The Southern Cross - 100421

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SOUTHERN AFRICA’S NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY SINCE 1920

Ncube: I have no political plans

Inside Mass against trafficking The Church will celebrate a special Mass in Pretoria on May 2 to raise awareness about human trafficking.—Page 2

BY MUNYARADZI MAKONI

A

Pope ‘strong on abuse’ The Vatican spokesman has strongly defended Pope Benedict as a credible leader on the issue of priestly sex abuse, saying the pope’s respect for truth and transparency stand against the “criticism and unfounded insinuations” of recent weeks.—Page 4

Vocations specials Over eight pages we discuss vocations, including how an Olympic star became a nun, a new strategy to find priests, and a brother’s call to serve.—Pages 8-15

New books reviewed In three book reviews we look at a new South African novel, the green St Francis, and a Catholic’s journey of healing after the death of two sons.—Page 18

What do you think?

In their Letters to the Editor this week, readers discuss a proposal to address the abuse crisis, double values, clergy, the Pill, and a report that needs correction.—Pages 6 & 19

This week’s editorial: Staying ‘on-message’

Hitler and the Turin Shroud

BY JOHN THAVIS

T

Misguided love for animals?

www.scross.co.za

April 21 to April 27, 2010 No 4672

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Schoenstatt Diocesan and celebrates religious priests: the difference in SA

New film’s Catholic background

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

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HE Shroud of Turin was hidden in an Italian Benedictine abbey during World War II in part because Church authorities feared Adolf Hitler might want to steal it.

The shroud, which many believe to have been the burial cloth of Christ, was transferred secretly from the Turin cathedral in 1939 to the abbey of Montevergine in southern Italy, and returned to Turin in 1946, after the war had ended.

Officially, the reason later given for the transfer was fear that the cloth could have been damaged if the city of Turin were bombed. But Benedictine Father Andrea Cardin, director of the Montevergine library that holds the relevant documents, said Church officials also seemed to fear that the Nazis wanted to take possession of the shroud.

Already in 1938, Church leaders were alarmed when, during a visit by Hitler to Italy, Nazi officials asked unusual and persistent questions about the shroud and its custody, Fr Cardin said in an interview published this month by the Italian magazine Diva e Donna.

That worried the Vatican as well as the Italian royal family, the Savoys, who at the time were the owners of the shroud, Fr Cardin said. Hitler was thought by some to have been obsessed about certain objects related to the life of Christ, including the Holy Grail and the Holy Lance of Longinus.

In 1943, as fighting raged in southern Italy, Nazi soldiers arrived at Montevergine and conducted a thorough search of the abbey premises. The monks withdrew in prayer around the altar, and a Nazi official gave the order not to disturb them.

“In this way, the holy relic was not discovered,” Fr Cardin said.—CNS

GIVING PRAISE: Sr Chawezi of the Trinity dances in front of the altar as she sings a song of praise after making her solemn profession during the Eucharist presided over by apostolic nuncio Archbishop James Patrick Green and concelebrated by some 15 priests at Carmel in Benoni this month. April 25 marks the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

PHOTO: EFREM TRESOLDI MCCJ

Thérèse relic dates issued

BY MICHAIL RASSOOL

A

PROVISIONAL itinerary for a threemonth visit of the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux to South Africa has been compiled by the Johannesburg archdiocesan duo organising it. Part of the period of the visit coincides with the football World Cup. Fr Shaun von Lillienveld, administrator of Christ the King cathedral and co-organiser of the visit with Fr Vusi Sokhela, said the roving relics will take in several dioceses and parishes from June 25 to September 27, starting at the Carmelite convent in Benoni on the East Rand and also incorporating Geluksdal, Alexandria, Edenvale, Cedar Park, Yeoville, and Christ the King cathedral parishes.

After July 11, the relics will travel to Tzaneen, Aliwal North (arriving on July 22), Kokstad (July 26), Umzimkulu (July 30), the convent of the Capuchin Poor Clare Sisters in Mariannhill (August 3), and Morningside parish in Durban archdiocese (August 5-8).

The relics will come to Cape Town on August 11 for two weeks. The Carmelite Sisters of Retreat will host their fellow Carmelite’s relics, as will three parishes— Camps Bay, Welcom Estate and Bergvliet (with room for more)—before they return to Johannesburg, Fr von Lillienveld said.

In Johannesburg archdiocese the relics will be displayed at Christ the King cathedral, Regina Mundi in Moroka, Alberton, Nazareth House, Northriding, Kathlehong, Victory Park, Sebokeng, Craighall Park, and Yeoville

The relics will also be hosted by one Pretoria parish.

They will leave South Africa after visiting Yeoville parish on September 27.

The fact that the relics of St Thérèse— the saint’s full title is St Teresa of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face—are in South Africa is a boon for the local Church’s efforts to play a spiritual role in the World Cup, Fr von Lillienveld said.

“We would like to stress that we hope the coming of the relics will inspire people, strengthen their faith, and challenge us to live our faith and follow our callings, as St Thérèse followed hers,” he said.

The saint’s relics’ worldwide travels, which began in 1995, have taken them to every continent, Oceania and many countries. They visited England and Wales for the first time last September-October, a successful visit with much ecumenical engagement.

Fr von Lillienveld said the relics will be accompanied by special parish- or diocesan-based spiritual, liturgical and/or catechetical programmes, aimed at enriching local spiritual and social ministries.

The priest said he and Fr Sokhela believe the timing of the Johannesburg leg of the tour, coinciding in part with the World Cup, couldn’t be better. Many football fans from traditionally Catholic countries, such as Brazil, Mexico, Italy, France and Spain, will be based in the Gauteng area.  For more details information on the itinerary of the relics’ tour, contact Fr von Lillienveld on 083 763 0807 or Fr Sokhela on 011 487 2299, or fax 011 648 1014, or e-mail vsokza@telkomsa.net.

RCHBISHOP Pius Ncube, retired of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, has again denied suggestions that he has ambitions of leading a political party.

In a rare interview with online The Daily News, Archbishop Ncube—a long-time critic of President Robert Mugabe’s government— denied reports that he was being lobbied to contest for the top position of the revived Zimbabwe’s African People’s Union (Zapu), at its congress, scheduled for August.

Zapu joined Mr Mugabe’s Zanu in 1987, However, disgruntled former Zapu members have gone back to revive the party.

In the Daily News interview, Archbishop Ncube said he was not interested in political office. “I am a clergyman and will remain a clergyman,” Archbishop Ncube said from his base in the rural community of Dete, in the Matebeleland North province.

“At the moment the best is for Zimbabweans to rally behind the two Movement for Democratic Change parties in government, because they have a potential of bringing complete change in the inclusive government,” he said.

Archbishop Ncube used to be a fierce critic of Mr Mugabe’s rule until his resignation in 2007. He explained that he was no longer vocal as the Vatican had advised him to keep a low profile, though he said it pained him to keep quiet while Zanu-PF continued to terrorise Zimbabweans.

“In 2008 more than 10 000 people died of hunger after the poor harvests; the world neglected us because of Zanu-PF’s bad behaviour,” he said.

Cardinal blames gays for paedophilia

BY CINDY WOODEN

V

ATICAN secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in Chile that no serious study has ever shown a connection between celibacy and paedophilia, but said that many experts see a connection between homosexuality and paedophilia.

“Many psychologists and many psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and paedophilia, but many others have shown, and they told me recently, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia,” Cardinal Bertone said.

At a Vatican symposium on sex abuse in 2003, experts described homosexual orientation as one of many risk factors of sexual abuse, but not a direct cause of paedophilia.

In describing homosexuality as a risk factor, the researchers cited the preponderance of victims who were boys; others, however, have argued that for real paedophiles, the primary factor is access to children, not whether the child is a boy or girl.

A researcher from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York told the US bishops in November: “At this point, we do not find a correlation between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse.”

Vatican spokesman Fr Lombardi SJ said data released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in March showed that 60% of the 3 000 cases handled by the Vatican since 2001 involved sexual attraction towards male adolescents, 30% involved heterosexual relations, and the remaining 10% were cases of paedophilia, involving an adult sexual preference for pre-pubescent children.—CNS

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LOCAL

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

Mass against human trafficking before start of soccer World Cup

BY MICHAIL RASSOOL

T

HE Southern African Catholic Bisops’ Conference Counter Trafficking In Persons Desk is organising a special Mass against human trafficking especially during the Fifa World Cup tournament in June/July.

Holy Family Sister Melanie O’Connor, the desk’s coordinator, said the purpose of the Mass, which takes place on Saturday, May 8 in the chapel of Christian Brothers College in Pretoria at 10:00, is to signify that everyone in the Church is united in prayer for the elimination of human trafficking.

Victims are abducted or deceived by highly organised criminal rings with promises of a better life in another part of the country or another country. They instead

find themselves lured into prostitution or domestic or sweatshop labour against their will, or in circumstances outside of their control.

Concelebrated by local priests and bishops scheduled to be in Pretoria then, the Mass is being organised mainly for the Gauteng Church, Sr O’Connor said, although people from elsewhere are welcome to participate in the celebration.

She said it would be good if other dioceses could also organise Masses in a national expression of what experts say is the thirdbiggest organised crime industry in the world, after drug and small weapons trafficking.

Sr O’Connor said the decision to hold the Mass was taken at the bishops' plenary in January.

She said the organisation is

keen on schools to attend the Mass, as she “feared for young people at the time of the World Cup”.

At a workshop organised in Cape Town, Sr O’Connor said it was important to find out, as the Church, what can be done, even if this meant simply forming prayer groups.

“As leaders in the Church and civil society, we are called to shine light into dark places,” she told participants. “With hundreds of thousands of God’s children being entrapped and exploited, suffering pain, starvation and humiliation for the monetary gain of others, our faith compels us not only to educate ourselves, but those around us.”

She said children are being, sometimes by their own family, sold into forced labour, for their organs or for sexual purposes. Oth-

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ers, especially young girls, are sold to be wives, a preference that has arisen after the spread HIV/Aids, especially on the African continent.

Their families regard them as cheap and disposable, she said, “a phenomenon that can easily be seen as modern-day slavery”.

Sr O’Connor told participants of the sense of betrayal felt by children sold to local trafficking agents by their own families and the resultant psychological damage suffered by them.

Sources say that approximately 800 000 people are trafficked across national borders each year, and some estimate there are 27 million in slavery worldwide.

These do not include the millions trafficked within countries, whether for sexual or labour purposes. South Africa has no legisla-

tion concerning human trafficking, and experts say it is difficult to combat human trafficking with exisiting laws.

In a pastoral letter, “Fighting Human Trafficking: Our Christian Responsibility”, the bishops said Catholics as a community should become more conversant with the reality of trafficking, as one of the best defences against it.

This could be done by educating themselves in what human trafficking is, making themselves familiar with how traffickers operate, checking out the genuineness of job offers, ensuring children are registered, being alert to what is happening in their environment and reporting cases of suspected human trafficking.

Catholic welfare organisation praised

BY MUNYARADZI MAKONI

C

ATHOLIC Welfare and Development (CWD) has been praised by the Western Cape’s Social Development Department for its efforts in the fight against poverty.

“We are thankful for the work you are doing. It promotes self reliance and people become less dependent on the state,” said Dr Ivan Meyer, the MEC for Social Development.

Dr Meyer represented Premier Helen Zille at a business breakfast held at the Zanokhanyo Training Centre in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.

The MEC said it was heartwarming that Zanokhanyo, a skills training organisation run

by CWD, made it a priority to help disadvantaged women.

Headed by Chance Changunda and launched in 1998, the centre provides skills development to unemployed women from impoverished communities equipping them with basic skills for employment.

Women are helped to improve their self esteem and are taught practical skills enabling them to find and hold jobs in different sectors.

Zanokhanyo falls into the

economic development focus area of CWD, which includes other programmes: Jobstart Training Centre, Brand New Jeans and the Du Noon Mushroom Project.

Dr Meyer said that by targeting and empowering women, it would trigger entrepreneurial skills while bringing out hidden talents through training.

In recognising women’s commitment, Dr Dreyer said that in 2010 about 55% of the contracts in his department would be awarded to women.

“We prefer women contractors because we know development will take place,” he said.

Dr Meyer made a committment to giving funding to CWD for their skills development projects in the province.

He said that R600 million has been set aside for Early Childhood Development, but warned that if the money was not spent properly it would be “terminated”.

“The intention is to give hope to the country. We have to thank the Catholic organisations who help us do this. We have to invest and build success,” he said.

The MEC said the provincial government realised that

poverty was not only on the streets but inside households, “so to fight it skills such as those provided by the CWD for the people is crucial”.

At the meeting Dr Meyer castigated women who turn to shebeens to sustain their families. He said this created behavioural problems amongst children and parents in communities.

“We don’t believe in empowering women by building shebeens,” he said. “Why is it that we always have shebeens in a black community and not in a white area?”

He said the amended liquor by-law will make sure that no premises situated next to a church or school would receive a liquor licence.

Mr Chagunda said that the meeting was organised to showcase the work done in the community and to strengthen partnerships with government and various stakeholders.

This year Zanokhanyo aims to provide home management and lifeskills training to more than 190 unemployed and unskilled women. The organisation’s training is linked to the National Qualifications Framework.

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LOCAL

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

3

Shrines still ‘oases of hope’ after many decades

BY MICHAIL RASSOOL

T

HE Schoenstatt shrine in Cathcart in Queenstown and Cape Town have been described as a oases of hope in the desert of modern times.

In addition, they are places of grace and pilgrimage where Mary mother of Jesus dwells, and where she transforms and educates her children whom, having made a covenant with her, she leads closer to the Triune God. Addressing a 900-strong gathering of members of the Schoenstatt movement, at the shrine in Constantia, Cape Town, Sr Constance O’Brien said it was one of the few places where people of all colours came together to pray for healing and contact during apartheid.

Sr Constance was talking at the 50th anniversary of the shrine's blessing and consecration.

“This shrine [to the ‘Mother Thrice Admirable, Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt’] became a haven for those wanting to build and form a new society based on the formation of firm, free and priestly personalities,” she told the Schoenstatt priests, sisters and various branches of the lay movement.

During the course of its almost 100-year history, the Schoenstatt movement has given rise to many apostolic, social, educational, missionary and pastoral activities throughout the world.

Many of these were started by people or groups from a particular branch of the movement, or have been the fruits of a calling or an inspiration from the Blessed Mother.

The original Schoenstatt shrine, in Schoenstatt situated near Koblenz in western Germany, is an international pilgrimage site. Today there are more than 180 daughter shrines in more that 30 countries, constructured and decorated to the original, according to Fr Matthias Nsamba, rector of the Cathcart shrine.

Cathcart, a historically significant mission area in the Eastern Cape, is also the place where the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary went when they first arrived in South Africa in 1934.

Pallottine Father Barry Reabow of the cathedral of Christ the King, Queenstown spoke of the central place of the Cathcart shrine when he was a child. He said it was a stop on the way to family holiday destinations, and was a factor in his father’s reception into the Church shortly before he died.

Jennifer Wild, a daily worshipper at the shrine, said she had come to Cathcart to die, having being diagnosed with a fatal illness, but was healed. She ascribes her healing to the help of Our Lady in the Schoenstatt shrine.

One Schoenstatt mother, Audrey Barnes, spoke of how her children were baptised at the shrine, a place, she said, that dispelled anger over apartheid injustice and “where

Esmé Padayachee addresses the 50th anniversay celebration of the Schoenstatt shrine to speak about the importance it has on her life.

PHOTO: MICHAIL RASSOOL

prayers for the transition to democracy were offered up and answered”.

Esmé Padayachee said, as an underground member of the ANC Women's League, at a time when the ANC was demonised as a terrorist organisation by mainstream society, her leanings could be

Priests from the diocese of Bethlehem and Correctional Services officers attended a prison ministry workshop conducted by Fr Jordan gondo (pictured right in the first row) in Bethlehem.

Seven priests represented the seven prisons in the diocese. The purpose of the workshop was to empower, capacitate and familiarise the priests with the government gazettes of correctional services’ spiritual care for inmates, and to establish a prison desk to coordinate this ministry, Fr Ngondo said.

“When all the things we dealt with have been put into practice, we will meet to evaluate,” Fr Ngondo said.

shared only with Our Lady at the shrine and her Schoenstatt Father confessor.

South Africa has five shrines in Bedfordview; Johannesburg; Queenstown, Constantia; Villa Maria in Tamboerskloof, Cape Town; and Maryland, Hanover Park, Cape Town. These are among nine in Africa.

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Celebrating the messages of Fatima to the World

Join us on a pilgrimage on foot with our Lady of Fatima at the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, corner Geldenhuis and Mullins roads, Malvern East on Saturday, 8 May 2010 at 18:30 (6:30pm). The pilgrimage ends with Holy Mass at the Schoenstatt Shrine at the corner of Van Buuren and Florence roads, Bedfordview.

Bring a candle and a rosary. Wear comfortable shoes. Make arrangements to be picked up after Mass at the Schoenstatt Shrine.

A plate of eats or a cake would be most welcome for the tea after Mass - please drop that off at the Shrine before the pilgrimage starts.

Spread the word about this pilgrimage - tell everyone you know.

“Say the Rosary everyday” - Fatima Message, 13 June 1917

REMEMBERING OUR DEAD “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins” (II Macc XII,46) Holy Mass will be celebrated on the first Sunday of each month in the All Souls’ chapel, Maitland, Cape Town at 2:30pm for all souls in purgatory and for all those buried in the Woltemade cemetery.

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4

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

INTERNATIONAL

‘Pope strong on abuse’

BY JOHN THAVIS

T

HE Vatican spokesman has strongly defended Pope Benedict as a credible leader on the issue of priestly sex abuse, saying the pope’s respect for truth and transparency stand against the “criticism and unfounded insinuations” of recent weeks.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi in a lengthy commentary said that the recent disclosures of past cases of abuse of minors by priests had demonstrated that the wounds in the Church run deep, and require greater pastoral attention.

But he said the Church was taking the correct approach by reaching out to victims, strengthening its own procedures against offenders, encouraging cooperation with civil authorities and improving the screening of priesthood candidates.

Fr Lombardi criticised the media for treating sexual abuse as if it were only a Church problem.

The crisis, he said, is extensive and goes well beyond the boundaries of the Catholic clergy.

Responding to widespread criticism of the pope and the Vatican for allegedly failing to act more decisively against priest abusers, Fr Lombardi said the Church’s current policies of transparency and firmness reflected the pope’s own determination to address the problem.

In response to the barrage of media criticism of the pope and his aides, Fr Lombardi and other Vatican officials have pointed out that even as a cardinal, Pope Benedict pushed hard for stricter measures for prosecuting and defrocking priest abusers. As pope, he has repeatedly condemned such abuse as a terrible sin and crime, and has met with sex abuse victims in the United States and Australia.

Fr Lombardi said the recent events have revealed, in a striking manner, that although most of these sex abuse cases go back

How Church handles abuse complaints

BY JOHN THAVIS

T

Fr Federico Lombardi SJ arrives at a Vatican news conference this month.

The Vatican spokesman has defended Pope Benedict from criticism in the media and explained how the Church should respond to the abuse scandal.

PHOTO: ALESSANDRO BIANCHI, REUTERS/CNS

decades, the “inner wounds” are evidently still open.

“Many victims do not seek financial compensation but inner assistance, a judgment on their painful individual experiences.

There is something that we have yet to fully understand; perhaps we need a more profound experience of events that have had such a negative impact on the lives of individuals, of the Church and of society.”

While the cases may be old and the number of new allegations diminishing, “for many people the road to profound healing is only now beginning, and for others it has yet to start”.

The spokesman reiterated Pope Benedict’s willingness to hold new meetings with victims of abuse. And he said certain bishops’ conferences had rightly established forums for listening to abuse victims.

“Alongside concern for victims we must continue to implement, decisively and truthfully, the cor-

rect procedures for the canonical judgment of the guilty, and for collaborating with the civil authorities in matters concerning their judicial and penal competencies, taking the specific norms and situations of the various countries into account,” he said.

“Only in this way can we hope effectively to rebuild a climate of justice and complete trust in the ecclesiastical institution.”

Fr Lombardi faulted the media for failing to adequately report the extent of the sexual abuse problem, and for failing to make it clear that the Church was dealing with a problem shared by many institutions.

For example, he said, a recent document on mistreatment of children in the United States reported that in 2008, there were more than 62 000 perpetrators of sexual abuse against minors; of that number, he said, the proportion of Catholic priests was so small as not to be taken into consideration as a group.—CNS

HE Vatican has placed online a summary of its procedures for handling sex abuse allegations against priests, in order to illustrate the Church’s commitment to protecting children and punishing offenders.

The online “introductory guide” lists the investigative steps, trial options and possible penalties for clerical sex abuse of minors, including dismissal from the priesthood. It underlines the local bishop’s responsibility to follow civil law in reporting such crimes to the appropriate authorities.

“This is to help the public understand how we facilitate, how we proceed. This is transparency, transparency of the Vatican. We have nothing to hide,” said Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman.

The move came after a spate of articles portrayed Vatican officials, including Pope Benedict when he was the Vatican’s top doctrinal official, as slow to act on allegations of sex abuse by priests.

Church officials have said many of the published reports exhibited a lack of knowledge about the current procedures and how they work.

The online guide explains the practices adopted in the wake of a 2001 papal document that established strict universal norms for handling cases of sexual abuse by priests against minors and placed these cases under the authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It highlighted several essential steps in investigating and processing abuse cases.

First, the local diocese is to investigate every allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric. If the allegation has a “semblance of truth”, the case is referred to the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation.

During this preliminary stage, the local bishop may restrict the

activity of a priest as a precautionary measure, in order to protect children. “This is part of his ordinary authority, which he is encouraged to exercise to whatever extent is necessary to assure that children do not come to harm.”

The doctrinal congregation then studies the case presented by the local bishop. It has a number of options at its disposal: • Penal processes. The doctrinal congregation may authorise a judicial penal trial at a local Church tribunal, or it can authorise the local bishop to conduct an “administrative penal process”. Under either procedure, if a cleric is judged guilty he is subject to a number of possible penalties, including dismissal from the priesthood. Appeal can be made to a tribunal of the doctrinal congregation or to the congregation itself.

• Cases referred directly to the pope. In “very grave cases” where a civil criminal trial has found the cleric guilty of sexual abuse of minors or where the evidence is overwhelming, the doctrinal congregation can take the case directly to the pope and request the offender’s dismissal from the priesthood.

There is no recourse to such a penalty.

The congregation also takes to the pope requests by priests who acknowledge their crimes and asked to be dispensed from the obligation of the priesthood. The pope grants these requests “for the good of the Church”.

• Disciplinary measures. In cases where the accused priest has admitted his crimes and has accepted to live a life of prayer and penitence, the local bishop can issue a decree prohibiting or restricting the public ministry of the priest. If the priest violates the terms of the decree, possible penalties include dismissal from the priesthood. Recourse against such decrees is made to the doctrinal congregation, whose decision is final.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

Pro-life movement takes hold in Cuba C

BY VICTOR GAETAN

ONCHITA Morales watched the crowd of 200 people slowly filing out of historic St Francis of Assisi church in Old Havana and felt a deep sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

After 15 years, Pro-Vida Cuba (Pro-Life Cuba) had concluded its first-ever public prayer service.

Filled with prayer and inspirational talks, the event moved Dr Morales, a clinical physician, and her husband, Hector Gonzalez, a radiologist.

“We had no idea what to expect,” she told Catholic News Service. “We will be strengthened in this difficult mission now.”

As director of Cuba’s only national pro-life organisation, Dr Morales has long called attention to the dangers of abortion in Cuban society in smaller venues.

While the organisation has not

been prohibited from meeting, it has done so largely in private— until now.

Called Dia por la Vida (Day for Life), the gathering included prayer, Eucharistic adoration and Mass. It marked the 15th anniversary of the organisation’s founding. The audience included several doctors, according to organisers.

Nine priests concelebrated the Mass for the pro-life movement, Cuban families and the unborn.

Fr Antonio Rodriguez Diaz, rector at St Carlos and St Ambrosio seminary, delivered an emotional homily as the eight other priests listened.

“The Catholic Church of Cuba cannot accept abortion or contraceptives that destroy life,” he told the gathering. “If we do not fight for unborn life, we are not real Christians. It is our role to mobilise, and teach the truth, on

this issue.”

Fr Rodriguez described an image of Cuba as a street that coincides with the history of Christianity.

That street crosses another street, “the street of sadness and bitterness” where “one of the greatest sources of sadness and bitterness is that we have so many abortions”.

Abortion became legal in Cuba in 1965 and is widely available through the state health system.

The Catholic community, as would be expected, has been a leading voice against abortion.

“We’ve held pro-life conferences and information sessions,” explained one seventh-year seminarian from St Carlos and St Ambrosio who asked to remain anonymous. “But we are Christians. We must pray for the unborn and the health of our country.”

Dr Morales explained that abor-

Benedict XVI praises Pius XII film

A

NEW film on Pope Pius XII can help people, especially younger generations, understand a period of time that is often forgotten, Pope Benedict has said.

The made-for-television, twopart miniseries, titled Under the Roman Sky, stars James Cromwell as Pope Pius, and covers events from July 19,1943, when Allied planes heavily bombed parts of Rome, to June 4, 1944, when Allied forces liberated Rome from German control. It also reconstructs Adolf Hitler’s plan to kidnap the pope.

Pope Benedict saw a shortened version of the film during a screening at the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.

The film, by Canadian director Christian Duguay, “presents the fundamental role Venerable Pius XII played in saving Rome and many persecuted people”, the pope said after the screening.

The film shows how Pope Pius urged the Allies to spare Rome from destruction and helped negotiate an open-city agreement to prevent further devastation. It also shows how some Jewish residents were hid-

Pope Benedict watches the movie Under the Roman Sky at the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo. The film stars James Cromwell as Pope Pius XII. PHOTO VIA CNS den in Church convents and religious institutes to avoid their deportation to Nazi death camps.

According to the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the movie’s Italian and German producers wanted the film to be accessible to as many people as possible and “to overcome prejudice and malevolent criticism” about the role of the wartime pope.

Pope Benedict said historical films appealing to a wide audience were particularly important, especially for younger generations.

“Films such as this one can be useful and stimulating, helping [people] understand a period of time that is not at all in the distant past, but which the pressing events of recent history and a fragmented culture can cause one to forget,” he said.—CNS

Clergy died with Polish president

BY JONATHAN LUXMOORE

A

CATHOLIC archbishop and several priests were among the 96 people who died in the plane crash that killed Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski.

The plane carrying Kaczynski, top government and military officials and religious leaders crashed in heavy fog on April 10 while attempting to land at the Russian airport of Smolensk.

The plane was carrying a delegation that was to attend a ceremony commemorating the Katyn Forest massacre, a Soviet massacre of more than 20 000 members of Poland’s elite officer

corps 70 years ago.

The other passengers included the first lady, the head of the Polish central bank, the deputy foreign minister, heads of the Polish navy and air forces, the army chief of staff and nine clergy, including Archbishop Tadeusz Ploski (pictured), Poland’s military archbishop who held the rank of division general.

The president’s chaplain, Mgr Roman Indrzejczyk, and the chaplain of Poland’s Katyn Families Association, Mgr Zdzislaw

Krol, also were killed, as was the rector of Warsaw’s Cardinal Wyszynski University, Fr Ryszard Rumianek.

Orthodox Archbishop Miron Chodakowski, who headed the Polish Orthodox military chaplaincy, was also killed.

Memorial Masses for the disaster victims were held nationwide and among Polish communities abroad, as well as at Katyn Forest and in Russia and neighbouring countries.—CNS

Catholic protest nixes Europe’s biggest casino

BY JONATHAN LUXMOORE

S

LOVAKIA’S Catholic Church has said it expects plans for Europe’s largest mega-casino complex to be called off after campaigning by Catholic groups.

“We’re afraid of the moral harm this project will inflict on many people,” explained Fr Jozef Kovacik, spokesman for the Slovakian bishops’ conference.

“We’ve presented overwhelming arguments against it and the media have received these positively. Most Slovaks are now

firmly opposed to the mega-casino,” he said.

The priest was speaking as a final decision neared on plans by the Nevada-based Harrah’s Entertainment Inc for a Las Vegas-style complex at Petrzalka, near the Austrian border.

The project was expected to be completed by 2015 with backing from Slovak Premier Robert Fico.

Mr Fico said a final decision on the project was not expected until after Slovakia’s June 12 parliamentary elections. However, he added that Bratislava’s city

government had voiced objections to the project and said he believed it now had “very little chance of acceptance”.

“It will bring gambling addiction, bankruptcy, drug abuse, prostitution and mafia activities.

In a Catholic country like ours, this is hardly the best way to create jobs and generate profits,” said Fr Kovacik..

“Economic gains can’t be sought on the basis of immorality. Nor can economic and social arguments be put forward without regard for the greater moral harm.”—CNS

tion is such a common practice in Cuba, that most women consider it a form of contraception “with no negative spiritual, ethical or health-related meaning”.

“A girl of any age—we know of even 11-year olds—can get an abortion, for free, anytime.

Although there are supposedly limits in terms of the age of the unborn baby, the fact is, in Cuba, you can get an abortion until the birth of a child. It is horrible.”

A young priest, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that distraught Catholic doctors have approached the Church, asking how to handle the prevalence of abortion, including late-term abortion.

“We tell doctors they must do what we do: Teach the people the truth that abortion is murder,” he said.

A daring tool in the effort to

5

raise awareness came in the form of dramatic colour posters promoting the event that appeared around Havana for several weeks.

A large image of a fully developed foetus, in the womb sucking her thumb, called people to attend the day of prayer. Hanging the posters was a risky venture; ads for nonstate gatherings are illegal under Cuban law.

Although state data are difficult to verify, Cuba is considered to have one of the highest abortion rates in the world, according to a 2002 study by University of Texas researcher Filipe Eduardo Sixto.

An analysis based on United Nations statistics gathered by researcher William Robert Johnston concluded there were 66 008 abortions in Cuba in 2007. The study found abortions peaked in 1986 at 160 926. Cuba’s population stands at 11 million.—CNS

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The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Stay ‘on message’

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HE secular media hold no friendly disposition towards the Catholic Church, and the abuse scandal is such that the Church cannot expect sympathy from the media. What the Church may expect from them is fair and balanced coverage.

Often coverage is not balanced, for many different and sometimes interrelated reasons.

These include incompetence, sensationalism, prejudice, poor research and insufficient understanding of the Catholic Church and hostility towards it, as well as righteous disgust at the scandal, exacerbated by profound shortcomings in some of the Church’s responses.

Some coverage is informed by an anti-Catholic agenda. For examople, atheist campaigner Christopher Hitchens has distorted the content and objectives of the 2001 document Sacramentum sanctitatis tutela, issued by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, to such an extent that to many people it represents a smoking gun for a supposed “instruction from the top” to cover up allegations of child abuse. The document in fact sought to accomplish the opposite.

Moves in Britain to have Pope Benedict arrested in September for…well, we don’t really know…suggest that the Church’s critics are not above pulling public stunts, ostensibly to highlight a scandal that already has been widely publicised.

However, it serves no purpose to refer to a concerted media conspiracy against the Church; there is no concrete proof of one, even as some publishers and journalists are aggressively anti-Catholic. Anyhow, the scandal of abuse and its coverups was not made up by the media. To blame the media for it amounts to an effort to divest the Church of responsibility for its own failures.

There is an apparent deficiency in communication: by the media, which fail readers when they present an incomplete story, and by the Catholic Church, which has not succeeded in conveying an adequate response.

To be sure, in many instances

the Church has been treated unfairly. Temperate, intelligent, insightful and balanced Catholic voices are too often sidelined.

And in some ways, that is of the Church’s own doing.

It is surprising that an institution so concerned with its own reputation should be so inexpert at putting into place a coherent public relations strategy in response to the biggest crisis it has faced since the Reformation.

As we reported last week, some in the Vatican are exasperated at the inability of Church leaders to stay “on message”. The preacher of the pontifical household, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, thoughtlessly compared the criticism levelled at the Church to “the most shameful aspects of anti-Semitism” (to his credit, he later acknowledged the inappropriate nature of his remark). Cardinal Angelo Sodano’s reference to “current petty gossip” was extraordinarily imprudent, and utterly disrespectful to the real victims of the scandal—those who were abused.

In these instances, the Vatican was able to distance itself and the pope from unhelpful remarks. Matters are not helped when inopportune comments emanate from Vatican officials themselves. For example, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s revival of the discredited argument that links paedophilia to homosexuality merely feeds a secular perception of the Catholic Church as a scapegoating, homophobic institution that continues to blame its own failures on minorities.

It takes no public relations genius to work out just how detrimental such statements are in repairing the Church’s public reputation.

At this time, the Church should voice with humility and absolute sincerity unconditional support for the victims of abuse, account fully for its own failures, pledge to repair the immense harm done by all means necessary, and seek to set the record straight without undue self-justification.

The best advice which can be given to those who stray from that message is to just shut up.

The Editor reserves the right to shorten or edit published letters. Letters below 300 words receive preference. Pseudonyms are acceptable only under special circumstances and at the Editor’s discretion. Name and address of the writer must be supplied. No anonymous letter will be considered.

Let lawyers sort out this crisis

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OUR excellent editorial of April 7-13 on the abuse crisis refers.

Though I applaud efforts made by the local hierarchy to openly address issues, I propose that both guilty priests and victims of abuse should submit evidence to a panel of eminent lay Catholic lawyers.

Attorney-client privilege would hold for any submission.

Once all such information has been collated by a cut-off date, the panel would try to identify which cases have a reasonable chance of achieving a sentence in a criminal court. Clergy accused of such abuse may at this time have an

opportunity to respond. Attempts should be made to achieve out-ofcourt settlements, failing which the complainant may proceed with criminal charges.

Victims of abuse may no longer be practising Catholics, and to ensure as transparent a process as possible, calls for such submissions may be done through the national print media.

This may be a bitter pill to swallow, but such a procedure would confirm the bona fides of the hierarchy in addressing this crisis as fairly and quickly as possible.

The value of an independent

Double values

Not wishing to be flippant, I once saw a cartoon depicting a bomb on a manager’s desk with the fuse busy sparking away, with the caption: “Maybe if we ignore it, it will go away”. Sadly, this problem cannot be wished away.

Tony Baiocchi, Johannesburg

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OUR report “Row over ‘gay Mass’” (March 10-16) refers.

Some consider it wrong for a priest to celebrate Mass in the presence of gay Catholics, yet don’t seem to mind if the official Church offers only empty apologies for the abuse of children by clergy.

I loved watching my grandson and granddaughter make their First Holy Communion and I want my faith strengthened, but I am continuously shaken by hypocritical rhetoric.

Lyn Meyer, Florida

Too many avoid abuse discussion

Y

OUR editorial “The boil must be lanced” (April 7-13) contains much long awaited and candid comment on the critical situation in which the Church now finds itself. The letter of Aideen Gonlag in the same edition, “Challenge to all Catholics”, also deserves commendation.

The Southern Cross, unlike the secular press, it is not always seeking sensation. More Catholics should buy our Catholic newspaper, a source of information and useful comment.

Too many people are avoiding discussion of the abuse issue, because “they don’t know what to say about it”. As you rightly point out, people are leaving the Church, for this reason or other reasons of their own.

The most logical comment I have seen so far is that one cannot judge an organisation by the behaviour of certain of its individual members. On no account is one being judgmental, but the cover-up policy has not worked.

Clergy should not be demigods

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ONY MEEHAN sums the sex abuse scandal “Let everyone fast” (April 7-13).

The laity are also to blame. For too long we have held the clergy up on pedestals, almost like demigods. We overlook their questionable traits by saying such things as: “They’ve dedicated their lives to the people and therefore we cannot question their behaviour.” The clergy have been a law unto themselves.

In the early 1900s the Irish government financed religious institutions that cared for orphans. In turn the clergy at these institutions sent a percentage of that money to the Vatican thus depriving the children of a better lifestyle and better facilities. Incidents such as this were kept secret.

That has now changed. The shocking deeds committed by certain clergy throughout the world have highlighted dubious decisions taken by various bishops, all in the cause of protecting the miscreants.

Perhaps this is all in God’s plan for bringing the Church down to earth with a bump, and emphasising that the clergy are humans experiencing the same faults as the rest of members of society.

Pat Dacey, Johannesburg

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panel of lay lawyers has the advantage of avoiding any accusation of a cover-up by the hierarchy. And I am sure many eminent Catholic lawyers would be willing to offer their services without charge.

As an aside, as a practising Catholic I find it bizarre to read about some Catholics abandoning their faith as a result of this crisis.

It is surely clear to all that the Church is populated by normally sinful mortals.

This crisis has made me feel even more dedicated to the Church and to those many thousands of clergy who continue to labour faithfully in the vineyard. It is in the interest of such men that I submit these suggestions.

Name withheld

Need to speak out

T

HE child sex abuse scandal illustrates the gravity of silence when there is a duty to speak out on a serious moral issue.

A parallel situation is that of the Pill, supposedly a fail-safe contraception which is used by many Catholics in ignorance that it aborts the “accidental” conceptions that often occur during its use.

Silence on this issue, which can destroy human life, is thus arguably more serious than that aforementioned.

Damian McLeish, Johannesburg

Give due credit

I

AGREE with those who think we should cringe in shame at the terrible stories of abuse of youth

by Catholic clergy.

However, we claim we are one Church, so we share a collective guilt. Instead of joining in the finger-pointing, let’s write letters to commend the vast majority of guilt-free priests, brothers and nuns who are being tarred with the same brush.

Many can look back on happy relations they have had. Rather than linger on evil done, let’s write in support of the good people.

Pick up those pens!

Carmen Smith, Somerset West

More letters on page 19 Opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in Letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the Catholic hierarchy. The letters page in particular is a forum in which readers may exchange opinions on matters of debate.

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

PERSPECTIVES Toni Rowland

Family Friendly

Abuse: We must look in families too

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RADITIONALLY this 4th Sunday of Easter, also known as Good Shepherd Sunday, has been regarded as Vocations Sunday. Again traditionally, it had to do mainly with vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

As vocations to the religious life have declined so drastically, the focus has changed to thinking of vocations more broadly, and so we speak of the vocation of marriage and even sometimes parenting as a vocation. So what does Vocations Sunday call us to do during this year, 2010, with all the hoo-ha and shenanigans going on around us?

In the April Marfam Family Matters enewsletter (www.marfam.org.za) I made reference to the abuse by priests (admittedly a small minority), but the more relevant aspect of the message was the role of families in this situation. Abusers come from families. They may well have been abused in their families, or possibly by a previous generation of priests, but the knowledge and experience was kept quiet, suppressed. So abusers cause serious hurt within families, by the act and also through denial or rejection and break-down of trust.

However, by far the greatest problem with child molestation and abuse is in families themselves, with parents, step-parents, siblings or members of extended families abusing the children of the family, extended family or close connections.

Already in 2002, issue #3, Marriage and Family Living carried an article headlined “Is there a paedophile in your home?”. It explored this issue in some depth and many other Marfam publications continually deal with relevant issues for families from a pastoral angle. At this time we should ask: “Are we making enough noise about the broader family aspect of the problem of abuse?”

My reflection on the current situation led me to go beyond just making a noise, and also look into the need for reconciliation, at many levels. South Africa’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission gave us a taste and example of reconciliation through acknowledgement of guilt and of pain, and in fact the guilty too often experience pain. Sincerity and sensitivity is required together with effective mediation so that the process of true reconciliation can begin.

As families we do need to face the realities of our lives. At one level we need to reflect on the experiences of the past. At another level we need to inform our children of what is happening and encourage them to trust us enough to speak out. We do need to deal with cases of molestation, and incest too, in the correct manner.

The Church has put strict protocols in place to deal with cases from their side. In theory, society has structures too, but it can be a complicated matter because of the implications for the particular family. For example, a mother could become destitute if she reported a case and had the abuser, most likely the breadwinner, arrested and jailed.

The April family theme is “God’s Game Plan”, and surely God’s plan includes responding as the Church at large to our first vocation, our baptismal calling to follow Jesus, as priest, prophet, king. This would include firstly prayer and offering sacrifice to God in all sincerity, secondly reading the signs of the times and responding to them, and thirdly protecting the innocent and vulnerable especially our children and youth.

As lay family people, our first calling is to live lives of integrity in our different contexts such as home, work and school. Then as we all get our houses in order hopefully vocations to the religious life will take on a new meaning.

And, while we’re about it, isn’t that what Freedom Day on April 27 is also all about?

A new religious charism T Echoes of HE African Synod II last October proudly marked the growing number of Africans in religious congregations, some whom occupy important positions.

There is a promising future as there are still many young people entering formation houses in Africa.

For this, indeed, we can intone Te Deum for such blessing. However my query is: will the African Church continue this present picture of religious life?

As a result of missionary expansion we have had a number of religious congregations that came to Africa, mainly from Europe. Depending on the charism of each of these families, the religious gave witness in various fields such as health, education, development and parish apostolate. These are also the means through which we have come to them. Young people who aspire to join will speak of being drawn by such activities.

It is a consolation indeed that such witness is effective. There is an initial charismatic and prophetic spirit that permeates and gives sense to whatever activity members of a congregation may do. This too sustains the relevance of a congregation, even when the activity it is traditionally associated with is no longer the same. As I look at a number of diocesan religious congregations that have come up, it’s on that point that I have questions.

The picture has changed quite dramatically on the scene of religious life. The religious, especially sisters, who came as missionaries and worked in different sectors of the diocesan engagement are old or dead. Congregations recruit young people who are introduced not only to the activities but also to that foundational oomph from the founder. But there are also congregations that are just dying out, they are disappearing. What happens to the work they have been doing in the dioceses?

Many bishops have founded local diocesan religious congregations especially of sisters who have taken over the places left by missionary congregations. Often these local congregations have very limited financial resources, both for their own sustenance and for the apostolate, yet they accomplish admirable work.

Nevertheless, perhaps inspired by my own limited, biased perception of religious life, I wonder: are we going to found a congregation because the bishop wants sisters to teach catechism, because there have always been sisters in the Catholic school or hospital, or in the bishop’s office and they are no longer there?

Do we start a congregation because we are used to seeing sisters in those fields?

If that is the case—and I know I’m being quite simplistic for the sake of discussion—couldn’t we employ nurses, teachers, secretaries and catechists who are not necessarily religious?

Diocesan congregations may have an administrative and financial connection with the bishop and owe him as their “ordinary”, but they may have very little, if any, “charismatic” connection with him. In a way, that may betray their existence, reducing them to something like diocesan “civil servants”. There may

Evans Chama

be nothing wrong with that, but is that all we can have as a version of African religious life?

W

hatever we can say about religious life in terms of vows, it is also true that the initial charismatic momentum inherited from the founder is an important life stream significant in a religious family.

Besides, a new congregation might risk appearing redundant if it lacks really new and prophetic answers to the situation in the Church or in society.

There has been creativity in the choice of names, but few ties with practice or charism. One may ask, in which way does such a new congregation challenge the Church or society today? The answer is not easy.

We shouldn’t lose the radical witness that has been a significant contribution of religious life even before engaging in any activity, a newness that will not only inspire the youth to join but also, and more importantly, interrogate society and its values.

We can also see it differently.

Does religious life in Africa have to be a replacement of the dying congregations or perpetuation of traditional engagements? True, some of the engagements may have been radically prophetic at the arrival of the missionary, which may not be the case today. We should be bold enough to see things differently, and act accordingly.

I think here is just another area where the African Church needs rise, take up its pallet and walk. I would like to see the holy women and men of Africa who, touched by their surroundings, are going to stand up against the ulcers of African society today—tribalism, corruption, discrimination of women, slothfulness in public service—and give a fresh, timely and urgent witness to society.

Such creativity only a charismatic inspiration can guarantee.

The basic question is this: how much does what is happening in Africa today touch African Christians and move them to live differently so as to give witness and inspire others to live differently for the better?

Nuns from Cameroon celebrate as they attend a weekly general audience with Pope Benedict in St Peter’s Square. In his article, Evans Chama reflects on religious life in Africa today.

PHOTO: ALESS IA GIULIANI, CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO/CNS

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The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

General Intention: That the shameful and monstrous commerce in human beings, which sadly involves millions of women and children, may be ended.

HEN we see how slavery has made a modern comeback under the guise of human trafficking, we may well wonder with the rather gloomy contemporary English philosopher John Gray whether humanity makes any moral progress at all.

Of course slavery is outlawed almost everywhere but one can argue that nonetheless it is still practised almost everywhere.

Lured by spurious job offers, people from developing countries seeking a better life will pay traffickers a small fortune in their terms to smuggle them into wealthy countries. Here they discover that the attractive jobs they were offered turn out to be prostitution or menial work at starvation wages. Their passports are usually taken from them. Harsh treatment is common. Sometimes they are never paid at all and they are sacked after a few months with nothing. Recourse to the authorities puts them in the impossible position of having to admit their identity as illegal immigrants and risking deportation.

These unfortunates are slaves not only to their bosses, but also to the expectations of their families back home. Those that do manage to get some form of ordinary work often feel obliged to beggar themselves in order to send the maximum amounts to their impoverished families. This is the case for many Zimbabweans in South Africa today. There is a double exploitation here: the political oppression of their government coupled with the locals’ collusion in paying them the lower wages we know they will accept in their desperation.

Hence we become part of the system. However, organisations like Fair Trade can alert us to the fact that, for example, many of our simple supermarket choices can contribute to this system of oppression. Much of the chocolate we consume, it seems, is the product of trafficked child labour in West Africa.

So we pray not only for tighter laws but also for a greater consciousness of how more mindfulness on our part can contribute to the end of trafficking.

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The laity’s new role Missionary Intention: That ordained ministers, religious women and men, and lay people involved in apostolic work may understand how to infuse missionary enthusiasm into the communities entrusted to their care.

EARING witness effectively to Christ is a difficult business. One can admire Christians from Pentecostal and Evangelical denominations who preach at street corners or on trains, but I suppose Catholics don’t feel it is quite their style.

However, without something of the courage, conviction and enthusiasm of the Pentecostals and Evangelicals, we will probably do little except aim at the lowest common denominator of parish maintenance.

Still, the Catholic Church has clearly grown over the centuries so we must have done something right. What is our secret? It seems to me that it is what we might call “integral evangelisation”, a Christian formation of the whole person through Catholic education, catechesis, liturgical and sacramental involvement and spiritual development. When we had large numbers of religious running Catholic institutions, these were powerful engines of evangelisation. The importance of supporting Catholic institutions in a day and age when they are run more by laypeople than religious and priests, should be a fundamental aim and instinct of all involved in apostolic work.

Then there is the work of catechesis and the gradual formation into the faith of the young.

This should always be given an extremely high priority, and the sacramental rites of passage such as First Communion and confirmation need to be celebrated well in order to have a maximum impact on them.

Finally there is preaching. Bad preaching not only fails to evangelise, it chases people away. In my view anyone involved in apostolic work involving preaching should have some form of “licence” to preach, priests included. Why should the good work of those preachers attracting people to the Church be undermined by incompetent or self-serving preachers?

We pray for apostles who understand how Catholic evangelisation works and who can put it into practice and who can preach.  The Apostleship of Prayer is distributing free leaflets containing the Pope's Intentions from April 2010 to March 2011 through The Southern Cross. Further copies can be ordered from the Jesuit Institute at admin@jesuitinstitute.org.za or on 011 403 3790.

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The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

VOCATIONS

The state of vocations in Southern Africa What is the state of vocations in Southern Africa and what can be done to attract young people to the consecrated life? MICHAIL RASSOOL speaks to four bishops.

S

OURCING vocations is a huge challenge for the Church.

Bishop Frank Nubuasah of Francistown, Botswana, explained that most of the faithful in his vicariate are first-generation Catholics.

In his nearly 12 years as head of the diocese only seven priests have come out of it. And with a Catholic population of around 20 000 from more than 800 000 people, only two candidates are currently in the seminary.

But over the last four years, he said, Francistown has not sent any candidates to the seminary. This is in contrast to the religious sisters who operate in the vicariate, who receive about two or three candidates a year.

Bishop Nubuasah said cultural factors play a hand in the lack of vocations. One significant factor is that men tend not to go to church as it is seen as a mainly female practice.

“We need to emphasise the evangelisation of the man,” the bishop said, “especially the ideal of the role of the man in church.”

He explained that if one infused churchgoing with a more patriarchal flavour it might be more appealing to the men of the diocese.

Bishop Nubuasah said he has been addressing this issue among men for the last five years. He had

started the Sodality of St Joseph for men, hoping that it would find its designated niche with desired levels of recognition and membership.

“Hopefully it will go some way towards improving male spirituality, even giving rise to vocations,” he said.

Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Mthatha says the eight seminarians operating from his diocese have been successful. He ascribes their success to “grace and luck”.

There are about 50 000 Catholics in the Eastern Cape and while a very small number, he sees the number of vocations as “miraculous”.

The bishop said his diocese runs vocation workshops twice a year for 12-18 year olds. He said candidates come mainly from rural parishes, with only one from Mthatha.

But unlike the Francistown vicariate, the bishop said the religious sisterhood in his diocese is suffering and convents generally are closing down.

He speculated that women today aspire to form part of mainstream leadership with more visible positions and status, so the sisterhood and a life lived in community are no longer attractive to them.

Because there are fewer and fewer sisters, there is no one to inspire young women to assume such a role. He said priests, on the other hand, are more visible and still enjoy a certain status, and it is not inconceivable that this may be a factor in attracting young men to the priesthood.

Once young candidates are on board, the bishop said, it is essential to show them that they are supported.

Mthatha diocese has a voca-

tions director, whom interested boys and young men can stay in touch with when considering a vocation.

Bishop Sipula encourages boys to serve at the altar, giving them an intimate feel of the sanctuary.

But because girls serve now, he finds that the boys seem to be shifting away from this role.

He said Church leaders have a duty to encourage family life. But the family as an institution, he said, is often undermined by single-parent families, or families with no parents who have succumbed to a fatal illness, which leaves children to be raised by grandmothers. The Church, he said, should step in as a “surrogate family”, in which the faith is imbibed rather than learned, making it more meaningful faith, and where the concept of a vocation can be observed at close quarters . ishop Michael Wüstenberg of Aliwal North does not believe that vocations should have a special facility in a diocese, but shoul be incorporated into pastoral activity. This, he said, makes sense particularly in a small diocese.

“It's the example set by priests that should make the priesthood attractive to subsequent generations,” Bishop Wüstenberg said.

He recently returned from Cape Town where he visited two seminarians in Aliwal and Queenstown diocese.

The bishop said the Holy Cross Sisters, who have a house in Aliwal North diocese for new candidates, have up to five new vocations each year. This he said was a far better situation than the dearth of vocations at Sacred Heart Sisters, who are struggling.

He said Aliwal’s vocations director also runs vocations workshops, and diocesan policy around vocations is currently being redesigned.

A factor affecting vocations is the low standard of catechetics, the bishop said, underlining the idea that it is important to be a catechist first before becoming a priest.

He said new vocations policies should take into account the low education standards in schools from

B

A priest kneels before a bishop during his ordination. Southern African bishops are talking about their experiences in attracting vocations to the priesthood in their dioceses. those areas, which often leads to talented young candidates not being accepted by the seminary becuase they did not score enough academic points to get in.

Bishop Wüstenberg said criteria for selections should consider mainly the human being above the academic. Much of this can also be gauged at parish level, he said.

Such commitment, the bishop pointed out, gives rise to creativity and good leadership qualities, proper education and emotional maturity.

Bishop Graham Rose of Eshowe also decried the fewer priestly candidates, saying he was not sure if the new facilities constructed at St John Vianney seminary for added numbers of students was really warranted. He said he receives many calls from young men saying they want to be priests, but many of them are just not suitable.

The bishop cited as a problem

the worldwide phenomenon of materialism and an intensely secularist mainstream culture.

He also referred to a burgeoning culture of getting rich quickly, in which faith is being sacrificed on the altar of western materialism.

But Bishop Rose still lays the responsibility for vocations squarely at the Church's door.

“To what extent did we have them at school, and to what extent do we have them now?” he asked.

But parishes seem to be run differently now, Bishop Rose said. “As Church, we need a more integrated, strategic approach to sourcing vocations, not just prayer.”

He said the vocations situation is not helped by the demoralisation of sex abuse scandals.. This also exacerbates a negative view of the priesthood among young people who opt instead for areas of work that are more popular among their peers.

Bishop Rose said the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference has acknowledged that sourcing vocations is a problem and would like to know what will be done about it.

He said the same applies to bodies such as the South African Council of Priests, as it is an area that requires vision.

“One must have a sense of the beauty of the Church in itself and not the erosion that one sees,” the WISH TO SHINE YOUR LIGHT FOR GOD’S CHILDREN! bishop said, citing Then as a daughter of the Immaculate Heart of Mary this is your Cardinal John Henry Newman. chance to rekindle the light of LOVE and of the GOOD NEWS to The eminent 19th the: century English  Youth and Children churchman, whose  Sick beatification takes place in September,  Aged spoke of the imporOutcast and Neglected  tance of people’s awareness of themselves as Church (an already evangelised For more information contact: institution), which The Vocations Directoress has a direct bearing FATIMA CONVENT or PO BOX 864 on one’s sense of PO BOX 433 GLEN COWIE vocation to priestAPEL 1061 hood and religious 0739 CELL: 082 927 9940 life.

Daughters of Immaculate Heart of Mary

Feel God’s Call

VOCATIONS

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

9

Why I am a brother Being a religious brother is not an inferior alternative to the priesthood, but has a very particular charism of itself, Marist Brother SIMEON BANDA writes.

O

NE day last year I was doing my reflection on the very top of our tank. It was soon after I had turned 50 years old.

I had received messages from diverse friends. The question that fascinated me most was: “Who is a brother today?” Or if I had to ask, like our Lord: “What do people say we are today?”

In my context we call a brother “Mchimwene”. The term denotes closer relationships among the members of the blood family.

In my culture, where extended family carries weight, I may have as many achimwenes as possible, depending on kith and kin. If I am well to do, all the less fortunate members of the clan would be frequenting my home empty-handed but would return to their homes with something small in their hands.

Sometimes achimwenes would come with borrowed money if I happened to be far away from them, and would expect me to pay the debt and provide a return ticket.

Some might call this parasitism, which turns others into perpetual infants to be fed even when they are adults with their families. Being a mean mchimwmene while you have the means meant that you

were practising witchcraft and by sharing your wealth with the less fortunate, you would lose it all.

People would say, “chuma chokhwimira”, which means wealth acquired in an evil way.

Such people isolate themselves from the rest of the clan members and nobody visits them. They become the clan’s social isolates.

When I was young, solidarity in my culture was very strong and interdependence the norm. Individual wealth had no place among my people and the gap between the poor and the rich was minimal.

Achimwenes relied on one another even in farming, times of famine, sickness, weddings, and death.

Orphans were easily integrated into the family. We had no orphanages.

Elders were taken care of by the young adults.

Today old age is attributed to witchcraft and the elderly are not well respected. When people die, they become subject to suspicion.

What a pity! l grew up with my aunt and I called her children my brothers and sisters. They supported me during my school years both at primary and secondary school levels because my biological parents were financially handicapped. I felt at home with these brothers and sisters of mine. Some learned only later that I was an adopted son.

Of late, I have discovered that these relationships are not the same. Individualism is very quickly gaining ground, and everyone seems to mind his or her own business with the spouse and children.

Hospitality, which used to be the norm, has now gone.

We have lost a treasure and

from what I can see, it is irreversible.

However, I see the small Christian communities taking over the lost concept of solidarity. Anyone affiliated to a faith community finds brothers and sisters. Although they do not do much, the little generosity shown when one is in trouble is very attractive.

Now coming back to my question, I note that St Marcellin Champagnat, the founder of my congregation, invited us to have a blood brother kind of relationship.

He wanted us to brother the destitute youth.

Yes, the blood of Jesus is more than sibling relationships. It embraces all who reveal the image of God. To be a brother for me is to enter into relationships that embrace all, especially the less fortunate youth. I liken the Church to a family where people live as brothers and sisters, where the less fortunate can also feel at home.

But many people think that being a religious brother means that one is not intelligent enough to be a priest. I question the intelligence they are talking about. Vocations in our Church are not competitions but complementary functions or ministries. St Paul talks of charisms for the good of the church.

Brother Seán Sammon, the Marist Brothers’ superior-general, talks of a brother as someone who shows what the Church ought to be. He says it is like Peter and John going to the tomb. The hierarchy syndrome, which the pyramid model of the Church created, created a small confusion which will take us long to eradicate. In our

Marist Brother Simeon Banda, who was born in Malawi and is based in Mozambique.

Church there are no inferior and superior vocations, only complementary ones.

We religious are like shock therapy. Any time the Church forgets its role, the Spirit sends individuals to remind us what the Church ought to be.

I would compare the role of the religious brother to the judges in the Old Testament. They appeared at times of a crisis. Or maybe brothers are like the prophets who had to denounce any form of syncretism in Israel.

Our role is to join hands in removing ignorance which divides people. It makes us turn long-term enemies into brothers. We see diversity and pluralism as a blessing and not as a curse. This opens us to serve anywhere and to feel at home with everyone. Favourites and preferences do not exist.

It is this life of love that we can

share with a divided world. It is this life of love that lets us witness ethnic diversity as a blessing which we should respect. Isn’t it what Jesus said: that whatever we do to any of our brothers, we do it to him?

When we live in harmony because of our faith and despite being different in many ways, we witness to another culture that which is already a reality among us. It is this alternative way of life that the Church and the world badly needs today.

This will make the dream of St Marcellin come true: “See how they love one another.”

Let us appreciate one another’s vocation and build the church of equals with different roles to play for the good of all.  Br Simeon Banda FMS is a Malawian based in Matola, Mozambique.

CAPUCHIN POOR CLARE NUNS

T

he Capuchin Poor Clare Nuns are a monastic, cloistered Community, following the way of Saint Clare and Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint Clare, inspired by the life of Saint Francis of Assisi wanted to follow Christ. Within the walls of San Damiano Monastery, together with a group of young women, she led a life of deep seclusion and prayer.

The Capuchin Poor Clare Nuns live in enclosure, wearing the traditional habit. As a community they participate fully in the daily liturgy of the Church, living a simple existence of prayer, penance, manual labour and joyful community life. Set apart from the world, they unite themselves to all the members of the Church through hidden lives of prayer and sacrifice. Perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is the cherished privilege of the Capuchin Poor Clares. Twenty-four hours a day there is a sister in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.

Today the Church is in great crisis. It needs cloistered nuns who yearn to spend their lives for the sanctification of souls, who seek the presence of the Lord in contemplative love and hiddeness of life. The silent emanation of love, which pulsates from the heart of the monastery, generates a superabundance of grace for humanity. It is a power house of prayer, as designed by God, to bring glory to His Church and to the world — the heart of any Poor Clare vocation.

Seven times a day the sisters join together to praise God in choral recitation of the Divine Office. The high point of each day is the Holy sacrifice of the Mass. Their daily life includes two hours of mental prayer and devotional prayers according to the Franciscan tradition; manual labour for the maintenance of the Community; practices of mortification, fasting and penance; community recreation, and meals in common with spiritual reading.

Life within the monastery walls is a mystery, an intense participation in the Paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. It is a wholehearted response to a Divine call to listen to, to live with, and to love without measure the Living God.

For more information please call, write or visit the sisters at the Monastery.

Capuchin Adoration Monastery "Bethania" Lowest Voortrek Street P.O. Box 43 Swellendam, 6740 Tel: (028) 514-1319 e-mail: capuchin @telkomsa.net

Capuchin Adoration Monastery Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Capuchin Way -Melville P.O. Box 64 Anerley, 4230 (KZN)

10

VOCATIONS

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

The miracle that had a domino effect Sometimes a priest can be at the centre of miracles. Fr Joe Falkiner OP recalls one such instance.

T

HIS experience goes back to 1973. In those days in our country black people had almost no human rights, and were dependent on the goodwill of white people for anything they needed.

In urban areas they had to live in so-called “locations”. White people, other than doctors, nurses and ordained clergy, were not even allowed to enter these locations unless they had been granted a permit to do so. I, as an ordained priest, did not need such a permit, and I worked as assistant parish priest in such a location.

It was in that context that a young black parishioner, Benjy, a member of the Young Christian Workers in the parish, came to see me. He was newly married (I had performed the marriage), and his wife had now been fired by the factory where she worked.

It seems she and three other young women had been con-

cerned about their clothes being damaged by the grease on the articles they had to handle, so they had planned to hold a meeting with the other women in the factory with the aim of petitioning for some form of protective clothing such as aprons or overalls.

They wanted the ladies to elect a committee to handle this petition. For just daring to suggest the setting up of the committee, they had been summarily dismissed.

I must mention that in those days black people were not allowed to belong to trade unions or to elect shop stewards, so there was no representative to speak on their behalf. Benjy thought that perhaps I, as a priest, could do something on behalf of these four women.

Initially I had no idea what to do, so I approached a white trade unionist, a Catholic whom I had encountered the previous year for some advice. Then the miracles started happening.

The first one was that he put me in touch with a good lawyer, and said he would find the necessary fees. God was truly inspiring him.

The next amazing thing was that the lawyer told me that the apartheid government had that very month signed a new regulation concerning black factory workers. In order to prevent black people from agitating for trade

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unions, they were allowed to have little committees in their workplace, and these committees could handle their grievances.

The lawyer knew about this, and that such committees had some protection in law. This miserable concession by the apartheid government actually helped us, as it seemed the four women had unknowingly been acting in precisely the way that this new regulation laid down.

But the problem was not yet solved. The women wanted their jobs back. The lawyer informed the firm of this new regulation and received no response. He then suggested that I, as a priest, should go with this information to the managing director of that factory—a branch of a large overseas manufacturing concern—to plead for the ladies.

I did so, wearing my Dominican religious habit. The manager, a man from Britain, agreed to see me, but did not bother to offer me a chair. He immediately accused me of being one of “those people in Northern Ireland who are causing revolution”. He then added that the four women had probably been affected by “Chinese communist propaganda”, and that he would never take them back. After uttering these absurdities he dismissed me from his presence.

I reported all this to the lawyer, who was astounded. He said he

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would take the company to court if the women were not reinstated.

But to do this, he would need evidence that would be accepted by the court.

Now came another miracle: we discovered that one of the parish councillors worked at that very same factory. Making enquiries among his fellow workers, it turned out that two of the supervisors had been overheard talking in the mens’ toilet and had mentioned the reason why these women, in their opinion, deserved to be fired. Sixteen workers overheard this conversation and were prepared to sign affidavits to that effect.

History was made: for the first time in South Africa, a group of workers took their employer to court without having to strike. I too made an affidavit describing the interview I had with the managing director.

The firm was forced to capitulate. The women got their jobs back, they received their wages for the period they were without work, and they got their committee and the necessary protective clothing.

Now came the final miracle, the event that made these events so memorable for me personally.

The day after the settlement I arrived at the church to find a queue of 30 or 40 workers wanting the parish to do the same thing for

them.

They were mostly nonCatholics, but word had spread in the township that the Catholic Church was prepared to stand up for ill-treated workers.

Soon the members of the Young Christian Workers as well as the members of the new parish Justice and Peace group were working overtime just listening to all the stories and helping people to organise themselves.

Because the security police started keeping tabs on us, many meetings were held on Sunday mornings at the same time as Mass, so that the police could not tell who was at Mass and who was at a meeting.

It was not long before the government made a new regulation, allowing black trade unions, so the final upshot was that a number of embryonic trade unions covering a variety of local industries were established in these meetings at the church, with more than 3 000 members.

This was God’s presence in those dreadful days.

I never cease to thank God that those days when black workers were totally at the mercy of their employers are now past, that we now have decent labour regulations. And I am grateful that I, as a priest, was able to play a small part in those events.

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Community Prayer And spiritual Life According to the Rule of our Holy Father Benedict

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Benedictine Convent Box 2424 Elukwatini 1192 Phone/ Fax: (017) 883 2379 Cell: 083 883 2379

VOCATIONS

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

11

Ways to be ‘brides of Christ’ in the world The 21st century seems to project a new era of lay spirituality, with several options for women not called to join religious congregations, as COLLEEN CONSTABLE explains.

R

ECENTLY my brother and I saw a religious sister dressed in a modern jacket and skirt combination, platform high heels and a veil. It disappointed him, as he supports the traditional image of religious sisters: they should wear a habit.

We approached her and met a well-groomed, dynamic, professional woman with a pleasant personality. She is a member of a well-known religious community. We had a vibrant discussion about the image she projected. She loves Christ and his Church. The dress code is an indication of a religious order that has moved with the times.

There may be many women who can identify with this religious sister: they want to follow Christ through living in a community while keeping their femininity and individuality. Other women simply do not want to join a religious order, because they feel inspired to follow Christ in the world.

Some time ago, during a women’s workshop, a young woman said: “If you are regularly attending spiritual activities in the parish, you are looked upon as a candidate for religious life, which may not always be the case. You start to feel pressurised.”

There is also the story of a woman who has twice been discerned to have a vocation. She loves the monastic life and would easily conform to silence and prayer. But she feels inspired to live a chosen spirituality in the world, following a daily self-developed spiritual programme that could easily match those of contemplative religious orders.

Although religious life forms an integral part of Catholic tradition and has a history of good done, some unmarried women reject this form of lay spirituality.

Is the writing on the wall for reli-

gious communities?

In The Southern Cross of February 17-23, Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, argued that there is a crisis. As a response to the contemporary world, modernity and a secularised cultural mindset entered the hearts and minds of some religious communities and consecrated persons, he said.

The crisis sketched by Cardinal Rode could also be caused by the recognition among unmarried women that there are now many other options available to dedicate their lives to God. Those religious communities who adapted their criteria to project a modernised image could be in denial. And they fear that their orders are dying out. They opted to embark on an act of desperation and protectionism to ensure survival. If so, then not only does their response lack a pro-active and sustainable approach, they fail to acknowledge that in contemporary times there are women who want to live a spiritual life in the world.

W

omen who are not authentically attracted to religious communities are best suited to pursue alternative options. Examples are secular institutes that do not copy the profile of religious institutions, or other forms of consecrated life, lived in the world, or a life of singleness without any formal dedication.

If these factors were acknowledged, it would not have been necessary for religious communities to adapt criteria or change their image and subject themselves to the game of numbers. Instead, the marketing approach of such religious institutions should focus to attract this category women according to their unique profile and criteria. This would imply that religious institutions in a contemporary world have recognised that the nostalgia associated with the earlier centuries and era of saints who established many religious orders with the surety of followers, is gone.

Given these factors, can it be argued that the era of mystics who live in the world has arrived? What should today’s women do if they feel inspired to dedicate their lives

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Is God calling you to the Religious Life in the Franciscan Family?

St Francis

We Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception strengthen our relationship with God by prayer in order to serve Him and His people. We work with all age-groups and where the Church needs us.

If you wish to know more about us, contact:

The Vocations Directress at Box 2912, Middelburg, 1050.

Tel (013) 243 3410, 072 213 4671

or

Box 818, Hazyview, 1242.

Tel (013) 737 0088, 076 514 5411

Latvian nuns in procession. While some religious congregations for women have modernised to allow their members to live more in the world, there are options available for women who have a religious vocation, but not for the regimens of consecrated life.

PHOTO FROM CNS to God? What if they want to follow an eschatological spirituality without a hierarchical structure or authorisation? Is God the Holy Spirit guiding women towards an era of secular institutes and a state of singleness lived without any formal dedication? Is God the Holy Spirit at work in the 21st century to inspire movements that integrate with current times? If so, the reality of spirituality lived through a vocation distinctive from religious or monastic life, with or without a formal commitment, may be the vocation of the present and future.

Christian spirituality is practised from a lay person’s state of life. It speaks of an encounter with the triune God visible through senses, through the mind and the connection of soul. It directs towards contemplation and active life. It connects with the relationship a soul has with God and others.

Mt 22:37-39 is a commandment that speaks to the role of lay persons. John 20:17-18 and Romans 16:1-16 serve as reflection on the role of women.

Both Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium (1964) and the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (1965) promote the

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role of laity as one to sanctify the world from within and not to withdraw from it.

S

ecular vocations seem to be on the increase. Women want to live a consecrated life in the world, giving up the protection of a religious order. A secular institute offers unmarried women an opportunity of consecrated life lived in the world, with or without discretion.

Women keep their individuality, embracing the challenge to live a spirit-filled life under extraordinary circumstances: contemplation and active work in the world.

Consecrated virginity, an irrevocable form of consecrated life, both ancient and new, is another option.

A consecrated virgin said: “This vocation is about being rather than doing.” The Bride of Christ in a busy world: women who go through daily life making the presence of Christ visible in a secular world. They follow the spirituality of their choice, an individual spiritual programme, choosing to live in the world and to do work for the Church.

Then there is the state of “singleness”: a vocation not much spoken

of, as it has not yet found recognition, has no structure or formal authority. It is slowly becoming a chosen reality among many unmarried, unattached Catholic women across the world.

In a state of singleness a woman is detached from any committed physical and emotional relationship. The criteria are humility and love. There are no vows or formal commitment made except the person’s own dialogue with God. This dialogue is a declaration of love for the triune God, through the person of God the Son. It happens within the chamber of her heart, when she humbles herself, seeking God and declaring her willingness to follow him.

This unrecognised form of vocation can be lived by women and men and is not limited to certain categories of persons. A lifestyle of singleness requires strength of character, a clear sense of self and relation towards others. It is an informal dedication to God without the support normally found in religious, secular institutes or a network of consecrated persons.

Because of the anonymity, singleness is viewed with suspicion.

Strangely this lifestyle reminds of the Beguine mystics of the 13th century who had no formal rules.

They lived with family or groups, adopted a life of poverty, chastity, obedience and daily active work.

Activities were shaped around each individual’s circumstances. They prioritised active work higher than contemplation. In today’s world singleness is lived embracing contemplation and action as an interconnected process.

These three categories of women in our contemporary world face the daily challenge of their roles as consecrated or non-consecrated persons versus the dynamics of self, neighbour, human nature at its best and worst, living in the world.

Therefore our prayers offered at Mass for religious vocations should also be inclusive of other forms of consecrated life lived in the world.

Our prayers should also inspire those who freely follow the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit to live a holy life in the world, without any formal dedication.

If it comes from God it cannot be stopped.

12

VOCATIONS

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

The Community of St Dominic in Senekal in March 2009. Founded by Spanish nuns in 1985, the monastery is now populated by African sisters.

The Spanish nuns left, African sisters stayed Last week Bishop Bucher recalled how in the early years of the new millennium the Contemplative Dominican Sisters’ monastery in Senekal, Bethlehem diocese, was threatened with extinction. In the final article of his four-part series he explains how the Community of St Dominic was helped to overcome that crisis.

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Oblates choose to live in community, sharing their life in faith and prayer, working in solidarity with those who are poor, excluded or searching for meaning.

Like Eugene, every Oblate desires to lead people to recognise their human dignity and come to know the life that is offered in Jesus Christ, life to the full, free of injustice, alienation, and lack of opportunity.

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ROM its start in 1985, the Contemplative Dominican Sisters’ foundation in Senekal, in the eastern Free State, enjoyed the keen interest of all the Dominican friars who have held the office of Master of the Dominican Order over the past 25 years. None of them failed to pass Senekal when they came for visits from Rome to South Africa.

Likewise, the South African provincials of the Dominican friars and the local federation of Dominican, FEDOSA, were at all times a source of encouragement for the little Community of St Dominic, believing in the importance of its fledgling project for our country.

Decisive help came when the biannual meeting of the prioresses and delegates from the six contemplative Dominican monasteries in Africa was held for the first time at Senekal in April 2005. Admiring the South African community’s determination and perseverance, but at the same time experiencing firsthand their dire need to be helped out of their crisis, the meeting told the Dominican federation in Spain it was prepared to take over the responsibility for the future development and growth of that community.

Corpus Christi monastery in Nairobi was to spearhead the takeover process, and provide, together with monasteries elsewhere in Africa, a sufficient number of sisters so that in due course the Spanish founding Sisters would be able to return to their respective monasteries in Spain.

As part of this relief plan, the three South African sisters who formed part of the community in Senekal were sent to Nairobi, where they spent six months together with the new appointees for the monastery from Kenya and Cameroon.

This was a very wise decision indeed, contrasting with the mere three weeks the founding sisters from four different monasteries in Spain had spent together in one place before their departure to South Africa in 1985. Later, the allAfrican group was going to be joined by a sister from Burundi.

On February 2, 2006, representatives of the Dominican family in South Africa and of the clergy and laity of the diocese of Bethlehem witnessed a dignified and moving ceremony in Senekal: the graceful handing over of the monastery by the Spanish sisters to their African

Bp Hubert Bucher

Story of Pioneer Nuns successors. It was woven into a beautiful celebration of the Eucharist, and highlighted by the reading of appreciative messages from the master of the Dominican Order and the superior of the Federation in Spain.

Subsequently I accompanied the founding sisters to Spain where they were given a heroes’ reception by their respective communities. It gave me a chance to address each of these, thanking them for the gift of their contemplative foundation to our country, and assuring them that it had not ended in failure, but was going to be continued by equally dedicated Dominican sisters from Africa. The tomb of Sr Isabel Cabeza in the monastery grounds at Senekal would to be a perpetual reminder of their generosity for the latter.

I

n September 2008 I paid a visit to the Corpus Christi monastery in Nairobi to express my thanks and appreciation for the African initiative which had saved the Contemplative Dominican foundation in Senekal. It was inspiring to see how many young sisters crowd this place of incessant prayer and adoration, filling me with hope and a deep desire that in God’s own time the same will be the case in Senekal.

Maran atha—may this soon become a reality!

The Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church (#18) makes the sweeping statement that “the contemplative life belongs to the fullness of the Church’s presence, and should therefore be everywhere established”. And this is how it describes the contemplatives’ specific contribution to the growth of the Church (#40): “By their prayers, works of penance, and sufferings, contemplative communities have a very great importance in the conversion of souls. For it is God who sends workers into his harvest when he is asked to do so (Mt 9:38), who opens the minds of non-Christians to hear the gospel (Acts 16:14), and who makes the word of salvation fruitful in their hearts (1Cor 3:7).”

As I mentioned at the beginning of my short history of the Contemplative Dominican foundation in Senekal, it was by mere chance that the diocese of Bethlehem received this precious gift. It brought many blessings to that diocese and, I believe, to South Africa. With these articles I have hoped to make this gift more widely known, and perhaps inspire some readers to get in touch with the Community of St Dominic in Senekal.  Bishop Hubert Bucher headed the diocese of Bethlehem from 1977-2008.

Enquiries regarding the the Community of St Dominic can be directed to P O Box 637, Senekal, 9600. Tel: 058 481 3915; or e-mail dominican nuns@xsinet.co.za.

FOCUS

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

13

Cry, the beloved mission station A visit to the mission station where he did his schooling convinced FR SMANGALISO MKHATSHWA that the Church should find new ways of using its land to the benefit of the people.

U

NTIL the recent past many Catholic churches, especially in rural areas, were called “missions”. This, in the main, was a description of the developmental state of the local Church. Today many of them would be called parishes.

My family once lived on a mission farm. I was later to learn that every diocese comprised several mission stations. When I started my pastoral work in Witbank, I was responsible for 17 such outstations!

A typical mission station was managed by a team of priests, religious brothers and sisters.

Most of them came from Europe, Ireland and a sprinkling from America.

The division of labour had a set pattern: priests looked after the “souls” living on the farm or in neighbouring areas. Their daily routine included saying Holy Mass, visiting the sick and teaching catechism. They prepared candidates to receive the sacraments, especially baptism, Eucharist and marriage; they heard confessions and preached on Sundays. Some of them travelled many kilometres to minister to their congregations.

The religious brothers were mostly agriculturists, carpenters, farmers and builders. In some cases they assisted the priests in the administration of the sacraments.

The good sisters were responsible for domestic management, such as cooking, cleaning the church, doing the laundry, preparing the sacristy, teaching handwork, giving catechetical instructions and making sure the girls behaved themselves.

Your average modern religious sister’s scope of work has since undergone many changes. The computer, better education and training in various skills have given the sisters a bigger choice in how they aspire to serve the people of God. Some of the clergy, brothers

A file photo of Holy Cross church in Ngwebeni mission near Nquthu-Cassino in the diocese of Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal. In his article, Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, a product of mission schooling, suggests ways of using mission land that is not fully utilised for the benefit of communities. and sisters doubled as teachers where the Church ran its own schools or training institutions.

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group of alumni recently visited Maria Trost mission which once hosted a secondary school. It was truly a sentimental journey.

The former school buildings, the old church, dilapidated carpentry shop, boys and girls’ boarding houses, tennis court and football field bear testimony to a glorious past. Can anyone blame the alumni for being nostalgic?

Much as they were excited to reminisce about old times, they were struck by enormous changes that had taken place over the years. Of the dozen or so priests who used to live there permanently, only the tired-looking Fr Konrad Nefzger MCCJ is left. The convent which housed many religious sisters now provides accommodation for one German nun who is assisted by a team of lay people to run a pastoral Institute as well as to take care of the church property.

Brothers? Not one is left, and with no prospects of that position being filled, either by colleagues from Europe or by local vocations.

Because of the global economic recession and worsening poverty, let’s spend a little time on the

contribution made by the brothers to economic development and a better life for the people of Mashishing.

Maria Trost no longer boasts of well-cultivated gardens with luscious fruit and vegetables, let alone the manicured green grass recreational facilities. Gone are the green peas, cabbages, beans and mielies that students thought were rightfully theirs to enjoy, sometimes without permission.

There was no need to buy vegetables from the market. The mission was self-sufficient not only to feed its personnel and students, but also to help feed the poor and provide jobs.

The most favourite pastime for male high school students was always a clandestine trip to the vineyard and orchard where the tasty grapes and other fruit proved irresistible. Only few culprits were ever caught, thanks to the students’ intelligence networks. The alumni asked one another whether after “nationalising” the brothers’ grapes they had gone to confession.

The mission owned cattle, chickens, pigs and other well fed beasts. The brothers were in charge of carpentry, sewing, painting and animal husbandry.

They reared fish in our dam. They repaired the sewerage, drainage, broken furniture and acted as

CONGREGATION OF MARIANNHILL MISSIONARIES

amateur motor mechanics. In the process, many local people acquired useful practical skills from the German brothers.

Maria Trost today raises a few troubling questions.

Whatever happened to those dedicated priests, sisters and brothers who answered God’s call to minister to our people and often under hard conditions?

Why are they not replacable?

Why has the infrastructure in most former missions virtually collapsed or is standing on its last toes, as it were?

Whatever destroyed all those great and fertile agricultural lands?

Vast tracks of arable land are lying fallow; buildings are pale shadows of their former selves.

One is not being sentimental.

The reality is that we won’t be getting another generous crop of dedicated men and women who were willing to offer their services for a noble ideal. Their work ethic was impressive.

Few able-bodied men and women are now available to develop the land. They would rather swell the number of the unemployed and poor in urban informal settlements and abandon land that could provide fresh, healthy and affordable food. They prefer the smog and filth of the township to the fresh, cool and healthy air of the rural areas. How as a Church do you deal with a situation where there are no cheap labour brothers and sisters to continue the service they rendered?

G

iven this reality, what can the Church do to empower people who live on Churchowned land and are willing to continue the Trappists tradition of “Ora at labora” (Pray and Work). Fr Bernard Huss would smile in his grave.

There are options: • Sell the land and keep only what you need for pastoral ministry.

• Keep the land and develop it in partnership with the people living on the farm so that they feel they have a stake in its development.

• In partnership with the Department of Agriculture and Land Reform, start projects which government can fund.

• Encourage people to start credit unions and cooperatives.

• Initiate a land awareness

Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa campaign because God gave us the land for our sustenance. In this gloomy situation of global economic meltdown, people need not starve or fall prey to preventable diseases when they have so much land.

• Help willing people to acquire technical skills in agriculture, animal husbandry, carpentry, financial and business management, agricultural production and food security.

We can help local people to develop model farms with the help of international funding agencies such as Misereor, Caritas International, Catholic Relief Services, IDT, NDA and so on.

Some agricultural experts could be invited to impart skills to locals on a voluntary basis.

This would be in line with “you fed me and gave me water when I was hungry and thirsty” (Mt: 25 35-40) translated into the contemporary situation.

This of course raises a much bigger question. How do you train future clergy and religious to appreciate the rapid urbanisation of our country but at the same time realise that millions of people live in rural areas where the Church still owns some land?

Admittedly, some Church owned land has since been disposed of.

Maria Trost, my alma mater, is by no means the worst example of the after-effects of the exodus of the missionary enterprise.

There are far worse examples.

Without glossing over some mistakes that missionaries sometimes made in their over-enthusiasm, all of us should be able to say: Cry, the Beloved Mission Station.  Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa is a former secretary-general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference. He is currently president the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa.

CHRISTIAN BROTHERS Southern African District

Our Vision: We strive to be brothers to all

Our Mission in Africa: Ora et Labora The Congregation of the Missionaries of Mariannhill, CMM, sprung from the Trappist Monastery of Mariannhill founded by Abbot Francis Pfanner in South Africa in 1882. We believe that: “Our missionary field is the Kingdom of God and that has not boundaries!” Faithful to the example of Abbot Francis Pfanner, the Mariannhill Brothers and Priests try to be of service to the local church through pastoral, social and development works. We make our contribution to the call for renewing, uplifting, developing and sustaining the human spirit, as our response to the signs and needs of the time. In our missionary life of Prayer and Work (Ora et Labora), we try to effectively proclaim the Good News to all people, especially to the poor and needy, so that there are “Better Fields, Better Houses, Better Hearts!”

To know more about us contact: Director of Vocations PO Box 11363, Mariannhill, 3601 or PO Box 85, Umtata, 5099

We seek to liberate oppressed youth from poverty, ignorance, injustice, and HIV/Aids, through our ministry of faith-based education, and care for the people and the earth.

Do you feel called to join us?

For further information, contact The Vocations Promoter Christian Brothers P.O. Box 614 BOKSBURG 1460 Email: newbrothers@mweb.co.za

Br Chris Nhete pronouncing his Final Vows as a Christian Brother.

14

VOCATIONS

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

BLIND READERS OF

A contradiction?

No. A group of readers has been preparing audio tapes made up of excerpts from The Southern Cross, including Editorials, selected articles, regular features such as Father Nicholas King SJ and Chris Moerdyk, and current affairs in the Church. Anyone wanting to receive tapes as part of this FREE service is invited to contact Ms Veronica Vieyra at “Clareinch”, Union Ave., Pinelands, 7405, or phone 021-532 0661.

The Post Office will deliver and return tapes without charge. Should you know of any interested blind person, please inform them of this free service.

Teenage champion swaps skates for Franciscan sandals Twelve years ago Kirstin Holum compteed in the Olympic Games and was regarded as a speedskating prodigy. Today she wears a grey habit in the Yorkishire city of Leeds. She tells SIMON CALDWELL how she moved from Olympic village to Franciscan convent.

I

The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur working in South Africa and Zimbabwe invite courageous woman of faith to join them in their mission to show forth THE GOODNESS OF GOD

They strive to do this in ministries in Education, Health Care, Pastoral work and the empowerment of women.

For more information contact SNds at: P O Box 91422 Aukland Park Johannesburg 011 726 2136

P O Box 476 Kroonstad 056 215 1003 056 218 1654

N the silence of St Joseph’s convent in the Yorkshire city of Leeds each morning, Sr Catherine dresses herself in a grey habit.

She fixes a black veil on her head and fastens to her waist a cord tied into three knots—representing the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience—and she slips her feet into the sandals of a Franciscan nun.

Twelve years ago, when she was Kirstin Holum, she was reaching for her skates instead.

In 1998 she competed for the United States at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. After placing sixth in the 3 000m and seventh in the 5 000m speedskating races, the 17-year-old was recognised as a prodigy racing against older women in their prime.

Instead of continuing her speedskating career, she joined the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, an order founded in New York in 1988. In September she arrived in England to work with the poor, with youth and to evangelise. She is a member of a community of four nuns—three American and one English—based in a house that, until last year, was owned and occupied by the Sisters of Mercy.

“I could have gone on with speedskating,” Sr Catherine said. She was thinking that this year’s Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada, could have been her fourth, “but I am so grateful the Lord led me to where I am now.”

When speaking to youth groups, Sr Catherine makes no secret of her past as an Olympic speedskater because it opens up the possibility of a religious vocation to young people who would never have thought about it.

“Usually you get a shocked look,” she said. “It is hard for children sometimes to picture you as anything else than a nun. It is definitely a starting point for evangelisation, for bringing them closer to Christ because they can see there is a real person standing in front of them and not just a nun.”

Kirstin Holum grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee. Her mother, Dianne Holum, was a speedskater who won an Olympic gold medal in 1972 and became a successful coach.

She was also a fervent Catholic who conveyed to her daughter the importance of her faith. In 1996 she paid for her daughter to make a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine in Fatima, Portugal.

There Kirstin, at the age of 16, felt a powerful sense of vocation and the “powerful experience of realising Jesus’ presence in the Blessed Sacrament”.

She said she prayed to Mary for guidance about her future as a speedskater and, after she had competed in Japan, decided to give it up. “I was not feeling in my heart that I would be skat-

Ex-speedskater Sr Catherine PHOTO: CNS

ing the rest of my life. I knew there was more to life than sports. I never regretted that decision. I think it was just a grace from God to bring me to something else.

“I saw people making sports into the most important thing and I didn’t desire that,” she said.

After retiring in 1998, Kirsten enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, specialising in photography. When she graduated she joined her mother in Denver and later spent three months on the Crossroads pro-life walk across the US, in which she developed the habits of daily Mass, praying the rosary, eucharistic adoration and “offering up sacrifices for the pro-life cause”.

On returning home she recovered a sense of vocation and began to pray for direction.

The answer came in 2002 when she walked from Denver to Toronto—approximately 2 500km by road—and, at World Youth Day, encountered the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal for the first time. A year later she joined them at their headquarters in New York, taking her religious name after St Catherine of Siena, whose writings she found inspirational.

“I have never regretted a single day.,” said Sr Catherine.

“I am preparing to make my final profession of vows in June. I am seeing the Lord bring me to where he created me to be. I am preparing to say ‘yes’ to him for the rest of my life. I will belong to him forever,” she said.

“There is a lot of joy that comes from doing God’s will and a lot of peace, and belonging totally to him as his spouse is the most fulfilling thing I know,” she said. “I have been very, very happy since I entered the community.”

Sr Catherine has spent most of the last sixand-half years in New York, working with young people and helping in community projects such as soup kitchens.

She is now helping the sisters settle in Leeds, where they are still in the process of discerning their mission.

Committed to simplicity of life, the nuns have denied themselves a television and a video. This means that Sr Catherine could not follow the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, though she confessed that she loved reading about it.

“It brings back a lot of good memories and it is nice to share with the sisters, too, all the memories I have,” she said.—CNS

VOCATIONS

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

15

Cellphone signal calls to the priesthood One morning, sleepy young men received a call from their bishop, asking them to consider the priesthood, TAMI QUIGLEY reports.

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N American bishop has taken a new approach to fostering vocations to the priesthood: making sure young men personally receive a call.

One morning, many university-age men received phone calls or voice mail messages from Bishop John Barres of Allentown, Pennsylvania, or two other diocesan priests asking them to consider a vocation to the priesthood.

“In this phase of the vocation initiative— Hearing His Call—the focus has been on helping young men consider that the Lord might be calling them to this wonderful vocation,” said Fr Andrew Gehringer, diocesan director of vocations.

The priest, who also made the phone calls, told The AD Times, Allentown’s diocesan newspaper, that the bishop’s idea was

Religious and diocesan priests: What’s the difference?

BY JORDAN GAMBLE

M

EN discerning the priesthood may choose a certain “type” of priesthood based on their interests and strengths.

“A religious priest is more called to the charism of their order, while a diocesan priest is called to serve the people of his diocese,” said Fr Brian Doerr, vocations director for the US diocese of Lafayette in Indiana.

In devoting their lives to the particular mission of their order, religious priests take a vow of poverty and relinquish control of material possessions to live in community with other members. From then on, religious orders provide for their priests out of a common fund, Fr Doerr explained.

“Diocesan priests are different. From the beginning, you’ve discerned that you’ll be ordained and be in the world living and working,” Fr Doerr said. Because of this, they are sometimes called secular priests.

It is not much, but diocesan priests do receive a small annual salary, Fr Doerr said.

Diocesan priests need transportation, libraries and computers to do the work of their parishes or other offices within the diocese.

Fr Doerr said he can put 50 000km on his car every year as he criss-crosses his diocese to meet with men and women who are considering the priesthood or religious life.

Eric Scanlan recently completed his pretheologate studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and plans to become a priest in his home diocese of Venice, Florida.

He said most of his classmates—about threequarters—planned to go to diocesan seminaries.

Kevin Wack, a seminarian and native of Fr Doerr’s diocese, seriously considered diocesan priesthood but ultimately followed in his uncles’ footsteps with the Congregation of Holy Cross.

He said he chose a religious order because it would allow him to work in a variety of ministries.

“I could pursue my interests. For example, I’d like to be a chaplain in the military…but I don’t see myself doing that forever,” he said, and cited soup kitchen manager, high school teacher, parish priest, or residence hall rector as other jobs where Holy Cross might place him. Priests usually rotate to different assignments every three to six years.

Holy Cross Father Ed Obermiller, vocations director for his community’s Indiana province, said that some young men join the congregation’s undergraduate seminary looking towards religious priesthood but later feel pulled to diocesan work.

“They have to be clearly discerning religious life [when they enter].

But if they start to see that they’re called to something else, we’re not going to say, ‘That’s it, you’re out.’ We’ll give them the tools that we can,” he said. “We’re helping to educate men for ministry, for priesthood, so that’s our gift to the Church.”—CNS

inspired by New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who he heard made a personal call to a young man who was discerning a vocation to the priesthood.

In response to the idea, Fr Gehringer and diocesan official Fr Scott Ardinger composed a list of names and cellphone numbers of more than 35 young men.

The priests listed those “who have either thought about the possibility of a vocation to the priesthood or who just have the good qualities and natural goodness that we are looking for in possible candidates for the priesthood,” Fr Gehringer said.

These young men were some of those presented to the diocesan Office of Vocations by various priests throughout the diocese or those whom Fr Ardinger had known from his contacts with high school and youth ministry.

Fr Gehringer said the men were surprised when either he or Fr Ardinger made the initial contact with them telling them that Bishop Barres would like to speak to them.

“A few of the men, naturally as college students, were actually sleeping at the time

of the initial contact made by Fr Ardinger or myself. However, some of the men actually expected the call,” he said.

“But to get that one-on-one time with the bishop, who spoke to them about how their semester was going and how they were doing in their prayer life and discernment of their vocation, was the biggest surprise.

“Men attending universities…heard Bishop Barres’ sincere desire to encourage them to think about the possibility of being a priest,” Fr Gehringer said.

“To form a culture of vocations, we need to cultivate the soil of the minds and hearts of our young people with the knowledge that God has wonderful plans for them,” Fr Gehringer said. The priest said prayer was the focus of many of the conversations with the bishop. By the very question, “How is your prayer life going?” these young men heard how important it was for them to make prayer a crucial part of their life so that they can seriously be open to what God has in store for them, he emphasised.

The phone call effort led up to a vocation awareness week in the diocese at the begin-

An aspiring Dominican priest reads. Men considering the priesthood have the option of becoming religious order priests or diocesan priests—the two possibilities attract men with different strengths and interests, as we see on this page. One bishop has taken to calling men with a potential vocation to join the diocesan priesthood.

PHOTO: NANCY WIECHEC, CNS

ning of the year. Bishop Barres also used this year’s Catholic School Week in February to challenge all Catholics to continue to promote vocations, especially to the priesthood, in the lives of young people.—CNS

16

COMMUNITY

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

IN FOCUS Edited by Nadine Christians

Fr Charles Goliath of St Joseph’s Church, Eersterust, blesses the palm crosses before they were handed out to the congregation on Palm Sunday.

PHOTO: ERIC BRUCE

Youth from St Anne’s parish in Steenberg, Cape Town, led a procession of parishioners during a Good Friday celebration.

Send photographs, with sender’s name and address on the back, and a SASE to: The Southern Cross, Community Pics, Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000 or email them to: pics@scross.co.za

Parishioners of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart parish, Ekukhanyeni in Verulam, Durban archdiocese formed part of a procession, which started at a primary school and ended at the parish.

St Patrick’s Missionary Society Be a Priest An ambassador of Christ for God’s People Contact Fr Terry Nash on 011 918 5243 or 072 668 2705 St Patrick’s Missionary Society P O Box 1394816 Northmead 1511

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The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

17

New Harrison Ford movie’s Catholic root

BY NANCY FRAZIER O'BRIEN

W

HEN Wall Street Journal reporter Geeta Anand met John Crowley and his family in 2001 she felt a certain kinship.

Anand’s daughters were close in age to two of the Crowleys’ three children. And the Crowley family, like Anand, is Catholic.

But Megan and Patrick Crowley, the younger children of John and Aileen Crowley, had a rare illness called Pompe disease that was slowly killing them.

The story of John Crowley’s obsession with finding a treatment that would keep his sick children alive became a series of articles in The Wall Street Journal and, in 2004, a book called The Cure. A movie based on the story, called Extraordinary Measures which opens in South Africa on April 23.

“I just thought there was something so moving about a dad trying so hard,” said Ms Anand in a telephone interview from Mumbai, India, where she is now based for the Journal.

The book details the path that led Mr Crowley to give up a lucrative job in the pharmaceutical industry to establish a foundation and his own biotech company dedicated to isolating the enzyme that could reverse some of the effects of Pompe disease.

Mr Crowley worked with several researchers who were making progress toward finding a treatment for Pompe disease and raised millions of dollars to move the research forward. In the movie, Harrison Ford as the eccentric Robert Stonehill represents a composite of those scientists.

Although Mr Crowley’s primary goal was to get his children into clinical trials for the treatment, his role in the biotech company led to conflict-of-interest charges that actually delayed their involvement.

Ms Anand said that when she was writing her book, most publishers turned it down, saying: “Books about sick kids don’t sell.”

“But this wasn’t about sick kids, but about a human struggle,” she said. “It was about a huge challenge. Trying to save his kids was John Crowley’s challenge.”

Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford bring to life the story of a father fighting to save his dying children in the Hollywood blockbuster Extraordinary Measures.

Although the film makes no reference to the family’s faith, Ms Anand said John Crowley was “quite intensely” Catholic.

“Even when the kids were sick he went to church every single day,” she said. “He drew a lot of inspiration from his parish priest,” who had been married before his ordination but “lost his whole family in a car accident”.

Mr Crowley, portrayed in the movie by Brendan Fraser, was a classic overachiever who attended the US Naval Academy and Georgetown University as an undergraduate, then earned a law degree from the Catholic University of Notre Dame and a master’s of business administration from Harvard Business School.

But when his daughter Megan, then almost two, was near death from pneumonia in 1998, Mr Crowley felt helpless.

In the book Ms Anand described him this way: “From his years as a devout Catholic, John looked in his heart for what he could hang on to now. He’d been an altar boy. He still had the second-grade CCD [catechism] book he’d used in preparing for first Communion the year his dad had died. He’d kept his religious faith in the face of that monumental loss, or perhaps because of it…

“Religion was how you lived that life you’d been randomly given,” Ms Anand wrote of Mr Crowley’s beliefs.

“It was, he believed, about choosing to do things that are good, even when life delivers the worst.”

Anand said she remains friends with the Crowleys and planned to stay with them in New Jersey when she, her husband, Greg Kroitzsh, and their children came from India for the movie’s New York premiere.

Anand said she is pleased that her daughters, Aleka, nine, and Tatyana, 12, are friends with Megan, 13; Patrick, 11; and their 15-year-old brother, John Jr, who does not have Pompe disease.

“It’s good for them to be friends with kids who are profoundly disabled,” Ms Anand said. “They see how bright their personalities are. Megan made it cool to be in a wheelchair. It’s been an invaluable experience.”

The making of the film has been “a wonderful and exciting distraction” for Megan and Patrick Crowley, who remain in wheelchairs and on ventilators, Ms Anand said.

“It’s made them feel their lives have resonated with others. It’s made them feel loved and supported.”

Ms Anand, who had not seen the movie at the time of the interview, had read the screenplay and found that although there were differences, “it stuck to the spirit of the story”.

“I thought it was heroic of them not to make a real Hollywood ending,” she said.

—CNS

A Little Company of Mary Sisters …….. called to be there for the suffering, the sick and the dying of our world today…….just like what Mary was for Jesus on Calvary. John 19: 25-28

Want to know more about us? ....

Contact Vocations Promoter LCM Sisters P.O Box 896 Groenkloof Pretoria 0027

lcmconvent@utande.co.zw

LCM sisters’ residence St. Annes Hospital P.O Box A640 Avondale, Harare Tel: +263 11 877 893

18

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

BOOK REVIEWS

A battle of memory in the new SA DANCE OF THE RAIN, by Tom Naude.

Heinemann Publishers, Johannesburg.

2009. 142pp.

Reviewed by Michael Shackleton ROM 1994 South Africa took off in a new direction. To those who have lived through the immense changes since then, life is a daily lesson in human relations. For Jonathan Clarke, who left this country as a boy and came back more than 50 years later, after 1994, there are only childhood memories of school friends and a carefree life. These ill prepare him for what he finds when he returns to his home town of Nijlsrivier in the Waterberg, in Tom Naude’s debut novel.

Jonathan’s father, an Englishman who had been sent to South Africa by his employer Barclays Bank, married an Afrikaans woman.

With his British and Boer blood, Jonathan attended an Afrikaans school in Nijlsrivier, a small town in the Waterberg region near Pretoria, and also a respectable English school in Cape Town.

Then, when he was in his teens, his father took his family back to England, where Jonathan grew up, married, and for 40 laborious years worked, like his father, in Barclays Bank.

An obsessive longing to go back to Nijlsrivier, where he had enjoyed an adventurous life with his young friends, makes him assure his wife that it would be only a brief visit for sen-

timental reasons. Things turn out somewhat deeply affects Jonathan. In the verse, the rain differently, however. suggests itself gently as it peers over the mounThe people of Nijlsrivier are totally alien to tain top and slowly embraces the valley, and what he holds in his memories. There is a Jonathan’s memories of this and the thunderblack government with black officials. There storms and wet paving stones of his early days, are farmers who are unhappy about this. climax in his realisation that Waterberg has There is his old school teacher who had repre- drenched him with memories he simply cannot sented the notorious Christian National Edu- cancel from his mind. cation of the time and who had taught him Ironically, he has to recall the warning of the poetry of Eugene Marais. (It is Marais’ the woman he met on the plane: “Your mempoem “Dance of the Rain” that gives the book ories are building a place that does not exist. its title.)

The past is dead.”

Jonathan wants to know what happened to This is a well told story. South Africans of his old childhood friends and their families.

He finds it difficult to accept the truth. As he all ages and persuasions should appreciate it. seeks to learn more, the story takes a few grip- It covers so much of our shaky history as it ping twists. He meets people who impress him brings out characters and attitudes that are deeply. This dull Englishman is excited by not new or strange to us.

The author, I am told, penned this book what has happened and what is happening. But he must go back to his wife and to an uncertain future.

Strangely, this pukka Englishman with his early exposure among verkrampte Afrikaners, is torn by his Englishness and his sense of belonging among his old FRANCIS OF ASSISI: CALL friends in the Swartberg. The TO FREEDOM, by Christo“dance of the rain” underlies pher Neville OFM. Self-pubhis dilemma. Marais’ brillished. 2009. 88pp. liantly evocative poetry Reviewed by Michael Shackleton HE need to preserve our planet through ecological awareness and action is something that we are getting well aware of. Even popes and presidents encourage it, and the Green Peace movement is no longer seen as simply on the lunatic fringe.

As a Franciscan, Christopher Neville sharply reminds us that it was St Francis who was perhaps the first to understand the intimately close relaIndependent UK publisher now seeking new manuscripts tionship between humanity in all subjects, including fiction, biography, historical, and the rest of creation.

The author introduces the Not content with praising concept of a Franciscan ecoacademic, religion and poetry.

God for his creatures, St Fran- spirituality that he believes is cis “fraternised” with them all, appropriate for our postmodFor a free appraisal please send your work to calling them his sisters and ern times. People everywhere brothers. In his lovely “Canti- are getting to appreciate how cle of the Sun”, for example, much they are interconnected he praises God for Brother with the material cosmos.

Sun, Sister Moon, Sister Water, They are, he writes, becoming (ref: SC) St Thomas’ Place, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4GG, UK Brother Fire, Sister Earth and aware that they belong, from Sister Death. He could not give the cells of their bodies to the due worship to God without finest creations of their minds, his sense of belonging to cre- to an intricate, beautiful and Tel: +44 (0) 1353 646 608 Fax: +44 (0) 1353 646 602 ation and nature. constantly changing cosmos.

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They perceive matter, life and consciousness as forming one single process of evolution.

What they need now is to see that God is at the heart of this evolutionary process, empowering it from within.

Franciscan eco-spirituality is the profound, even mystic, realisation that the earth’s climate change, air pollution and even secularisation cannot be reversed for the better without our first taking a step into our hearts to stop the pollution in our interior selves. It seeks to restore our minds and wills to the sense of the sacred, the sense that God’s presence cannot be separated from his creation.

This short treatise begins with a potted life of St Francis and his order, and from it the author draws out what he needs in order to explain clearly and methodically how the saint’s Christocentric and mystical experience of the world of nature could be a remedy in the present era of consumerism and materialism.  The book is available from The Catholic Bookshop, Cape Town, at the selling price of R100.

A journey of healing from grief ALL IN GOD’S TIME, MY SONS: Reflections on the Death of My Children, by Geoff Moeller. ireadiwrite Publishing. 2010. 141pp Reviewed by Günther Simmermacher ROM the moment their children are born, it is said, parents are perpetually hostage to fate. The thought of losing a child is unimaginable, and the pain of those who have impenetrable.

Geoff Moeller, a Canadian Catholic who lost two sons in a motor accident, provides a glimpse into that anguish and how a parent responds to it in this collection of poems and reflections.

All In God’s Time, My Sons charts Moeller’s journey of healing, with his family and Catholic faith at the centre. It is not an easy read; Moeller’s sense of loss for the boys he loved so deeply (and the paralysis of another) is almost unbearable to observe. The reader grieves with him.

Moeller’s life changed irrevocably on a Saturday morning— November 29, 2008 at 9am— when the car carrying his four sons, wife and other family members was struck from behind by an SUV. Andrew, 9, and Matthew, 6, died from injuries sustained in the crash, while son Karl was paralysed.

The first poem in this collec-

F

tion was written before that, in early November 2008. He observes his boys sleeping, rejoicing in their being and asking God to safeguard their future. God had other plans.

A poem titled “falling on their caskets in my mind” captures the father’s absolute grief and simultaneous, angry surrender to God. “I cast my senses into flames/For I shall not use them here again/To touch, to hear, to smell their bodies […] I cling to my cold, cold faith/And lay my tortured raging heart/Before Your altar of sacrifice/And the coffins of my sons.”

In other poems, Moeller

regrets lost opportunities with his boys; he’d gladly forgo the daily chores and tiredness if only Matthew was there, asking him to play.

Through Moeller’s poetry we observe the slow but steady process of acceptance and healing. After all the desperate rage, Moeller is touched by the tears of a stranger and finds ways of looking at pictures of his sons with gentleness rather than despair, or hear Andrew’s favourite song without breaking down.

Towards the end of the book, completed just 15 months after the accident, the focus of the poetry increasingly turns on the faith which helped the author to find his feet again, most poignantly with Moeller’s recourse to Our Lady—who, of course, lost a son herself.

Moeller does not claim to be an accomplish poet. The power of his verse resides not in technical dexterity but in raw emotion and self-revealing, unedited catharsis. For that, this is a powerful, faith-filled and ultimately hope-giving book.  All In God’s Time, My Sons can be bought in digital format from www.ireadiwrite.com/Allin-God-s-Time-My-Sons.html for US$4,99. A print edition is available at amazon.com. Geoff Moeller’s royalties are earmarked for charitable causes.

The Southern Cross, April 21 to April 27, 2010

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Thoughts for the Week on the Family

A wrong impression

T

HANK you for giving the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office (CPLO) front-page coverage of our recent response dealing with minister Ebrahim Patel’s new economic advisory committee (April 7-13). This really helps to get the CPLO’s work out to a broader audience.

On this occasion, though, I think Michail Rassool’s report “New economy way ahead?” unintentionally gave the wrong impression about our position on this issue. The CPLO was careful not to come down for or against the idea, but rather to try to convey the two sides of the debate. The Church has no clear position on fairly technical questions such as inflation targeting and the finer points of macro-economic policy. Most of the value statements attributed to me in the article are actually things that I attributed to organisations such as COSATU. The closest I came to an opinion was in the question posed in the last paragraph: “perhaps we need a fresh approach”.

I would not like readers to gain the impression that the CPLO, in its attempts to inform Church leadership, takes partisan positions on issues such as the above, especially where the subject matter is clearly not one on which the local hierarchy has taken a clear stand.

Mike Pothier, CPLO Research Director, Cape Town

The Pill is hidden abortion

T

HE letter of Marelize Shade “Pill right for me” (January 27 to February 2) refers.

The letter stated: “It is immoral to have an abortion, but if women use the pill, then abortion will not be necessary.”

The Pill does not stop the fusion of the egg and sperm when a baby is conceived and receives its soul from God, but it does stop the conceived baby from being able to attach itself to the mother’s womb to survive, and so is aborted.

Cynthia Paitaki, Cape Town

FAMILY CALENDAR: 2010 FAMILY THEME: “Families Play the Game.”

APRIL THEME: God’s game plan INTRODUCTION God’s plan goes back a long way and involves the whole of creation. It evolved over many millions of years and continues to evolve. We human beings were given the task of being custodians of God’s plan when it comes to the world around us as well as within us.

During this Easter month, let’s reflect on God’s plan of salvation; give thanks for the wonderful world God created; and resolve to look into God’s game plan for you, and so to build up your own world, starting at home.

April 25, 4th Sunday of Easter. Good Shepherd Sunday or Vocations Sunday. Jesus called himself a good shepherd, one who cares for his sheep who listen to him and recognise his voice. Animals and people do have close bonds and cats, dogs, sheep and cattle do respond to the voice of those who look after them. We all have a vocation in life, a calling to follow Jesus in a particular way as priests, religious, married people, parents. This calling is to care for others as Jesus who is the Good Shepherd does.

Mass readings for the week Sundays year C, weekdays cycle 2 Sun April 25, 4th Sunday of Easter: Acts 13:14.43-52; Ps 100:1-3.5; Rv 7:9.14-17; Jn 10:27-30 Mon April 26, feria: Acts 11:1-18; Ps 42:2-3, 43:3-4; Jn 10:1-10 Tue April 27, feria: Acts 11:19-26; Ps 87:1-7; Jn 10:22-30 Wed April 28, Ss Peter Chanel martyr, Louis Grignion de Montfort Acts 12:24—13:5; Ps 67:2-3.5-6.8; Jn 12:44-50 Thur April 29, St Catherine of Siena: Acts 13:13-25; Ps 89:2-3.21.22.25.27; Jn 13:16-20 Fri April 30, St Pius V: Acts 13:26-33; Ps 2:6-11; Jn 14:1-6 Sat May 1, St Joseph the Worker: Acts 13:44-52; Ps 98:1-4; Jn 14:7-14 Sun May 2, 5th Sunday of Easter: Acts 14:21-27; Ps 145:88-13; Rv 21:1-5; Jn 13:31-35 The Southern Cross is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations of South Africa. Printed by Paarl Post, 8 Jan van Riebeeck Drive, Paarl.

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Be a light to others Servants of the Holy Childhood of Jesus.

Classified Advertising Births • First Communion • Confirmation • Engagement/Marriage • Wedding anniversary • Ordination jubilee • Congratulations • Deaths • In memoriam • Thanks • Prayers • Accommodation • Holiday accommodation • Personal • Services • Employment • Property • Others Please include payment (R1,05c a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

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IN MEMORIAM SCHAFFERS—Adelaide.

In loving memory of my dearest wife, our mother, grandmother and greatgrandmother, who died on April 22, 2001. It does not take a special day for us to think of you. Each prayer we say, each Mass we hear is offered up for you. May her dear soul rest in peace. From Lucien and family.

THANKS THANKS to Sacred Heart and St Jude for prayers answered. Alix.

GRATEFUL thanks to St Jude for prayers answered. DK. THANKSGIVING to our Blessed Mother Mary and St Jude for intercession for peace. LMD

PERSONAL ABORTION WARNING: ‘The Pill’, can abort, undetected, soon after conception (a medical fact).

AN INVITATION to musicians of the parishes of Durban North to form an ensemble to serve at parish functions and outreach. Music from light classical to Christmas carols. Contact Carol Lind 031564 0610, 082 053 2672, cjlind@xis.co.za BIRTHRIGHT: Pregnant?

We care.  011 4031718, 031 2015471.

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION AMANZIMTOTI—Durban.

Gorgeous self-catering apartment sleeps 4-6. Fully furnished and equipped for quality and comfort. Swimming pool, braai area, squash courts, beach access, secure parking, laundry, cleaning service available. Overlooking the Indian Ocean, Toti tidal pool to the left. Holy Mass Saturdays and Sundays.

Know your faith from the Bible!

Catholics For Truth have issued 23 tracts in one book.

Now, in conjunction with Radio Veritas these popular tracts are available on a 4-CD set.

Contact John Lee on 011 643 4313 or write to PO Box 27756, Yeoville, 2143

YEAR OF THE PRIEST The Marian Movement of Priests invites Priests and Deacons to MMP Cenacle/Retreat from Monday 17th May (5pm) to lunch-time on Friday 21st May 2010.

Venue: La Verna Vanderbijlpark.

Cost: R260 per night and total for accommodation is R1 040.

In the Spirit of God Incarnate, we follow the way of the Gospel. We have dedicated ourselves to the service of disadvantaged women and children and to the education of the young.

Is God calling you to be a witness to the Light that is Jesus?

If so, please contact: Sr Gregoria, P. Bag 553, Eshowe 3815. Tel: 076 3492752

19

The Retreat is prayerful, centred on the Eucharist through the gaze of Mary.

Preacher: Rev Fr Thomas Gibson.

Please contact Fr Ronald Cairns OMI 011 440 1744 083 650 0788 PO Box 39084, Bramley, 2018

Contact Valry 084 717 6373/031 4662495. Helmut 082 881 4513, valryp @mweb.co.za/neptun @mweb.co.za AZARS B&B — Olde worlde charm in Kalk Bay’s quaint fishing village. Luxury double en-suite/private lounge/ entrance. DStv/tea/coffee.

Serviced 3 times a week.

Minutes from Metrorail.

Enjoy breakfast at different restaurant every day (included in tariff). Holy Mass Saturdays/Sundays within walking distance.

Tel/Fax 021 788 2031, 082 573 1251. grizell@iafrica. com CAPE TOWN—Kirstenhof. Lovely separate furnished room, R150ppn.  084 580 5046.

CAPE WEST COASTYzerfontein—Emmaus on Sea B&B and self-catering.

Holy Mass celebrated every Sunday at 6pm.  022 451 2650.

EAST LONDON—Cambridge. St Pius Pastoral Centre. Affordable facilities for conferences, workshops, meetings, and retreats. Plus budget accommodation. Secure parking. Tel/Fax 043 721 3077, 082 455 6609. Email: stpiuspet@telkomsa.net FISH HOEK—Self-catering accommodation, sleeps 4.

Secure parking.  021 785 1247.

FISH HOEK, Cape Town— Self-catering holiday accommodation from budget to luxury for 2 to 6 people.

Special pensioners’ rate from May to October.

Tel/fax 021 782 3647, email: alisona@xsinet. co.za GORDON’S BAY: Beautiful en-suite rooms available at reasonable rates.

Magnificent views, breakfast on request.  082 774 7140. E-mail: bzhive @telkomsa.net.

GORDON’S BAY—Selfcatering unit on the top of the mountain. Spectacular views, tranquil, peaceful and relaxing, a get-away second to none, Sleeps 4, R950 per day, please try us; you will be back again!  Dawn 021 8561977, 082 2140281 KNYSNA—Self-catering garden apartment for two in Old Belvidere with wonderful Lagoon views.  044 387 1052.

KOLBE HOUSE is the Catholic Centre and residence for the University of Cape Town. From June 7 to July 23 the Student's rooms are available for holiday guests. We offer self-catering accommodation. Beautiful estate in Rondebosch near the University. Parking in secure premises, short walks to shops, transport etc. For details contact Jock at 021 685 7370, fax 021 686 2342 or 082 308 0080 or kolbe.house@ telkomsa.net MARIANELLA Guest House, Simon’s Town— “Come experience the peace and beauty of God with us.” Fully equipped with amazing sea-views.

Secure parking, ideal for rest and relaxation. Special rates for pensioners and clergy.  Malcolm Salida 082 784 5675 or mjsal ida@mweb.co.za MONTAGU, Rose Cottage—A luxurious selfcatering “home away from home”; stylishly decorated,

the “coolest” place in town!

Sleeps 6. The most peaceful surroundings, mountain views, www.rosecottag emontagu.co.za or e-mail: info@rosecottagemon tagu.co.za or  Christa at 084 409 0044 PEACEHAVEN Holiday Flats, Scottburgh. Selfcatering accommodation with magnificent sea views. We offer 24-hour security, secure parking, 6 DStv channels, a laundromat and braai facilities on the premises. Threeminute walk to main beach and shops. Special pensioner rates during low season periods.  039 9761344/ 9783400; Fax 039 9781476. Email peac ehaven@scottburgh.co.za SANDBAAI/HERMANUS— Relaxing weekend away.

Reasonable rates. Contact Jacqui Ferreira.  082 924 5807 SEA POINT—Double room, own bathroom in heart of this prestigious suburb, near all amenities.  072 236 2996 SOUTH COAST—3 bedroom house. Marine Drive, Uvongo.  Donald 031 465 5651, 073 989 1074.

STELLENBOSCH—Five simple private suites (2 beds, fridge, microwave).

Countryside-vineyard/ forest/mountain walks; beach 20min drive. Affordable.

Christian Brothers  021 880 0242 cbc — stel@ mweb.co.za STRAND—Beachfront flat to let. Stunning views.

Fully furnished and equipped. Garage, one bedroom, sleeper couch in lounge. R375 per night for two people.  Brenda 082 822 0607.

UMHLANGA ROCKS— Fully equipped self-catering 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, sleeps 6, sea view, 200 metres from beach, DStv.  Tina, 031 561 5838 WILDERNESS—Selfcatering house, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms.

Sleeps 8/10, indoor braai, pool table, DStv. Contact Julia, e-mail progalu@ netactive.co.za

UPHOLSTERER More than 50 years of experience guarantees you satisfaction.

Ph 021 637 1938 after hours 021 701 2692.

PO Box 2372, CAPE TOWN, 8000 Tel: (021) 465 5007 Fax: (021) 465 3850

www.scross.co.za Editor: Günther Simmermacher (editor@scross.co.za)

Advisory Editor: Michael Shackleton Editorial staff: Michail Rassool (mrassool@scross.co.za)

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Published independently by the Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Company Ltd, Cape Town Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, staff or directors of The Southern Cross.

Pregnant?

083 640 5848

April 21 to April 27, 2010

Help is as near as your telephone

SOUTHERN AFRICA’S NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY SINCE 1920

011 403 1718 031 201 5471

5th Sunday of Easter, Year C (May 2) Readings: Acts 14:21b-27; Psalm 145:8-13b; Revelation 21:1-5a; John 13:31-35 ASTER means that things look completely different. It does not mean a magic wand is waved over our pains so that they no longer hurt. Look at the readings for next Sunday.

In the first reading, Paul is still feeling his way, but already the note is struck of the restless travelling that was to mark the remainder of his life after his dramatic encounter with Jesus. He is travelling now around the hinterland of Asia Minor, exhorting disciples, and stressing to them that “it is through many tribulations that we have to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Since Paul and Barnabas are travelling and cannot remain with the churches they have founded, they “appoint elders in each church, praying and fasting and offering them to the Lord in whom they have placed their trust”.

The work is going to be difficult and dangerous, but the tone is upbeat, as they “gather the Church and told them what great things the Lord had done with them, and how he had opened a door of

E

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Donations and volunteers and prayers always welcome

Love is the hallmark of the Christian Fr Nicholas King SJ

Scriptural Reflections faith to the gentiles.” That is what Easter means.

The psalm for next Sunday of course knows nothing of Easter, but much about God’s goodness: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” The poet envisages a symphony of praise to God from all creation: “All your works praise you, O Lord and your loved ones bless you.”

The central insight is the kingship of God, which in the second half of our brief excerpt is mentioned no fewer than seven times in various ways (count them!).

The second reading, on the face of it, is cheerful, the lovely vision of “a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven

and the first earth have disappeared, and there was longer any sea.” There is also the glorious vision of “the holy city, new Jerusalem…made ready, like a bride adorned for her husband”.

Then the author offers a daring notion, signalled by the cry of “Look!” It is the idea of “God’s tent with human beings; and God shall pitch his tent with them, and they shall be his people.” When we are most afflicted, we shall do well to remember this lovely idea, and the beautiful maternal gesture that “he shall wipe every tear away from their eyes, and death shall be no more”.

We rejoice in this image, but note solemnly that it means that, despite Christ’s Easter, death still dominates our existence. But it will not rule for ever: “The One sitting on the throne said: ‘Look! I shall make everything new’.”

That is what gives us the courage to go on.

Now look at the gospel reading. It is not an Easter story; it is taken from the discourse that John’s gospel places on Jesus’ lips at the Last Supper. Immediately

Misguided love for animals VERY now and then I am inclined towards a temper tantrum, usually brought on by an over-indulgence of chocolate or some other diet-induced aberration to my blood sugar which seems to be as temperamental as a touchy tennis player at times.

And every year at Lent, I vow and declare to try to last 40 days and 40 nights without disturbing my inner and outer calm.

This year, however, a troop of local baboons decided to put me to the test.

They descended on my home, looking for anything edible. This involved scrambling on to my roof and destroying drainpipes along the way.

These are not ordinary baboons, but very clever ones. They have learnt to open windows and doors and within a week of the neighbourhood being supplied with “baboon-proof” wheelie bins for their garbage, the crafty animals had worked out how the dual locking mechanisms worked and continued with abandon their practice of littering the suburb with enough refuse to get us declared an official United Nations health hazard zone.

I have tried reasoning with them, pleading with them, throwing old shoes at them, hurling abuse and epithets at them, hosing them down with water and even throwing the odd upturned wheelie bin at them. But to no avail.

It has become a major problem, brought about mainly by some local residents actually feeding them in com-

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Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000  10 Tuin Plein, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001 Tel: (021) 465 5007  Fax: (021) 465 3850 Editorial: editor@scross.co.za  Advertising/Subscriptions/Accounts: admin@scross.co.za

Chris Moerdyk

The Last Word plete contravention of the wise advice of wild-life experts.

It is a problem for which the solution is extremely complex. After all, the baboons are just doing what comes naturally to them. On the other hand, they have caused thousands of rands worth of damage when they’ve managed to get into houses. I have also seen a dozen baboons in a neighbour’s home with two of them having cornered three young children—barking and baring their teeth at the kids. That’s three children who were so traumatised the parents had to move out of the area.

Man’s interaction and attitude towards animals has always intrigued me, particularly when human beings assume to know what is good for animals and what is not.

For example, early last year a large pod of whales beached themselves on the white sands of Kommetjie on the Western Cape’s southern peninsula.

People rushed to the beach and immediately started trying to push the whales back into the sea and when the whales kept coming back and beaching

CONRAD

‘News about the Church is so worrying, Granny has to have medication when she reads The Southern Cross.”

themselves again, they poured water over them and gave them hugs. Then the experts arrived and said this was all very noble, but there was a reason the whales were beaching themselves, and with the best will in the world, trying to push them back into the sea and hugging them was causing them more trauma and distress than if nature was simply allowed to take its course.

So the experts took out their guns and started “humanely euthanasing” the whales by pumping them full of bullets while at the same time trying to beat back the local population who were throwing themselves into the line of fire.

A few days later a sizeable crowd gathered on Kommetjie beach at dawn to conduct a candle-lit memorial service for the whales.

At that very moment, I suspect, nobody in the entire Western Cape had taken the slightest bit of notice of a whole bunch of kids that had died of starvation, been raped, suffered child abuse or been bashed in a drunken stupor just a few kilometres away. But that’s another story for another time.

The point I’m trying to make is that this sad event showed that no one really knew for sure just why whales become so suicidal. Noone could say with certainty whether for some reason the whales wanted to die, or whether they really appreciated being saved; whether they took comfort from human beings hugging them or whether this scared the daylights out them.

Shortly after that, a local baboon called Eric was bitten by some dogs, which raised more of an outcry from the local population than when a child was bitten by a baboon some years ago.

Anyway, while Eric was recuperating in a local veterinary hospital ward in the sunshine overlooking False Bay, he was inundated with gifts of fruit, especially imported bananas. A kindly old lady of about 80 baked Eric a carrot cake. For the next two weeks the popular sentiment was that the old lady ought to be lynched, driven out of town and maybe even executed — because carrot cakes were bad for baboons!

I believe quite sincerely in our Godgiven responsibility to love all creatures, but I’m am a little concerned that quite often we humans tend to hurt some creatures quite badly with an over-abundance of misguided love.

before the reading starts, Judas has gone out to perform his work of betrayal, and the evangelist tersely comments: “And it was night.”

Amazingly, though, this is not the excuse for Jesus to repine at his lot. Listen to what he says: “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him.”

Human treachery and sinfulness does not mean that God’s project is broken.

For one thing, Jesus is still with his disciples: “My children, I am with you for a little while”. For another, we are given a new way of living. “I am giving you a new commandment: love each other. As I have loved you, so you are to love each other.”

When do you know people really love?

When it hurts. And discipleship will hurt, there will be pain. But because Easter has happened, the pain is not the end of the story.

“This is how people will know that you are my disciples—if you have love among yourselves”. That is the answer to all our difficulties this week.

Southern Crossword #387

ACROSS 4. Mass for those who leave us (7) 8. Held forth in what’s decorated (6) 9. Tellers of the divine will (7) 10. Rescued with ointment? (6) 11. Pedestal for the statue (6) 12. Reference to what is to come (2,6) 18. Present pope is the sixteenth (8) 20. Wooer, sounds like a tailor (6) 21. Land of Orthodoxy (6) 22. Daniel’s ways of refusing (7) 23. Free of chargel (6) 24. It may take place after 4 across (7)

DOWN 1. Religious homage in church (7) 2. Vocally cancel the event? (4,3) 3. Expect Sherlock Holmes to do it (6) 5. He’s no African but could be Roman (8) 6. Church in which you find a ragged child (6) 7. College of cardinals does it in conclave (6) 13. Protection against rain and sun (8) 14. I batter the cleric’s cover (7) 15. Unbelief in God (7) 16. Writing desk for the office? (6) 17. Decisive step (6) 19. Mere mistakes in doctrine? (6)

SOLUTIONS TO #386. ACROSS: 1 Repose, 4 Mosque, 9 Diocese of Rome, 10 Ejected, 11 Crave, 12 Items, 14 Brain, 18 Canon, 19 Romance, 21 Maid of Orleans, 22 Simony, 23 Walked. DOWN: 1 Red Sea, 2 Protestantism, 3 Swept, 5 Officer, 6 Quotation mark, 7 Eleven, 8 Seeds, 13 Monsoon, 15 Scamps, 16 Broom, 17 Leased, 20 Malta.

CHURCH CHUCKLE N the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world, so he took the Isabbath off.

From examination reply papers of a Catholic primary school.

Send us your favourite Catholic joke, preferably clean and brief, to The Southern Cross, Church Chuckle, PO Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000.