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June 12 to June 18, 2013
Communication: Keeping up with Pope Francis
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Special Catholic Education issue: June 19 Next week The Southern Cross will publish its annual
16-page CatholiC eduCation Supplement
It will look at issues such as education in the year of Faith, teacher formation, alternative measures of school discipline, teaching in a rural Catholic school, education for refugees, the world of after-care and much more...
No 4827
Introducing Catholic singer Audrey Assad
The many ways of healing
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SA priest named to post at the United Nations By eMIl BlASeR OP
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The girls of Holy Rosary Primary School in edenvale, Johannesburg, with the help of family members, collected knitted squares which were made into blankets to be donated to edenvale Hospice to assist them keep their patients warm this winter.
Executions, rape, plunder in CAR
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BISHOP in the Central African Republic (CAR) has denounced the plundering and profanations of Church missions in the country, as well as the sexual assaults carried out by Islamists in the rebel militia Séléka. “They have burned down the paediatric hospital, the Internet centre and the pharmacy. Outside of Bangassou there have been summary executions of adults and children,” said Bishop Juan José Aguirre of Bangassou. “Women are constantly being raped,” he said, adding that at least three different churches “have been plundered and profaned”. “They have stolen all of our means of transportation for visiting churches and the faithful—more than 20 cars,” Bishop Aguirre said. “I have to walk everywhere and carry my
backpack.” In an effort to respond to the situation, Aid to the Church in Need has launched an urgent campaign to raise money for the four most affected dioceses—Alindao, Bangassou, Bambari and Kaga-Bandoro. The organisation warned that militants supporting the new government being imposed by force are “extremely armed” and “smother all efforts to resist in the country”, with Christians being “their primary target”. The country has seen a widespread exodus of families, the group added, and it is primarily only priests, religious and the bishops that have chosen to stay. Séléka, an alliance of rebels, displaced the government of President François Bozizé in March. South African troops have been sent to the CAR to reinstate Mr Bozizé.—CISA
HE coordinator of the Southern African bishops’ Justice & Peace Department (J&P) has been appointed the Dominican Order’s permanent delegate at the United Nations. Fr Mike Deeb OP, who has directed the J&P department since 2008, will assume the UN delegate position as of January 1, 2014, for a term of six years. Fr Deeb will take over from French Dominican Father Olivier Poquillon who will complete his six-year term at the end of the year. He will be based at the Dominican headquarters in Rome and will work mainly in Geneva, where most UN agencies are based. He will also be required to travel to other UN centres, such as New York, Vienna, Nairobi and Bangkok. Fr Deeb, 60, described his new job as “challenging and focused”. He will be reporting to the master of the Dominicans and the order’s general council. The job involves spearheading the order’s preaching to governments, lobbying in the background and working together with other Catholic non-governmental organisations. A main focus will be on human rights issues and taking up issues being felt and dealt with on the ground by Dominicans around the world. Much effort will be put into advocacy work, networking and lobbying. A big challenge for Fr Deeb will be to put in place communication mechanisms downwards so that the Dominican family around the world can be informed about what is happening at the UN level. Fr Deeb comes to his new job with a wealth of experience. He was the international chaplain to the International Movement for Catholic Students and the international Young Catholic Students, and was based in Paris for eight years. Prior to that he worked in the diocese of Kroonstad and then served as the superior of
Fr Mike Deeb OP, who has been named the Dominicans’ permanent delegate at the UN. the Dominican study house in Cedara as well as the chaplain of the Pietermaritzburg university. The priest, who holds a degree in psychology from the University of the Witwatersrand, and an honours degree in religious studies from the University of Cape Town, was born in 1953 in Welkom. While teaching at Groenvlei High on the Cape Flats he was detained for two months in 1985 for anti-apartheid activities. He entered the Dominican Order the following year and was ordained in 1991. Fr Deeb said he has mixed feelings about his new ministry, saying he was initially “dismayed” when he heard about the appointment, because work at the United Nations often shows no visible results, joy or excitement. But, he added, it is an honour and a call. He said he is sad to be leaving South Africa at this challenging time after a fulfilling ministry in the J&P Department. Fr Deeb said he will leave behind in South Africa many connections and friends with whom he will now have to engage from a distance, noting that this is the life of an itinerant preacher in the Dominican vocation.
Syrian Jesuit shocked by extent of civil war By CINDy WOODeN
F The basilica of St Francis of Assisi is seen from the Rocca Maggiore, a fortress on top of the hill above the town of Assisi, Italy. Pope Francis will visit the birthplace of his namesake on the saint’s feast day, October 4. The Southern Cross pilgrimage, led by Bishop Joe Sandri of Witbank, is scheduled to walk in the pope’s footsteps six days later, a day after attending the papal audience in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican. (Photo: Octavio Duran, CNS)
OR Jesuit Father Nawras Sammour, the ongoing conflict in Syria is a professional challenge and a personal heartache. Fr Sammour is the Jesuit Refugee Service’s regional director for the Middle East and lives in Damascus. He was born in Aleppo, and his mother, brother and sister still live there, but his nieces and nephews “have all left”. Tens of thousands of Syrians have died and millions have been displaced in more than two years of fighting between President Bashar Assad’s government and rebels seeking his resignation. “Sometimes I can’t believe we Syrians have reached that level of violence,” Fr Sammour said. “I’m shocked. Shocked. We need to step back and realise that we went too far,” he said during an interview at JRS headquarters near the Vatican. In a situation that is so tense and so divided, particularly among different Muslim groups, Fr Sammour said Syria’s small Chris-
tian communities may be frightened. But with Christian aid programmes and partnerships with others providing assistance, they also enjoy a certain respect as non-partisans looking only to help others. With the help of funding from a variety of agencies, JRS has about 250 paid employees in Syria and another 300 volunteers. They visit displaced families living in shelters, abandoned buildings, mosques, churches and monasteries and provide food and basic necessities. JRS runs field kitchens that serve 20 000 meals a day. They provide medicine to the chronically ill, operate a clinic in Aleppo and provide psycho-social support to almost 5 000 children, offering them a safe environment where they can play and try to keep up with their school work. Fr Sammour said the situation in Syria “is not calming down at all. The tension is worse. People are nervous. Syria is much more fragmented, and fear is much more established in the hearts of people.” The work with the children, though, may
be the seedbed of a better future. The children come from Christian as well as Sunni Muslim and Alawite Muslim families, and the JRS team is earning the trust of their parents. “That will help with long-term reconciliation,” Fr Sammour said. The Jesuit said he and other staff members have become “more prudent” when moving around the country because of the increased risk of kidnapping. Two Orthodox bishops were kidnapped in April, as well as two priests in February, apart from hundreds of civilians. Kidnappings are committed both by “professional kidnappers” looking to make money with ransoms and by those kidnapping for political reasons, he said. According to Mgr Giampietro Dal Toso, secretary of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which promotes and coordinates Catholic charitable giving, “some 7 million people [in Syria] are requesting help; 4,5 million are internally displaced, while the number of refugees is approaching 2 million”.—CNS