The Southern Cross - 100804

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New series: Life of JH Newman

www.scross.co.za

August 4 to August 10, 2010 No 4687

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How to Napier on form rounded the common Catholics good

Miracle claimed in arson fire

Reg No. 1920/002058/06

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R5,00 (incl VAT RSA)

SOUTHERN AFRICA’S NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY SINCE 1920

Mugabe called a ‘schismatic’

Inside Journalists on the go The Southern Cross has bid farewell to two long-standing journalists on its staff.— Page 3

BY MUNYARADZI MAKONI

F

Pope to write on holiday Pope Benedict is dedicating his holiday to writing the third and final volume in his series on the life of Jesus, which will cover our Lord’s infancy and childhood.—Page 5

Newman letters released An English order of nuns has made public the letters of 19th-century English Cardinal John Henry Newman to a dying nun.—Page 4

Txting cannot replace F2F Text messaging on cellphones may be a favoured form of communication among the young, but it cannot replace face-to-face contact.—Page 9

Women and the Church In his weekly column, Chris Moerdyk mulls over the position of women in the Church.— Page 12

What do you think?

In their Letters to the Editor this week, readers discuss Durban’s cathedral parish centre, incense, women in the Church, polygamy, and names.—Page 8

This week’s editorial: Suicide not an ‘easy way out’

Vatican euros finally go into circulation

BY CAROL GLATZ

F

OR the first time since the Vatican adopted the euro currency in 2002, the Vatican has begun to put some of its coins into public circulation.

However, the likelihood that Rome visitors will find coins depicting Pope Benedict is still slim since storekeepers only within the walls of Vatican City are distributing them.

Two million 50-cent coins minted in 2010 were earmarked for public circulation after representatives of the Vatican and the European Union signed an agreement in Brussels last December. The accord allowed the Vatican to more than double the monetary value of the coins it issues, but also required the Vatican to put a large chunk of its coins into circulation.

For years, the vast majority of Vatican euro coins were sold as sets to collectors, although some Vatican employees had an opportunity to buy rolls of the coins at face value. The annual release of the Vatican coins was marked by long queues of collectors waiting to buy them and by disappointed customers who found the stocks exhausted in just a few days.

Vatican City shops and businesses—such as the petrol station, post office, pharmacy and grocery store—began distributing 50cent coins with their change, with a limit of two coins per customer. Only the 50-cent coin will be put into public circulation, said media reports.—CNS

Frederik Mayet (third from left) portrays Jesus Christ at the Last Supper during the famous Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany. The Bavaruan village has put on the play roughly every ten years since 1634, fulfilling a promise made by villagers when they were saved from the plague. Performances began on May 15 and will run until October. Durban will hold its Passion Play, first performed in 1952, next year, with auditions beginning in this month.

PHOTO: MICHAEL DALDER, REUTERS/CNS

Durban Passion Play for 2011

BY MICHAIL RASSOOL

T

HE Durban Catholic Players Guild will host its traditional Passion Play next year, and organisers are hoping to see some new faces at the auditions they are holding on August 21.

Clifton Brock, spokesman for the Durban Catholic Players Guild, which organises the five-yearly play, said auditions will take place from 10:00 onwards at Holy Family College in Glenmore. He said the broader Christian community is invited to take part in this historical play and join the “Passion Play Family” for its next run, from April 2-24 (Easter Sunday).

The multi-denominational cast ranges in age from infants and teenagers to young adults and even 90-year-olds, Mr Brock said. He said some of the cast members have been participating in the play almost from its inception in 1952.

The first Durban Passion Play was performed to mark the centenary of the 1852 arrival of the missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in South Africa.

The first play, performed at the Greyville Racecourse, was so successful that local priest Fr Noel Coughlan OMI travelled to Oberammergau in the German state of Bavaria to gain permission for the Durban version of the play to be staged every five years there.

The Oberammergau village fathers willingly granted special permission to the Durban Catholic Players Guild to stage an abridged version of their world famous Passion Play, seeing the play as a means of witnessing to Christ’s suffering and humankind’s redemption, especially to the larger population of Southern Africa. So Durban would thus become the “Oberammergau of Africa”, Mr Brock said.

The play was moved from the Greyville Racecourse to the Durban City Hall, where it was staged until 1997, when its performances were shifted to the Playhouse Drama Theatre, where it is currently performed in association with the Playhouse Company.

The play involves seven months of commitment from the 200-strong cast and crew, who receive no payment.

“In its 58-year history, the Durban Passion Play has been blessed with the talents of many people, professional and amateur alike, but always with the aim of presenting a witness to the greater glory of God to all, and not just to those of the Catholic faith,” Mr Brock said.

He said the aim of the Guild is to continue producing the Durban Passion Play every five years, thus maintaining its unique link with Oberammergau, where the play is staged every ten years (it is currently running until October) while enriching the cultural history of Durban through the dramatic witness of the Passion of Christ.

“Our members enjoy the spiritual dimension of taking part, the sense of community we build as we bond together to witness to the journey of Christ to all, and the unbelievable emotions we feel as we see how the audience is moved by our performances,” Mr Brock said.

“Of course it would be remiss not to mention the fun we have together, the relationships we build,” he said, adding that several marriages have resulted “from the Passion Play experience”.  For more information on the Durban Passion Play, or on the possibility of taking part in it, Mr Brock can be contacted on 083 286 2155, or join the Facebook group at tinyurl.com/fb-dpp2011

ATHER Oskar Wermter, a commentator with the Jesuit Communications in Zimabwe, has said President Robert Mugabe’s comment in support of polygamy at a national gathering of Vapostori church promotes formal division within the Church over some doctrinal difference.

“Through this ‘gospel of polygamy’ and his involvement in Vapostori spiritual rites, President Mugabe reduced himself to a ‘schismatic’ knowingly,” Fr Wermter told NewsDay, the only independent daily in Zimbabwe.

Mr Mugabe, a baptised and confirmed Catholic who reportedly continues to receive Communion, recently attended the annual Passover of close to 200 000 Johanne Marange Apostolic sect members in the Manicaland province of Zimbabwe.

Draped in a white flowing robe, Mr Mugabe told the Vapostori in Shona: “Our constitution allows for polygamy. We will not force people into monogamous marriages. It is written in the Bible that King Solomon was not only blessed with riches but with many wives as well.”

Fr Wermter said that Catholic doctrine could not bend because of Mr Mugabe’s political status and profile.

Fr Gerry O’Collins SJ speaks with audience members after his lecture on Christology at Free State University.

A Jesuit at Free State uni

BY CHRIS CHATTERIS SJ

I

T’S not often that the CR Swart auditorium in the University of the Free State hosts a Jesuit lecturer on Christology.

However that was where Fr Gerry O’Collins SJ addressed an audience of 80 staff, trainee dominees and a physicist on Current Trends in Christology.

Welcoming Fr O’Collins, an Australian currently touring South Africa as part of the Jesuit Institute’s Winter Living Theology programme, Professor Rian Venter of the theology faculty noted that it was not often that such a large crowd could be attracted to listen to a “systematician” or systematic theologian.

Fr O’Collins brought a personal note to the topic by speaking of his own contacts with great theologians from the reformed tradition such as Jürgen Moltmann. He suggested that although this generation might feel like “pygmies following a generation of giants” such as Fr Karl Rahner and Karl Barth, there is still a considerable amount of important work being done in Christology today.

Continued on page 3

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The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10, 2010

Past and present priests, deacons honoured

BY MICHAIL RASSOOL

T

WO parishes, in Durban and Cape Town, marked the end of the Year for Priests by showing their appreciation to past and present parish priests and deacons.

St Anthony’s in central Durban held a concelebrated Mass for its parish priests, presided over by auxiliary Bishop Barry Wood. Each priest received a certificate of appreciation from Michael Chetty, chairman of the parish pastoral council, said Fr Sean Mullin CSSp of St Anthony’s parish in Durban.

Certificates of appreciation were also awarded to priests and deacons serving the community of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Bridgetown, Cape Town, at a thanksgiving service and Benediction at the church. Candles were lit for priests and deacons who have since died, and presentations were made to their family.

In his address, Archbishop Emeritus Lawrence Henry praised the idea of coming together to thank the Lord for the service, particularly of priests. The Year for Priests, which officially ran from June 2009 to June 2010, commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney, patron saint of priests.

The archbishop said the year provided a good opportunity for priests to reappraise their priestly role, to reaffirm that they are serving “Christ’s

priesthood”, which is a privilege, encompassing the priesthood of Jesus Christ and the service to God’s people this entails.

The office of the priesthood, he explained, has as its fundamentals blessing, governing and baptising.

Archbishop Henry said he is deeply concerned about the absence of priests from many churches where Mass is being said very infrequently, if at all.

Capuchin Father Rufino Ferris reminisced about his time at Bridgetown, relating anecdotes about parishioners, paying tribute to sodalities and groups such as the St Vincent de Paul Society, and the prayer group, which he described as “spiritually rich and spontaneous”.

He also singled out organist Basil Snayer, “who comes here to serve the Lord, and not just to exercise his gifts”.

Current parish priest Fr John Malayil, from India, paid tribute to the role paid by the Capuchin Fathers and their contribution to life in greater Athlone (of which Bridgetown is part) and Manenberg.

Some clerics developed their sense of service in Bridgetown and paid tribute to the parish’s role in their formation, including Deacon Eugene Tito of the nearby Belgravia parish of Regina Caeli. Special mention of priests such as Capuchin Fathers Basil Hendricks and Ferris, who served for more than one term.

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Umduduzi Wethu Crèche and Mlondolozi Crèche & Pre-School

LOCAL

‘Hand of God’ saves popular sculptor’s home, artwork

BY MICHAIL RASSOOL

A

WELL-KNOWN South African artist believes that the hand of God intervened in stopping a raging fire that could well have destroyed his home in the Western Cape rural village of Vanrhynsdorp.

Willem Branca, one of the country’s foremost portrait sculptors, told The Southern Cross that he believes the fire was started by arsonists. He said the fire was started in his bedroom and later spread to an ensuite bathroom.

But the fire, said Mr Branca, was inexplicably extinguished before reaching a point occupied by a plastic sculpture he created based on the facial impression on the Shroud of Turin, believed to be the cloth the dead Jesus was wrapped in, which was standing on a service trolley in the next room.

Mr Branca, a Catholic, also spoke of other phenomena associated with the fire that to him are inexplicable. He said although the hard plastic base of his television aerial was warped by the intense heat, the tape strapping it onto the television set and the set itself were unharmed. Also strange to him

The destroyed bedroom in Willem Branca’s house after a fire which the sculptor believes was miraculously stopped before it could spread. were mere cracks in the glass of a cabinet as well as those covering paintings, which were not shattered by the heat.

Although some paintings, which were lying without glass covering, were completely scorched, they were not set alight. He suggested that all these phenomena are things associated with a fire in progress, but everything simply appears to have been halted, without any rational explanation.

“Any forensic pathologist would confirm that there is no

way at all that such a fire would stop by itself,” he said.

“The only conclusion one can draw from what happened is that God exists and the Shroud is genuine, ending hundreds of years of speculation on its authenticity, and thousands of years of speculation on whether God exists or not.”

Mr Branca said Professor Barry Schwortz, the official curator of the Shroud, recommended that this miracle be referred to the Vatican for investigation and classification, a course he is pursuing.

Celebration honours national patroness

A

celebration to honour South Africa’s patroness, Mary Assumed into Heaven, will take place on Sunday August 15, at 15:00, at Our Lady Help of Christians (Salesian

Church, Lansdowne, Cape Town.

The celebration, which will be held for the ninth consecutive year, will be presided over

by Archbishop Stephen Brislin

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of Cape Tow, who will deliver the key note address at.  For more information contact Francis Boulle of the Schoensatt Community on 021 712 1771 or 083 244 5173

St Boniface Community Centre Annual Church Bazaar The St Boniface Community is presenting its Annual Church Bazaar on Sunday 29th of August 2010. Starting with an open-air Mass at 9.30am at the St Boniface Community Centre, Cor. Puttick Avenue & Kowie Road, Sundowner Ext.8 Randburg.

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Umduduzi Wethu Crèche and Mlondolozi Crèche & Pre-School were built and are run by volunteers of Osizweni Catholic Church in Majuba Municipality, kwazulu-natal.

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Archbishop Hurley at his last papal audience, with Pope John Paul II

Published by Continuum of New York & London “throws a clear, illuminating beam on the life and person of Hurley” Chris Chatteris SJ “vivid, poignant story of a powerful yet humble man of God” Ela Gandhi “beautiful, readable and well researched” Albert Nolan OP “thorough research with elegance and skilful crispness” Gunther Simmermacher “Archbishop Hurley was one of our greatest South Africans. This biography reveals what gave him that stature.” Desmond Tutu

2010 WINNER OF ANDREW MURRAY - DESMOND TUTU AWARD FOR BEST THEOLOGICAL WORK IN ENGLISH. Available to Southern Cross readers at special reduced price of R275 (+R25 for postage to anywhere in the RSA) Phone: Hester (031) 3103521, 083 799 4136, hester.joseph@diakonia.org.za All royalties go to the Denis Hurley Centre, Emmanuel Cathedral, Durban

LOCAL

The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10, 2010

3

‘Rename xenophobia’ call

BY MICHAIL RASSOOL

the South African Police Service.

Chaired by Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town, the forum condemned the violence, especially following the unifying effects of the World Cup. “We particularly denounce the way that criminals often use children to carry out their purposes, so as to avoid the direct legal consequences of their malicious intentions,” the religious leaders said in a statement.

“We therefore urge the South African Police Services, who have done such a marvellous job in upholding law and order during the tournament, to work with local communities in isolating those who are responsible and bringing them to full justice,” the WCRLF statement said.

Shopkeepers related how young boys would go from trad-

T

HE term “social unrest” is starting to be the preferred usage in describing attacks against foreigners, a Cape Town activist for Justice and Peace has said.

“Xenophobia” carries with it rigidly defined legal characteristics, which often results in disappointment for victims seeking redress for being attacked by South Africans, said Billy Maseti, the archdiocese’s Justice and Peace commissioner.

Speaking to The Southern Cross in the aftermath of the latest wave of attacks in Cape Town’s townships, Mr Maseti said the term “social unrest” could be applied to organised attacks and raids on foreignowned small shops in the townships.

He said it is known among civil society roleplayers that attacks on foreign-owned shops are partly motivated by local resentment against their entrepreneurial success.

Mr Maseti pointed out that no law exists governing xenophobia, and it is fought mainly at common law level. In a court of law, he said, the move now is to try and apply the blanket “social unrest” definition to shop attacks as well as to more clearly motivated xenophobic attacks such as the burning of a foreigner’s house and stone throwing. This promises a more positive outcome for the person seeking legal redress through the courts, Mr Maseti said.

A delegation of the Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum (WCRLF), met recent victims of xenophobic attacks to hear about them from the victims themselves.

The visit followed a special consultative forum comprising representatives from faiths and

er to trader, standing in front of their shops issuing threats before entering and demanding money while helping themselves to merchandise.

These details were confirmed

by Constable Nosiphiwo Mtengwane, communications officer of Harare Police Station in Khayelitsha.

He said the SAPS established an informal information network alerting the police to any incidents of social unrest and xenophobic attacks as they occur.

Mr Maseti said it was also stressed to the delegation that not all township dwellers have the same mindset. In at least one instance, he said, civilminded community members established who the young culprits were who had raided shops, marched to their houses, confiscated goods and returned them to their owners.

Southern Cross editor Günther Simmermacher (standing) bids farewell to longtime colleagues Gene Donnelly (left) and Michail Rassool. Mr Donnelly, a sub-editor and a managing editor, has retired after 41 years at The Southern Cross. In 1998, Mr Donnelly received the Bene Merenti papal award for his service to The Southern Cross. Staff writer Michail Rassool leaves the newspaper after nine years to take up the position of communications manager at Catholic Welfare And Development.

Jesuit at Free State uni

Cape Town religious leaders in Khayelitsha. From left: Hindu leader Guru Krishna, Apostle K Maseko of the African Ministers Forum, Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town, WCRLF chairman, Ds Braam Hanekom, moderator of Dutch Reformed Church SA, Mickey Glass, executive director of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa, Rev Aaron Makhili and Rev Lucas Njozela of the Great Commission Ministry Network and Baha'i leader Tahirih PHOTO: ELIZABETH PETERSEN Matthee.

Continued from page 1 One of the present challenges, he suggested, is to explore the place of Jesus in a pluralistic world. Here he mentioned the late Belgian Jesuit Jacques Dupuis and the Vietnamese theologian Peter Phan as well as the Englishman Chris Hewer, who dialogues with members of the Islamic faith.

An important perennial area of study is the life of Jesus. Fr O’Collins cited the monumental work of John Meier who has written four volumes on the life of Jesus with the fifth and final one still to come. The study of the resurrection is also an enduringly important area and here he recommended the work of theologian Bishop Tom Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God.

Belief in Christ and worship of him in the early Church is another important area of contemporary study, a work of history rather than theology.

Here Larry Hurtado has shown that the early Church had a “high Christology”, that is a belief in Jesus as Lord and the divine Son of the Father.

Fr O’Collins said that critics of Christianity might well honestly find difficulties in the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, but they should not deny the historical fact that there were early Christians who really believed in it.

The lecture was inserted into the Winter Living Theology programme which moved on from Bloemfontein for Cape Town. The final leg is in Durban at the Glenmore Centre from August 10-12.

House Father needed for Children’s Home Lawrence House, a project of the Missionaries of St Charles (Scalabrini

PO Box 11095, Mariannhill 3624 SEPTEMBER 3-5 Fr Emmanuel Ndlovu: “The Power of Prayer” Weekend from supper Sept 3 to lunch 5.

OCTOBER 22-24 Mgr Paul Nadal: “Second Vatican Council, Forty Years After”. Weekend.

NOVEMBER 19-21 Advent meditiations by Fr Pierre Lavoipierre: “Arm Ourselves – Appear in the Light”.

DECEMBER 10-18 Fr Michael Gumede OMI Seven-day retreat “In the Footsteps of the Apostles and the Saints”, from supper Dec 10 to breakfast 18

DECEMBER 10-18 Fr Urs Fischer & Team: 7-Day Guided Retreats, from supper Dec 10 to breakfast 18 DECEMBER 24 - JANUARY 1 “Our Joy in Being Catholic” (written by Bishop Oswald Hirmer), presented by Fr John Driessen, from supper Dec 24 to breakfast Jan 1.

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Personally guided retreats may be arranged at any time throughout the year to suit individual need.

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031 700 2155 031 700 2890 031 700 2738

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Fathers), provides full-time care to 25 children from different African countries.

The position of House Father is very crucial, addressing as it does a need for the presence of a father figure and role model in the children’s lives, and is regarded as a ministry, and not only as work.

The successful candidate must:  be willing to live in Lawrence House and consider it a permanent home;  have experience in working with children and youth;  be familiar with working within a Christian environment;  have contactable references.

The candidate must preferably be a male African of minimum 35 years old.

Applications to be emailed to giulia@scalabrini.org.za

4

The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10, 2010

INTERNATIONAL

Cardinal Newman’s letters to dying nun made public

BY SIMON CALDWELL

A

N English order of nuns has made public the letters of 19th-century English Cardinal John Henry Newman to a dying nun.

The letters show how the 19thcentury theologian, who will be beatified by Pope Benedict in Birmingham on September 19, tried to console Visitation Sister Dominica Bowden after she discovered she was suffering from tuberculosis.

The letters illustrate their friendship and reveal how the nun’s death left Cardinal Newman distraught.

Cardinal Newman knew Sr Dominica because her father, John William Bowden, was his best friend during his years at Oxford University. As an Anglican priest, in 1831 he had baptised the future nun as a baby.

She became a Catholic in 1847, two years after Newman was received into the Church and three years after her father had died; she entered the convent at the age of 21. Cardinal Newman preached at the Westbury convent Mass at which Sr Dominica took her final vows.

The correspondence between the pair began soon afterwards, and although only Cardinal Newman’s letters remain, they display

deep affection. At the time, Sr Dominica was in her 30s and Cardinal Newman in his 60s.

In some of the letters, which have never been published, the cardinal reflects on day trips to the seaside or grumbles about growing old, struggling to pay the bills, or his frustration at being unable to open an oratory at Oxford.

The tone of the letters suddenly changes, however, when Sr Dominica tells him that she is gravely ill. He tries to console her by saying he is praying for her and offering Masses for her recovery.

“I wish you spoke of yourself as stronger—but you are in the hands of that dear Lord to whom you have dedicated yourself, and he will never forsake you,” he wrote in one letter.

When, in the summer of 1867, she tells him that she thinks she is dying, Cardinal Newman admits to almost weeping. That October 9, Sr Dominica died.

Cardinal Newman’s last letter to the Westbury convent is to the mother superior, expressing his shock at Sr Dominica’s death.

“I was not prepared for your letter,” he wrote. Sr Dominica “has been so much better or, at least, seemed to have still so much strength that I thought she would have longer to wait till she

entered into her rest.

“She was young and I am old and she is taken before me. May I follow her and my soul be with hers!”

Mother Jane Margaret Clifton, the superior of the Visitation Sisters in England, confirmed that the letters were authentic.

“Sr Dominica was a very outgoing person, she was very contemplative, a very cultured lady and a very educated lady for that age.

Newman was extremely close to her.”

The Order of the Visitation was founded in France in the 17th century by St Jane Frances de Chantal and St Francis de Sales, from whom Newman borrowed his motto, “Cor Ad Cor Loquitur” (Heart Speaks to Heart), after he was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. Fr Ian Ker, Cardinal Newman’s biographer, said that he had not previously known of the existence of the letters.

“Newman had a great capacity for friendship, which has largely disappeared today,” he said.

“These letters bring out his affection and his great care. No one went unnoticed. He had an exquisite courtesy and a lot of women friends.”  See also page 10 for the first in Fr Michael Austin’s seven part series on the life of Cardinal Newman.

A shell hangs from a walking stick as a group of 200 pilgrims with disabilities walk the Way of St James in Burgos, Spain. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were making their way to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of St James the Greater are believed to be entombed.

PHOTO: FELIX ORDONEZ, REUTERS/CNS

New bishop: Scandal excised evil

BY CIAN MOLLOY

I

N the wake of a series of clerical child abuse scandals, the country’s newest prelate, Bishop Liam MacDaid of Clogher, called on the people of his diocese to join him in “a repentant return to the well of salvation”.

Speaking at his consecration at St Macartan’s cathedral in Monaghan, Bishop MacDaid said: “Society has forced us in the Irish Church to look into the mirror,

and what we saw were weakness and failure, victims and abuse. The surgeon’s knife has been painful but necessary. A lot of evil and poison has been excised. There comes a time when the surgeon’s knife has done what it can, is put away and a regime of rehabilitation for the patient is put in place.

“We have been brought to our knees, but maybe that is no bad thing. It can bring us closer to the core of the mystery,” he said.— CNS

Concern over lack of preparation for crucial Sudan referendum

W

ITH only five months to go before the January 9 referendum on the future of Southern Sudan as an independent nation, Sudan’s bishops have expressed concern that there is not enough time to finish preparations.

In a statement Sudan’s bishops called upon Sudanese officials in the country’s northern and southern regions to ensure that the ref-

erendum for Southern Sudan— and a separate one for Abyei— take place “on time, in a free and fair manner, and that the outcomes are recognised and respected”.

They said many people throughout the country have expressed fear that the warring factions that signed the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement have not made the referendum a

priority and “that transparency and inclusiveness are lacking”.

The referendum for southern Sudan will determine if the largely Christian and animist South, with its significant oil deposits, will secede from the Islamic north. Observers consider the referendum more important for Sudan’s future than April’s elections for national and regional offices.

“If unity is an option, we must understand what kind of unity we are speaking of,” said the bishops, who noted that, in the multicultural country, “one entity still dominates and imposes itself on others in an oppressive manner, at every level”.

They said that unity with the north had not been presented as an attractive option to the people of Southern Sudan, and they

blamed “the leadership of Sudan and the political establishment”.

“A unity which binds and oppresses, prohibits all opposition, a unity which imposes uniformity and condemns those who differ in faith and culture must be rejected,” the bishops said.

At the same time, they expressed concerns about the challenges facing all Sudanese if secession is chosen.—CNS

Papal charity helps rebuild Haiti school

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A

PAPAL charity has donated $250 000 (about R1,8 million) for the reconstruction of a school in Haiti and as a sign of Pope Benedict’s concern for the earthquake-devastated population, Vatican Radio reported.

Cardinal Paul Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, led the delegation to the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to present the cheque. The money will go towards the reconstruction of the St Francis de Sales School, which was destroyed along with much of the city and 20% of the country in the January 12 earthquake.

The idea was not to offer only economic aid, the radio report said, “but above all a gesture of closeness by Pope Benedict to the victims of the earthquake, who are still suffering greatly”.

Cor Unum is the Vatican agency that coordinates the charitable operations of the Church and follows the suggestions of the pope. Its funds, used to help ease situations created by natural disasters, war, poverty and hunger, are built through donations from around the world.

Cardinal Cordes’ group visited many camps for displaced Haitians run by the country’s Catholic organisations. The delegation also met with representatives of the numerous humanitarian agencies at the papal nunciature in the capital.

Vatican Radio also reported that the pope had made an additional donation to Caritas Haiti.

Cor Unum distributed $1,87 million (R14 million) for emergency aid in 25 countries in 2009, Vatican Radio said. It also described additional papal foundations supporting different charitable projects.

For example, in 2009 the John Paul II Foundation for the Sahel donated $2.3 million (R17 million) in aid to African countries affected by desertification.

Through the “100 Projects for the Holy Father” programme, wealthier countries are invited to help the Church work in poor countries; the programme accounts for about $20 million (R150 million) for 200 projects.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10, 2010

Bishops: Zambia constitution ‘won’t stand test of time’

BY MWANSA PINTU

Z

AMBIA’S bishops have rejected a draft constitution, saying there is no way the document produced by the National Constitution Commission “will have the legitimacy required for such an important document to stand the test of time”.

The bishops said the commission had violated “most of the people’s desires as accurately captured in” an earlier draft.

“In its present manner, the draft constitution is not acceptable as a basis for coming up with a constitution that is people-driven,” the bishops said.

“The people of Zambia are very clear and consistent with what they want, but they have always been let down by those in power who are supposed to be the midwives of a good constitution.”

Since its independence in 1964, Zambia has made several

attempts to enact a people-driven national constitution through the appointments of constitutional review commissions. Observers, including Church officials, say these attempts have been thwarted by strong politicians whose interest is to entrench their hold on power.

The politicians have usually sponsored candidates to the review commission, and those candidates eventually end up swaying the people’s recommendations and wishes. As a result, each new government comes up with its own commission, which ends in failure after it has spent billions on the process.

“The common good has always been sacrificed for parochial interests by those who want to entrench their hold on power through masterminding a weak and partisan constitution,” the bishops said.

When the current commission was set up in 2007, the

bishops’ conference and other key institutions declined the invitation to participate because of the manner the national constitution act was framed and the government’s failure to resolve contentious issues in the legislation. However, the bishops said in their recent statement, they did not give up their right to participate in the debates.

The bishops said the current commission would go down in the country’s history as yet another of those constitutionmaking processes that gobbled millions while a people-driven constitution continued to elude the nation.

They urged Zambians not to lose hope.

“We truly believe the words of Jesus that those who hunger and thirst for justice will be satisfied. We call on all to pray that the God of justice will bless this nation and that sooner rather than later the people will have justice,” they said.—CNS

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Pope Benedict walks with his personal secretary, Mgr Georg Gänswein, in the gardens of the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. The pope is using his break to write the third part in his trilogy of books on Jesus of Nazareth.

PHOTO: L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO VIA CNS/REUTERS

Pope begins third book on Jesus

BY CAROL GLATZ

P

OPE Benedict is dedicating his holiday to writing the third and final volume in his series on the life of Jesus, which will cover his infancy and childhood.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ told journalists that just a few days after the pope arrived at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, he showed signs of being fully “restored and beaming”.

The pope “immediately began to dedicate himself to reading and studying which, even though it’s demanding, it doesn’t tire him out,” Fr Lombardi said. “It’s clear, therefore, how important it is for him to finish this great project begun years ago.”

Pope Benedict started writing the first volume of the work during his summer holidays in 2003, two years before

he was elected pope.

After his election, the pope said in that volume’s preface that he used all of his free time to complete the book, which was published in the spring of 2007 and covered Jesus’ life from his baptism to his transfiguration.

The pope handed his editors the final draft of the second volume of his book, Jesus of Nazareth, in May. Fr Lombardi said it’s not expected to be on sale in bookshops until next year since the work must be translated and published in different languages.

The second volume is dedicated to the Passion and Resurrection and takes up where the first volume ended.

The first volume, which ran more than 400 pages, highlighted what the Bible says about Jesus, what the moral implications of his teachings are and how reading the Scrip-

tures can lead to a real relationship with Jesus.

Fr Lombardi said the 2008 world Synod of Bishops on the Bible showed how critical it was to have a book on the life of Jesus. The pope’s book is a “guide for the faithful to encounter, through the Gospels, the person of Jesus”, he said.

The Vatican spokesman also said that the pope has reviewed the materials for another volume in the series, The Complete Works of Joseph Ratzinger.

The first volume of the 16tome series, being published in German and Italian for now, was presented in 2008. The works, almost all of which were completed before the pope’s election in 2005, are meant to reflect the pope’s personal theological thought and not the magisterial teaching of the Church.—CNS

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CATECHETICS

The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10, 2010

7

Getting back to the basics of being a good Catholic The pressures of modern life take their toll on everyone, especially those trying to live in the image of Jesus Christ.

MICHAIL RASSOOL asks some hard questions about being a Catholic in today’s world.

W

HAT does it take to be a rounded Catholic in today’s “hurly-burly” world, with all its pressures to conform to an image and outlook that generally do not conform to Church teaching?

Is it possible to embrace both without compromising one’s Catholic orientation?

Is the Church equipping young people to face the challenges and pressures that lie before them, and to recognise the signs and cues that would prompt them to implement the values they were formed in and, consequently, make the right choices?

This is aside from praying, reading the Bible every day, dispensing charity to the poor, visiting those in prison, feeding the hungry, forgiving others, clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, burying the dead, loving others as oneself, keeping the Ten Commandments, avoiding the seven deadly sins, and regular attendance at Mass.

Two of South Africa’s leading catechists believe the blueprint for being a balanced Catholic—one who lives with integrity, acting on principle and conscious of others’ needs—exists.

But to what extent does catech-

esis, understood to be the Church’s principal way of forming people in Christ, achieve its intended outcome—turning out the true disciple of Jesus?

Both Stigmatine Father Angelo Dusi, vicar for catechetics in the archdiocese of Pretoria, and Mark Renaud, director of catechetics in Cape Town archdiocese, agree that formation does not begin with catechesis, but (especially for the “cradle Catholic”) begins in infancy, when most Catholics are baptised, marking the start of a long journey of growth of discipleship in Jesus.

They say a lot depends on how parents play their part in terms of the quality of the rearing of their children as well as the guidance they give them. Catechesis, particularly of the young, is done with the collaboration of parents and the vital part they play—at least in theory, they agree.

It is well known that many parents nowadays are not as engaged in their children’s religious formation as in the past.

They realise their children need to be prepared for key landmarks such as First Communion and confirmation, and generally leave such formation in the hands of others. It perhaps partly explains why after confirmation, many young people hardly see the inside of a church again, as if to follow the example set by the lax attitudes of their parents.

Fr Dusi described many Christians nowadays as being “out of track” because of their own limited notions of what being a good Christian means.

For such people, he said, it is just about attending church on

Sunday and going through the motions of sacramental life without ever achieving a truly personal encounter with Christ, who is not fully present to them as a result.

The priest cited Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Evangelii untiandi (Evangelisation in the Modern World), a response to the new challenges the contemporary world creates for the mission of the Church.

He spoke about the importance of “re-evangelising the baptised”, so they can fully comprehend what their baptism was all about to begin with.

Pope Paul wrote that while the notion of evangelisation may seem foreign to Catholics, the time they were living in (1975) with a changing world, a certain moral deterioration of western civilisation and a weakening of the Church in many parts of the world, made a new evangelisation an imperative.

He said a great number of Christians needed to be re-evangelised in order to live Christian lives.

T

his idea of evangelisation was further developed by Pope John Paul II, particularly in his encyclical Redemptoris missio (Mission of the Redeemer), released on the eve of the millennium.

He wrote that “evangelisation can be new in its ardour, methods and expression”, adapted to the people of today.

“A Christian is born again by the power of the Holy Spirit to be another Christ,” Fr Dusi said. To be a good Christian today means discovering who Jesus is, and espe-

cially who he is today, he said.

Fr Dusi said an intimate relationship with their Lord would enable Christians to understand the concept of Church better, that it really means being an authentic people of Jesus Christ. He said a general lack of this sense is also partly the fault of those engaged in formation and catechesis and their problematic approaches, which consists in merely teaching young people, especially, the fundamentals of Christianity.

Such an approach, Fr Dusi stressed, does not foster any deeper relationship with Christ; it partly explains why he is not really present among younger generations, including those within the Church’s ambit.

Mr Renaud spoke of the six tasks of catechesis which, taken together, aim to guide the individual into a full relationship with Christ. This relationship, he said, is an essential prerequisite for any meaningful understanding of Church doctrine or theology.

The first of the six tasks is to deepen the catechumen’s knowledge, “for in any relationship one needs to know something about that person”, Mr Renaud explained.

The second, he said, concerns liturgy education, which underscores a strong link between liturgy and catechesis, stressing that they should work together. This is something that was never stressed in the old classroom catechesis model.

He said the notion of the lectionary, or Mass-based scriptural readings, as a basis for being catechised is a fairly new idea in modern catechesis.

“To initiate people into the community, catechesis needs to draw them into public worship or Eucharistic appreciation and involvement, a fully conscious participation.”

The third task is to develop a prayer life in which a relationship with Christ is promoted by spending time with him, with God. This is an idea that more young people are being exposed to.

 J.M.J

The fourth is to foster morality, or making the right choices, particularly in today's world with its “counter-values”, seeing things through the eyes of the Gospel, so that Gospel values can be an intrinsic part of one’s being.

Mr Renaud said that this is a “very strong” element in ongoing formation, where Gospel values are contextualised in a realistic manner.

“After all,” he pointed out, “catechesis needs to relate to life, linking Gospel and liturgical life to the life of young people, which is also part of the structure of the lectionary.”

The fifth task is initiating the catechumen into Church community life, after Christ’s teaching to his disciples about the importance of actively living out their faith among like-minded individuals.

The sixth is encouraging the individual in active mission, which consists in reaching out to the world.

In this, said Mr Renaud, the person is encouraged to connect with humanitarian organisations; to help out in soup kitchens, visit patients in hospitals.

This is a way of fostering the active love that forms part of Gospel values, he said.

“Often there is so much good happening, but people are ignorant about it, including those in the Church,” he said.

“Christian initiation of youth,” Fr Dusi pointed out, “means accompanying the person into a relationship with Christ, an ideal that was understood in the early Church.”

He cited the second-century St Justin the Martyr, who described the Christian as one who is baptised into a relationship with Jesus, who lives to share in the Eucharist as the “Bread of Life” and who lives like Christ.

“If people follow Jesus, they are very much in touch with the reality of today, and the more in touch with Jesus one is the more fully engaged one is with the world, living in a truly meaningful way,” Fr Dusi said.

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The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10 2010

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Durban’s parish centre expense justified

Suicide not I ‘an easy way out’

S

TATISTICS suggest that at least two-thirds of people with psychological problems will never seek therapy.

Facing an inner torment, many of these people find refuge in suicide.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church proscribes suicide as a negation of “the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life”. Our lives, the Catechism teaches, do not belong to us, but to God. We are mere stewards of life.

When we kill ourselves (or, of course, others), we destroy what is God’s.

The Catechism also counsels that suicide affects those left behind, and therefore “offends love of neighbour”.

But these interdicts do not mean that people who commit suicide are automatically excluded from God’s mercy and salvation.

The Church is aware that a person on the verge of suicide is not likely at that point to contemplate the sinfulness of the act. So the Catechism recognises that the culpability of those who commit suicide can be diminished by “grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture” (2282).

Most suicides fulfil these criteria. They tend to be caused by unbearable pain, not the selfish “easy way out” of common misconception.

The act of suicide itself therefore is not necessarily an obstacle to salvation. God understands.

Suicide—which the American columnist Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI calls “the most misunderstood of all deaths”—usually occurs when one’s pain exceeds one’s means of dealing with it. For most of us, that condition is unimaginable. Suicide very rarely is a question of free choice.

The causes of suicide are compounded by the stigmatisation of the conditions that can drive people to thoughts of ending their lives. In cases

of depression, absurd advice along the lines of having to “snap out of it” is entirely unhelpful. Especially clinical depression, which often is caused by chemical imbalances, requires professional intervention.

But many people who contemplate suicide will not seek help—professionally or from family or friends—because they feel unable to face up to the stigma of mental health issues (or of substance abuses, another frequent cause for suicide).

The incidence of clinical depression and other mental impairments continues to be trivialised instead of being seen as a serious but treatable conditions. This deters those affected by it from seeking help.

It is necessary that the stigma attached to mental health conditions is diminished, and that public awareness of the nature of depression is extended.

Those whose lives are made so unbearable that they might contemplate ending it need our on-going prayers. But more is needed structurally from the Church, which emphasises its opposition to euthanasia by those suffering physical agony, but has few programmes in place to help those in mental anguish.

The Church has the capacity to accomplish much good by running relevant programmes, as is already happening in some regions in the local Church.

Likewise, the spiritual counselling to those affected by suicide—family, friends, even colleagues—is left to pastors who are not always adequately equipped to deal with that nature of bereavement.

The Church’s pastoral ministries extend across many fields. There is a need for it to show its spiritual solidarity and practical concern with those suffering mental anguish, those who are suicidal, and those who are touched by suicide.

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.

T is not difficult to sympathise with the questions raised by Andre Duchesne (“Money to burn?”) and Adrian Kettle (“Keep facade”) in your issue July 21 with reference to the parish centre at Durban’s Emmanuel cathedral. If I did not have information about the reasons for planning a new building on this site, I might be raising similar questions and objections.

It is important to know that projects based in the parish centre are already reaching about 4 000 needy people each month. Though challenged by the social conditions of downtown Durban to assist many more, the centre cannot because of the severe limitations of a dilapidated building which could face the threat of being condemned if allowed to further deteriorate. In trying to provide suitable amenities for the many people who turn to the cathedral for help, and for the

many activities of a rapidly growing parish, the archdiocese and cathedral first thoroughly explored the possibility of restoring the parish centre. It was only after discovering that restoration would cost considerably more than a new purposebuilt facility and that the design of the parish centre as a school would rule out its use for the purposes we have in mind that the decision was taken to erect a new purpose-built structure on the same site.

This new building, to be known as the Denis Hurley Centre, will have four floors instead of the existing three and provide much needed additional space for its three major purposes of care, education and community which would not be possible in a restored building. An elevator will make it possible for elderly, infirm and disabled people to use the facilities on all four levels.

With regard to the possibility of

preserving the façade of the building while completely changing the interior, this would not be possible because the new building will be of the same height as the existing one but with an additional floor. Moreover the façade, much altered over the 106-year life of the parish centre is not thought by leading experts to be of architectural merit. It is expected that the new building will bring hope to one of the most challenging neighbourhoods in innercity Durban, enhance the beauty of Emmanuel cathedral and serve the Cathedral parish and indeed the archdiocese of Durban as a whole, for decades to come.

Surely it is wise to make such an investment for the present and the future? For more information about the project, visit www.denishurleycentre.co.za Paddy Kearney, Denis Hurley Centre Project, Durban

Incense debate

priests. That is considered a “crime against faith”. It is really time that we abandon these chauvinistic medieval management systems in our Church and embrace the reality of life in the 21st century.

Ivor Bailey, Johannesburg

hear from the Catholic bishops?

Peter Onesta, Johannesburg

I

REFER to S Curror’s letter “Incense is abusive”, (July 14). I would like to ask the author if she has any medical or scientific evidence to support her claims against the use of incence in Mass.

As an asthma and sinus sufferer myself, I have never once had a problem with incense, be it a wheezing chest, difficulty in breathing or excessive bouts of sinus attacks.

We are definitely losing our Catholic traditions due to opinions such as these. How often is incense being used these days? Our children therefore do not understand what the use of incense means, symbolising our prayers rising to heaven and purifying what it touches. It is no wonder then, that when it is being used, that our systems experience a kind of “shock”.

If Ms Curror is this sensitive to incense, then I suppose I have to understand; but to say that the use of incense in Mass is abusive is a bit much!

Ilze Muller, Cape Town

Crime against faith?

Y

OUR article “Empower women, Vatican demands” (July 14-20) refers.

Strange how the Vatican acknowledges that women need to be empowered and brought onto an equal footing with men in all sorts of areas, yet the Vatican in all its machinations has set its face firmly against empowering women fully in the service of the Church.

We are not even supposed to talk about women being ordained

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Response to polygamy?

T

HERE has been considerable indignation at the revealed abuse of children by clergy.

This reaction is stronger than it would be if lay persons were involved, because of the vows made and the standing of clergy in the community. I am curious as to the opinions of Southern African bishops regarding polygamy and the illicit breeding of children that goes on in this country, not to mention the disgusting raping of babies.

The bishops support president Zuma’s call for a national dialogue on morality and morals. However, The Times also reported that Mr Zuma was worried by “society’s intolerance of and judgmental views on religious and cultural beliefs.”

What is the Christian response to polygamy and the irresponsible breeding of children? Does this fall under “cultural beliefs” and if it does, then what? Are we going to 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.

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God knows us by our names

S

IMEON Banda, (June 30), says much about keeping names understood by Africans using, for example, maliro meaning death or mavuto meaning problem, to explain a life event. He says that in the New Testament, Saul became Paul, and Simon was renamed Peter.

However, Jesus used their own known names and baptism was not mentioned. Saul whose other name was Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:9). Mt 4:18: Jesus saw Simon, called Peter. “Thou art Simon son of Jona, thou shall be called Cephas”, by interpretation meaning a stone (Jn 1:42). “Thou art Peter, the rock on which I shall build my church”, (Mt 16:18). Out of old came the new way of life.

When God gave Abram and Sara the new names of Abraham and Sarah, nothing changed, it still meant High Father and Queen.

Saul means famous: he had authority (Acts 8:1) to persecute Christians, consented to Stephen’s death penalty, phrophesied in Deut 13:9-10. Paul means humble: he changed to a new life in Jesus Christ. Simeon means hearing: in Gen 29:33, God heard Leah’s prayer and she conceived a son and called him Simeon.

The names we have are the names by which God knows us (Jn 1:42). Why fret over temporal things, there is no issue with God. Rather rejoice because your name will be written in heaven, perhaps on a white stone.

HM de Kock, Cape Town

PERSPECTIVES

God’s ‘operating instructions’

Henry Makori

Reflections of my Life

Silencing the Church

O

UR guide led us through the quiet and sombre Genocide Memorial Centre in Kigali. He explained every step of the official history of Rwanda’s 1994 apocalypse, from the days of Belgian colonialists and Catholic missionaries who introduced ethnic profiling.

No one else spoke.

A small country comprising basically one ethnic group was gradually split into two bitterly opposed communities, the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi. The Belgian rulers and the Church empowered the Tutsi. Later the underdogs overthrew Tutsi dominance and enthroned “Hutu Power”, which sat on the Tutsi throne for decades. The Church shifted to follow suit.

Extremist Hutu rule designed the genocide which soaked “the land of a thousand hills” in human blood. Within 100 days, some 800 000 people, mostly Tutsi, were massacred.

“The Catholic Church and other main churches played a major role in the planning and execution of the genocide,” Rama, our guide, explained. “Many of the priests and preachers had been politicised.” We were staring at gruesome pictures of massacres inside churches. “There is hardly a church where people were not killed,” Rama said.

“How could that be?” a female journalist in our group asked in a broken voice, unable to hide her distress. Rama explained: “People ran into churches for safety. When the churches were full, they [church leaders] let in the killers.”

That is why “Rwandans are suspicious of the Church and other religious institutions,” the guide said. The truth of that statement hit me in the face about three hours later.

I was in Rwanda in July on a short visit organised by the government for a group of Kenyan and Ugandan journalists. Days before, Jean-Leonard Rugambage, an editor of a suspended newspaper critical of the government, had been gunned down, sparking an international outcry about media repression in Rwanda and the worsening autocracy of President Paul Kagame. I wanted to get the views of independent journalists about their country.

From the Genocide Memorial Centre, I met with some journalists who said they were too scared even to talk to me. The state kept a close eye on them. And they were worried who would be next after Rugambage.

The journalists had brought along the 28year-old widow of the slain editor. Epiphanie, a jobless mother of a two-year-old son, said she was very afraid and would like to leave the country to join her relatives in exile. The number of fleeing Rwandans is growing.

Rugambage was an active Catholic, I was told. During his funeral Mass at St Charles Lwanga Nyamirambo church in Kigali, everyone was afraid. No one had the guts to openly express outrage at the mysterious murder of a fierce government critic.

Coming from Kenya, where the Church is very vocal about national issues, I was taken aback that the Church in Rwanda had said nothing about the killing. “The Church here does not speak as a group. You only speak as an individual,” one of the journalists told me.

That was when I recalled Rama’s words at the Genocide Memorial Centre. Officially, the Church is guilty of genocide. It must be silent.

Only Kagame’s government, which liberated the country, should speak. Presidential elections were a month away when we visited, yet the Church had said nothing about the harassment, arrest and even mysterious death of opposition leaders. Nothing about former Kagame allies who had gone onto exile fearing for their lives.

On Sunday, July 4, we went to Amahoro Stadium to attend the 16th anniversary celebrations of Liberation Day, when the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front took power and ended the genocide. No Church leader was in sight—at least not in religious attire. And unlike in Kenya, where all public functions start with prayers by various religious leaders, there was no such thing at the celebrations. It was all a military event.

Since the genocide, the Kagame regime has pushed the Church into the private sphere. It must not be heard. Its prophetic voice, like those of critical media and the opposition, has been muted. No one should challenge Tutsi Power. Will Rwanda really heal?

on DStv audio channel 170

also streamed on www.radioveritas.co.za

L

AST week I aimed to explain what God has to do with morals and service delivery. Allow me to explain further.

The first truth revealed to us about God is that he is a God of order, of harmony and of peace—the very things that we human beings need in order to live in peace and harmony.

That order, harmony and peace are achieved by good and upright moral behaviour, by mutual acceptance and respect, by a clear sense of duty and responsibility and above all by what we commonly call the “political will” to do what is just and fair, what is right and true. These are absolute essentials for peaceful and harmonious human relations, and they derive from our knowledge, understanding and appreciation of God’s place in our life and our place in God’s life.

Order, harmony and peace can and must be achieved by accepting and observing the basic rules for truly human living, which we call the Ten Commandments. They are our Maker’s instructions, revealed to us so that we know exactly how to relate to God and to our fellowman.

What this means is that when we love God, we are simply living out a God-given instinct planted in us to prepare us for life with others. It is that instinct that disposes us for mutual love towards both God and our neighbour.

Jesus put it like this: “Love God totally with all your mind and heart and soul, and love your neighbour as you love yourself. Indeed you must go one better: Love one another as I have loved you, and I have given my life for you.”

For us therefore, it is this love relationship between God and us that is the solid foundation upon which our society must be built; putting in place a system of morality, which enables us to distinguish clearly and easily between good and evil, right and wrong, true and false.

Note, however, that we have to commit ourselves equally firmly to order and live our lives according to the norms of that moral system.

While it is true that we human beings can and do acquire the knowledge and understanding of morality from the “natural law” (that human reason can deduce to be the good, the

Wilfrid Napier

Point of Reflection right and the true that must be done, the evil, the wrong and the false that must be avoided), because human nature—the human heart and mind— has been corrupted by sin and evil, we will not always make the correct judgement. For that reason we still need “divine law”, which has been revealed to us by God as “operating instructions” which we must follow to reach our full human potential.

Since our concern here is morality (right/wrong, good/evil, true/false) and service delivery (carrying out our human and social obligations towards others), it is necessary to consider marriage and the family, first and foremost since they are the most basic of all human relationships. These two relationships are absolutely crucial for the well-being of society. Sad to say these two key institutions of society are in deep crisis, and as a result, so is society.

So, what I propose is that government and civil service take it upon themselves, as individuals and as vital agents of service to the people, to examine what policies, rules and regulations as well as actions as individuals and as agents of government are doing to the family and to marriage. In other words, do they conform to the norms set out in our “Maker’s instructions”?

Several major challenges arise from this. The first is to sort out the mess in relationships at the level of these two basic institutions, namely relations between a man and a woman in marriage, then between parents and children in the family. In my opinion action in this area is the “sine qua non” for a healthy society, made up of men and women who know and accept who they are and who know and accept the duties and responsibilities that flow from who they are.

This means putting the family where it belongs—first on our list of priorities. This is what we will do if we take note of what God has revealed.  Cardinal Wilfrid Napier is the archbishop of Durban. This is the second of three articles on faith and the common good.

The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10 2010

9

Frank Wessling

Point of Communication

Txting cannot replace F2F time

T

ESTS of speed may be the oldest and most durable of human competitions. Some, like running, must be as old as two cave boys racing to see who gets the bigger piece of mammoth pie. Others couldn’t even be imagined until modern technology invaded our brain patterns.

Recently a speed texting contest was being held by an American cellular phone company.

For those of us who think a phone is just a tool for talking long distance, this will be, as they say, a wake-up call. The cellphone has become a pocket computer with a tiny keyboard. Our children have become amazingly adept at thumbing those keys with a new shorthand language.

Some of their symbols can be figured out fairly quickly, like CUL8R (that’s “see you later” for the slow among us). But you might not catch the meaning of PRL, and that’s all right because you’re not supposed to. It means “parents are listening”. Obviously, much of this stuff is done surreptitiously, under the noses of parents, teachers and even friends in the same room who could spoil the game of the moment if they knew what flirting was under way.

The girls might be surprised to know that one of their abbreviations, SWAK, could have been used by their grandmothers 50 years ago, though it would have been printed on the back of an envelope sent to the boy with whom they hoped to have an LTR (“long-term relationship”).

Anyway, just as some of today’s mothers and grandmothers once competed in old-fashioned shorthand speed contests, today the daughters and granddaughters race to see whose thumbs are fastest. And it’s mind-boggling what they can do.

When the texting contest held a session for the Davenport area in the state of Iowa, one entrant claimed that she sends 500 text messages in an average day. Another said she averages 300 to 400. Assuming that these young ladies allow a few hours for sleep each day, they are sending and receiving cryptic messages every two minutes or so. Does that explain why so many young people seem to have a cellphone attached to one hand?

If a message every two minutes is part of normal living, we probably shouldn’t be surprised if the winner of that speed texting contest does five or six or more per minute when racing the clock.

Some communication can be done at great speed, and something may be gained by that.

But let’s hope and pray that even as the kids become skilled at thumbing their little phone buttons, they also come to realise they’re playing in the shallow water of human connection.

It’s pleasing for a moment to get a TOY (“thinking of you”) message. However, that won’t translate into a real relationship without two things that require unhurried time: face-toface exclusive attention, with a deepening sharing of mind and heart, and solitude for touching the deeper parts of one’s own hope and desire.

We can race in dozens of ways on the surface of life and enjoy the excitement. The greater race, the one St Paul urges us to “win” (1 Cor 9:24), doesn’t even involve speed. It asks instead for attention, focus, a sustained openness to grace and virtue—all kinds of virtue— that builds the self-giving person capable of lasting love. We know it as the kind of love that’s sealed with a life as well as SWAK (“sealed with a kiss”, if you’ve forgotten).

Finally, MGB (May God Bless).  This article first appeared in the Catholic Messenger, newspaper of the diocese of Davenport, Iowa. Frank Wessling is the newspaper’s retired news editor.

MICASA TOURS Spiritual Pilgrimage to Medjugorje 04 – 14 October 2010 Visit the Church of St James, Blue Cross, Oasis of Peace, Cenalco community and meet the visionaries.

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10 FOCUS New 7-part series on Cardinal John Henry Newman The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10, 2010

The gentle giant Cardinal John Henry Newman was a 19th century English convert to Catholicism whose theology influences the Church to this day. In the first of seven articles, MICHAEL AUSTIN SJ looks at the colourful life of the man who will be beatified by Pope Benedict in September.

W

ITH the beatification of Cardinal Newman on September 19 by Pope Benedict, a long awaited hope is being fulfilled in the hearts of English Catholics and theologians of Vatican II. It is the recognition due to a saintly and highly intelligent scholar who read himself into the Catholic Church, but who was not without a certain controversy then and now. We who are fans of his writings and the sound Gospel values of his opinions are overjoyed.

Cardinal John Henry Newman died at the age of 89 on the evening of August 11, 1890 after succumbing to pneumonia, contracted after a fall. He had received the Last Sacraments and was surrounded by his community of the Oratory of St Philip Neri.

Lord Rosebery, who later became the British prime minister, visited the Oratory in Birmingham to see Cardinal Newman lying in state, dressed in his cardinal’s robes. He summed up this remarkable man’s journey of faith: “This was the end of the young Calvinist, the Oxford don, the austere vicar of St Mary’s. It seemed as if a whole cycle of human thought and life were concentrated in that august repose. That was my overwhelming thought. Kindly light had led and guided Newman to this strange, brilliant, incomparable end.”

But this comment reveals nothing of the trial and adversities that this sensitive soul had had to endure during his lifetime.

The cause for his canonisation is in progress. The final step before being raised to the altars as a saint is his beatification in September.

Doubtless one of the major attributes that will count as a sign of Cardinal Newman’s sanctity is his triumph through adversity, and how the slings and arrows of misfortune never soured or embit-

Michael Austin SJ

The Newman Chronicles tered this mighty spirit in its frail body.

Throughout his life Newman seemed to attract enemies and became embroiled in controversy—because of his passionate love for truth—as easily as others acquire friends and admirers. He had these too. As he remarked: “We cannot do good without giving offence or incurring criticism.”

Embroidered on the pall which covered his coffin was the motto he had chosen for his cardinal’s coat of arms: “Cor ad cor loquitur” (Heart speaks to heart).

On the memorial stone that marks his grave is his own chosen inscription: “Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem” (From shadows and imaginings into the truth). Both texts sum up the serious pursuits of his life.

N

ewman’s life spanned nearly the whole of the 19th century, an extraordinary period of scientific discovery and colonial expansion. An exciting time to be alive. He was born in London of middle class parents in 1801 and died in his 90th year in 1890.

Memories of his early family life were all happy. As the eldest son, John assumed the leadership of his two brothers and three sisters. The private school that he attended from the age of seven to 15 gave him all the outlet he needed for his extraordinary array of talents. He excelled in Latin and Greek, founded and edited a series of newspapers with the intriguing titles of The Spy and The Beholder, wrote and acted in plays, engaged in debates, played the violin and thoroughly enjoyed boating, horse riding and rock climbing.

Like the rest of the family, he took his Christian religion as a matter of course. Proper Englishmen were proper Christians, and that was that. There was no questioning. But it was inevitable that his intellectual curiosity would lead him into doubts. He read the popular atheistic writers of his day and found himself both attracted and repelled by their views.

As his spiritual foundations began to shake, so also the finan-

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cial security of the Newmans was threatened by banking disasters.

The young John experienced great personal anguish on the verge of losing his financial security, his father through serious depression at the decline in family fortunes, and also his faith. Fortunately for the teenager, help was at hand in the form of a teacher, an Anglican clergyman who was sensitive to the needs of this anxious and curious young mind.

Besides counselling him, Mr Mayers directed him to some excellent reading. One of the books he recommended was called The Force of Truth, in which the author argued that a man could integrate his personality only to the extent that he pursued religious truth. As a teenager struggling to understand himself and his personality, Newman found the book a great help.

Although no one knew it at the time, these books set the course and charted the pilgrimage that John Henry Newman would follow for the rest of his days. He would pursue truth relentlessly, whatever the cost, convinced that it was the only way he could find life and happiness.

He would look unflinchingly at history to guide him in his search.

In his autobiography, Apologia pro vita sua, Newman wrote that Mayers was “the human means of this beginning of divine faith in me”.

In view of his later progress, it did not matter that much of what he was given to read was Calvinist and evangelical in tone.

I

n 1816, aged 15, he fell under the influence of a definite creed that was to shape his life, and he became convinced that God wanted him to remain unmarried.

Later his opponents—seeking any stick to beat him with—mocked him as the “boy celibate”.

The following year he went up to Trinity College, Oxford, two years younger than most of his peers. Naïvely he believed that most of the students were as earnest about their religion and as thirsty for knowledge as he was.

He was right about their thirst, but wrong about its source. To his dismay he discovered that most of his upper crust peers preferred to spend their time drinking rather than studying. And this led to his being mercilessly baited.

At the end of his first year up at Oxford, his sober habits of study paid off when he was awarded—to

Cardinal John Henry Newman, one of the great intellectual minds of the church in the 19th century, was an Anglican cleric who co-founded the Oxford Movement to bring the Anglican Church back to its Catholic roots.

He became Catholic at the age of 44 after a succession of clashes with Anglican bishops and was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He died in Birmingham in 1890 and will be beatified by his admirer Pope Benedict on September 19.

PICTURE COURTESY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND WALES

the enormous relief of his father, who had not recouped his financial losses—a generous scholarship that more than covered his tuition and living expenses. The scholarship cleared the way for him to achieve his ambition of becoming an Oxford don and taking orders in the Church of England.

In 1822 through a competitive examination, Newman won a fellowship to Oriel, a college at Oxford that was renowned for its scholarship and quality of men.

After Newman’s time, Cecil John Rhodes was a student at Oriel College.

Newman was ordained and served his first curacy at St Clement’s in Oxford where the parishioners were mostly poor labourers. He threw himself into his pastoral work and showed a genuine love for the work-worn wives, the hard-drinking husbands, the pathetically deprived children. His flock responded to his caring ministry with simple admiration and gratitude.

Later among the poor in Birmingham, where he was to found

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his Oratory in 1848 after being received into the Catholic Church, Fr Newman would again display his pastoral concern for God’s little ones.

Only 28, Newman had already achieved most of his personal goals. He was a tutor at Oxford, an Anglican minister, and now was offered the prestigious post of vicar of the university church, St Mary’s.

Intellectually capable of wrestling with the most profound concepts in theology, and being a pastoral inspiration to his flock, he was nevertheless experiencing a curious emptiness in his own relationship with God. Slowly he began to perceive a profound truth: that true religion expresses itself in deeds rather than words; that the mere knowledge of God in the head can never substitute for the love of God in the heart.

It was the deep conviction of this truth, discovered through experience, that was to find its formulation in his motto for his cardinal’s coat of arms, “Heart speaks to heart”.

The Southern Cross, August 4 to August 10 2010

COMMUNIT Y CALENDAR BETHLEHEM:  Shrine of Our Lady of Bethlehem at Tsheseng, Maluti mountains; Thursdays 09:30, Mass, then exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.  058 721 0532 JOHANNESBURG:  First Friday Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament 10:30.

First Saturday: Devotions: Our Lady’s Cenacle, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Rosary, 15:00–16:00. Special devotion to Our Blessed Lady for her priests. Our Lady of the Angels, Little Eden, Edenvale,  011 609 7246  First Saturday of each month rosary prayed 10:30-12:00 outside Marie Stopes abortion clinic, Peter Place, Bryanston.  Joan Beyrooti, 011 782 4331 KRUGERSDORP:  Culture of Life / Anti-Abortion campaign fund raiser, 22 August 15h00, AFM Church Noordheuwel Krugersdorp.

Also Celtic Praise Sing along with “One Accord” singers and musicians. Safe parking, for more information or to book tickets  021 672 3488 or 082 360 4813 PRETORIA:  First Saturday: Devotion to Divine Mercy. St Martin de Porres, Sunnyside, 16:30.  Shirley-Anne 012 361 4545 CAPE TOWN:  Adoration Chapel, Corpus Christi church, Wynberg: Mon-Thurs 6am to 12pm; Fri-Sun 6am to 8pm. Adorers welcome  021-761 3337 To place your event, call Claire Allen on 021 465 5007, or e-mail c.allen@scross.co.za

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Thoughts for the Week on the Family FAMILY CALENDAR 2010 FAMILY THEME: “Families Play the Game.”

August theme: HOW MEN AND WOMEN PLAYTHE GAME 8th 19th Sunday of the Year C. The Lord Our God. We are grateful that God has chosen us to be his people but this comes with certain obligations required to build God’s kingdom. Today there are many more women than men in churches. In building up God’s kingdom in the world, are men and women “playing the game” fairly and meeting their obligations? Are our families good schools for learning the necessary skills?

9th Women’s Day SA. Women took the initiative to stand up for the rights of not only themselves but of all South Africans in 1955 when they demonstrated against pass laws. Show gratitude for the courage and commitment of all women and consider ways that those girls and women who are still disadvantaged can be helped.

Mass readings for the week Sundays year C, weekdays cycle 2 Sun August 8, 19th Sunday of the Year: Wis 18:6-9; Ps 33:1,12,18-20,22; Heb 11:1-2,8-19; Lk 12:32-48 Mon August 9, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross: Ez 1:2-5; Ps 148:1-2,11-14; Mt 17:22-27 Tue August 10, St Lawrence: 2 Cor 9:6-10; Ps 112:1-2,5-9; Jn 12:24-26 Wed August 11, St Clare: Ez 9:1-7, 10:18-22; Ps 113:1-6; Mt 18:15-20 Thur August 12, Bl Isidore Bakanja, St Jane Frances de Chantal: Ez 12:1-12; Ps 78:56-59,61-62; Mt 18:21-19,1 Fri August 13, Ss Pontian and Hippolytus: Ez 16:1-15, 60-63; Ps Is 12:2-6; Mt 19:3-12 Sat August 14, St Maximilian Kolbe: Ez 18:1-10,13:30-32; Ps 51:12-15,18-19; Mt 19:13-15 Sun August 15, Assumption of our Lady: Rv 11:19,12:1-6, 10; Ps 45:10-12, 16; 1 Cor 15:20-26; Lk 1:39-56

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BIRTHS IN thanksgiving to St Jude for Adin-Joy born 29.06.2010. From Lionel and Daphne.

BIRTHDAYS HAPPY birthday to Tina Langley, 4th August. May Our Lord and His mother and guardian angels be with you always. Love Basil, Taryn and Bronwyn Langley.

WISHING a wonderful 75th birthday to Bob Berry on August 8th. Loving wife and daughter, Anne and Claire.

DEATHS SAETER—Sr Cecelia OSU. Passed away peacefully on July 22, 2010.

Lovingly remembered by her sister Denise, and nephews and niece, Anthony, Kevin, Michael, Vincent and Catherine and their families.

TO Desmond, Frances and family. Our deepest sympathy and condolences to you on the tragic loss of your son, Monday 19th July. Our prayers and thoughts are with you at this time. Derek and Elizabeth.

IN MEMORIAM PARIS—Mary Louisa.

August 3, 2004. Happy little memories go fliting through our minds and in our thoughts. Memories always seem to find a picture of your face Mama.

The memory of your touch and all the other little things we’ve come to treasure so much, you cannot go beyond our thoughts or leave our love behind because we keep you in our hearts and forever in our minds. From Gloria and Ruben, children Randall, Grant, Nadine and Robert.

PRAYERS HOLY St Jude, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor for all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. To you I had recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly begged you to come to my assistance. You helped me in my need and granted my petition.

In return I promised to make your name known and publish this prayer. Amen. Many grateful thanks for prayers answered to St. Jude, Sacred Heart and Our Lady. L and D. HOLY St Jude, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor for all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. To you I had recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly begged you to come to my assistance. You helped me in my need and granted my petition.

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Accounts: Desirée Chanquin (accounts@scross.co.za) 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.

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Solemnity of the Assumption – Year C (Aug 15) Readings: Revelation 11:19a: 12:1-6a, 10ab; Psalm 45:10-12; 1 Corinthians 15:2027; Luke 1:39-56

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EXT Sunday we celebrate the feast of Our Lady’s Assumption. Privately we scratch our heads about this feast, and wonder whether it is really “in the Bible”, but it may be helpful to remember two things.

First, all feasts of Our Lady are always celebrations of her Son; and secondly, no city, anywhere, has ever claimed to have her bones.

So the celebration is an ancient one, and no matter how difficult we may find it, it is all about Jesus, whose mother had to be different, not because of what she had done, but because God had prepared her for the unique task that she had to fulfil, as Mother of God. In addition to that, the fact that she is, in our belief, now utterly present to God, is a sign for us of where we shall be when our story is finished.

It is not an easy business, being the Mother of God; and nor is it easy being a disciple of Jesus, as the first reading for next Sunday reminds us. We are halfway through the Book of Revelation, with its account of what is going on in God’s world, and with a vision of

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Rejoice in the Assumption of our Lady Fr Nicholas King SJ

Scriptural Reflections the Ark of the Covenant, which often stands for Mary in Scripture, and then “a great sign”.

This “sign” is “a woman clothed in the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”. This sounds very grand, but we then learn that this woman is not only enduring labour-pains, which is bad enough, but menaced with a thoroughly unpleasant-sounding dragon, which stands before the woman who is about to give birth, “in order to gobble up her child when she gives birth”. The child is, quite clearly, Jesus, “who is going to shepherd all the Gentiles with an iron staff”, and (to our relief) is snatched up to God’s safety. Nothing so congenial for his mother, however, who has to “run away into the desert, where she has a place prepared from God”.

The psalm need not delay us too long; it is

a song intended to give encouragement to a young girl who is marrying the King. The singer advises her to “forget your people and the house of your father” and to be consoled by the prospect that “the King will desire your beauty”. The young lady in question may have been less than thrilled to be told “he is your Lord, you are to worship him”. But apply it, next Sunday, to Mary, and perhaps that gives it a different tone.

The second reading sees Paul trying to persuade some of the Corinthians that God’s victory over death in the Resurrection of Jesus is for real; and that has two important consequences for next Sunday’s feast. First, our attention is firmly on Christ, “the first-fruits”, who is going to “be sovereign over all his enemies...and the last enemy to be cancelled out is Death”. Secondly, this victory over Death is won for the entire human race (including the Mother of God). So this feast of Our Lady points in two directions, to her Son, gloriously reigning in heaven, and towards us, gallantly or feebly struggling to join him. There is something to celebrate here.

The gospel is that lovely story of the two women, whom Luke depicts as cousins; the

So far and no further HAVE for some weeks now, been mulling over a comment by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s outgoing nuncio to the United Nations.

There is, by the way, nothing to beat mulling. My father, who was a great muller, once told me that the occasional mull did in no way indicate idleness, but rather allowed the mind to wander quietly into profundity without the danger of being sidetracked by a myriad of unwanted distractions.

Ever since then I have taken every possible opportunity to mull, which I find can be enhanced exponentially by the intake of single malt whisky.

Anyway, having explored the niceties and benefits of mulling to the full, let me drag myself back to that comment by the august nuncio Migliore.

He was making an impassioned plea to the United Nations for the empowerment of women, to which my feminine side and innate sense of justice responded with a rousing hurrah.

He stressed that the empowerment of women meant recognising their gifts and talents and that the Vatican “notes with concern the ongoing discrimination, exploitation and oppression of women and girls”.

Another rousing hurrah. He added that women must be guaranteed their full enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

What kicked my mulling into overdrive was that I searched in vain among all those things he said women should be guaranteed and tried desperately to find that missing word—“religion”. Nowhere to be found, I’m sad to say.

Which left me mulling over the fact that while the Vatican seemed intent on

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The Last Word getting everyone else in the world to do the right thing by women, it was effectively exonerating itself from the process.

Which seems more than just a little odd.

After all, if we, as the Catholic Church, want to see women given their rightful place in society, politics, business and so forth, it stands to reason that this implies that we would wish to see them granted their rightful places at the highest possible echelons of these pursuits. Presidents of countries and major corporations. So, why not religion?

As it is, women play a massive role in the Catholic Church and I daresay that without women the vast majority of parishes around the world would not be able to function.

Lately women have been allowed to become altar servers and ministers of the Eucharist. They can take communion to the sick and, depending on who their bishop is, they can baptise children in an emergency and comfort the dying with a sort of lay version of the last rites when a priest isn’t available.

But women have very little influence on the running of the Church, with only a tiny sprinkling occupying offices in the Roman curia.

Somehow it seems a little arrogant to make an impassioned plea for women to be guaranteed rights in civil society but to be denied these in religious life.

It’s a bit like me vociferously campaigning for all races to be allowed into restaurants, and then banning a majority race from coming into mine. I believe the word for that is hypocrisy.

To perhaps add insult to injury, the Vatican has just decreed that any attempt to ordain women as priests as “one of the most serious crimes against the Church”.

Does this mean that trying to ordain a woman is held in the same light as child sex abuse and assassinating the pope?

Couldn’t they have perhaps put it a little more diplomatically? The way that statement comes across sounds extremely insulting to women. Just saying that the Catholic Church denied the right of anyone to ordain a woman would have been clear enough, without making it sound as though this misdemeanour would result in death by stoning. It does, of course, result in excommunication.

Given the shortage of priests and the insensitivity of the Vatican in handling recent scandals, I feel that women could contribute a lot more to the reputation of the Church by being allowed to do more than just arrange flowers on the altar and pull up weeds in gardens of remembrance.

That’s not to mention the remarkable amount of work done by nuns or the various orders in the Church. But, above every woman who is a nun there is a man who is a bishop, and while the majority of these are very good people, it is the principle of allowing women to go so far but no farther without getting the approval of men that has a distinct archaic ring about it.

It is encouraging that the Vatican has in recent times been very supportive of challenging debate at all levels of the Church— which is why I am encouraged to raise thorny issues of this kind without fear of death by stoning or excommunication.

young Mary (she was probably not much more than 12 years old) hurriedly travelling south, an unenviable journey for a fullygrown man equipped with appropriate weapons, never mind a defenceless girl. But she gets the reward that her courage deserved, for “when she heard Mary’s greeting...Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit”, and made the awesome prophetic remark, “How does this happen to me, that the Mother of my Lord comes to me?” We need to sit and gaze at this lovely picture this week, and listen admiringly as Mary sings the song which for nearly two thousand years the Church has sung to itself at Evening Prayer, “My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.”

That is our song; and our task this week is to prepare for the great feast by contemplating the mystery of the young girl who is also Mother of God, the deepest truth about whom is that she points, all the time, to her Son. And the second deepest truth about her is that she reveals to us poor mortals what we have in us to do.

There should be much rejoicing in our celebration of the feast.

Southern Crossword #403

ACROSS 3. They wear sackcloth and ashes (9) 8. A god to whom the knee may not bend (Rom 11) (4) 9. Idle chatter of no great consequence (9) 10. Subject matters (6) 11. Hold up the process at the kiosk (5) 14. A side with thoughts (5) 15. Keys I’ll find at the window (4) 16. Give high praise (5) 18. She comes back to dine (4) 20. Mistake (5) 21. Greek Word (5) 24.How a sick pauper feels?

(6) 25. It holds tine or can (9) 26. Buddhist priest (4) 27.Barefaced, unlike a prophet? (9)

DOWN 1. One who refrains in Lent (9) 2. Venturesome demon? (4-5) 4. Trees where St Anselm sits (4) 5. Fin lets you see small bay (5) 6. Gives enthusiastic praise (6) 7. What a tale-bearer will do (4) 9. Practical wisdom but it’s common (5) 11. Persians kings (5) 12. One in charge of the books (9) 13. He wears the cloth (9) 17. He’s high in the choir (5) 19. Holy teacher of the Church (6) 22. Could be a window in church (5) 23. Contend with liturgical garb (4) 24. Seats with kneelers (4)

SOLUTIONS TO #402. ACROSS: 1 Cattle, 4 Scarab, 9 Beyond measure, 10 Treadle, 11 Nodes, 12 Uriel, 14 Alpha, 18 Uncle, 19 Tempter, 21 Impracticable, 22 Tassel, 23 Thieve. DOWN: 1 Cubits 2 Try new recipes, 3 Lined, 5 Charnel, 6 Round the table, 7 Breast, 8 Amber, 13 Elevate, 15 Cubist, 16 State, 17 Frieze, 20 Micah.

CHURCH CHUCKLE

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AINT Peter was manning the pearly gates when 40 people from Johannesburg arrived. Having never seen one from the city at heavens door, St Peter said he’d have to check with God. God instructed him to let the ten most virtuous people through. Soon St Peter returned breathless and said: “They’re gone!” “What?” said God, “all 40 of them?”

“No”, said St Peter, “the pearly gates!”.

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