responded: “Yes, we can!”

Jesus then tells them something about which they are even more naïve. He assures them that they will drink the cup, since eventually everyone will, but he also tells them that they still might not receive the glory because being seated in glory is still contingent upon something else.

What is “the cup”? How is drinking it the route to glory? And why might we not receive glory even if we do drink the cup?

The cup, as is revealed later, is the cup of suffering and humiliation, the one Jesus has to drink during his Passion and dying, the cup he asks his Father to spare him from when in Gethsemane he prays in agony: “Let this cup pass from me!”

In essence, what Jesus is telling James and John is this: There is no route to Easter Sunday except through Good Friday. There is no route to depth and wisdom except through suffering and humiliation.

The connection is intrinsic, like the pain and groans of a woman are necessary to her when giving birth to a child.

Further, Jesus is also saying that deep suffering will not automatically bring wisdom.

Why not? Because, while there is an intrinsic connection between deep suffering and greater depth in our lives, the catch is that bitter suffering can make us deep in bitterness, anger, envy, and hatred just as easily as it can make us deep in compassion, forgiveness, empathy, and wisdom. We can have the pain, and not get the wisdom.

Fever! The primary symptom of being infected with the coronavirus, Covid-19, is a high fever. Fever has now beset our world.

The hope is that, after it so dangerously raises both our bodily and psychic temperatures, it will also reveal to us some of the secrets that are hidden from health.

What are they? We don’t know yet.

They will only be revealed inside the fever.

ACROSS

1. The boy attending the bride (4) 3. Bending forward in prayer (8) 9. Fall back into old habit (7) 10. Like the wind at Pentecost?

(5) 11. They are heirs to the throne (5,7) 13. Express satisfaction about a spire (6) 15. Put on religious habit (6) 17. Volume of religious study (8,4) 20. Having coins, it’s the Roman fountain (5) 21. Cicero turns north, looking at your ceiling moulding (7) 22. Vegetation among the altar flowers (8) 23. The birds come in from Adoremus (4)

DOWN

1. Pope Eric changed scriptural extract (8) 2. It has to do with the French (5) 4. Supposition or they move (6) 5. They make music from church manuals (5,7) 6. Take a close look (7) 7. Ropes or men for the tent?

(4) 8. Does it make the Madrid chef weep? (7,5) 12. Foolhardy and rash (8) 14. The late runner in the race (7) 16. Occur around north. You agree (6) 18. Pio turns to the end of the museum for a drug (5) 19. Kind of party for the bridegroom (4)

Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

T

HE old miser died and went to heaven where he was met by St Peter. After admission, St Peter told the man he would take him to his new home.

They went along an avenue paved with gold, beautiful mansions to the left and to the right.

Then they took a corner and St Peter motioned towards a rundown hut: “Here’s where you’ll stay.”

“I don’t get it,” the man protested. “There are so many beautiful mansions we walked past in which I could live. Why must I live in this awful hovel?”

St Peter replied: “Well, this is the best I could do with the money you sent us.”

S outher n C ross

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