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NTHABISENG MAPHISA: My pilgrimage to Ngome

CHURCH & SOCCER: Catholic football stars

FAITH OR SUPERSTITION: May we bury St Joseph statues?

Est. 1920

June 2021

The Catholic Magazine for Southern Africa

R30 (incl. VAT in SA)

Daswa at 75 THE STORY OF ST CHARLES LWANGA & COMPANIONS

HOW TO UNCLUTTER OUR TROUBLED LIVES

S outhern C ross P ilgrimages CAMINO TO SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

Official 7-Day Camino Postponed to 2022 • Led by Fr Chris Townsend Walk the ancient ‘Camino Primitivo’ route from Lugo to Santiago de Compostela in this Holy Year!

Bonus: Your luggage will be delivered to your hotel every day!

www.fowlertours.co.za/camino

MEDJUGORJE, ROME, ASSISI, CROATIA Led by Archbishop Stephen Brislin Postponed to May 2022

Before coming to Medjugorje in Bosnia, you will visit Rome (with papal audience in St Peter’s Square), Assisi, Loreto (with the House of Our Lady), and the beautiful Croatian city of Split.

www.fowlertours.co.za/medju

HOLY LAND AND TURKEY Led by Archbishop William Slattery OFM Postponed to 2022

See the great holy shrines of the Holy Land, including Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Sea of Galilee and the River Jordan.

In Turkey visit Ephesus and Istanbul (incl. Hagia Sophia).

www.fowlertours.co.za/slattery

OBERAMMERGAU AND HOLY LAND Led by Archbishop William Slattery OFM August/September 2022

See the great holy shrines of the Holy Land, including the sites of Our Lord’s Passion, before flying to Germany to tour in Bavaria and see the famous Oberammergau Passion Play.

www.fowlertours.co.za/oberammergau

Contact Gail at info@fowlertours.co.za or call or WhatsApp 076 352-3809

Southern Cross pilgrimages are arranged by

Welcome

Who really edits this magazine?

Dear Reader,

A

T THE END OF THIS LETTER, I WILL SIGN IT as the editor of The Southern Cross, and that designation is doubtless true. But I believe there’s a greater editor than me taking a lead in putting together this magazine: the Holy Spirit. Let me give you a glimpse behind the scenes.

Our cover story this month is about Bl Benedict Daswa, South Africa’s first beatus, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of his birth on June 16. That feature was already pencilled in for this issue at the beginning of the year. Last month we featured the Servant of God, Abbot Franz Pfanner, in our colourised “History in Colour” photo. The Holy Spirit clearly thought that if we have two possible future local saints, then we should also feature others.

So first we received a review copy of Mignonne Breier’s outstanding new book Bloody Sunday, which tells the story of the 1952 mob-killing of Dominican Sister Aidan Quinlan, amid a police massacre in East London. Many people feel that Sr Aidan, a doctor, died a martyr, and that the story of her life and the manner of her death merits her beatification. Would you agree? We review the book on page 26.

Next, news came of the formal launch of the Inquiry for the Cause for Sainthood of the Servants of God Domitilla and Danny Hyams, the founders of the Little Eden homes in Johannesburg. That signalled the official beginning, with the Vatican’s approval, of the diocesan phase of the Hyams’ cause for beatification and sainthood. Our series on the remarkable life story of Domitilla and Danny is available on our website (www.scross.co.za/tag/hyams-story), and we decided to use that occasion to briefly outline how a sainthood cause actually works.

Some time later, our columnist Nthabiseng Maphisa submitted her monthly article, which in part shines a spotlight on Sr Reinolda May, the Benedictine Sister who reported having had ten visions of Our Lady at Ngome in KwaZulu-Natal between 1955 and 1971. The diocese of Eshowe is investigating the merits of a sainthood cause for Sr Reinolda.

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Four local saints, all yet to be canonised, appear in one issue — without this having been planned! That is not a serendipitous turn of coincidences but the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit at work. Whether we have done justice to the direction of the Spirit is your judgment to make, but we hope you will derive pleasure and edification from these very diverse articles with a running thread of the Holy Spirit’s design.

We also hope that the “Saint of the Month” story and the beautiful poster of St Charles Lwanga and companions, designed by Ronald St Martin, will highlight the immense courage of those who stand by Christ and are persecuted for their faith — as many Christians still are, even today.

Was your granny a saint?

Of course, not all the saints in heaven have been canonised. Indeed, a census of the souls that are with God would probably reveal that the canonised represent Did you know? a minuscule proportion of all In our digital ed saints. We would be delighted to ition, all links to websites hear about “the saints nobody are live.

Just click, and th e site knows”: priests, religious, or laity opens in your br owser!

— maybe even your dear departed TRY IT! grandmother! What made them holy, how did they express that holiness, how did they live their heroic virtues? Please send your stories to editor@scross.co.za.

We hope that you will find this issue inviting, inspiring, instructive, informative and illuminating. And if you do, please spread the word about this magazine, which should be in every Catholic home.

Thank you for reading The Southern Cross!

Yours in Christ,

Günther Simmermacher (Editor)

R Shields (chair), Bishop S Sipuka, Bishop S David OMI (alt), S Duval, E Jackson, B Jordan, C Mathieson, N Mpushe, Fr H O’Connor, R Perrier, D Shikwambana, G Stubbs

www.scross.co.za

LEADERSHIP TEAM Editor: Günther Simmermacher editor@scross.co.za Digital Editor: Claire Allen c.allen@scross.co.za Business Manager: Pamela Davids admin@scross.co.za Features Writer: Daluxolo Moloantoa daluxolo@scross.co.za Advisory Editor: Michael Shackleton

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All content is copyrighted. Unauthorised reproduction in any form or distribution is forbidden.

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Published Monthly The Southern Cross is published by the Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Co. Ltd (Reg. No: 1920/002058/06)

Contents JUNE 2021

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Student Action!

Daluxolo Moloantoa interviews the president of SA’s Catholic students’ association

15

The Appeal of Bl Daswa Interview with Sr Tshifhiwa Munzhedzi OP, promoter of the sainthood cause of Blessed Benedict Tshimangadzo Daswa

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What to Do In Adoration Prof Michael Ogunu guides us to the benefits of Eucharistic Adoration, and how to do it well

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Tidy Up Your Life

The life of Bl Benedict Daswa

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In our cluttered life, what do we really need? asks Fr Oskar Wermter SJ

26

The Killing of a Nun We review a new book on Sr Aidan Quinlan OP, who was killed in East London in 1952

With pull-out poster!

EVERY MONTH 5 FROM OUR VAULTS The Southern Cross 58 years ago

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YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED You ask, and our team of experts replies

24

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Have your say!

27

THE MILLENNIAL CATHOLIC Nthabiseng Maphisa on her visit to Ngome

28

17 The martyrs

RAYMOND PERRIER

of Africa

On whether statues should fall

29

FR RON ROLHEISER OMI

Catholic Football Facts

25

On the power of beauty

30

PRAY WITH THE POPE Fr Chris Chatteris SJ reflects on the pope’s universal prayer intention for June

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PRAYER CORNER Your illustrated prayers, to cut out and collect

32

TWO PAGES OF PUZZLES Two Crosswords, Wordsearch, Catholic Trivia Quiz, and Anagram Challenge

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COOKING WITH SAINTS Grazia Barletta tries out recipes from the past.

This month: a hearty soup for winter

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...AND FINALLY History in Colour, Inspiring Quotes on the Eucharist, and a Last Laugh

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How canonised saints are ‘made’

Cover photo courtesy of Bl Benedict Daswa Sainthood Cause (Colourised exclusively for The Southern Cross)

58 Years Ago: 5 June 1963

FROM OUR VAULTS Death of Pope John XXIII

Pope John XXIII died on June 3 “like a saint”, according to Cardinal Augustin Bea, who visited the Holy Father on his deathbed. The last words of John XXIII, who was 81 and had been pope since 1958, were: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

Tributes for the pope, who had called the ongoing Second Vatican Council, poured in from all over the world. Anglican Archbishop Michael Ramsey called the late pope “the great Christian of our times”. Pope John will be buried in St Peter’s basilica – not St John Lateran, as has been rumoured.

SA priest in Rome

A series titled “S. Africans in Rome” reports on priests and seminarians studying in the Eternal City. This week, the focus is on Redemptorist Father Stephen Naidoo, who was born in Durban, raised in Cape Town, and ordained in London in 1961.

Fr Naidoo is studying canon law at the Angelicum University. [He died as archbishop of Cape Town on July 1, 1989.]

Editorial: Critique of Church

Criticism of the Church is the duty of every Catholic “who is fitted and competent” to make it, writes Fr Louis Stubbs in his editorial. Such criticism must be motivated by love of the Church and issued with humility and reverence, rather than “giving expression to some deep internal bitterness”.

What else made news in June 1963:

• Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, archbishop of Milan, is elected as the 262nd pope, choosing the name Paul VI. • US President John F Kennedy visits West Berlin and declares: “Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”).

• Africa’s first self-governing parliament opens in Kenya.

• Medgar Evers, a 37-year-old African-American civil rights activist, is murdered by white supremacists in Jackson, Mississippi.

• Valentina Tereshkova, 26, becomes the first woman in space as she circles the earth in a Vostok spaceship.

• Heavyweight boxing contender Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) beats English fighter Henry Cooper before 35 000 people in London.

Former classmates came to Stellenbosch to visit Dominican postulants Srs Bernadette Shellen, Lorna Ridley, Margaret Fogarty and Anne O’Shea before they left for their novitiate in Ireland.

The first Mass is celeb rated in the newly-op ened chur ch of St Mart in de Porr es in Sunnyside , Pretoria, by vicar -general Mgr F Mason. A wood en statue of St Mart in towe rs abov e the altar .

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Why may only men enter the priesthood?

Q. What are the valid reasons for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches to reserve the priesthood to men only?

community. It is an extra-special vocation whose purpose is above the secular pursuits of this world.

B

When the Apostles accepted noncircumcised men for baptism (Acts 15:23-29), they made a break from Judaism and its male priesthood. This was an opportunity to ordain women as priests. They didn’t. There were many priestesses in the rituals of the Roman Empire, yet this fact did not influence them either. Catholics and Orthodox stick to the tradition that the male priesthood is willed by Christ.

God revealed himself to us as Father and Son. The Son, the Word made flesh, came to us as the man Jesus. This man gave a share in his priestly mission to men like himself.

OTH CHURCHES HOLD THAT THE priesthood may be validly exercised uniquely by men because Christ willed it so. The powers to celebrate the Eucharist and to forgive sin were given by Christ to the Apostles only (Luke 22:1920; John 20:22-23). They are specific to the ministerial priesthood, which is a sharing in Christ’s supreme priestly mission to govern and sanctify the Church down the ages.

The counter-argument is that, if women can do important jobs in society like being efficient presidents, then the Church should follow and ordain women.

Catholics and Orthodox agree that women and men are equal in dignity. However, the priesthood is not just another pivotal job in the

Orthodoxy argues that if women could and should be priests, then their exclusion for two millennia

Your Questions answered

Do you have questions ab out our faith ?

Send them wi th your name and location to: editor@sc ross.co.za Subject line: Q&A

would be a grave injustice. It is inconceivable, they contend, that a mistake of this magnitude could be laid at the door of the Fathers and the ecumenical councils.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the instruction Inter insigniores in October 1976 giving the historical context of the Church’s stand. In May, 1994 Pope John Paul II declared: “In virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful” (Ordinatio sacerdotalis).

Can those who die

by SuICIDe go to HeAven?

Q. The Church’s ancient teaching is that those who commit suicide cannot enter heaven, yet some spiritual writers, like Fr Ron Rolheiser, say they can be saved? How can that be?

T

HAT CAN BE ONLY BY THE grace and the mercy of God, who knows the heart of those who come to him in death. The Catechism of the Catholic Church acknowledges God’s primacy in the situation of those who die by suicide (a more accurate term than the verb “commit”).

The Church cannot condone any act of suicide because it “contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life”. Suicide, the Catechism notes, is contrary to love of

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self and for the living God. But the Church issues an important caveat: “Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.” In that case, the act itself is sinful, but the person did not necessarily sin because of their diminished responsibility. So not all suicides are the same: the suicide of Adolf Hitler, who wanted to evade justice, or that of a suicide bomber, who aims to murder, is very different

(Michael Shackleton)

from the suicide of a person who has, say, clinical depression, or acts spontaneously in a fit of despair.

And yet, God could save even Hitler, if that was his will. That’s God’s call to make, not ours.

So, can people who die by suicide be redeemed? The Catechism (para 2283) says it’s possible: “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance.

The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.”

And pray also for those who are grieving a suicide: they need our compassion more than judgments of the loved one they have lost.

(Günther Simmermacher)

What’s a mediatrix?

Q. I struggle to understand the teaching of Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces?

Could you please explain it?

HE DOCTRINE OF MARY AS Mediatrix of All Graces is not new, going back to a 4th-century prayer by Ephrem the Syrian. Probably, the first theologian to mention Mary as the mediatrix (or mediator) of graces was St Andrew of Crete in 740.

In the 11th century, St Bernard of Clairvaux, a doctor of the Church, called Mary the canal that takes us to the heavenly waters.

In 1964 the Second Vatican Council asserted that Mary was “Mediatrix” (Lumen gentium, 62), but did not explain this title, probably because there was not enough agreement about how to express it. But there is no denying that the Church has accepted Mary as mediating graces to the faithful.

To understand how this is possible, three things must be considered, none of them new — these arguments go back many centuries. Firstly, there is only one mediator between God and

us, and that is Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5) because he is both God and man.

All humanity therefore is the beneficiary of his mediatorship, including his mother Mary.

Secondly, Mary was not a passive instrument in bringing the Redeemer into the world. She freely consented to becoming his mother (Luke 1:38), and so became a willing sharer in Christ’s redemption. This active and intended sharing is further highlighted in her bringing the divine baby into the world and in her standing at the cross at the moment of his sacrificial death.

In obeying his Father’s will to die for us, Christ won infinite merits which he mediates or passes on to us in the form of grace, that is, God’s undeserved favour and share in supernatural life.

Thirdly, all Christians pray to the Father for one another in the name of Christ the Mediator (see 2 Corinthians 13:7 and similar texts). In this way we mediate Christ’s merits to one another and are, in a lowly and secondary way, also mediators of the grace Christ has

Q. Your features on St Joseph in the March issue reminded me of an old tradition whereby you bury a statue of St Joseph in the ground when you are struggling to sell a house. Isn’t that a sacrilege?

demonstrates ignorance and the foolish and unreasonable expectation of a favourable or miraculous outcome.

It may indeed appear to be irreverent and even sacrilegious to treat an image unworthily by burying it,

T

already gained.

Mary does this in an extraordinary way. She shares Christ’s will for us. She is bodily in heaven with him, and is the model of the Church whose call is also to be bodily with him. Therefore, she who is “full of grace” mediates all of Christ’s grace to us. In this sense, she can be called the Mediatrix of All Graces.

(Michael Shackleton)

Photos: Catholic News Service (Ordinations & Mediatrix), Unsplash (Suicide), Günther Simmermacher (St Joseph)

May we bury St Joseph statues?

I

T IS UNCLEAR WHERE THE TRADITION of burying poor St Joseph comes from. It took off in a big way in the United States in the 1980s and ‘90s, but it might go back to medieval nuns (some sources claim St Teresa of Avila) who buried St Joseph medals in their grounds to ask for his intercession.

More recently, in 1896, there was the case of St André Bessette (1845-1937), who is said to have buried medals of St Joseph in the grounds of a property in Montreal, Canada, which his order wanted to buy.

In the US, some real estate agents actually offer instructions on how best to bury a statue of St Joseph, preferably upside down and in specific spots in the garden. There are even websites which peddle plastic statues of St Joseph for that purpose. However, burying statues in this way likely is not an act of faith but a superstition which reduces St Joseph to a goodluck charm, invoked to create magic. It

but unless there is the intention to desecrate it or show contempt for the Catholic faith, it is simply an act of superstition.

Generally the Church tolerates the practice of praying that a property may be sold or owned, and, in this spirit of prayer, the burying of an object associated with a sacred person whose intercession is sought. The “burial service” of a medal or even a statue would normally be accompanied by some simple petition asking God for his mercy and grace in humble submission to his wisdom.

But burying a statue of St Joseph and promising to dig it up in the event that the house does get sold, is holding the saint — and God — to ransom. We are never well advised to bribe God as if he was a recalcitrant child or a corrupt bureaucrat!

There is no reason why St Joseph, patron of the home, should not hear our appeals for his intercession, maybe by way of a novena made while facing his statue, displayed in a place of honour. He surely would find that more respectful than being stuck upside down in the ground for good luck.

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Catholic student action Daluxolo Moloantoa interviews the president of the Association of Catholic Tertiary Students

T

HE IMAGE OF A BEARDED Jesuit priest in a bloodied cassock standing between protesting students and antiriot police outside Holy Trinity church in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, is etched in Nozipho Ntshangase’s mind as a pivotal moment in the “Fees Must Fall” student movement in 2016. Fr

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Graham Pugin SJ was shot in the face by police with a rubber bullet after his refusal to give police access to the church, where protesting students had found shelter.

At the time, Nozipho was the newly-elected national treasurer-general of the Association of Catholic Tertiary Students (ACTS). Now she is the association’s president. She had joined Acts in 2017 during her second year of studies at the University of Zululand. It was the support from the broader Catholic Church for the Fees Must Fall movement which motivated her to become even more active within ACTS. “The call for the right to a free education was the right move,” she tells The Southern Cross. “The Church was highly supportive of the call made by the students, because of their struggles with high fees. The Church also believed that the students’ protest had a strong foundation. With the little resources available, the Church ensured that both financial and emotional support was offered to the students throughout that period. Support also came through the coordination of negotiations between the students, the government and the university officials.”

Photo: Ed Malapi

FLASHBACk: Fr Graham Pugin SJ faces a casspir outside Holy Trinity church during the Fees Must Fall protests of 2016. His example and the Catholic Church’s solidarity with students inspired Nozipho Ntshangase.

Home in two countries

Raised in her mother’s village at Qacha’s Nek in Lesotho, Nozipho’s family later moved to Maseru, the capital city. Her parents met while they were both studying at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape. Her father is from Ulundi, KwaZulu-Natal, and this is where Nozipho was partly raised, alongside her older brother and a sister. Because the family divided time between Lesotho and Ulundi, she found herself becoming a member of two parishes, Mother of Victories parish in Maseru, and St Joseph’s at Ulundi.

It was through her work with ACTS that she learnt about her favourite patron saint. “St Thomas Aquinas is known as the greatest of the scholastic philosophers. He is the patron saint of students and teachers, and he is also our patron saint in ACTS. I have gone to great lengths to study his philosophies as a saint.”

One of Nozipho’s main projects as ACTS president is the BAAGI Mental Health Awareness Project. She spearheaded the outreach project to assist tertiary students across South Africa. “The project aims to raise awareness of and to educate tertiary students about mental health. Many students are faced with major mental health challenges, and some resort to heartrending ‘solutions’,

Nozipho Ntshangase is the president of the Association of Catholic Tertiary Students.

such as drugs and even suicide, in trying to deal with their desperate circumstances. Mental health is also part of the reason why the dropout rate at our universities remains so high every year,” she explains.

In 2018 Nozipho attended the 12th Pan African Youth Assembly in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The aim of the meeting was to share experiences and ideas about common problems faced by young people in various African countries. “It was a great experience to attend the conference. I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting and engaging with other youth representatives who, like me, hold office in Catholic youth organisations,” she recalls.

The work of ACTS

A core function of ACTS is to disseminate information from the national Church body to tertiary students. To this end, the organisation has been highly involved in spreading information to students about the new pastoral plan, “Evangelising Community, Serving God, Humanity and all Creation”, which was launched in January 2020.

“Our projects differ on an annual basis, but they are all a demonstration of ‘Faith in Action’, as our motto says,” Nozipho points out. “ACTS projects are mainly aligned with the broader Church movement towards building social justice, peace and human development, particularly among tertiary students.”

Apart from her presidency of ACTS, Nozipho has also served on the Inter-Diocesan Youth Committee of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

“I served as an exofficio committee member. My main role in the community was to ensure the smooth coordination of the SACBC youth programmes with ACTS activities,” she explains.

Nozipho hopes to leave a lasting legacy when her presidency expires. “Apart from upholding and maintaining the achievements and the standards of previous leaders, I hope that my presidency will be remembered for keeping the organisation intact and fully functioning during the coronavirus pandemic, and helping ACTS adapt to a new way of working and a new way of life during the pandemic.”

Recently she enrolled for a Master’s degree in tourism. “Once I complete my studies, I would like to pursue some business ideas in the tourism sector,” says the hobby cook and passionate swimmer. “I would love to continue with my studies until I obtain my doc-

torate, or even a post-doctorate degree.

In this way, I would inspire those who’ll follow me, especially young Catholics.”

She would like to see more young people become members of ACTS. “It would be great to see all young Catholics who come into the universities campuses joining and becoming active in ACTS. It would also be nice to see young people encountering Christ in a meaningful way and putting God first in all that they do.” n For more information on ACTS, including contact details, go to www.sacbcacts.org.za

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LONG WALK TO SAINTHOOD When will Jo’burg couple be saints?

T

HE INQUIRY FOR THE CAUSE for Sainthood of the Servants of God Domitilla and Danny Hyams, founders of the Little Eden homes in Johannesburg, was officially launched in April. With that, the couple’s journey on the path to canonised sainthood has formally begun — though there is no telling how long it might take to get there, or whether that path will even be completed.

So they might never become saints?

We may personally believe that they are saints already, and we may ask anybody who we believe to be in heaven to intercede for us. But the Church reserves the right to officially declare that they are saints with God, worthy of public veneration by the faithful. The Church does that through canonisation.

Who were the Hyams?

The Hyams were the couple who founded Little Eden, a home for intellectually-challenged adults and chil-

dren, in Edenvale, Johannesburg, in 1967. Domitilla, the driving force behind the project, was born in Italy on May 7, 1918, and died on January 18, 2011. Danny, an accountant, would have turned 100 years old in June. He was born on June 1, 1921, in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, and died on December 28, 2012. They were married in 1947, having met in Italy where Danny had been an escaped prisoner-ofwar. (See our series on their lives at www.scross.co.za/tag/hyams-story/) Their cause is quite special. In modern times, only one couple has been canonised: Ss Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of St Thérèse of Lisieux, who were raised to the College of Saints by Pope Francis in 2015. Blesseds Luigi (1880-1951) and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi (1884-1964) were beatified together in 2001.

What’s the current status of their sainthood cause?

Day-Care and short-stay facilities also available.

www.lourdeshouse.org The Southern Cross

(1918-2011)

there was enough evidence to pursue the cause for Domitilla and Danny.

Even that part of the process required the permission of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Once the Vatican gave the go-ahead for the preliminary investigation, the pair could be referred to by the title “Servants of God”.

What does the inquiry phase involve?

The inquiry is the diocesan phase of the process. It will include formal interviews with different witnesses, study of any relevant documents (such as letters and diaries), and gathering of whatever evidence supports — or contradicts — the idea of their “heroic virtue”. That work alone can take several years, because the inquiry, a complicated process that requires a lot of work and paper-

The inquiry is the first official step in the process. But it’s not the beginning.

It was preceded by a preliminary phase which served to determine whether

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Domitilla Rota Hyams

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Archbishop Buti Tlhagale during the opening session for the inquiry phase of the cause for the beatification of Domitilla and Danny Hyams at Christ the King cathedral in Johannesburg in April.

Photos courtesy Little Eden Society

the miracle. If it passes all the required tests, the findings are passed on to the pope who then decides whether the candidate may be beatified. If he gives the go-ahead, the person will be beatified in a ceremony and become known as a “Blessed”.

That is the stage where the sainthood cause for Bl Benedict Daswa currently is (see page 15). Beatification means that the person is now considered worthy of public veneration, with a feast day and the right to be named a patron of churches.

And canonisation?

Danny Hyams (1921-2012)

work, must be thorough and complete.

There should also be signs that people are drawn to prayer by the example of the candidates. Once he is satisfied that nothing stands in the way of advancing the cause, the archbishop will submit his findings to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. That will begin the Roman phase of the cause.

What happens in Rome?

The sainthood congregation will scrutinise the evidence of the candidates’ holiness, work and signs of public devotion.

Once it is satisfied that the cause may go ahead, the congregation will pass it on to the pope. If he decides that the candidates did indeed live a life of heroic virtue, the cause may continue and they will be called “Venerable”. Obviously, if the congregation or the pope finds that the cause has no virtue, it will stall.

And if it goes ahead?

Now the difficult part begins: a miracle attributed to the intercession of the candidates must be approved (unless the candidate is a martyr, like Bl Benedict Daswa, in which case that prerequisite is waived). A miracle is an event, usually a healing, that is spontaneous, scientifically and medically inexplicable, permanent, and believed to be due to the intercession of a Servant of God. When a claimed miracle is reported, it is studied on a diocesan level, and if deemed credible, the evidence is passed on to the Vatican for investigation. The tests for a miracle are stringent, involving scientific and theological investigation, and interviews with the subject of

That requires another miracle for which the same procedure as above applies.

The pope has the right to waive the second miracle in special cases, as Pope Francis did in the case of St John XXIII. If a miracle is approved, the final decision is the pope’s. If he decides to elevate the Blesseds to the canonised sainthood, he will preside over the canonisation. Should the cause for the Hyams reaches that point, they will be known as Saints Domitilla and Danny.

We may hope the day will come! What can I do?

In South Africa we have several causes underway, at various stages. There is the cause of Bl Benedict Tshimangadzo Daswa, of course. That one is the furthest along. Then there are Abbot Francis Pfanner, founder of Mariannhill, and Sr Reinolda May, the visionary of Ngome, who are at different stages of investigation. And, of course, there’s the process for Domitilla and Danny Hyams.

If you are feeling drawn to these yet uncanonised saints, learn about

them and their lives, and try to emulate their example where you can.

Make their lives known to others who may likewise be drawn to prayer by their holy example. That’s the way devotions spread.

If you believe that you have received an extraordinary grace or favour through their intercession, tell the postulator.

And pray for these causes and those who are working to advance them. n For more information and updates on the Hyams cause, see hyamscause.org.za

Have a parish pilgrimage?

Let us arrange your spiritual journey as a community!

Contact Gail at 076 352 3809 info@fowlertours.co.za www.fowlertours.co.za

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BB

EFORE HIS BEATIFICATION IN SEPTEMBER 2015, Benedict Tshimangadzo Daswa’s remains were exhumed and transferred to the church in Nweli, Limpopo, which he had helped to build. The man who was born 75 years ago on what would become South Africa’s Youth Day and slain on the day apartheid died, rests in a church dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption — South Africa’s patron. Even in symbolism, Bl Benedict Daswa represents his country.

Blessed Benedict was born as Tshimangadzo Samuel Daswa on June 16, 1946, as the first-born son of Tshililo Petrus and Thidziambi Ida Daswa. He had three younger brothers and a sister. The family belonged to the Lemba tribe in rural Venda, which follows many Jewish customs. After the death of his father in an accident, Daswa took on the responsibility of caring for his younger siblings. When he joined the workforce, he helped to pay for their education and always encouraged them to study.

During school holidays he stayed with an uncle in Johannesburg where he took part-time work. At this time he became friendly with a young white man who was a Catholic. Several of his peers, who were Shangaan, were also Catholics. Daswa converted to Catholicism at the age of 17. He took the name Benedict after the famous 6th-century saint and in honour of Benedict Risimati, the catechist who had instructed him and others under a fig tree (Risimati, a widower, was ordained to the priesthood in 1970 and died at 64 in 1976). After his confirmation by Abbot Bishop Clemens van Hoek OSB at Sibasa in 1963, Daswa took a particular interest in teaching younger members of his community about Catholicism.

An active lay Catholic

Having studied to be a teacher, he taught first at Tshilivho Primary School at Ha-Dumasi, rising to the position of principal in 1979. He was active in the teachers’ unions, in sport, and in the daily life of his community. As an active layman, Daswa led Sunday services when the priest was not there, and catechised the youth and the elderly. He helped build the church of Our Lady of the Assumption at Ṅweli — the church that now houses his tomb. From his vegetable garden he gave freely to the poor. He was secretary of the headman’s council and he was known for his resolute honesty, truthfulness and integrity.

“He was open to life, to goodness. He was a helper, a people’s helper. The whole village depended on his small garden

for vegetables. Tomatoes, onions.

You name them. Some of the people were even so poor that he would let them have vegetables without money,” Benedict’s eldest son Lufuno, who was 14 when his father died, remembered in an interview with The Southern Cross in 2015.

Benedict married Shadi Eveline Monyai in 1974, solemnising their union in the Church in 1980. They had eight children, the last being born four months after Benedict’s death (Shadi died in 2008).

Daswa raised eyebrows in his community for also doing work that was supposed to be reserved for women, such as

Bl Benedict

collecting wood and washing clothes in the river.

But for him, helping his wife with the children and household chores were part of his marriage commitment. Lufuno Daswa recalled his father as “a natural leader” in his family and the Church. “The whole family was focused because of him. He was a hard worker. He was a visionary. He had future plans. He planned for our family, for our education. It was the 1980s, but he sent us to the best school in what was then the Northern Transvaal region, the Catholic St Brendan’s School. We could go to him. He was friendly. He was everything you could ask for in a father.”

From left: Bl Benedict Daswa with his wife Shadi, who died in 2008; Bl Daswa’s catechist Benedict Risimati, who later became a priest; Daswa at a school braai in Lupepe; in December 1989, just two months before his death; and Daswa’s damaged bakkie after he was killed by a mob.

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The Southern Cross

But Daswa’s faith also put him in conflict with some villagers who resented his rejection of the practice of witchcraft. That conflict was long-brewing, beginning with football. In 1976 Benedict founded a football team called the Mbahe Eleven Computers. After a run of defeats, it was suggested that muti be obtained from a sangoma to help improve the team’s results. Benedict opposed the idea but he was outvoted, so he left the club and formed a new team, the Mbahe Freedom Rebels. That decision set off a long campaign of hatred and jealousy towards Daswa by some people.

Daswa @75

A series of unusual thunderstorms and lighting strikes in the area in November 1989 and again on January 25, 1990, caused a group of local community leaders to seek recourse by hiring a traditional healer to determine the cause of this unusual weather, which they thought to be the work of a “witch”. To pay the healer, they collected R5 from every member of the community. Benedict’s explanation that the weather phenomena were natural and therefore could not to be blamed on witches went unheard. He refused to contribute, saying that the use of a traditional healer constituted witchcraft and therefore was in conflict with his faith. Members of

Benedict Daswa’s eight adult children and his mother Thidziambi Ida Daswa (seated) on the 20th anniversary of his martyrdom in 2010. Mrs Daswa died on December 24, 2019, at 95.

the community took offence at what they perceived as his disrespect for their beliefs and plotted to kill Benedict.

February 2, 1990 — the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple — was a busy day. That Friday, the day on which President FW de Klerk would unban the liberation movements, Daswa was working in his garden before he took his sister-in-law and her sick baby to the doctor in Makwarela.

He then proceeded to Thohoyandou to delivered vegetables from his garden to the parish priest, Fr John Finn MSC. On his way home he gave a lift to a young man with a bag of mealie meal. Three acts of charity on his final day on earth.

Benedict’s martyrdom

Benedict was driving home to Mbahe when at 19:30 a group of men blocked the road with fig tree logs. When Benedict got out of his car to clear the wood, he was set upon by the mob, beaten and stoned. Bleeding, he ran away across the Eleven Computers’ football field, eventually finding shelter in the kitchen of a rondavel. But when the mob arrived, they threatened the woman at the building with death if she did not reveal Daswa’s hiding place. Two boys pulled Benedict out of the rondavel. Benedict hugged one of them and pleaded for his life. As a man approached with a raised knobkerrie to deliver the fatal blow, Benedict prayed: “God, into your hands, receive my spirit.” The assailants then

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poured boiling water onto his head, to make sure their victim was dead.

Benedict’s brother Thanyani was the first family member to arrive where his body was. When their mother saw what had been done to her son, she fainted. On the days leading up to Benedict’s funeral, Fr Finn, Holy Rosary Sisters and the Catholic community came to the Daswa home every evening to pray with the family.

The priest later recalled an atmosphere of fear, tension and hostility in the village. “I have a very distinct memory that it was the first and only time that I had ever sensed evil,” he would recall.

The killers were never convicted due to lack of evidence. Today, some of the killers still come to the Daswas to receive fruit and vegetables.

Lufuno Daswa recalled his final conversation with his father: “I was going into the second year of secondary The Southern Cross reports on the formal opening of Daswa’s cause in its July 22, 2009 school. He drove me to St Brendan’s. We issue; Bishop João Rodrigues of Tzaneen holds up the decree of beatification in 2015. chatted for a long time. He was teaching me some words in Sepedi, about how to greet my mother. We over a week before his passing.”

Benedict’s funeral Mass was on February 10, the day beprayed and then we hugged. Then he closed the car door and fore the release from jail of Nelson Mandela, in the Nweli I closed mine, and he drove off. I think it was January 22, just church Daswa had helped to build. It was celebrated by Fr Finn, assisted by Frs Philemon Thobela, Doney McCarthy MSC, Jimmy Stubbs MSC, Fr Terence Mooney MSC and Deacon Jonas Letlalo. All clergy wore red vestments in acknowledgment of their belief that Benedict had died a martyr’s death for his faith.

Catholic At first, devotion to Daswa grew locally, until some years Institute of later Bishop Hugh Slattery of Tzaneen became aware of it. The Education bishop, who would write a book on the life of Benedict Daswa, opened an inquiry into the martyr’s death in 2005 and completed it in 2009, when it was sent to the Vatican. In October 2014 the theologian consultors of the Congregation for Sainthood Causes unanimously recommended that Daswa be declared a martyr.

Benedict Daswa was beatified on September 13, 2015 by Cardinal Angelo Amato, on behalf of Pope Francis. Bishop Slattery’s successor, Bishop João Rodrigues, presented the decree of beatification to the crowd of 30 000 people, which included then-Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. Daswa’s feast day is on February 1.

Called in faith

to serve

Catholic schools and skills centres

Educating today tomorrow for the common good.

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The Southern Cross

Benedict Daswa’s funeral on February 10, 1990, celebrated by Fr John Finn MSC (centre), assisted by Frs Doney McCarthy MSC, Deacon Jonas Letlalo, Fr Philemon Thobela, Fr Jimmy Stubbs MSC and (not pictured) Fr Terence Mooney MSC.

The appeal of Bl Daswa

Interview with Daswa cause promoter Sr Tshifhiwa Munzhedzi OP

S

ISTER TSHIFHIWA MUNZHEDZI serves as the promoter for the cause for the canonisation of Bl Benedict Tshimangadzo Daswa.

In an interview, the Dominican Sister tells GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER about the cause and about Bl Daswa, who would have turned 75 on June 16.

It’s quite remarkable that Benedict Daswa was born on June 16, a date that would loom large in the struggle against apartheid, and was martyred on February 2, 1990, the day FW de Klerk unbanned the liberation movements. Was Daswa political at all?

I personally do not know if he was or not. But I would tend to believe he was on the side of justice and the poor. My reason for saying this is that people of deep faith, even though they will say they are not political, tend to get into trouble with the powers that be because of their behaviour and asking questions like, “Why are we poor?”.

Their concern to alleviate all that keeps people in bondage makes them come into contact with political powers mostly in ways that could cause some of them persecution or even death.

For us, as Catholics, I think February 2 has a greater significance than its political history in that it is the feast of the Presentation of Our Lord. Very interesting that as Jesus was presented to God in the Temple, Daswa’s life was presented to God his creator. What a day to be called to eternal life.

Daswa died at the age of 43. How do you think his life would have proceeded had he lived?

I wouldn’t like to speculate. But I would like to believe that he would have continued to grow in his faith. But I cannot guarantee it. I am also aware that people do lose their original faith. In his case, I am grateful that he died still a Christian. In his short Christian life of

just over 25 years after his baptism, he remained faithful and steadfast, a gift that many of us wish for — to die as believers not just in word but also in deed.

Had he not been martyred, Daswa would have been one of the many unknown saints of the Church. Do you think that is one of the great attractions people have towards Daswa, that he was an ordinary person like any of us who lived his faith, rather than being a man who did extraordinary things?

There are a few things that make Bl Daswa attractive to people. Firstly, as a family man. The Church has many saints, but most of them are religious. Bl Daswa was an ordinary family man, married with children, and working like

Sr Tshifhiwa Munzhedzi, the promoter of the canonisation cause of Bl Daswa.

and life skills. He was prepared to support the education of his pupils even when it was against the will of parents who didn’t know better. In educating the children he helped educate the parents also.

Thirdly, as a convert. Like the early Christians, his conversion to Christianity was complete. He accepted God and lived his life dedicated to the building of that relationship without being shy or ashamed to acknowledge it in public.

Fourthly, as a simple person.

Even though Bl Daswa was educated, there is a certain simplicity about this man. I think this characteristic makes him attractive to people. It is as if even I can become what he was. I think it is in that simplicity that Christ could find a home and dwell there.

And fifthly, his generosity.

Daswa was generous and yet he did not seem to be one who could be fooled easily. He shared what he had with those who did not have, but he also expected the person to grow in the process and uplift themselves by following his example. He was very much aware that an empty stomach cannot fulfil its work as it should. Thus, he had feeding schemes for his pupils and gave fruit and vegetables from his own garden to neighbours in need.

Daswa was beatified in 2015. As a martyr, he didn’t need a miracle to reach that stage of the process. But for canonisation, a miracle attributed to his intercession is necessary. What kind of miracles qualify?

A miracle should be anything that is not explicable by human understanding or behaviour. Anything that would

‘Daswa was educated, but there is an attractive simplicity about him’ any family person would do to support their family. On the other hand, his process of canonisation shows that saints are ordinary people who do ordinary things. It is how they do these daily activities that make them different from many people. Each of their actions is influenced by their belief in God and constantly connects with their creator. This is what Bl Daswa did.

Secondly, as an educator. Bl Daswa fulfilled his job not just by focusing on the results in the classroom. He saw his pupils as human beings who need to be guided in all aspects of life. This he did, and thus he taught them responsibility

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involve his intercession and no human being would have been able to do it on their own, and neither they themselves nor science can explain it. A healing, for example, should not follow the usual process of recovery, but be extraordinary and people can see the transformation of the person. And any miracle should be permanent. I mean, if God provides a stream of water where there was no river, this river should continue to flow infinitely. Because it is of God, it will be permanent. So it is with the healing: it should be permanent.

That is why the Church advises waiting for five years or more to see if the condition reverts to its original state or not. If it does revert, then it cannot be accepted as a miracle, according to the Church.

Have you had credible reports of such extraordinary healings attributed to the intercession of Bl Daswa?

People have shared the stories of the favours or graces they’ve received from God when they prayed asking Bl Daswa to intercede for them. The favours continue to happen. I do believe that many people have received them, but only a few have sent us what has happened in their situation. We are grateful to each one of them who has shared their stories with us.

Is the Daswa family involved in the sainthood cause?

The answer is a “Yes” and “No”. Daswa came from a family which is still very much alive, as it is not so long since he died. So we do need to keep in touch with the family, out of respect for them and the fact that Daswa was a member of the family, not an island. They are interested in their child, brother, parent and relative. They are always there for any event that the Church organises. They are willing to share information concerning Daswa where we need them. At the same time, there are things that are beyond them because it is really a Catholic Church action and part of the Catholic Church’s faith which not every member of the family will understand.

The whole idea of getting Daswa canonised is a Church thing, it is initiated by the Church and continues to be driven by the Church’s beliefs. That is why right from the beginning, the Church made it clear that what we are doing is not to try and resurrect the criminal case. We are looking at who this man was, how he led his Christian life, how he influenced people around him because of his faith, what made him

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Catholic community. There are families, communities, parishes and dioceses which really promote him at all levels and times. These people are the key to the cause, because without them he will not be known.

The greatest support is prayer. There is also financial support which people give. Their generosity cannot be underestimated. People at every level are Photo: Judy Stockill there all the way, praying and giving contributions and their time, so that Bl Some of the 30 000 people at the 2015 Daswa may become the canonised saint beatification of Benedict Daswa. we need, and that we have a place we unique in his behaviour, and so on. can visit for prayers of intercession.

The Church is also aware there are But more can always be done. I many people who could have been look at it in this way: Are we, as Chriscanonised, but we only focus on the tians, doing enough to support the few who act as models and examples message of Christ? I would say “No”, for all of us. In that sense, the canoni- because until all of creation believes sation cause is really a Church action, and the behaviour of humanity shows not a family-driven one. that we have converted and the world is filled with the peace and joy of Christ, there is still work to be done. It is the same with the promotion of this man. As Church, we cannot rest on our laurels and say we have done enough — more can still be done to support this cause.

Even if he gets canonised one Do you think Daswa is well-known day, it will not be the end — the mesenough in South Africa, and beyond? sage of his life needs to continue to be No, there is still a great need to make spread among the people of God. him known. I do hope that more of his Canonisation is the beginning of anlife will be known, so that we can con- other step and process. tinue asking him to intercede for us in What more can be done to make the this present time when many of us are man and the cause better known? confused and lost, faced with the Write about him for different groups of events and behaviours of humanity to- people: adults, youth, children, believwards one another and God’s creation ers and non-believers, Christians and which are contrary to who we are or non-Christians. At the moment the created for. Evil exists. We need saints two books we have about Bl Daswa are who can help us give names to it be- aimed at adults. We need more to be cause evil takes shape in different ways. written about the different aspects of That is why it is important to make this man’s life.

Daswa more and more known.

Today society uses social media.

Is the Church in South Africa, on all We need his story appearing in many levels, doing enough to support the social media so that he is constantly Daswa cause? touching people, even when they do The Church is doing all it can to pro- not expect it. Who knows who will be mote the cause, from the bishops’ con- touched? ference to the grassroots of the Pilgrimages are also important.

Visiting where his remains are [in the church of the Assumption in Nweli, near Thohoyandou] is the most important thing for each of us. There is nothing greater than being physically present in the place where he is continuing to intercede for us, even when we do not ask him to pray for us.

We also need plays, dramas, productions and any means possible to make his story known. n For more information on Bl Daswa and the cause for his canonisation, visit benedictdaswa.org.za The tomb of Bl Benedict Tshimangadzo Daswa in the

The Southern Cross

‘Even if Daswa gets canonised one day, it will not be the end’

church of the Assumption in nweli, near Thohoyandou.

SaintS of the Month: St CHARLES LWANGA & CO

Martyrs of Africa’s first big persecution In the 1880s, a king in what is now Uganda launched a persecution of Christians.

GüntheR SImmeRmacheR tells the story of St Charles Lwanga, St Kizito and companions.

T

HE CATHOLIC FAITH CAME TO Uganda in 1879 when the Missionaries of Africa of Archbishop (later Cardinal) Charles Lavigerie of Algiers came to evangelise the people there. Initially the missionaries, known as the White Fathers on account of their white robes, were warmly welcomed by Kabaka (or King) Muteesa of Buganda, the central and southern part of modern Uganda. They made many converts, including a number of young pages in the royal court. Among them was Mukasa Balikuddembe, a highranking official of the royal court, who took the Christian name Joseph.

Things changed in 1884, when the old king died and his 16-year-old son, Mwanga II, succeeded him. History paints Mwanga as a thoroughly nasty piece of work: morally corrupt and dissolute, given to pederasty with boys.

Some of that reputation may be due to colonial propaganda, but he doubtless was a brutal man and sexual predator.

The old king had been a wily diplomat who played off the colonialists against one another by allowing Christian denominations, representing different European interests, to evangelise among his people. But Mwanga saw missionaries as a threat to his rule, and therefore needing to be neutralised. Within months of becoming king, Mwanga had several Christians killed, including the Anglican Archbishop James Hannington, the first bishop of his denomination in East Africa. Mwanga expelled Christians and ordered that converts to Christianity renounce their faith.

Yet in the midst of all that danger, baptisms continued. On November 15, 1885, just over two weeks after the massacre of Harrington and his caravan, Mwanga executed Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe — his majordomo (or senior advisor) who had be-

St Charles Lwanga at a glance

Also known as: Kaloli Lwanga Born: January 1, 1860 in the Kingdom of Buganda Died: June 3, 1886 (aged 26) in Namugongo, Kingdom of Buganda Beatified: 1920, with companions Canonised: 1964, with companions Feast: June 3 Patronages: African Catholic Youth Action, converts, torture victims

come a Catholic in 1882 — for condemning the murder of the archbishop and protecting the court’s pages from the king’s sexual advances. As his successor, Mwanga named the 25-year-old head of the pages: Charles Lwanga. And that same evening Lwanga (known in Luganda as Kaloli) was among those baptised by Père Giraud, a White Father. More than a hundred catechumens were baptised in the days after Mukasa’s beheading.

Protection from rape

Meanwhile Lwanga did all he could to protect his charges from Mwanga’s sexual predation. The king was not a homosexual (the 17 wives he accumulated suggests a pansexual nature), but he was a man who enjoyed asserting his power.

And when the pages who had converted to Christianity rejected the king’s sexual advances, protected by Lwanga (as they had been under Mukasa), the king regarded that as rebellious disobedience — as he did the adherence to Christianity among his subjects.

St Charles Lwanga baptises St Kizito.

Stained glass at Munyonyo Martyrs Shrine.

Things came to a head on May 25, 1886, just over half a year after Lwanga’s baptism. Mwanga ordered a general assembly at Munyonyo, where he condemned two pages to death for having received catechism. The king himself executed the boys’ catechist, Denis Seboggwawo, by driving a spear into his throat. This was the beginning of a purge of the court’s Christians, whom Mwanga regarded as agents of the colonialists.

Lwanga saw what was coming: the next morning he clandestinely baptised those pages who were still catechumens, including the youngest of them, 13year-old Kizito. Later that day, all present at the assembly were interrogated about their Christianity, Catholics and Anglicans alike. All Christians were given an opportunity to renounce their faith. Led by Lwanga, they all asserted their fidelity to Christ: “Till death!”

Mwanga replied: “Let them be put to death!”

The condemned were then marched for two days to Namugongo, the place of their eventual execution. On the way, three prisoners — Pontian Ngondwe, Athanasius Bazzekuketta, and Gonzaga Gonza — were killed by the guards. Another, Matthias Kalemba, told the guards: “God will rescue me. But you will not see how he does it, because he will take my soul and leave you only my body.”

The guards mutilated him and left him to die on the side of the road.

The day of the executions was June 3 — which that year happened to be the feast of the Ascension. As a senior member of the court, Lwanga was taken away for a private execution by fire. First they charred his feet and offered to let him live if he would renounced his faith. He declined, telling the Guardian of the Sacred Flame: The Southern Cross

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St Charles Lwanga & Companions The

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Image courtesy of Ronald St. Martin (innerwindows.net)

A Timeline of St CHarles Lwanga

1860

eral royal assembly at munyonyo on may 26. Before the sentence is Born on January 1 in the Kingdom passed, he baptises four catechuof Buganda. mens, including St Kizito. executed by burning at the stake 1870s-1886 on June 3 before his companions Serves at the court of Kings muteesa are put to death, also by fire.

I and mwanga II of Buganda.

1884

1920

1885

1964

the anti-christian mwanga II succeeds the tolerant King muteesa.

Is baptised into the catholic faith by missionaries of africa Father Giraud on november 15, after mwanga executes his chief advisor Joseph mukasa Balikuddembe, a catholic convert. mwanga appoints Lwanga, till then chief of the royal pages, to succeed Balikuddembe as major-domo (or senior advisor).

1884

Is condemned to death alongside several other christians for refusing to renounce his faith at a gen-

Beatified alongside his companions

by Pope Benedict XV.

canonised on October 18 alongside his companions by Pope Paul VI.

1968

the basilica of the Uganda martyrs, built on the spot of their death at namugongo, is completed. the shrine is consecrated in 1975.

2016

the munyonyo martyrs’ shrine, a basilica built at the place of the martyrs’ condemnation, is completed and consecrated the following year.

Left: Monument at the shrine at Munyonyo of the uganda martyrs and their persecutors walking towards namugongo, erected on the spot where they started their death march on May 26, 1886.

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Photos: Common Licence/Wikimedia

Right: The shrine at namugongo in kampala, which covers the spot where St Charles Lwanga and his companions were burnt to death.

“You are burning me, but it’s as if you are pouring water on me. Please, repent and become a Christian, like me!”

Contemporary image As the flames enof King Mwanga gulfed him, Lwanga kept praying. As the flames reached his chest, he cried out, “Katonda” (“My God”), and died.

After Lwanga’s death, 12 Catholic and nine Anglican boys and men were bound and wrapped in reed mats before they were set alight on a pyre. They were praying and singing hymns until they died, echoing the cheerful death of the martyrs of the early Church. Meanwhile, the Catholic Mbaga Tuzinde was beaten to death for refusing to renounce Christianity, and his body was thrown into the fire. The man who gave the order was the chief executioner — his own father.

The execution of the Christian members of the royal court set off a persecution that saw the torture and execution of more than 100 Catholics and Protestants at Namugongo.

Among them was a judge, Matthias Murumbu, and a chief, Andrew Kagwa of Kigowa. The final execution was on January 22, 1887.

Martyrs are canonised

Charles Lwanga, his companions and the other Catholic martyrs were beatified in 1920

by Pope Benedict XV and canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1964, who five years later became the first reigning pope to visit sub-Saharan Africa when he toured Uganda. Their feast day is June 3.

St Charles Lwanga is the patron saint of African Catholic Youth Action, as well as of converts and torture victims. Joseph Mukasa, the first of the Martyrs of Uganda, is a patron saint of politicians and chiefs, and St Kizito of children and primary schools.

The Martyrs of Uganda are commemorated at shrines in Namugongo, the site of their execution, and at Munyonyo, where Mwanga condemned the martyrs to death and St Charles baptised Ss Kizito, Mbaga, Gyavira and Muggaga. In normal years, about half a million faithful come to these shrines, both in what is now the Ugandan capital of Kampala, on the martyrs’ feast.

And how did things end for the persecutor Mwanga? With the help of the British, Mwanga was overthrown by his brother in 1888. But not long after, he negotiated a deal which saw him surrendering the kingdom to British control in return for reclaiming his title. Two failed attacks on the British saw him deposed in 1897 and exiled to the Seychelles.

There is one final twist in the story: in exile, Mwanga became a Christian himself!

He converted to the Anglican Church, taking the name Daniel. He died at the age of about 34 in 1903.

Spend some time with the Lord

What to do in Adoration

W

E ADORE THE BODY and Blood of Christ publicly at Mass, but in many churches we have the opportunity to spend extended time in prayerful silence with the Lord — the consecrated host exposed in a monstrance. The first reference to the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament may be found in a life of St Basil, who died in 379 AD. In his book In the Presence of Our Lord, the late Fr Benedict Groeschel pointed out that there are “four kinds of prayer most appropriate in the presence of the Eucharist, namely adoration and praise, thanksgiving, repentance and trusting intercession”.

Accordingly, here are suggestions for what to do during private Eucharistic adoration. (The first four are essential for each visit; the others are optional but recommended.)

Photo: Josh Applegate

On June 6 we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi and in September the International Eucharistic Congress will be held in Hungary. Here MICHAEL OGUNU guides us in the private adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

u Recite the “Jesus Prayer”

Say “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner” repeatedly as you quiet your heart and mind.

v Ask for forgiveness and

intercede for others Think of those who have hurt you and request a special blessing for them. Ask God to forgive you for all the times you have neglected or hurt someone else.

Bring before the Blessed Sacrament all those who have asked you to pray for them. Ask the Lord to address their concerns.

pray whenever they were before the Blessed Sacrament: “I adore You, O Christ, present here and in all the churches of the world, for by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

{ Pray the Rosary

Pray the Rosary, meditating on the mysteries.

presence of God Think of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament as coming to see your best friend.

Sit quietly and enjoy being in each other’s company. Instead of talking to the Lord throughout the visit, spend time in mental silence, and try to listen to what he wants to tell you.

y Pray the psalms or the Liturgy of the Hours Whether you are praising, giving thanks, asking for forgiveness, or seeking an answer, you’ll find an appropriate psalm.

The ancient prayer of the Church called the Liturgy of the Hours is an excellent way of praying through the Book of Psalms throughout the year.

| Read the life of a saint and pray with him or her Most holy men and women have had a great devotion to Our Lord in the Eucharist. Thérèse of Lisieux, Catherine of Siena, Francis of Assisi, Margaret Mary Alacoque, Thomas Aquinas, Alphonsus Liguori, Peter Julian Eymard, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa of Kolkata and Catherine de Hueck Doherty are just a few. Read about them and pray their prayers before the Blessed Sacrament.

and adore him Speak to Jesus, in awareness that you are in his presence, and tell him all that comes to your mind. Listen for his response. Pray the prayer which St Francis of Assisi instructed his brothers to

Choose a passage from the Bible. Read the words and ask God to let the passage speak to you. Pay special attention to anything that strikes you and ask God what he wishes you to draw from that message.

Someone once said to St Teresa of Avila: “If only I had lived at the time of Jesus. If only I had seen Jesus. If only I had talked with Jesus.” St Teresa responded: “But do we not have in the Eucharist the living, true and real Jesus present before us? Why look for more?”

w Sit quietly and just “be” in the

x Pour out your heart to Christ

z Meditate using Scripture

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In our cluttered lives, what do we really need?

FR OSKaR WeRmteR SJ reflects on the ‘once and for all’ moments we have been given in life to make great changes.

‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing’ (Lk 10:41–42).

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UR LIVES CONSIST OF “MANY things” such as those which worried Martha. What are those “many things” doing to us? They do not create unity and do not make us one. They distract us. They divide us, too, and cause antagonism. When can we focus on “only one thing”? We do not find our humanity in those “many things”. We find it in the encounter between “Me” and “You”.

Here we discover love and the infinite value of every person. In other words: we discover that we are lovable, that we long for love and for being loved. It is now that we must decide whom to love and to whom we give ourselves. We accept freedom and mutual responsibility for one another.

What will be my way of life?

Where is the Spirit leading me? Who is The Southern Cross

calling me? Which road am I to walk?

What work will the Creator and Saviour give me? Where is he employing me? Who are my friends with whom I share this life?

Do we want to walk the same road? Have I made my choice? What is it grounded in? Love, land, or language and culture? Am I capable of making a choice “once and for all”, committing myself for life, accepting my brothers and sisters for good? What has the Lord and Creator created me for, what gifts has he poured into my lap? How can I best serve my friends and companions, family and community? Colleagues and co-workers?

I myself decide on changes and I live with them. I am committed to them. I am creating a new reality for myself. What I am is based deeply in my gifts and talents, in my personal history, in past and present. I believe in them and accept myself once and

for all, just as my Lord and Creator has formed and moulded me, physically and spiritually, and is accepting me as such.

What road to take?

We are born free. Freedom enables us to be ourselves. Only in freedom can we become what the Creator has in store for us. Only in freedom can we shape and mould who we want to be “once and for all”. It is an act of creation. A fruit of freedom. As far as I am concerned, it was and is a choice “once and for all”.

This life that we live, this road that we walk, this pilgrimage that we hope will take us back to where we come from, is a gift for us to make fruitful. It is meant to take us back to our Lord and Creator, to bring us home to our Redeemer and Saviour, “once and for all”.

“We have been consecrated

through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). We have reached our destination. There is no going back. “This he did once for all, when he offered himself” (Hebrews 7:27). Jesus took this decisive step for us. And we have joined him in this final and irrevocable self-giving. We now belong to God totally. No one can guide us along this path, except the one who has walked this road, the Way of the Cross, before us.

A moment in eternity

The Word of God, at home in the Church, is the Light that shines on our path. Christ is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14: 6). He gives us the faith in the Father, his Father and our Father. In faith we receive new life, the life of baptism which we receive “once and for all”. This is the one-time chance we are being given.

There is no going back once we have received it.

This “sacramental” moment makes all the difference for us in our lives. This is the one chance we must not miss. It is a gift of grace. “All [of

What I am is based in my gifts and talents, in past and present you] who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27). And he remains with us for good.

Such momentous times are given to us in a variety of ways. We must not miss such moments in time, which go well beyond our present time. They are a participation in God’s time. Eternity is not “time everlasting”, without limit. It is a moment of total presence, it is the now of our entire being, past, present and future assembled in the one person that is me. A Shona proverb says: “What you have obtained, hold on to it. The Spirit does not give twice.”

The Triune God takes us out of our sole concern with ourselves. Leaving ourselves behind, we are to surrender to him and his love by loving his brothers and sisters. This is the presence of God deep down in our hearts

which we long for, where we yearn to live. We do not find him just for our enjoyment and pleasure. The Spirit is on a mission which he shares with us. When he calls we are marked for life. He is the God of action. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:18–19).

He sends us once and for all, at the favoured time — the kairos moment. Paul brought to us the notion of a moment of grace in time, and yet beyond time, kairos.

This is our God. He comes in his own good time and expects us to be ready for his coming and his presence.

Maybe the Covid-19 pandemic is not just a catastrophe (it was and still is that, too!), but, like the defeat of the apartheid system, a kairos, a chance for conversion and transformation, for greater love and compassion! (2 Corinthians 6:2). His Presence is the “one thing needed”. n Fr Oskar Wermter SJ writes from Harare.

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Letters

Write to us

We welcome your letters, while reserving the right to edit them.

We may publish your letters on our website. Please include a postal address (not for publication). Letters should be no longer than 350 words. Pseudonyms are acceptable only under special circumstances at the Editor’s discretion. Send your letters to editor@scross.co.za Opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in Letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication or those of the Catholic hierarchy.

Much to like about this magazine

Where tabernacles should be in church

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F

AM WRITING TO CONGRATULATE you on your wonderful magazine. I am a proud reader. It was sad not to have received The Southern Cross newspaper during lockdown; it was as if something was missing. And it was even more sad losing our weekly newspaper permanently — but by God’s grace, mercy and divine providence, The Southern Cross is still alive. You did a magnificent job. Praise the Lord. It is a treat to read our magazine; my compliments to you all.

I love the history pieces and the Q&A section. The “Saint of the Month” articles and pictures are amazing. My bedroom wall is now adorned with the posters of these monthly saints. It’s so nice to learn and know more about our wonderful history, Church and saints.

All the prayers in the “Prayer Corner” are so useful and valuable.

As someone who enjoys cooking, I love Grazia Barletta’s “Cooking with Saints” column, and the various puzzles are also very nice.

I am looking forward to another 100 years of The Southern Cross magazine. I can’t wait to see how you build more and more on this truly amazing legacy with new ideas.

May God be with you, protect you and guide you, granting you strength, wisdom, hope, health, peace and guidance.

Jack Swart, Oudtshoorn

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ATHER THOMAS PLASTOW SJ IN his Q&A response (April 2021) gives an interesting excursus on the development of the history of the tabernacle in our churches, but it seems to me that he did not fully answer the question of the writer: where the tabernacle should be situated.

Pope Benedict XVI answered that question timeously and beautifully in 2007 in his exhortation on the Holy Eucharist, Sacramentum caritatis, which followed the World Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. Unfortunately, he wrote not before many churches and cathedrals were ruinously vandalised by overenthusiastic liturgical reformers, here in South Africa and elsewhere. One only has to take Emmanuel cathedral in Durban as a sad example.

The faithful deserve the sort of clarity and prudence which Pope Benedict provided in his norms: the tabernacle ought to be seen clearly upon entry into the church, near or in the sanctuary. In churches where the tabernacle was already installed on a high altar, it should be left there; and sight of it should not be impeded by a chair or other furnishings.

As US Archbishop Fulton Sheen observed of some of the churches where he would desire to visit Our Blessed Lord: “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.”

Fr Sean Collins CSsR, Cape Town

Can we judge?

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LTHOUGH POPE FRANCIS claimed everlasting fame with his statement a few years ago, “Who am I to judge?”, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has finally and formally clarified its stance on blessings of gay marriage or unions. Unfortunately, it contains many judgmental statements, such as “intrinsically disordered” and “God does not bless sin”. Should we Catholic Christians rather not be following the example of Jesus, who stated quite clearly: “Judge not, lest you be judged”?

We Catholics understand why our priests take the vow of celibacy.

However, if one is not a Catholic and has a different perspective, this particular prerequisite for the priesthood may also be viewed as being unusual or even “disordered”.

Evolution is the method of nature which does not concern itself with morality but only with survival and the perpetuation of systems and species. It is only we humans who are concerned with morality.

People who speak on behalf of God should learn from the way of evolution, which stores information in the genetic code contained in our DNA and is passed from one generation to the next. In other words, life is a learning process, and the more we know, the greater the chances are that we’ll hesitate to criticise others. It would have been more Christian for the CDF to have simply said: “We are an organisation that promotes heterosexual relationships.” This the Catholic Church is, and is entitled to be.

Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg

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Church, football and GOATS

Beacon of light

T

HE SOUTHERN CROSS MAGAZINE is a beacon of light in many and all respects. The articles are both informative and enlightening in aspects of general, national and parochial interest.

The publication of an article such as “A shameful chapter for a Church and a state” (March 2021, on the treatment of unwed mothers in Ireland) indicates the courage of an editorship which also dares to print matters that sadden us and are a poor reflection of a compassionate community of believers. To quote the article’s author, Sydney Duval, “The Church evidently was not a beacon of compassion” in those years.

Challenging stories such as this must indeed be heard.

Kay Temple, Pietermaritzburg A shameful chapter for a Church and a state The complicity of Ireland’s society, state and Catholic Church in the shameful treatment of young unmarried mothers over decades has been revealed in a recent report by a commission of inquiry.

SYDNEY DUVAL sums up what happened and how Church leaders responded.

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VEN WEEKS AFTER THEY WERE internationally televised, the revelations of what Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin described as “a dark, difficult and shameful chapter of Irish history” of the treatment young mothers received in homes run by Catholic nuns and the Irish State, remain a haunting.

The judicial inquiry into motherand-baby homes, headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, was set up in 2015 following extensive worldwide media coverage of an article by a local amateur historian. Catherine Corless had documented the deaths of 796 babies and toddlers at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, during its decades of operation.

Investigations have supported Corless’ findings, except her highly-publicised contention that babies had been disposed of in septic tanks.

The commission was tasked to investigate the records and practices from 1922-98 at 18 homes — some of them government institutions and a few run by Protestant organisations — where unwed women, including teenagers, were sent to deliver their babies in often harsh and traumatic circumstances. What we learnt was heartbreaking — and the Church has acknowledged that.

This was a time when parents told daughters not to come home unless they wore a wedding ring, and when some priests doubled as enforcers to ensure that no parish community would suffer “the shame” of an unmarried mother and illegitimate child in their midst.

The commission found that “Ireland was a cold, harsh environment for

10

many, probably the majority, of its residents during the earlier half of the period under remit” — and “especially cold and harsh for women” in what it called a “stifling, oppressive and brutally misogynistic culture”.

Lack of compassion

It noted that the responsibility for the “harsh treatment” of unmarried mothers “rests mainly with the fathers of their children and their own immediate families”. But that, it added, “was supported by, contributed to, and condoned by, the institutions of the State and the churches”. At least the Catholic Church offered a refuge “when the families provided no refuge at all”, yet too often it was a harsh refuge. The Church evidently was not a beacon of compassion.

Established in the 19th and 20th centuries, the institutions housed women and girls who became pregnant outside marriage. Some 56 000 unmar-

This was a time when parents told daughters not to come home without a wedding ring ried mothers and 57 000 children were in the 18 homes investigated by the commission. Some were the victims of rape and incestuous abuse.

It got worse. The homes — whether run by the State or Church — had an “appalling level of infant mortality”. It detailed that some 9 000 children — one in seven of those born in the institutions under investigation — had died in the homes between 1922 and 1998.

The Southern Cross

That’s double the infant mortality rate in the general population! During the 1930s and ‘40s, over 40% of “illegitimate” children died before their first birthday in mother and baby homes.

The report said the most commonly recorded causes of death among the infants were congenital debilities, infectious diseases and malnutrition.

Many children born in the homes were adopted, a large number by families outside Ireland, or taken to orphanages run by Catholic nuns — not always with the consent of the mothers. The commission could neither prove nor disprove allegations of large sums of money being given to religious orders and agencies which arranged foreign adoptions.

home. We failed to respect the inherent dignity of the women and children who came to the home. We failed to offer them the compassion that they so badly needed. We were part of the system in which they suffered hardship, loneliness and terrible hurt. We acknowledge in particular that infants and children who died at the home were buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way. For all that, we are deeply sorry.”

But it was President Michael D Higgins who presented a challenging response: “The interaction of institutions that stands behind what was an abuse of women and infants has to be considered in terms of how those insti-

tutions came to be; the assumptions on which they were based and operated; the responsibility not accepted by fathers; the exclusion of family members on the basis of perceived threats to the status of families; the abuse of spiritual and religious belief through what was disguised as a pastoral relationship, but reflected an authoritarian fundamentalism; the collusion of those in roles of responsibility in the local and central State who were given details, including the death in shocking numbers of infants, but who put the cloak of institutional secrecy over the rights of the most vulnerable of citizens.”

He noted that the state “is charged

with safeguarding the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens, and it is the state that must bear primary responsibility for failing to provide appropriate supports for these tens of thousands of young women and their children”.

This is undoubtedly true. But he also noted that Ireland, as a newly-independent state in the 1920s, “was captured by a judgmental, authoritarian version of Church/State relations that sought to be the sole and ultimate arbiter of morality”. The fallout from that will be a challenge to the Church in Ireland for many years to come.

The commission has made 53 recommendations, including compensation and memorialisation.

Church apologies

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, issued an unreserved apology, noting that the Church was part of a culture in which “people were frequently stigmatised, judged and rejected”.

He said: “For that, and for the long-lasting hurt and emotional distress that has resulted, I unreservedly apologise to the survivors and to all those who are personally impacted by the realities it uncovers. I believe the Church must continue to acknowledge before the Lord, and before others, its part in sustaining what the report describes as a ‘harsh… cold and uncaring atmosphere’.”

The Sisters of Bon Secours ran St Mary’s home in Tuam from 1925-61. Sr Eileen O’Connor, the current area leader of the congregation, acknowledged that the Sisters “did not live up to our Christianity when running the

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Counting the days

I

N HIS Q&A ARTICLE IN YOUR March issue, Fr Kenneth Doyle writes that Sundays count as part of Lent. But Sundays clearly are not part of Lent, as far as I was taught both at Catholic schools and by Oblate priests, and many times thereafter. This is the answer to the actual question that was asked: no Sundays are included.

Lent has only 40 I days, which is a significant number used in the Bible several times, T for example 40 days from Easter Sunday until the Thursday of the Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven, and Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert between his baptism in the Jordan and his ministry.

A simple sum of arithmetic gives the answer of 40 days. The week of Ash Wednesday to Saturday is four days.

The six weeks of Lent from Mondays to Saturdays have six days each giving 36 days. Excluding Sundays! This total now gives us 40 days of Lent.

Frans van Neerijnen, Johannesburg Is Sunday a day-off from Lent?

Q. As a life-long Catholic, I was surprised when I was told that we may take a break from our Lenten sacrifice on Sundays, because Sundays are not counted as days of Lent. Is that true?

WILL ANSWER THE SECOND PART OF your question first, because that’s the easier one: Do Sundays count as part of Lent? The clear answer is: Yes, they do. In the liturgical books of the Church, the season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends just before the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on the evening of Holy Thursday. In the Roman Missal, for example, February 21 was designated as the “First Sunday of Lent” in 2021.

Now, for the more complicated part: If you’re fasting from, say, sweets for Lent, may you eat it on Sundays?

The answer is: It’s your own call. Each of us is required in a general way to do penance, but the particular manner is a personal choice. There’s no law involved or question of sinfulness — you’re just doing something nice for

Your Questions answered

Do you have questions about our faith?

Send them with your name and location to: editor@scross.co.za Subject line: Q&A

God, in return for the sacrifice Jesus made for us.

Now, it is true that the Church has always viewed Sunday as a day of celebration in remembrance of the Resur-

rection, a kind of “little Easter”, and has never required fasting on Sundays — so I suppose there’s some warrant, when you’ve adopted a Lenten penance, for “taking Sundays off”.

But I think it’s probably better to continue the practice throughout the whole Lenten season, Sundays included; if I gave up sweets for Lent but ate it on each of the six Sundays, that doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice.

That reminds me that a couple of years ago at a school Mass on Ash Wednesday, I asked the kids what they were giving up for Lent. One little boy raised his hand and said: “Hitting my sister.” I hope that he didn’t take Sundays off!

(Fr Kenneth Doyle)

Was St Joseph chaste?

Q. Having read your article about the Holy Family (December 2020), I would like to know whether St Joseph was celibate during his marriage to Mary. Was the marriage never consummated?

HE CATHOLIC CHURCH HOLDS that the marriage between Mary and Joseph was chaste and their marriage not consummated. Mary therefore was a life-long virgin.

Most Protestants do not believe in Mary’s perpetual virginity, so they may say that the marriage was consummated, and that the four brothers and two sisters mentioned in Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55-56 may be the children of Mary and Joseph. Indeed, the presence of the “brothers” who are with Mary when Jesus effectively renounces his family (Mark 3:31-35) suggests their close relationship with both Jesus and his mother.

The trouble is that the Bible does not tell us either way. Even the word used to describe these family members in the original Greek text of the

6

The Southern Cross

Gospels is ambiguous. The word adelphos can mean brothers as well as kinfolk (such as cousins), and the difference between siblings and cousins in their society was more fluid than it is in Western society, and more as we recognise in African culture.

One theory is that Joseph was much older than Mary and widowed.

So he wanted a wife for housekeeping and looking after his children — the four brothers and two sisters, or those of them young enough to need motherly care — rather than for procreation or romance. In a world were people often died young, it was not unusual for an older, widowed man to seek a wife who would keep the house. Perhaps that was so in the case of Joseph and Mary.

When a man officially took a woman into his household, they were considered to be married, whether they consummated their marriage or not. So the marriage of Joseph and Mary does not in itself imply consummation.

The marriage of Joseph and Mary, in a stained glass window in St Quiriace church in Provins, France.

St Jerome, who in the 4th century translated the Bible into Latin, offered another good reason for Joseph’s chastity: he would not have entertained the idea of having carnal relations with the woman who bore the Messiah, “the Temple of God”.

For the Catholic Church the case was settled almost 1 500 years ago, when the Second Council of Constantinople of 553AD declared that Mary conceived no more children after giving birth to Jesus. The Lateran Council of 649 confirmed that teaching.

(Günther Simmermacher)

Five Catholic soccer facts

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N JUNE 11, FOOTBALL’S Euros Championship will kick off in Rome, following a year’s delay due to the pandemic.

Held in different cities throughout Europe, the final will be played in London on July 11. To mark the event, here are five facts about soccer and the Catholic Church.

World Cup was England, in 1966.

The Euros have been more ecumenical: apart from Catholic Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and the mixed bag that’s Germany, past winners have been the officially atheistic USSR and Czechoslovakia, Orthodox Greece, and Protestant Netherlands and Denmark.

The first pope known to have watched a football match was Pope Leo X, in the Vatican’s Belvedere courtyard on January 7, 1521. That game, called calcio (still the Italian term for soccer), was a precursor of modern football.

The Vatican established its own league in 1973, and in 2007 set up the Clericus Cup, an annual tournament for seminarians studying at the Vatican.

The Vatican City state isn’t a member of FIFA, but since 2002 a national team of Vatican employees (such as Swiss guards, police officers, and postal workers) has played against national teams such as San Marino and Palestine, and club sides like Germany’s Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Most of the players who have worn the label “Greatest of All Time” (GOAT) have been Catholics, including Pelé, Diego Maradona and Franz Beckenbauer.

The greatest players of the past decade, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, identify as Catholics, as do active stars such as current World Player of the Year Robert Lewandowski, Luka Modric, Romelu Lukaku, Gianluigi Buffon, Manuel Neuer, Keylor Navas, Sergio Ramos, James Rodriguez, Antoine Griezmann, Sergio Agüero, and Edison Cavani.

Football in the vatican

Pope vs Pope

Much fun was had in 2014 when the countries of the two living popes met each other in the World Cup final: Argentina vs Germany. The country of non-football fan Benedict XVI won. But Pope Francis is a big football fan, supporting Argentine side San Lorenzo.

Pope John Paul II was also a football fan, having been a goalkeeper in his younger days. He was an honorary member of several clubs, including Spain’s FC Barcelona and Germany’s FC Schalke 04, but he certainly was a proper fan of KS Cracovia, Poland’s oldest club.

Catholic cup winners

Most winners of the World Cup have come from traditionally Catholic countries: Uruguay, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, France and Spain (which, of course, does not mean all members of these winning squads were Catholics).

Even the Germany sides of 1954, 1974 and 1990 comprised players from mostly Catholic regions. The only majority-Protestant country to have won the

Catholic GOATS

Faith on the pitch

Players making the sign of the cross before a game don’t do so to pray for a victory — a silly misconception peddled by the ignorant — but for things like inspiration and protection, and that God be with them on the pitch for the next 90 or so minutes. Their example is public witness to their faith.

NEXT MONTH: 16 great sports stars who are Catholic

CATHOLIC GOATS: Current World Player of the Year (left) Robert Lewandowski and Cristiano Ronaldo, captain of Euro 2016 winners Portugal.

The Southern Cross

25

BOOK REVIEW

Lynching of a nun

Reviewed by Günther Simmermacher

BLOODY SUNDAY: The Nun, the Defiance Campaign and South Africa’s Secret Massacre, by Mignonne Breier.

Tafelberg, Cape Town (2021). 285pp.

I

T REQUIRES COURAGE AND empathy to give a fair account of the mob murder of Dominican Sister Aidan Quinlan in East London in 1952. In her forensic study of the killing of the Irish-born nun, Mignonne Breier meets these obligations admirably. She provides the context in which such a ghastly crime could have happened. In doing so, Breier doesn’t let the killers off the hook, but she also assigns responsibility for the circumstances that led to the lynching of Sr Aidan to the police and public officials.

The separate mob murders of the Irish nun and the Afrikaner insurance agent Barend Vorster in Duncan Village on November 9, 1952, took place in the midst of what Breier persuasively suggests was the most lethal apartheid-era massacre — a daylong murderous frenzy during which police indiscriminately shot at people, killing up to 214 and injuring scores more. Invoking the 1920 and 1972 massacres of Sr Aidan’s Irish compatriots, Breier calls the events of that November 9 “Bloody Sunday”.

After a brief scene-setter, the narrative begins with Sr Aidan’s childhood. Born Elsie Quinlan in 1914, she grew up in a loving family in Cork.

Having decided to enter the religious life, she joined the King William’s Town Dominicans and came to South Africa in 1938. In the 1940s she studied medicine at Wits — which exercised an absurd policy of desegregated yet segregated academics, a reminder that apartheid was very much practised even before the National Party was elected in 1948.

As a doctor Sr Aidan served the poor, first at Glen Grey Mission Hospital at Lady Frere in the Eastern Cape and later at St Peter Claver in Duncan Village. The medical environment Sr Aidan worked in, much of the time with Sr Gratia Khumalo OP, was ap-

palling: infant mortality was endemic, disease was rife, and public health officials administered inoculations to Africans only when epidemics posed a threat to whites. Sr Aidan was a beacon of hope and much-loved, though her popularity also attracted some jealousy from other medical practitioners within the community, traditional healers, and those who resented her evangelising work.

Sr Aidan is described as shy, humble and gentle, but also as inspiring and cool under pressure. Her letters home suggest a lovely wit. But at Duncan Village she was also feeling overwhelmed and depressed by what she experienced.

The author skilfully weaves the narrative of Sr Aidan’s life with the stories of some of those who would play a part in the events of that fateful November 9, when the ANC called a meeting as part of its Defiance Campaign. Breier argues convincingly that even as the meeting was held legally

vation was to tell Sr Aidan’s story.

She illustrates at some length the horror of the police massacre.

Not one policeman was tried Sr Aidan for that killing Quinlan OP spree. Several people were put on trial for the killings of Sr Aidan and Vorster, and Breier provides a detailed account of the process against the accused in the case of the nun’s killing. Courageously, she also tackles a second trial: that of the despoliation of Sr Aidan’s body, including reports of cannibalism. Breier’s discourse is at pains to locate these acts outside the realm of racist tropes.

Despite its huge (unofficial) death toll, the massacre of “Bloody Sunday” does not form part of the ANC’s struggle narrative, likely because of the embarrassment of Sr Aidan’s murder, even if that lynching was not the ANC’s responsibility. Curiously, the apartheid regime didn’t make much propaganda capital from the brutish murder either — perhaps because to do so would have turned attention to the cover-up of the mass shootings by its own police.

Even nearly seven decades after the events it describes, Bloody Sunday reveals much that was not well-known, or known at all. Breier has expertly marshalled her extensive and meticulous research into a gripping narrative that is fair-minded and compassionate. This is an important and commendable work.

• Günther Simmermacher is the editor of The Southern Cross

This important book reveals much that was not well-known, or known at all

26 The Southern Cross

and with a permit, police came to the township with the intention to kill (as they had done the previous night in Kimberley). It was during a lull after the first murderous police rampage that Sr Aidan drove her car through the township and into the mob that would kill her.

Shattering mental images

Breier provides sufficient detail of the lynching to convey its absolute horror, but she keeps the account mercifully brief. Even in its brevity, the reader is left with shattering mental images. Likewise, the account of Barend Vorster’s killing is distressing, and even at the remove of almost 70 years, we fear for the Sisters at the convent as a mob approaches to loot and burn.

But Breier insists that her book isn’t only about the killing of a couple of white people, even if the original moti-

The peace of Ngome

Nthabiseng Maphisa: Millennial Catholic

O

N A BRIGHTLY-LIT TUESDAY morning, a cautiously optimistic city dweller left the potholed roads that wind through urban life for the meadows of rural KwaZulu-Natal. There, upon a rock, stands a shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the place where she appeared to a Benedictine nun by the name of Sr Reinolda May. In the valley there is a spring where, dare I say, living water flows. I traded pride for repentance and in the welcoming silence, I prayed..

It was the first time I had been to the Ngome Marian shrine. I hadn’t even known anything about it. It is, as I now know, a small town 80km from Vryheid in the diocese of Eshowe.

According to an account by RoseMarie Foxon on the Ngome website (www.ngome.co.za), Sr Reinolda May, named Franziska at birth, left her home in Germany for South Africa in 1925, shortly after professing her vows. She began work as a seamstress at the mission stations of Entabeni and Mbongolwane. During this time, she learnt Zulu and visited people in their homes, travelling on foot and on horseback.

After Rome allowed the Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing to assist women in childbirth, Sr Reinolda became the first

Sr Reinolda May and Our Lady at Ngome.

Sister in Zululand to take a course in midwifery. She received a diploma as a midwife in 1938. Despite many difficulties, her expertise as a midwife was much admired in the local communities.

Sr Reinolda’s vision

On August 22, 1955, Sr Reinolda had her first encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Blessed Mother chose to reveal herself on this date, which at the time was the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (this year it’s on June 12). Our Lady said: “Call me Tabernacle of the Most High.

You too are such a tabernacle — believe it! I wish to be called upon this title for the glory of my Son. I wish that more

Benedictine Sisters of the Eshowe vicariate are setting out by cart to the mission stations and schools of rural Zululand in this photo published in The Southern Cross in September 1934. Might Sr Reinolda May, the visionary of Ngome, be among those intrepid missionary Sisters?

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such tabernacles be prepared. I wish that the altars be surrounded by praying people more frequently. Don’t be afraid, make it known.”

Our Lady appeared to Sr Reinolda ten times, with the last apparition in 1971. (See also our biography of Sr Reinolda at www.bit.ly/3v1Hc6l) Many people, including myself, may often receive Communion thoughtlessly, uttering a short prayer and maybe giving Our Lord a grocery list of demands. Mary, Tabernacle of the Most High, beckons us to think deeply about whom we receive in the Eucharist.

Truly, we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, and therefore we cannot, must not, and should not remain the same.

We must be transformed into what he is.

He is love, mercy, light, truth.

Foolish are we to lock him into our hearts as a prisoner. Many are they who are in need of him and the life he brings. May God give us the grace to become worthy vessels of the Body and Blood of his Son. On a Thursday morning, a penitent pilgrim left the lush green hills of Zululand for the hustle and bustle of the city, but this time with peace in her heart and zeal for the house of the Lord.

We mourned the bitterness that he had bitten. Now we drink the sweetness of Christ risen. Amen!

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The Southern Cross

27

Who’ll be the fall guys?

Raymond Perrier on Faith & Society

Y

OUR FAITHFUL COLUMNIST popped over from Durban to Cape Town in April and shared a round of coffee with your (and my) editor, Günther Simmermacher, and Rosanne Shields, chair of The Southern Cross’s board. I was pleasantly surprised by the choice of tea shop — one with a spectacular view of Cape Town, but one also associated with a contested part of South African history.

A few days later that tea shop was no more, having been destroyed, along with a number of buildings at the University of Cape Town and the old Mostert’s Mill, in a tragic forest fire.

We had been meeting at Rhodes Memorial. As a Brit, a student of colonial history, and an alumnus of Oxford University, I am at the very least intrigued by the figure of Cecil John Rhodes. But I am aware that there are also many people who were disappointed that the controversial monument had survived the fire.

Of course, if statues are to fall, then it should be as a result of an intentional and controlled act – not a random fire or (potentially) an act of vandalism.

But I confess to being very ambivalent on the question of statues and, if I may, I feel that this reflects a Catholic way of engaging with the past.

One of the aspects of our religious tradition that is most admired by members of newer Christian congregations 19 Regent Street, Woodstock, 7925 PO Box 142, Woodstock 7915 t: 021 447 -6334 f: 021 448 9108

info@noah.org.za www.noah.co.za

Call for Steering Committee Members

Started in 1981, nOah is a programme of the archdiocese of cape town, providing dignified and affordable housing, health and social services for SaSSa pensioners whose income is R1890 a month. this call relates to the NOAH housing programme. One of the reasons that nOah can provide such dignified and affordable housing is through the work of its Steering committees. these committees, as their name implies, ‘steer and support’ the residents of the nOah houses by meeting with residents on a monthly basis to address matters of common concern. each Steering committee is made up of volunteers with clear roles: chairperson, secretary, book keeper, as well as portfolios dealing with maintenance, fundraising and conflict resolution. this means that no one person is overburdened with responsibilities. the Steering committees are supported by the nOah housing manager.

Are you a parishioner who is interested in wanting to make a positive and practical contribution to lives of older persons?

If so, why not volunteer to become a member of a nOah Steering committee? You will be contributing to the well-being of nOah residents, and help nOah to continue its essential work providing much needed affordable housing for pensioners.

Geographical areas of nOah homes: Woodstock, Ida’s Valley, atlantis, athlone, maitland, elsies River.

Interested persons are asked to contact Gavin Weir at 021 447 6334 or via email gavin@noah.org.za

28 The Southern Cross

Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town: For some a page in our history that should stand forever, and for others a monument to injustice which should fall.

is the sense of history that we have.

Our buildings are often old; our liturgies draw on ancient traditions; and we still use words in our prayers that date back to the earliest Christian centuries.

Each time we celebrate a feast in the Church’s calendar, we are linked back to those who have celebrated the same feast on the same day for centuries before — not just Christmas and Easter but also the Annunciation, All Souls or, as we are doing this month, Ss Peter and Paul.

A group of young African Oblates who were ordained as priests at Emmanuel cathedral recently were conscious that they are the heirs to Archbishop Denis Hurley and the other Oblate bishops who are buried around the altar, and to the young French Oblates who came to South Africa more than 120 years ago and are buried just outside the cathedral, having died within a few years of arrival.

Catholics and the past

Ours is a tradition which always has a relationship with the past. Sadly, sometimes we are tied by the past.

Worse still, we can have a misguided view of it — how many people defend the “ancient” Tridentine rite, which is only 450 years old, as though it had been celebrated by the Apostles them-

selves? While the Second Vatican Council is often described as the modernisation of the Church, key to its ways of working was to go back to the origins of Catholic practice and be nourished again from the roots — “ressourcement”, as it was termed.

So I hope we can contribute in an intelligent and informed way to conversations about statues and whether or not they should fall. To wipe out symbols and memories of the past as if they did not happen is to deny where we have come from; but to treat the past as sacrosanct and beyond questioning is to deny the journey we have travelled.

So we need to acknowledge that a certain statue has existed in a place often for a long period of time, but then we must also ask honest questions about why the statue was placed there in the first place, and what it can say to us now.

These are questions which society is rightly asking about the statues from secular history; as Catholics we have to ask similar questions about the statues from our ecclesial history. Rome is full of statues of saints whose lives, by definition, we hold up for veneration. But its churches are also adorned with statues of popes and their families whose lives were sometimes less than admirable. How do we feel about the fine

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI marble tomb of Alexander VI, given what we know now about the corruption, incest, nepotism and violence that characterised the Borgia pope? In time, bishops who in recent years have been disgraced for their mistreatment of abuse cases will die: should they be venerated in their cathedrals, as is our custom, or do they not merit such posthumous respect?

There is a church where a priest left in disgrace. When I visited there and saw his name still gracing plaques as if nothing had happened, I wondered who was being served by such collective amnesia.

India’s example

There are no easy answers to such questions, but that is all the more reason to ask the questions and to explore creative solutions.

Let me share with you one of my favourite examples of the statue conundrum. When India gained independence in 1947, its capital city, New Delhi, was adorned with the statues of old white British men who had ruled the country over the previous few centuries. It was clear that the statues could not stay in such places of prominence — but a decision was taken that, instead of being destroyed, they should just be moved.

So they were gathered up and placed collectively at a significant but forgotten site on the outskirts of the city. It is the field where in 1911 George V, King-Emperor, received homage from the Indian princes at the Delhi Durbar; this had been chosen as the site of the new capital until they discovered how mosquito-infested it was and moved the new capital to where it is now.

So the statues are in place which recall the grandeur of the Empire but also its arrogance and folly. And George V in marble is surrounded by a circle of viceroys and generals; and slowly in the hot Indian sun and wind the statues are eroding and losing their detail over time.

We should be wary of destroying symbols from our past – but we can and must interrogate them and interpret them. In that way, we can allow these symbols to inform our present and, in time, their significance will change and diminish.

The power of beauty

T

HE WORLD “WILL BE SAVED BY beauty.” Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote that, Dorothy Day quoted it, and centuries before Jesus, Confucius made it central to his pedagogy. They were on to something.

Beauty is a special language that cuts through and sidelines all the things that divide us — history, race, language, creed, ideology, politics, economic disparity, gender, sexual identity, and personal wounds.

Beauty melts down all differences. Its speech, like that of a newborn, has no explicit words; it is a language so perfect that it can be soiled only by violating oneself.

Two things in this world cannot be argued with: beauty and a baby. They also cannot defend themselves, and have only their own vulnerability as protection.

In classical Western philosophy, beauty is seen as one of the transcendental properties of being, and therefore as one of the properties of God. God is understood as having four transcendental qualities: One, True, Good, and Beautiful. Hence, beauty possesses a divine, sacred quality.

Artists and all who are sensitive to aesthetics have always recognised this, not necessarily in that they affirm explicitly that beauty is a property of God, but that they recognise a godly quality in beauty; they sense a “blaspheme” whenever it is defaced, and feel the energy to create as divine.

Beauty, as we know, takes many forms. Who of us has not at times felt the stunning power of physical beauty? Who has not been momentarily transfixed by the beauty of a sunset, an ocean, a mountain range, the stars, a full moon, a desert landscape, a particular tree, a thunderstorm, a gentle rain, an animal in the wild, a work of art or architecture, or a human body? Physical beauty is self-justifying. It cannot be argued with and may never be denigrated by an appeal to something higher and more spiritual. It is unequivocally real and thus needs to be recognised, affirmed, and blessed.

Other kinds of beauty

For most of us, when we hear the word “beauty”, physical beauty is what comes to mind. Now, while that beauty is real, powerful, and can transform the heart, there are other kinds of beauty equally as powerful and transforming. I am not sure what language works in terms of what I am about to describe, so forgive me if my expression here is awkward, but we can and need to speak of beauty in the emotional and moral realm. There is something we might call emotional beauty or moral beauty.

Emotional beauty is not the beauty of a sunset or a great painting, but the beauty of a particular expression of love, of empathy, or of compassion that, like a beautiful sunset, we are occasionally graced to witness. For example, we can be transfixed when we see the miraculous rescue of a child or helpless animal, or see an elderly couple affectionately holding hands, or hear of a generous response by the public to a plea for help by a poor family. As with physical beauty, there is a divine quality here, and, as with physical beauty, there is something here that only the most boorish of persons would dare smudge.

However, whenever our emotions are involved there is always the danger of an unhealthy sentimentality also being present; but, that danger notwithstanding, our emotions, like our eyes, are also an opening to beauty.

Beauty of the soul

Then there is moral beauty — beauty of soul. The salient example here is martyrdom and every other kind of love that sacrifices its own wishes, desires, and life for something higher. While this does not always make for a beautiful body, it does make for a beautiful soul. In affirming this, I am not thinking, first, of its most salient examples — the religious martyrs who gave up their lives rather than deny their faith, or even of persons like Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Maximilian Kolbe, Oscar Romero, and the many today who give up their lives for others. These are powerful examples of moral beauty, but many of us see moral beauty firsthand in our own families and circle of friends.

For example, I look at my own mother and father who for most of their lives sacrificed to provide for a large family and, especially, to provide that family with what is more important than food and clothing, namely, faith and moral guidance. There was a moral beauty in their sacrifice, though sometimes during those years, by Hollywood standards, my mom and dad looked more haggard than beautiful. Moral beauty, though, is measured by a different standard.

That being said, there is also the need to be cautious here: while emotional beauty carries the risk of sentimentality, moral beauty carries the risk of fanaticism.

Fanatics, serial killers, and snipers are also highly focused morally. Morality, like anything else, can be misguided.

“The world will be saved by beauty!”

True, though I would employ the present tense, the world is being saved by beauty.

The Southern Cross

29

Photo: Dominic Alberts/Pixabay

PRAY WITH THE POPE Every month FR CHRIS CHATTERIS SJ reflects on Pope Francis’ universal prayer intention

The beauty of marriage Let us pray for young people who are preparing for marriage, With the support of a Christian community, may they grow in love, with generosity, faithfulness and patience.

T

HE BIGGEST CHALLENGE TO marriage, according to a Google search, is money, along with the “division of labour” when the kids arrive. So, as well as praying for young people preparing for marriage, perhaps we should also be praying for couples who are already married!

When it comes to the financial arrangements of marriage, custom is very hard to change — because change means that someone is going to lose out.

In European society, when brides were expected to produce dowries, some religious organisations used to help poor girls to find the money to pay them. In modern South African society, it doesn’t look as though lobola — the custom of the bridegroom’s family negotiating a payment to the bride’s family in livestock or cash — is going away any time soon. In fact, if the young woman has a modern education, this can mean a larger lobola. Modernity does not automatically trump tradition; in this case it seems to have merely tweaked it.

And even among cultures in which dowries and lobola are history, the money factor still looms large. Can the couple find the money for a bond on a house? Are they going to marry in community of property if they are both working and both have some assets?

How much can they splash out on the ceremony and the reception? There are plenty of wedding organisers who are more than happy to sell them the dream, the themed wedding that they’ve seen on the soaps — for a price.

It seems to me that one thing the Christian community can do is to give the couple permission to opt for simplicity. I once overheard two farmers chatting about their daughters’ weddings. One said that the family had decided to hold the reception on the farm and to get the whole local community involved in order to cut out the expenses of catering companies and other wedding professionals. I remember thinking that the young couple were fortunate to have such a thoughtful father, and I’m sure the reception on the 19 Regent Street, Woodstock, 7925 PO Box 142, Woodstock 7915 t: 021 447 -6334 f: 021 448 9108

info@noah.org.za www.noah.co.za

NOAH Management Board position: SECRETARY

30

The Southern Cross

Started in 1981, nOah is a programme of the archdiocese of cape town, providing dignified and affordable housing, health and social services for SaSSa pensioners whose income is R1890 a month. nOah is a registered nPO, PBO and is governed by the nOah management Board, with archbishop Stephen Brislin as patron.

NOAH wishes to fill the vacancy of the Secretary position on the Board. this involves attendance and minute-taking at monthly Board meetings, attendance and minute-taking at the annual General meeting. ad hoc meeting attendance and minute-taking may be required.

Should you be interested in this position, please contact Anne Dobson, for more information: 021 447 6334 or email anne@noah.org.za

family farm, with the catering done by friends and neighbours, would have been as memorable as a fancy event dreamed up by an expensive company.

The financial dilemma

The money business is a serious pastoral issue, to my mind. There is much soul-searching going on in the Church about how few weddings are taking place these days, and how young people either delay marriage for a long time or simply don’t get married but just live together. There are certainly other problems, such as the modern fear of full commitment, but I believe the financial factor is often the obvious thing which we overlook.

Another area in which modernity has complicated matters is the high mobility enabled by globalisation and by cheap travel. Certainly, this has taken a knock since the Covid-19 crisis, but we are clearly not going back to a village life in which people settled down close to the community and extended family from which they came. From the poorest migrant worker to the jetsetting professional, the family is today more likely to be spread out over the globe than ever before.

So, another word of wisdom from family members might be to encourage young couples to temper their ambitions for the good of their family life. A job in New York might pay twice what the one in Cape Town would, but the grandparents won’t be in New York to help with the small children, and the children will miss the delight of knowing their grandparents.

The attributes of “love, generosity, faithfulness and patience” which Pope Francis mentions are all expressed in very down-to-earth, practical decisions.

We need to pray that young people make sensible decisions, with the help of the wisdom and generosity of their elders.

Prayer to St Joseph

Prayer Corner Your prayers to cut out and collect Do you have a favourite prayer?

Please send it to editor@scross.co.za

Quick prayer to the Holy Spirit O Holy Spirit, sweet guest of my soul, abide in me and grant that I may ever abide in You. Amen

St Joseph, spouse of Mary, be mindful of us, pray for us, watch over us.

Guardian of the paradise of the new Adam, provide for our spiritual and temporal wants.

Faithful guardian of the most precious of all treasures, we beseech you to bring this matter to a happy end, if it be for the glory of God and the good of our souls.

Amen

St Thomas Aquinas Prayer Grant me, O Lord my God, A mind to know You, A heart to seek You, Wisdom to find You, Conduct pleasing to you, Faithful perseverance in waiting for You, and a Hope of finally embracing You. Amen

ST JOSEPH OF C UPERTINO

O great St Joseph of Cupertino who while on earth did obtain from God the grace to be asked at your examination only the questions you knew, obtain for me a like favour in the examinations for which I am now preparing.

In return I promise to make you known and cause you to be invoked.

Through Christ our Lord.

St Joseph of Cupertino, pray for us.

Amen for success in examinations

O most holy Heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing, I adore You, I love You, and with a lively sorrow for my sins, I offer You this poor heart of mine. Make me humble, patient, pure, and wholly obedient to Your will. Grant, good Jesus, that I may live in You and for You. Protect me in the midst of danger; comfort me in my afflictions.

Give me health of body, assistance in my temporal needs, Your blessing on all that I do, and the grace of a holy death.

Amen The Southern Cross

31

Diocese Word Search

Anagram Challenge

Unscramble the clues below to work out which OLD TESTAMENT STORIES hide in these words

Find these 15 SACBC dioceses in the puzzle above

DE AAR

KLERKSDORP

ESHOWE

MANZINI

DUNDEE

GABORONE

KIMBERLEY

POLOKWANE

KOKSTAD

RUSTENBURG

MTHATHA

UMZIMKULU

OUDTSHOORN

TZANEEN

1

WO B B Le F O R Te A

2

A DD TO I T A HA Lv I n G

3

O n A SHA R k

4

A DD CLe A R jO B S

5

He n HA TH LO A n e D jA W

6

O H jA WS F O R Ce I LL

WITBANK

Southern Crossword

ACROSS

1. as far as you are concerned (2,2) 3. We hear it’s embarrassing getting a hard knock (8) 9. First periods of Sacred heart devotion (7) 10. Dad joins with pal regarding the pope (5) 11. Single roles I play, having no faith (12) 13. It was under Roman rule in christ’s time (6) 15. the char marking the altar cloth under the candle? (6) 17. church organisations (12) 20. and separates dad from chinese mammal (5) 21. One of a chosen dozen (7) 22. When to pray (5,3) 23. the burden of icon use (4)

DOWN

1. the banners of darkness are boldly … (hymn) (8) 2. In this case Jesus was the accused (5) 4. See, cleric has his own one (6) 5. Pupils’ actions lead to earnest prayer (12) 6. he’ll force you to comply with his rule (7) 7. Give a golden look (4) 8. Saint who beheld the Sacred heart (8,4) 12. Unvoiced words of gossip (8) 14. It’s performed after your absolution (7) 16. Where the water became wine (2,4) 18. Decimalised and frequent (5) 19. Some mishaps eventually in the church (4)

Solutions on page 34

32

The Southern Cross

Quick Crossword cl ue 9 ac ro cl

ue

3

do

w

n

ss cl ue 17

cl

ue

16

ac

ss

ro

ro

ss

ac

25. month of Bl Daswa’s feast (8) 26. tree of Zacchaeus (8) 27. animal Jesus drove into the sea (3) 28. city of Don Bosco (5)

DOWN ACROSS

CODEWORD: Combine the letters in the shaded boxes to form the name of a martyred apostle

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

4. 2021 is the Year of St … (6) 7. John the Baptist’s mother (9) 9. catholic tenor (9) 10. catholic church’s hQ (7) 13. Priest’s hat (7) 15. Site of penultimate battle (Rev 16) (10) 16. Former Southern Cross editor (10) 17. archbishop of Bloemfontein (8) 20. Italian region of St Francis, St Rita (6) 21. St margaret mary’s devotion (65) 22. First catholic US president (7) 23. new bishop of Queenstown (5)

1. To which country did Pope Francis make his first papal trip in 2013? a) Brazil b) France c) South Korea 2. To which diocese was Bishop Duncan Tsoke appointed this year? a) Kimberley b) Queenstown c) Rustenburg 3. What colour vestments does the priest wear at Corpus Christi Mass? a) Green b) Red c) White 4. Who wrote short stories about priest-sleuth Father Brown? a) GK Chesterton b) Graham Greene c) Evelyn Waugh 5. Which book in the New Testament features the term “wolves in sheeps’ clothing”? a) Matthew b) 2 Romans c) Revelation

Photo: Sheldon Reddiar

The Catholic Trivia Quiz

1. Leader of the exodus (5) 2. Knights on holy war path (9) 3. Rome basilica and council (7) 4. courtly Ot book (6) 5. holy Order (10) 6. Language of Jesus (7) 8. First-ever bishop for South africa (9) 11. US catholic activist (7,3) 12. christian name of St Bakhita (9) 14. Surname of Pope John XXIII (8) 18. marian prayer (Latin) (5,6) 19. Diocese in Botswana (11) 24. name of 16 popes (8) 27. Radio Veritas presenter Sheila (5) 28. Jerusalem wall (7)

6. Who is the patron saint of the falsely accused? a) Raymond Nonnatus b) Thomas More c) Vitalis of Assisi 7. In which year did the Catholic Church officially vindicate Galileo Galilei for maintaining that the earth revolves around the sun? a) 1782 b) 1882 c) 1982 Q2: Bishop Duncan Tsoke 8. In which South African diocese is the town of Parys? a) DR Congo b) Cote d’Ivoire c) Nigeria a) Keimoes-Upington b) Kokstad 11. Who was Francesco Forgione? c) Kroonstad a) Francis of Assisi b) Padre Pio 9. Which Old Testament book doesn’t c) Pope Pius IX mention God once in the Hebrew text? 12. Which famous jazz singer was a a) Esther b) Judges c) Ruth convert to Catholicism? a) Billie Holiday b) Ella Fitzgerald 10. Which African country has the c) Sarah Vaughan highest number of Catholics?

The Southern Cross

33

Cooking with Saints

Every month GRAZIA BARLETTA prepares a recipe from Catholic tradition in her

Cape Town kitchen, and shares it with our readers in text and photos taken exclusively

S

for The Southern Cross by the chef herself. ThIs monTh GRAZIA CookEd:

SAINT NICHOLAS SOUP

t NicholaS of Myra waS BorN iN 270 aD in the village of Patara in asia Minor, in present-day turkey. his wealthy parents raised him to be a devout christian, but they both died in an epidemic while he was still young. obeying Jesus’ words to “sell what you own and give the money to the poor”, Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. he dedicated his life to serving God and was made bishop of Myra while still a young man.

Bishop Nicholas became known throughout the land for his generosity to those in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships. he died in 343 aD.

as a saint, because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as “Nicholas the wonderworker”. St Nicholas is one of the best-loved saints in both the Eastern and western churches, and he was the original “Santa claus”. in some European countries, presents are exchanged not at christmas but on his feast day, December 6. this advent saint joyfully points towards the coming of the lord.

Preparation: 120 min • Servings: 6-8

IngredIentS:

60g butter • 2 onions • 5 carrots • 4 potatoes • half a medium cabbage • 220ml fresh cream • Salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper to taste • 10 cups of water • croutons • chopped fresh parsley or basil

PrePArAtIOn: 1. wash and peel the vegetables. Slice them into small pieces.

2. Melt the butter in a large soup pot. add the vegetables and stir a few times. turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it rest for about 15 minutes.

3. add the water and bring the soup to boil. reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the pot, and allow the soup to cook slowly for about 50 minutes. Stir from time to time.

4. when the soup is cooked, blend all of it until it becomes creamy and even.

5. Stir in the fresh cream, and salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to taste.

6. ladle the hot soup into serving bowls and

this delicious vegetarian soup, also called “Potage Saint Nicholas”, is prepared to celebrate his great feast, which in the northern hemisphere is in winter. a potage is a thick soup, especially great for those winter evenings which we are having in June, so i couldn’t wait to share the recipe this month!

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34 The Southern Cross

WIN with Grazia

WIN a copy of Grazia Barletta’s Send the answer and your postal address to illustrated cookbook Delicious competitions@scross.co.za Italian Moments, a collection

by JuLY 14. of authentic Italian recipes.

The lucky winner will be To stand a chance of windrawn from all ning, name any correct entries on recipe Grazia has July 15. prepared in her • Delicious Italian “Cooking with Moments can also Saints” column be ordered at R200 since its inception from Grazia: in our January momentswith issue. grazia@gmail.com

Grazia Barletta is an author, book designer, and food photographer & stylist. She can be contacted at graziabarletta1@gmail.com www.momentswithgrazia.com Facebook/Instagram: momentswithgrazia

add a few croutons, and a sprinkling of chopped fresh parsley or basil. i use basil and think it makes it all the more delicious.

7. Enjoy with a prayer to St Nicholas!

Crossword Solutions:

ACROSS: Up to, 3 Abashing, 9 Fridays, 10 Papal, 11 Religionless, 13 Empire, 15 Scorch, 17 Institutions, 20 Panda, 21 Apostle, 22 Every day, 23 Onus DOWN: 1 Unfurled, 2 Trial, 4 Bishop, 5 Supplication, 6 Imposer, 7 Gild, 8 Margaret Mary, 12 Whispers, 14 Penance, 16 At Cana, 18 Often, 19 Apse

Anagram Challenge:

1. Tower of Babel; 2. David and Goliath; 3. Noah’s Ark; 4. Jacob’s Ladder; 5. Jonah and the Whale; 6. Walls of Jericho

Quick Crossword: ACROSS:

4 Joseph, 7 Elizabeth, 9 Pavarotti, 10 Vatican, 13 Biretta, 15 Armageddon, 16 Shackleton, 17 Mpambani, 20 Umbria, 21 Sacred Heart, 22 Kennedy, 23 Vanqa, 25 February, 26 Sycamore, 29 Pig, 28 Turin DOWN: 1 Moses, 2 Crusaders, 3 Lateran, 4 Judges, 5 Priesthood, 6 Aramaic, 8 Griffiths, 11 Dorothy Day, 12 Josephine, 14 Roncalli, 18 Salve Regina, 19 Francistown, 24 Benedict, 27 Pires, 28 Wailing — CODEWORD: BARTHOLOMEW

Catholic Trivia Quiz:

1. a) Brazil (for World Youth Day in July 2013); 2. a) Kimberley; 3. c) White; 4. a) GK Chesterton; 5. a) Matthew (7:15); 6. a) Raymond Nonnatus; 7. c) 1982); 8. c) Kroonstad; 9. a) Esther; 10. a) DR Congo, 11. b) Padre Pio; 12. a) Billie Holiday

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THE CATHOLIC MAGAZINE FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA

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S outher n Cr oss T he

The Catholic Magazine for Southern Africa

Est. 1920

Final Words Great Quotes on the

EUCHARIST

History in Colour

A snapshot from the past, colourised exclusively for The Southern Cross

‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.’

– Jesus Christ (John 6:56)

‘The distinctions of body and blood among men are transcended by unity with the Body and Blood of Christ.’

– Fr John LaFarge SJ (1880-1963)

‘In this world I cannot see the most High Son of God with my own eyes, except for his most Holy Body and Blood.’

– St Francis of Assisi (c.1182-1226)

‘The guest of our soul knows our misery. He comes to find an empty tent within us — that is all he asks.’

– St Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-97)

‘It is much more profitable to approach the divine sacrament with love, respect, and confidence, than to remain away through an excess of fear and scrupulosity.’

– St Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

‘If we really understand the Eucharist, if we really centre our lives on Jesus’ Body and Blood... it will be easy for us to see Christ in that hungry one next door, the one lying in the gutter, the alcoholic man we shun, our husband or our wife, or our restless child. For in them, we will recognise the distressing disguises of the poor: Jesus in our midst.’

– St Teresa of Kolkata (1910-97)

‘Always remain close to the Catholic Church, because it alone can give you true peace, since it alone possesses Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.’

– St Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968)

In the Blessed Sacrament ‘you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.’

– JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)

The body of Pope John XXIII is carried in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican during his funeral on June 6, 1963.

Pope John had died three days earlier at the age of 81.

As Patriarch Angelo Roncalli of Venice, he had been elected to the papacy at the age of 76 in October 1958 to succeed Pope Pius XII. Initially regarded as a caretaker pope, John XXIII changed Church history when he called the Second Vatican Council, which opened in 1962 and concluded in 1965, two years after his death. In his short pontificate of four-and-a-half years, the son of a sharecropper from near Bergamo in northern Italy made a huge impact, on domestic and global politics, on relations with other Churches, on modernising pastoral roles, and more. “Good Pope John” was beatified in 2000, and canonised by Pope Francis alongside St John Paul II on April 27, 2014.

Original photo by Giancarlo Giuliani, Catholic Press Photo/CNS. Colourised for The Southern Cross.

The last laugh

T

HE RECTOR OF THE SEMINARY is speaking with the first-year intake about how they think they can serve the Church after their ordination.

Some students talk about evangelisation and pastoral work, a few are hoping to become missionaries in faithless Europe, one is enthusiastic about the prisons ministry, another

would like to teach in the seminary himself one day.

The last seminarian says that soon after his ordination, he would like to become a cardinal.

“A cardinal? Young man, have you lost your mind?” the rector demands to know.

“Why?” answers the seminarian.

“Is that the job requirement?”

Buy the Church Chuckles book of Catholic jokes!

email books@scross.co.za or go to www.digital.scross.co.za/church-chuckles

Book for the Eucharistic Congress in Hungary 5-12 September 2021

We have arrangements for the International eucharistic Congress in Budapest – for groups or individuals.

We can arrange optional excursions.

Expert advice for a smooth journey!

Call Michael at 083 704-5063 or email info@fowlertravel.co.za

For all your Sand and Stone requirements in Piet Retief, Southern Mpumalanga

tel: 017 826 0054/5 Cell: 082 904 7840 Email: sales@eskaycrushers.co.za