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Creation versus evolution
Pinetown parish shock
Veneration of relics
In the limelight
www.scross.co.za
October 6 to October 12, 2010 Reg No. 1920/002058/06
No 4696
R5,50 (incl VAT RSA)
SOUTHERN AFRICA’S NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY SINCE 1920
Inside PE diocese fights against hunger Community projects hope to raise awareness for the fight against hunger—Page 3
Chiara Bandano beatified Blessed Bandano, an Italian teen who died of bone cancer has been beatified at Rome’s Shrine of Divine Love—Page 4
Australia’s first saint Blessed Mary.McKillop is to be canonised this month as St Mary of the Cross, in Rome—Page 5
Meet God within you Colleen Constable looks at the spiritual teachings of Sr Faustina—Page 9
What do you think? In their Letters to the Editor this week, readers discuss Catholic schools losing their ethos, rights of religion, kindred spirits and a little humility—Page 8
This week’s editorial: Renewing the spirit of St Francis
Astronomers share discoveries in Rome BY CAROL GLATZ
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ORMALLY filled with theology students, the creaking classroom seats of the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas were crammed with planetary scientists and astronomers from all over the world. Overhead screens flashed slideshows of planned space missions and colourful graphs, as dozens of speakers and nearly 600 participants shared their latest discoveries and dreams of finding extraterrestrial life in the universe. “Mars is still a very intriguing object with a high probability of life being somewhere under the surface or some traces of life remaining,” said Jesuit Fr Pavel Gabor. The Czech priest works at the Vatican Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, and was one of a number of Vatican astronomers who took part in the European Planetary Science Congress at the university. “Scientists have known for some time that liquid water, which is needed for life, was once present on the surface of Mars during its early evolution,” he said. “There are other clues pointing to possible organic activity on the Red Planet, such as the mysterious presence of methane in its atmosphere.” Manish Patel, a researcher at the Open University in the United Kingdom, said something may be producing the methane “because it really shouldn’t exist in the atmosphere for long at all and if it does exist it should break down (and disappear) very quickly”. Fr Gabor added, “I think our faith leads us to seeing the world around us as a gift from a very munificent God, a God who gives very freely and generously.” “And if we find any life outside this planet, it will mesh in very nicely with that idea of God, who is such a generous giver.”
An international campaign launched in the fight against hunger is encouraging people to vent their anger towards the hunger crisis by adding their names to an online petition. The petition will be handed to the United Nations in light of World Food Day, October 16. The hard-hitting campaign includes posters of the malnourished and giant billboards positioned in cities with the aim of promoting the plight of more than a billion hungry around the world. The online petition, www.1billionhungry.org, aims to collect one million signatures.
Campaign call: Shout out against hunger BY CLAIRE MATHIESON
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S World Food Day approaches, on October 16, groups in South Africa are mobilising proactive ways in the fight against hunger, including screaming out their anger at the hunger problem. They are joining the efforts of groups in more than 150 countries to raise awareness on the issues behind poverty and hunger. The issue extends across the world with more than one billion people suffering from undernourishment—the condition used to describe the status of people whose food intake does not include enough calories (energy) to meet minimum physiological needs for an active life. Most reside in developing countries, including South Africa. The Human Sciences Research Council estimates 57% of individuals in South Africa live below the poverty line, with Limpopo and the Eastern Cape regions the most affected. The effects of hunger are far-reaching. The South African Department of Education has stated that in excess of five million schoolchildren do not have ready access to nutritional food. The repercussions of hunger result in learners not being able to focus properly. The theme of this year’s World Food Day, “United against Hunger”, hopes to address such issues. One campaign on the go aims to see one million signatures for an online petition to draw the world’s attention to the hunger issue. The campaign was developed in May this year by McCann Erickson, of McCann WorldGroup, Rome, to address the international hunger issue. The petition will be delivered to the United Nations at the end of November this year.
The publicity officer for McCann Worldgroup in Johannesburg, Marisa Louw, said the campaign aimed to “give birth to a global movement of people that will scream out their anger over the hunger problem”. The international campaign has been publicised primarily via the internet and through hard-hitting images placed in public areas around the world. The posters show distressed individuals venting their anger against hunger. On a local level, the Johannesburg branch of the multinational corporation will be furthering their commitment to the campaign by embarking on a project where people from poor communities will be taught to grow their own food. “Margaret Roberts, the well-known author of herb gardening books, will hold education sessions at her herbal centre where people from the community will be shown how to maintain veggie gardens in their own backyards,” said Ms Louw. According to Eugene Jackson, organisation development trainer at the Rural Development Support Programme, an associate body of the SACBC, it does not matter where you go in the country, everyone in rural South Africa seems to be trying to address hunger. Many rural community-based organisations(CBOs) and faithbased organisations (FBOs) are working hard to find solutions Mr Jackson told The Southern Cross greater emphasis would have to be placed on training rural communities how to manage the little they have and “then improving the capacity of rural CBOs and FBOs to continue their work of development and poverty alleviation”. The aim for the 1 Billion Hungry Cam-
paign on the local front was not to feed the hungry for the day, Ms Louw explained, but rather to teach them how to grow and harvest their own vegetables as a sustainable source of food. The shortterm goals are to reach the target of one million signatures and deliver the petition to the United Nations. The long-term goals were also exciting: “We want people to share and teach each other gardening skills.” The initiative hoped to see local communities thrive with their new skills. Campaign team members were currently identifying candidates from impoverished communities who were most likely to share their knowledge gained from the herbal centre. Similar projects have been hailed by the United Nations, with the India, Brazil and South Africa alliance being honoured with a 2010 UN Millennium Development Goal award for their efforts in fighting poverty and hunger. The alliance’s projects focus on sharing knowledge and practices and include methods to improve agricultural techniques in remote villages and deliver safe drinking water. There were 923 million malnourished people in the world in 2007, an increase of 80 million since 1990. The most recent UN statistics puts the figure at 1,2 billion. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations said the growth in hunger statistics was due to three factors: the neglect of agriculture relevant to very poor people by governments and international agencies; the recent worldwide economic crisis; and the significant increase in food prices. Sign the petition to stop hunger at www.1billionhungry.org