140212

The

S outhern C ross

February 12 to February 18, 2014

Reg no. 1920/002058/06

no 4861

Being a Catholic as a university student

Page 9

www.scross.co.za

R7,00 (incl VaT RSa)

Readers pick their favourite faith films

God’s love: Perfect and unconditional

Page 10

Pages 5,7

New PE bishop: I want vocations

By ClaiRe maTHieSon

I

Pupils and staff of St Henry’s marist College in durban celebrated the 85th anniversary of their school in great style. The doors of St Henry’s first swung open on February 4, 1929 to the first classes of nervous little boys. eight and a half decades later, the present day boys and girls of St Henry’s and others from durban’s marist community gathered in college quad to celebrate a commemorative mass. They then gathered around 840 cupcakes in the College colours to serenade the school with several hearty renditions of “Happy Birthday, marist!”

Queen to visit Pope Francis in April

By Simon Caldwell

Q

UEEN Elizabeth II of England will visit Pope Francis at the Vatican on April 3, Buckingham Palace has announced.

The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, will visit Rome at the invitation of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.

The 87-year-old queen, who has reigned since 1952, was the first British sovereign to welcome a pope to England when she greeted Pope John Paul II in London in 1982.

With

The

In 2010, Queen Elizabeth also welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to Britain when he arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the first stop of a tour of Britain.

The queen is the constitutional head of the British state and is also the supreme governor of the Church of England.

Pope Francis will receive the queen and the duke not in the Vatican state apartments but in the three modestly furnished rooms that the pontiff occupies in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse.—CNS

T was only recently that Pope Francis referred to the Almighty as the “God of surprises”, but “little did I know that God was preparing such a huge surprise for me”, said Bishop-elect Vincent Zungu as he reflected on his appointment to head the diocese of Port Elizabeth.

The diocese had been without a bishop for two and half years, following the resignation due to health reasons of Bishop Michael Coleman, who died soon after.

“We’ve worked under two popes and two papal nuncios but had to wait a long time before a new bishop,” said Mgr Brendan Deenihan, apostolic administrator of the diocese. “The diocese is thrilled and happy to welcome the new bishop.”

Bishop-elect Zungu, a Franciscan, has been based in Rome working as the general definitor, or councillor, for the whole order.

“I was speechless,” he told The Southern Cross from Rome. “I took a long pause before I could respond to Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai”, secretary of the Congregation for Evangelisation, who delivered the news.

Bishop-elect Zungu said he had a moment much like the young prophet Jeremiah. “God is asking a huge responsibility of me. It’s not easy to be bishop these days.

But his will must be done and I will do it with great gratitude.”

At the same time, he said, he is “very enthusiastic, because doing God’s will is always a fulfilling experience”.

The 47-year-old bishop-elect is from Eshowe diocese in KwaZulu-Natal, where he was born to Gervas and Anna Zungu, and baptised at St Joseph’s in Mbongolwane. The eldest of eight children, he said families play a very important role in his faith development, religious and priestly vocation.

E

ducated at the Catholic boarding school at Mahlabathini, 6km north of Ulundi, he joined the Franciscan postulancy in 1987, making his first vows two years later in Dundee diocese.

Ordained on July 8, 1995, Bishop-elect Zungu has served in the dioceses of Kokstad, Dundee, Port Elizabeth and Eshowe. He taught moral theology at St John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria from 2004-06, and worked as the Franciscan postulancy master from 2007-08, before he was appointed Franciscan general definitor, or councillor, residing in the general curia of the order in Rome.

While not closely familiar with his future

diocese, Bishopelect Zungu does have a “window of knowledge”, having worked in Grahamstown for two years with his order and having met Bishop Coleman.

“I had the joy of meeting the clergy in the deanery meetings and diocesan retreats. That was a Bishop-elect Zungu little window of opportunity to know the diocese—but it was too short and too little. I have a lot to learn and I look forward to getting to know intimately the clergy and parishes of Port Elizabeth.”

He added that his experience has made him well aware of cultural diversity and given him a strong background in working with people from across country.

Bishop-Elect Zungu speaks Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, English, French and Italian.

T

he new bishop’s first priority will be to work with the local clergy and getting to know the diocese of Port Elizabeth.

Taking a longer perspective, he said: “My hope and special prayer for the diocese of Port Elizabeth is that God may shower it with many vocations to priestly and religious life. I believe that there are many young people who are called, but very few may actually hear the call and respond to God with a generous heart.”

Bishop-elect Zungu said he was pleased to note that the diocese is promoting and strengthening family life.

“Family is an indispensable institution for the Catholic Church and every human society. In fact, where there is healthy marriage and family life, vocations to priestly and religious life tend to flourish as well,” he said.

Another priority is ecumenism. “All forms of Evangelisation must begin with a living testimony of our ‘oneness’ that we enjoy in Christ, through the Holy Spirit as God’s sons and daughters.”

Mgr Deenihan described Bishop-elect Zungu as “charming, open and friendly”, adding that “we will receive him with open arms”.

Fr Gregory Mitchell of St Bernadette’s Continued on page 2

Southern Cross to Fatima • Lourdes • Avila with Bishop João Rodrigues & Günther Simmermacher Join The Southern Cross and the Diocese of Tzaneen on a Pilgrimage of Prayer for the Sainthood Cause of Benedict Daswa to places of Our Lady in France, Spain & Portugal!

25 September to 6 October 2014 FOR FULL ITINERARY OR TO BOOK phone Gail at 076 352 3809 or 021 551 3923 info@fowlertours.co.za www.fowlertours.co.za

Fatima | Avila & Alba de Tormes (St Teresa) | Madrid | Zaragossa (Our Lady of the Pillar) | Lourdes | Nevers (St Bernadette) | Tours | Lisieux (St Thérèse) | Paris with Notre Dame and Rue de Bac (Miraculous Medal) | and more...

2

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

LOCAL

Speak with love, religious told Youth, the Church and the Internet STaFF RePoRTeR

W

OMEN and men religious in Zimbabwe have celebrated 50 years of cooperation between more than 40 religious orders and congregations in the country.

Women made the start in 1964, later to be joined by men religious.

“Since then religious communities no longer act in isolation, but have been working together and coordinating their activities in the Conference of Major Religious Superiors (CMRS),” said Fr Oskar Wermter SJ. The celebration was attended by four bishops.

Bishop Angel Floro of Gokwe was the main celebrant, with Archbishop Alex Thomas of Bulawayo, Bishop Xavier Munyongani of Gweru and Bishop Alberto Serrano of Bulawayo concelebrating.

Fr Elfigio Tunha OFM, superior of the Franciscans in Zimbabwe, preached the homily.

Sr Gemma Simmonds CJ, a

Mary-Ward Sister, author, lecturer and broadcaster from Britain, was the guest speaker.

She was introduced by Sr Mercy Shumbamhini CJ, current president of CMRS, who succeeded Fr Stephen Buckland SJ, now the vicepresident.

Speaking on the theme “Integrity and Religious Life”, Sr Simmonds said a Christian chooses religious life because she or he “is in love with God”.

“The world at large, even nonChristians, sees in Pope Francis such a convincing person who is not just talking, but ‘walks the talk’,” said Sr Simmonds.

She said that a person who relies entirely on God, sees his or her future in the Lord and no one else, may indeed be called crazy.

“Such people take a risk, like the early missionaries did, who had no idea what was awaiting them, or where the Lord was leading them.

“Religious who seek only security, are ambitious careerists, long

for a big name or personal glory, do not convince people, she said.

“They must be men and women of faith who can afford to take risks and start new ventures, responding to the cry of the poor.”

Sr Simmonds called on Zimbabwe’s religious to be prophetic and yet speak humbly, aware that the message of the Gospel is more important than the messenger.

“They must speak the truth, but speak it in love,” she said.

“As agents of reconciliation they must first establish the truth, since we cannot reconcile and find peace if we are not walking in the light and speak the truth.”

The religious were called to live with authenticity and to live what is spoken.

“People hunger for the truth and are happy if they find it in the life witness of religious,” Sr Simmonds said.

“Evangelisation needs this integrity and authenticity of the evangelisers.”

Appointment of new PE bishop hailed Continued from page 1 parish in Walmer said appointment was “wonderful news”.

“He has experience of our diocese and returns to us with invaluable experience of the universal Church in a role that concerns her pastoral mission.”

The local Chinese Catholics noted the bishop’s appointment coincided with the Chinese New Year. Antoinette Ah Yui said the bishop was a

gift from the Lord. “We Chinese Catholics can say this is a truly good start to our Chinese lunar new year!”

Fr Xolisile Kondlo of Dimbasa mission said it was a “very exciting time for us in the diocese”, and Frank Nunan of SA Catholic Online said the new bishop’s age was a positive factor and his CV impressive.

“He should be with us for some time to come, and this will ensure continuity and stability.”

The diocese—which includes East London, Grahamstown, Uitenhage, King Williams Town, Cradock, Somerset East—is South Africa’s second-oldest, after Cape Town, having been founded in 1847 as the vicariate apostolic of Cape of Good Hope, Eastern District. It serves a Catholic population of almost 100 000 in 60 parishes.

No date has been set for the new bishop’s ordination.

By ClaiRe maTHieSon

T

HE Church is like the Internet—for faith to flourish, you need a good connection.

These were the words of Sr Victoria Sibisi FCSCJ, national coordinator of Education for Life, the official youth programme of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

Sr Sibisi was speaking after the national youth chaplains’ conference at which the restructuring and renewal of the youth ministry was discussed.

She said an annual highlight was National Youth Day, when last year the conference region celebrated a “mini World Youth Day” in recognition of those who could not attend the official event, held in Brazil, and to celebrate ten years of Education for Life.

During the conference, the chaplains committed to working at metropolitan level and then building up to national level. The group discussed the possibility of a large national youth gathering in 2015—a “practice” to see if South Africa can host World Youth Day. The chaplains also discussed the forthcoming Association of Catholic Tertiary Students (Acts) conference to be held in July. “Our youth at the universities don’t understand our Catholic faith,” said Fr Sakhi Mofokeng from Bethlehem diocese, who led the sessions on youth ministry and evangelisation.

“The youth of today live in this world where the word of God is

often stolen from their hearts,” Fr Mofokeng added.

“We in the Church are trying to be messengers planting the seed, but we do lose young people…If we are to be realistic about evangelising the youth, the Church must look at those places where the word is taking root and producing fruit among young people, and then work hard under these conditions.”

Sr Sibisi said the Internet is one place where Christians should spread the Good News of salvation.

“This is the reason why three successive popes have encouraged Christians to use the social communication networks and the Internet for the common good and the proclamation of the Gospel. However, it does not end there,” she told The Southern Cross.

“God also has an interconnected network. The Church is God’s way of staying visibly connected to us through word and sacrament and also his way of connecting us to one another through his Spirit dwelling in us and making of us the Body of Christ,” she said.

“The Church is that sacred space where people who would otherwise have little contact with each other can experience real community, friendship, forgiveness and healing.

“For this reason we sometimes have to escape from the virtual world and engage ourselves in the present physical world,” said Sr Sibisi. “We need to spend time logging into God through prayer and sacramental encounter and to do what the word asks of us.”

Association incorporated not for gain

Community Development Officer A vacancy exists at KSA. Applicants are invited to apply for the position

Job description •

• • • • • • •

• •

Recruit members for Self-Help Groups in parishes in all the provinces.

Liaise with priests and act as an ambassador.

Monitor and evaluate projects Provide social development training to Self-Help Groups Liaise with other pious groups within the church Promote volunteer work Manage PR of projects and activities within the Self-Help Groups Manage the field workers stationed in Johannesburg, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Southern Cape.

Report writing Interact with members on educational, social and spiritual components.

Applicants must meet the following criteria: •

• • • •

• •

• • •

• •

Have a degree, diploma or equivalent qualification in a field relevant to the above requirements.

Have experience in budgeting Have very good computer skills Be willing to work after normal working hours Be a practicing Catholic and have thorough understanding of the structures of the Catholic Church and the Social Teachings of the Catholic Church.

Must have at least 3-5 years’ experience in working for an NGO Be fluent in both written and spoken English and have the ability to communicate in at least one other local language.

Must be able to facilitate, assess and moderate.

Must have good human relationship skills Commitment, integrity and an overall sound work ethic will be essential.

Show strong leadership and organizational skills.

Be as South African citizen and be in possession of a valid driver’s license and own vehicle will be an advantage.

Please email or fax a letter of application accompanied by an updated CV, certified copies of your ID and qualifications and 3 recent testimonials from contactable referees, to the National Coordinator not later than 21st February 2014. nationalcoordinator@kolpingsa.co.za Fax: 021 975 9723 Please note that the Board of Directors of KSA reserves the right not to proceed with the filling of the position as stated above. Submission of an application will not, of itself, entitle the applicant to an interview.

South african-born priest-twins Frs wayne dawson (left) and ivan dawson CSsR flank tour guide Rimon makhlouf in Caesarea during a pilgrimage to the Holy land this month. The Cape Town-born twins are now based in California. when Fr wayne prepared to take a group of San Francisco Catholics to the Holy land, he and Fr ivan decided not only to lead it together, but also to fly in their mother, ethna dawson of Holy Redeemer parish in Bergvliet, Cape Town, so that she could join her sons as a present for her 80th birthday. Fr ivan was ordained in 1995 and went to the US the year after; Fr wayne was ordained in 1998 and moved to the US in 2004. mr makhlouf, a Catholic, will guide the Holy land leg of the Southern Cross pilgrimage with archbishop Stephen Brislin and Bishop dabula mpako in may.

(Photo courtesy of Fowler Tours)

Cardinal celebrates family reunion STaFF RePoRTeR

C

ARDINAL Wilfrid Napier and other descendants of the late Peter Davey of Poortjie—a small town between Upington and De Aar—held a family reunion, bringing together family members from all over the country.

Mr Davey was one of the founding members of the Zwartberg Farmers’ Association. He and his wife, Mangongwana, had nine children, all of whom at some stage farmed in the Swartberg and Cedarville areas of East Griqualand with their spouses, said Winston Napier, brother the cardinal.

The reunion saw members of the family gather at the Zwart-

berg Farmers’ Memorial Hall.

“We had family from as far as Johannesburg who had travelled through the night to be here,” Mr Napier told The Southern Cross.

The eldest grandchild of Peter Davey present at the reunion will turn 80 in April.

Mr Napier said the reunion was awe-inspiring. Some met each other for the first time.

“Two of those who attended have been friends for a long time, and found out only recently, when discussing the reunion, that they were related,” said Mr Napier. “For many, it was a dream come true and an opportunity to feel a part of this amazing family.”

The weekend-long reunion

included celebratory meals and a thanksgiving Mass, celebrated by the cardinal, a grandchild of Mr Davey.

“After enjoying refreshments, we all trekked up to Poortjie to view what remains of the original homestead. We also viewed the headstones of both our grandparents,” Mr Napier said.

There was also a brief stop at Two Springs for the grandchildren of James Davey to view his and his son’s grave.

Mr Napier said the family was grateful to those who made it possible to visit their grandparents’ graves, which sit on private property today.

Well wishes and messages were received from family from as far away as New Zealand.

LOCAL

Lent book reflects on 2014 elections

By ClaiRe maTHieSon

L

ENT is a profoundly important period for Christians and this year, Lent will be especially important for South Africans as we reflect on the 20th anniversary of democracy and as we prepare for the upcoming general election.

A Revolution of the Spirit: A Book of Daily Meditations for Lent 2014 brings these two themes together in a “readable and informative resource for the average person in the pew”.

Lent reflection books have been an annual tradition for the Jesuit Institute. “Considering that it is also the 20th anniversary of democracy and an election year, we felt we had to combine these two themes,” the book’s author, Fr Anthony Egan SJ, told The Southern Cross.

He also draws inspiration from the daily readings used by Catholics, Anglicans and Methodists, and uses quotations from political activists and from the Scriptures of other religions.

And while the book is a daily reflection meant to be read over Lent and Easter, there are other themes and issues raised that will go beyond Lent and even the 2014 election.

“As people read, we want them to think more critically of public issues and politics. We hope readers will start to think about issues more than the personalities of politicians.

We want people to think about the integrity of politicians and to question the historical vote,” said Fr Egan, adding that the book is the result of a team effort at the Jesuit Institute.

Fr anthony egan SJ has written a book of reflections for lent.

Southern Cross columnist Fr Nick King SJ has hailed the book. “This outstanding book of Lenten meditations faces squarely—and with Bible in hand—the stark challenges of the reality of South Africa today,” he said.

The book has been dedicated to Archbishop Denis Hurley on the 10th anniversary of his death.

Fr Egan said the book seeks to help us take seriously the relationship between religion and politics, taking up Pope Francis’ recent challenge: “Participation in political life is a moral obligation.” n The book costs R60 and can be ordered from the Jesuit Institute at sales@jesuitinstitute.org.za or call 011 482 4237. It can also be bought from Holy Trinity Church in Braamfontein, Johannesburg; at Pauline’s in Johannesburg and Durban; and at the Catholic Bookshop in Cape Town.

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

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CPLO Mass against abortion law STaFF RePoRTeR

O

VER 150 people attended a lunchtime Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral, Cape Town, organised by the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office to mark the anniversary of the passage of the Termination of Pregnancy Act in 1996.

The office has organised this Mass for many years as an ongoing reminder of the fact that such legislation is still on the statute books.

It is estimated that since 1996, over a million abortions have been procured in South Africa.

Statistics for 2012-2013 confirm 85 302 abortions. There are also still many illegal abortions taking place daily.

Preaching at the Mass, Archbishop Stephen Brislin commented that the advent of easy, legalised

abortions had not only meant the death of innocent children created

by God, but had also had the effect of steadily blunting the conscience of many people who now just regarded abortion as acceptable because it was legal.

The archbishop said this attitude blunted the important distinction between what is legal and what is moral and that in South Africa the two had been conflated.

He said such legislation, while common in the West, is not generally part of the legal system in Africa.

Archbishop Brislin added that while working tirelessly to rescind this legislation, it is as necessary to work against the greed in our society that resulted in widespread poverty, poor access to education and health facilities.

These create the conditions in which many women feel that they

have no alternative but to procure an abortion, he said.

He said that a truly pro-life position meant caring for the dignity of people and their human rights in all spheres “from the womb to the tomb”.

Archbishop Brislin commended the work done by groups in the archdiocese such as Human Life International and the Mater Domini House in providing alternatives for women faced with decisions around their pregnancies and the lives of their unborn children.

He expressed the wish that all parish communities would be seen as safe and caring places for women in need in this area.

Fr Peter-John Pearson and Fr Matsepane Morare SJ, both from the Parliamentary Liaison Office, concelebrated with Archbishop Brislin.

Radio Veritas calls to prayer STaFF RePoRTeR

R

ADIO Veritas and the South African World Day of Prayer Movement have joined forces to celebrate international World Day of Prayer on March 6.

This day sees Christian women of many traditions from across the globe coming together to observe a common day of prayer. This year’s event will focus on Egypt and South Africa.

Radio Veritas will be celebrating World Day of Prayer at Christ the King cathedral in Johannesburg.

South African World Day of Prayer Movement representative Mahadi Buthelezi told The Southern

Cross the decision to focus on Egypt was inspired by the fact that “it is a place where streams flow through desert lands”.

“However, these streams are not only rivers that we can dip our feet into. In this year’s service we are all invited to seek the streams of living water which Jesus offers.”

Ms Buthelezi said it was through the World Day of Prayer that women affirm that prayer and action are inseparable and both have immeasurable influence in the world.

“We are invited to think about our own lives and where we recognise streams in our own deserts— places and moments where God is

actively at work.

“To reflect on times when we, like the Samaritan woman, have gone to the well looking for one thing and then discovered Christ offering us what we never expected.

“We will come not only to learn what this spring of living water is, but how we can, like the Samaritan woman, carry it back to our communities,” Ms Buthelezi said. “To see the transformation that can happen when we share our stories of encountering the living God.” n The event will take place at Christ the King cathedral, 186 Nugget Street, Johannesburg, on March 6 at 10:00 and will be followed by a luncheon.

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The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

INTERNATIONAL

Vatican ‘surprised’ as UN slams Church

By Cindy wooden

T

HE UN Committee on the Rights of the Child continued to insist that the Vatican compile and publish detailed statistics on clerical sexual abuse of minors and that the pope, as head of the Catholic Church, can and should order Catholic dioceses and religious orders around the world to implement all the policies of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.

The committee, which spent an entire day in January questioning two Vatican representatives, also urged the Catholic Church to revise the Code of Canon Law to make it mandatory that bishops and religious superiors report suspected cases of sexual abuse to civil authorities, even in countries where civil law does not require such reporting.

The Vatican always has insisted that Church law requires bishops and religious superiors to obey local

laws on reporting suspected crimes; however, it also has said that where reporting is not mandatory and the victim does not want to go to the police, the victim's wishes must be respected.

The “concluding observations” of the committee, which monitors compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the Holy See in 1990, were published on February 5.

A statement published by the Vatican press office said: “The Holy See reiterates its commitment to defending and protecting the rights of the child, in line with the principles promoted by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and according to the moral and religious values offered by Catholic doctrine.”

The committee urged the Vatican to release all its files on clerical sexual abuse cases in order to allow public scrutiny of how cases of alleged

abuse were investigated and judged, how offenders were punished and how victims were treated.

“The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators,” the UN report said.

Throughout the report, the committee condemned what its members viewed as a “code of silence” surrounding the cases and claimed “the Holy See has given precedence to the preservation of the reputation of the Church over children's rights to have their best interests taken as a primary consideration.”

The report said the Church’s procedures for dealing with suspected

cases of abuse are so hostile to children and their parents that some have reported being “re-victimised by the church authorities”.

The committee's report also objected to confidentiality being “imposed as a condition of financial compensation”, although in most cases, the compensation is awarded by a court, which sets the terms.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican representative to UN agencies in Geneva, told Vatican Radio that his first reaction to the report was “surprise because the negative aspect of the document they produced makes it seem that it was prepared before” he and Bishop Charles Scicluna, the former investigator of alleged abuse cases in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, testified in January.

“In fact, the document doesn't seem to have been updated to take into account what has been done in

the past few years” by the Vatican and by individual bishops' conferences.

“The Church has responded and reacted and will continue to do so” to protect children and end the scandal of clerical sexual abuse, the archbishop said. “We must insist on a policy of transparency and zero tolerance for abuse because even one case of the abuse of a child is a case too many,” he said.

In other areas concerning the rights of children as set forth in the UN convention, the committee criticised the Church and its teaching for contributing to the social stigmatisation of and violence against homosexual, bisexual, and transgender adolescents and children raised by same sex couples, and asked the Church “to review its position on abortion, which places obvious risks on the life and health of pregnant girls”.—CNS

Surveys: German, Swiss Catholics Israel’s wall through convent deferred reject many family teachings

By Cindy wooden

R

EPORTS from bishops’ conferences in Germany and Switzerland show a clear divergence between what the Church teaches on marriage, sexuality and family life and what Catholics— even those active in parish life—personally believe.

The differences are seen “above all when it comes to pre-marital cohabitation, [the status of the] divorced and remarried, birth control and homosexuality,” said the German bishops’ report, posted on their conference website in German, Italian and English.

The text is a summary of the official responses from all of Germany’s 27 dioceses and about 20 German Catholic organisations and institutions to a Vatican questionnaire published in preparation for October’s extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family.

The Swiss bishops’ conference published an initial report based on 25 000 responses, similar in most cases to those received by the German bishops.

“Most of the baptised have an image of the Church that, on the one hand, is family-friendly in its attitude, whilst at

By JUdiTH SUdiloVSKy

the same time considering her sexual morality to be unrealistic,” the German survey found.

Both the German and the Swiss reports said Catholics in their countries accept the Church’s vision of marriage as a life-long union of a man and a woman open to having children, and hope to realise that vision in their own family.

However, the German dioceses reported that “‘pre-marital unions are not only a relevant pastoral reality, but one which is almost universal”, since between 90% and 100% of couples who seek a Catholic wedding are already living together, despite Church teaching that sex outside of marriage is sinful.

“Many, in fact, consider it irresponsible to marry without living together beforehand,” the report said.

Much of the German summary was dedicated to questions concerning divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, who the report said account for a significant share of Catholic couples, including those actively involved in parish life and Church activities.

The bishops’ conference said onethird of all marriages in Germany end in Continued on page 11

A

N Israeli court ruling has raised hopes that Israel will need to find an alternative route for the continuation of the security barrier in the Cremisan Valley next to the West Bank city of Beit Jalla.

Israel’s plans for the barrier would have cut through Catholic monasteries.

After deliberation following a hearing, the Supreme Court gave the state attorney until April 10 to justify why the route for the barrier should not be altered.

The Supreme Court set a new hearing for July 30 to discuss the requested answer from the state and the responses of the people of Cremisan. Until the state responds, all work on the barrier must be stopped.

If built as currently planned, the barrier would cut through Palestinian-owned land, separating families from their agricultural land as well as separating the Salesian Sisters from the community they serve in their school. The schoolchildren would be forced to go through a military-like checkpoint gate to reach their schools if the wall is built.

It also would separate the women religious from the Salesian community of male religious and would separate both communities from their lands.

israeli border police confront a group of Palestinian Christians and muslims during a non-violent protest in the west Bank village of Beit Jalla in 2010. The demonstration took place as israel was clearing olive trees, a source of income for Palestinians, to make way for an extension of the israeli separation barrier. an israeli court has temporarily halted construction of the barrier in a section that would have cut through Catholic monasteries. (Photo: debbie Hill/CnS) “The case is not over until a final ruling is given. The court’s decision is an indication that it is not inclined to adopt the state’s position. We definitely have new hope—the answer of the court is a good sign,” said Zvi Avni, a lawyer from the Society of St Yves, a Catholic human rights centre that is representing the Salesian Sisters and school.

“Of course, any day the wall is not constructed is a good day,” St Yves advocacy officer Anica Heinlein said in a statement. “It

do you feel called to the Franciscan way of life?

Contact: Brother Evenie Turner O.F.M. 082 599 7718, 012 345 3732, PO Box 914-1192, Wingate Park, 0153,

Email: evenieturner63@gmail.com

looks promising that the court will decide for the people of Cremisan and the convent.”

It appears that the court would not be satisfied with the moving of the barrier only a few metres, she added.

Ms Heinlein noted that the court date for the state attorney’s response has been pushed back until after Pope Francis’ planned visit at the end of May, giving the opponents of the wall more time to raise pressure against the barrier’s current route.—CNS

MICASA TOURS

Pilgrimage to Fatima, Santiago Compostela and Lourdes led by Fr emil Blaser 10-23 october 2014 Pilgrimage to the Holy Land led by Fr andrew makgetla 23 June-03 July 2014 Pilgrimage to Turkey and Medjugorje led by Father andrew Knott 25 September-10 october 2014 Pilgrimage of Thanksgiving to Italy & Medjugorje led by Fr Teboho matseke 14-29 September 2014 Pilgrimage to Fatima and Italy led by Fr Boostander 1-12 September 2014 Pilgrimage to Fatima, Santiago de Compostela and Lourdes, Paris & Nevers led by Fr Cletus mtshali 28 September-11 october 2014 Pilgrimage Fatima and Medjugorje led by Father laszlo Karpati 10-21 october 2014 Contact: Tel: 012 342 0179/072 637 0508 (Michelle) E-Mail: info@micasatours.co.za

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

5

Pope on Lent: Reap God’s love

By CaRol GlaTZ

C

OURAGEOUSLY follow Jesus in seeking out the poor and sinners, and in making difficult sacrifices in order to help and heal others, Pope Francis advises the faithful in his first Lenten message as pontiff.

Christians are called to confront the material, spiritual and moral destitution of “our brothers and sisters, to touch it, to make it our own and to take practical steps to alleviate it”, the pope said in his message for Lent, which begins on March 5 for Latin-rite Catholics.

Saving the world will not come about “with the right kind of human resources” and token alms, but only “through the poverty of Christ”, who emptied himself of the worldly and made the world rich with God’s love and mercy, he said.

The pope’s message focused on the theme of Christ’s poverty, with the title: “He became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich,” which is from a verse from St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.

Pope Francis said he chose the passage to explore what St Paul’s references to poverty and charity mean for Christians today.

There are many forms of poverty, he said, such as the material destitution that disfigures the face of humanity and the moral destitution of being a slave to vice and sin.

But “there is only one real kind of poverty: not living as children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ”.

People experiencing the spiritual destitution of believing they don’t

a man jumps as a friend takes a photo in front of a large drawing by street artist mauro Pallotta of Pope Francis as a superhero on a wall in the Borgo neighbourhood near the Vatican. The graffito was removed by city officials within a couple of days. “it marked a new city record given...most illegal urban ‘decorations’ are ignored for years,” according to Catholic news Service reporter Carol Glatz. other graffiti in the area were left untouched. (Photo: alessandro Bianchi, Reuters/CnS)

need God and can make it on their own “are headed for a fall”, the pope wrote. “God alone can truly save and free us.”

“The Gospel is the real antidote to spiritual destitution,” he said, and the greatest treasure of all is “boundless confidence in God” and the desire to always do his will.

All Christians are called “to proclaim the liberating news that forgiveness for sins committed is possible, that God is greater than our sinfulness, that he freely loves us at all times and that we were made for communion and eternal life”, the pope said.

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preading the joy of the Gospel, consoling broken hearts and offering real hope means “following and imitating Jesus, who sought out the poor and sinners,” and by opening up “new paths of evangelisation and human promotion” with courage, he said.

Imitating Christ also includes confronting the abuses, discrimination and violations against human dignity, which often cause the material poverty suffered by those who lack the basic rights to food, water, work, development and “equal access to education and healthcare”, Pope Francis said.

Sometimes the unjust social conditions that rob people of their dignity lead to moral destitution— a kind of “impending suicide”.

Think of how much pain is caused by people, especially the young, when they turn to alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography or other vices because they “no longer see meaning in life or prospects for the future”, he said. “How many have lost hope!” he added.

“By loving and serving the poor, we love and serve Christ,” he said, but such service also entails conversion.

“When power, luxury and money become idols, they take priority over the need for a fair distribution of wealth. Our consciences thus need to be converted to justice, equality, simplicity and sharing,” he said.

While Lent is a time for “self-denial”, don’t forget that real sacrifice and poverty have a “dimension of penance” and pain, he said.

“I distrust a charity that costs nothing and does not hurt,” he said.

“God did not let our salvation drop down from heaven, like someone who gives alms from their abundance out of a sense of altruism and piety,” the pope said.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the office which handles the pope’s charitable giving, said the pope’s message reminds people that their “bourgeois consciences” cannot be put to rest merely by “denouncing the lack of resources for others” or denouncing the structural underpinnings of poverty.

The only way to truly help people is to care for all their needs— spiritual, material and moral—the cardinal said, and not “pretend to solve a person’s problems just because one has solved the problems related to his physical and material well-being.”

“I think the Holy Father does well to insist on these three types of poverty and destitution,” the cardinal said. n Go to www.bit.ly/1iljvee for the full text of Pope Francis’ Lenten message.

Scottish Church agency wins appeal to exclude gay adoption

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CATHOLIC adoption agency in Scotland has won an appeal that allows it to remain functioning without assessing gay couples as possible adopters and foster parents.

The ruling by the Scottish Charity Appeals Panel means that Glasgow-based St Margaret’s Children and Family Care Society has become the only Catholic adoption agency in Britain to stay open as

an agency operating in accordance with the teachings of the Church on marriage and human sexuality.

Since the 2007 passage of Britain’s sexual orientation regulations, 11 English adoption agencies and one Scottish agency have either ceased their adoption services or have broken from the Church to comply with laws compelling them to assess same-sex couples as potential parents to

children placed for adoption or into foster care. Some agencies fought long and expensive legal battles over the issue.

But the appeals panel ruled that St Margaret’s was a fully Catholic institution bound to operate by the teaching of the Catholic Church and that “indirect discrimination” against gay couples was a legally permissible consequence of its charitable work.

Pope meets Neocatechumenal Way

By CaRol GlaTZ

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HANKING members of the Neocatechumenal Way for their generous missionary efforts, Pope Francis also encouraged them to build Church unity, learn about local cultures and respect any member’s decision to leave the movement.

“I thank the Lord for the joy of your faith and for the passion of your Christian witness,” he said during a special audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI audience hall with thousands of members of the parish-based faith formation programme. The group included Kiko Arguello, co-founder of the Neocatechumenal Way.

The papal audience was an annual event in which the pope blesses families who, responding to the request of a local bishop, agree to go off as missionaries to assist with evangelisation efforts.

In South Africa, missionary families of the movement serve in the archdioceses of Pretoria and Cape Town.

Pope Francis told the movement “to have the utmost concern for building and preserving communion” within the parishes and dioceses where they work.

The missionary families must pay “special attention to the cultural context” of the places they are sent, he said. This entails learning the local culture, recognising

where the Gospel is needed and seeing where the Holy Spirit has already acted in the life and history of different peoples, he said.

Some bishops, particularly in Japan, have expressed concerns about what they saw as the movement’s lack of respect for local cultures and for its potential for creating divisions in parishes.

The movement’s itinerary of faith “is a demanding path, along which a brother or sister may encounter unforeseen difficulties,” the pope said.

Each individual’s freedom “must not be forced”, and anybody’s decision to follow God’s call outside the way “must be respected”, he said.—CNS

PRIESTS OF THE SACRED HEART “Here I am Lord” Vocation Office: P.O. Box 630 Hilton 3245 South Africa

Cell: +27 71 823 6295 E-mail: vocation.office@dehonafrica.net

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow expressed his gratitude for the “wise” decision. “It means that families who are ready to adopt can look forward to the future with a little more serenity, and children in great need can be placed into loving homes,” he said.

A statement issued by St Margaret’s said that staff at the agency, which last year found new homes

for 35 children, were “delighted and relieved” that the threat hanging over them had been lifted.

St Margaret’s had appealed against a decision by Scotland’s charity regulator in January 2013 that the agency was not providing “public benefit” and must be removed from the charities register.

This had followed a complaint from the National Secular Society.—CNS

6

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Need to evaluate theological Years

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

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The rock star pope

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HESE are exciting times for the Catholic Church when even the rock magazine Rolling Stone puts the pope on its cover, to go with a lengthy feature story which tries, and fails, to make sense of a man who has caught the world’s imagination.

Invariably, Rolling Stone compared Pope Francis to his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who announced his resignation from the papacy almost a year ago. The magazine treated the pope emeritus with prejudice and undue harshness.

Of course, in style, temperament and emphasis there are marked differences, as there always will be between popes.

Where Pope Benedict was by nature reticent and introvert, Pope Francis is presenting himself as a gregarious extrovert who seeks closeness with the people.

Where Pope Benedict expressed the symbols of the papacy in ways that borrowed a lot from the baroque, Pope Francis abstains from ostentation.

Where Pope Benedict stressed, among other things, the Church’s teachings on abortion and the traditional family, Pope Francis takes it as a given that the Church’s teachings on these issues are well known and therefore gives a louder voice to teachings less known, particularly on economic justice.

Where Pope Benedict was perceived, sometimes correctly, as closing off debate on sensitive issues, Pope Francis seeks to know the mind of the faithful, even at the risk of being confronted with uncomfortable truths.

Where Pope Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, assumed the papacy with the baggage of having been prominent, and not universally loved, as the Vatican’s doctrinal head under Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio became pope as a virtual unknown.

Pope Benedict, a gentle and humble man, was invested by the critics of the Church with the caricature of having been an “enforcer”, and was unjustly accused of complicity in the sex abuse scandal. In some quarters he never could shake that image.

Pope Francis was a blank canvas on which people could project their own hopes, as Rolling Stone has done.

Almost a year into Pope Francis’ papacy, this projection continues. The reaction to his November apostolic exhortation

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.

Evangelii Gaudium, and especially its passages that savagely critiqued capitalism for failing the poor, illustrate the point.

On the left, Pope Francis was widely hailed for being an openminded pontiff who speaks out for social justice. On the right, Pope Francis was attacked as a Marxist who had departed from the good sense of his predecessors.

Both sides were wrong, of course. The modern Church’s social justice teachings go back more than 120 years. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI both were as scathing of capitalism and its neglect of the poor as Pope Francis is.

This newspaper has said before that Pope Francis is leading a revolution in the Church, but it’s not a revolution of doctrine, as some people hope.

Pope Francis’ papacy may well preside over certain pastoral solutions, perhaps in the delicate area of the reception of Communion for civilly divorced and remarried Catholics.

Time will tell whether Pope Francis will be more open than his predecessors to a plurality of viewpoints on sensitive issues within the episcopate and consecrated life.

He de-emphasises matters that were important to his predecessors in favour of other issues, but that does not indicate a shift in doctrine.

Pope Francis will not change doctrines and disciplines. The next pope will still be elected by a group of mostly elderly men, and the Latin-rite priesthood will still be open only to men who make a promise of celibacy.

In the next pontificate, abortion and same-sex marriage will still be contrary to Church teachings, and the Church will continue to oppose cohabitation and artificial birth control.

Pope Francis is a doctrinal conservative. His revolution is in the way the Church presents itself to the world.

Rather than the smaller but purer Church envisaged by Pope Benedict, Pope Francis is throwing open the doors and invites the world to enter, proposing that the sinner has a better chance of conversion to Christ inside the Church than outside.

It is this, along with Pope Francis’ compassion, modesty and directness, that captures the imagination of the public.

WRITE as a missionary whose primary task is to assist the local Church in establishing and securing a thriving Christian community and moving on to fresh pastures after the model of St Paul.

In the run-up to the millennium, Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Tertio Millennio Adveniente invited all members of the Church to focus on Jesus in 1997, the Father in 1998 and the Holy Spirit in 1999. He invited us to entrust these years to the prayers of Mary.

The formal convocation of the Holy Year 2000 was inaugurated in 1998 by the bull Incarnationis Mysterium (Mystery of the Incarnation).

In it, Pope John Paul ll indicated that he had desired to lead the Church into the Great Jubilee since the beginning of his pontificate. He explained that this jubilee would be a chance to open new horizons in preaching the Kingdom of God. Since then, under Pope John Paul II—who came from a communist culture of annual plans, biennial plans and five-year-plans—and his successors, the Church has been through consecutive theologicalpastoral years, including the Year of St Paul 2009 that bizarrely overlapped with the Year of the Priest

Moses’ self-belief

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MMANUEL Ngara’s column (January 1) refers to Psalm 77 which he encourages us to read when we hit times of hardship.

Prof Ngara refers to the film The Ten Commandments and I remember seeing the film as a 9-year-old child where Moses was superbly portrayed by Charlton Heston. However, later in life I began to wonder how it was possible for Moses to get God’s attention in certain instances when he really needed to, quickly.

Did he have special powers?

I then found out that Moses had become the supreme commander of Pharoah’s army after having been raised in Pharoah’s household.

When Pharoah eventually allowed Moses to leave Egypt with the Hebrews, Moses’ instinct told him that Pharoah would backtrack on his word and possibly send his army to recapture (or kill) the Hebrews.

What Moses then did befitted an army general. Instead of taking the shortest escape route, he took his people up towards the Nile delta and there he crossed over. I surmise he did this at low tide, knowing full well that Pharoah’s army, comprising horse-drawn carriages, would get bogged down and be rendered useless when the tide came in.

With the recent death of our Father of the Nation, Madiba, we now know that one man’s determination and courage can achieve great things. Where Mr Ngara says “…

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2009-10.

But to jump numerous programmatic theological years to the Year of Grace 2012 and the Year of Faith 2013, I wonder if the Church of Southern Africa, as it enters the Year of the Family 2014, has ever bestirred itself to evaluate the pastoral value of these programmatic years.

Why have the bishops apparently not published their findings to encourage pastors and faithful who have engaged in these years?

My reason for pondering and enquiring of the fruitfulness or lack thereof, is the missionary motivation of Pope John ll as stated above, “to open new horizons in preaching the Kingdom of God”, and to establish what fruit, if any, these years have produced in Southern Africa.

One criterion for establishing the fruitfulness of these ongoing programatic years of theological and pastoral reflection and prayer is to ascertain how many new Catholic communities—that is, outstations and parishes, technically known as Church planting—the regional bishops can account for in this time.

My predecessors at Kroonstad cathedral helpfully kept SACBC Catholic directories from the dawn of creation. I refrain from publish-

that even nature recognised the Creator’s power and obeyed his command”, I would rather believe it was the wisdom and self-belief (or faith) of Moses, great leader that he was, that won the day.

Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg

Friends reunited

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N your Christmas edition there was an article by Portia Mthembu on how the elderly celebrate Christmas in various care homes and retirement centres throughout South Africa.

I am a resident at Nazareth House in Johannesburg, and I felt I had become an “overnight celebrity” when I saw my picture published beside this article.

Imagine my delight when a few days later, just after Christmas, I received a phone call from a very old friend who had seen my photo in your paper.

We had first met years ago in Zimbabwe where we had been staunch members of the Catholic Women’s League. We lost touch after we both moved away from Bulawayo.

I had no idea that she had moved to Gauteng, and she also did not expect to find me living so close by. My friend came to visit me here, and we spent several wonderful hours reminiscing and catching up on each other’s stories.

It is so good to renew our longlost friendship and to know that we will remain close friends.

Thank you, Southern Cross!

Lena Giorza, Johannesburg

Damietta facts

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THALY Jenkinson (January 8) writes that we never pray for Africa and that St Francis achieved peace at Damietta.

I thought that we ask God to bless Africa every time we sing the national anthem.

St Francis’ peace effort at Damietta was a failure. After a siege of 15 months Damietta was taken. Of its 70 000 people, only 3 000 survived.

I doubt that Pope Francis’ peace effort will be more successful than that of his namesake when he goes to the Middle East this year.

JH Goossens, Dundee 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.

Letters can be sent to PO Box 2372, Cape Town 8000 or editor@scross.co.za or faxed to 021 465-3850

ing my laborious count of new communities established annually in the dioceses of South and Southern Africa here. But if someone would care to undertake such a count, lest it be for academic purposes, let me advise them to save their eyesight, as with apologies to St Matthew, they would strain at a gnat to catch a camel that is not there!

But for academic purposes, there is no doubt a masters or doctorate from St Augustine College for someone who undertakes a study of the correlation between these programatic years and the dearth of new Catholic communities established in the region’s dioceses.

My personal view is that—apposite and worthy as these annual topics are—it is a futile exercise to progress willy-nilly from the Year of Something to the following Year of Something-else without the SACBC commissioning an evaluation and publishing the results.

To this end, after the Year of the Family 2014, I propose Three Years of Nothing, that we may reflect, pray, ponder and discuss the cycle of readings prescribed by the Church for our nourishment as we are meant to do weekly.

Fr Stephen Giles MHM, Kroonstad

Student woes

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AM really sorry about St Augustine College in Johannesburg closing its undergraduate programmes.

Young people I know have been directly affected by this. They have had to shelve their studies and look to Unisa as an alternative.

Can’t the Catholic community contribute to its needs?

We build shrines to great dead people, but we must also concentrate our attention on the needs of a living, sound and educated Catholic community.

Lucy Rubin, Pretoria

Let go of limbo

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REFER to ER Little’s letter (January 15), saying children who are the victims of abortion are denied “the happiness of eternal life with God” as are those who are miscarried.

This is not Church teaching and certainly does not accord with what we know of a merciful God. Yes, God knew us “before we were formed in our mothers’ wombs”. Let us follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion and let go of the tired and discredited idea of limbo, a concept which has caused enough pain already.

Rosanne Shields, Cape Town

Aborted children

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R LITTLE in his letter “Aborting lives” asks: “Was he [Mandela] justified in denying all these millions aborted the happiness of eternal life with God?” Surely this statement is incorrect.

Only God can deny anyone, aborted or not, the happiness of eternal life with himself. He does not dance to any human schedule.

A Hewlett, Howick

Politics inherent

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URELY all educated people in today’s world realise that there is no purpose in trying to separate political and religious views. In effect, there is no difference between them.

They all have value systems that, if properly applied, could be beneficial to all. Sadly, they are all subject to abuse which results in a “us and them” situation.

Furthermore, the uneducated translate the systems into literally the only right way and are prepared to fight and die for the cause.

From a Christian point of view, it is only by living a life of compassion and love that peace will come into the world we live in.

Deryk Bayman, Durban

PERSPECTIVES

Careful what you read on the Internet

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HE great thing about the Internet is that it gives us instant access to all sorts of information: reviews of restaurants we might patronise, tips on how to remove red wine stains from white carpets, all kinds of celebrity gossip, latest scores from Norway’s football league, and more news than you could ever digest.

Recently The Southern Cross made minor news on the Internet—and the episode shows how news on the Web is more a game of Chinese Whispers than it is in the traditional (and not always blame-free) business of newspapers and broadcasters.

Our editorial two weeks ago, which criticised anti-gay legislation in some African countries, was first picked up by Fides, the news agency of the Vatican’s missionary congregation.

The brief report quoted the editorial as saying that the anti-gay laws are not just about criminalising homosexual acts, which already are illegal in most African countries, and that such legislation violates the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s opposition to “every sign of unjust discrimination” against homosexuals.

The Fides report also quoted the editorial’s call on Africa’s bishops to stand “against discriminatory laws and violence against homosexuals, many of whom are Catholics”.

Fides described The Southern Cross as being “promoted” by the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC). It’s a fair way of describing the relationship— there is much mutual cooperation between us and the SACBC—but it’s also a word that can easily be misinterpreted.

The Southern Cross is published independently and without any subsidy. Since the newspaper was established in 1920, the SACBC has owned 51% of the newspaper in founders’ shares. But it is not the publisher, and The Southern Cross is not the local Church’s official “mouthpiece”.

But that’s not how some Internet reports read things. A conservative Catholic website in the US called Spero News headlined their otherwise accurate report: “Catholic bishops of Southern Africa denounce laws discriminating against homosexuals”.

Of course, the bishops of Southern Africa have not done any such thing, though I’m sure that they too are disturbed by reports of homosexuals being arrested for being gay, or a man being publicly flogged for having had sex with another man.

But The Southern Cross is not “a weekly

newspaper published by the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference”, as Spero News put it.

To present the position taken by this newspaper as that of the bishops’ conference is not only distorting the facts, but could create delicate situations for bishops who prefer not to be on the record as standing in conflict with their brother bishops in other countries.

We politely asked Spero News to correct their factual error. Our request was ignored.

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eanwhile, a blog run by the respected Vaticanologist Sandro Magister for the Italian weekly news magazine L’Espresso took the view that Fides’ used the Southern Cross editorial to make a point.

Fides carried the report on the editorial, but not the news two days earlier of a Nigerian bishop congratulating his government for outlawing same-sex marriage (which, incidentally, nobody even campaigned for there and isn’t the limit of the country’s anti-gay law). Mr Magister therefore deduced that in doing so the Vatican’s missionary congregation, whose remit includes the African Church, had registered its opposition to the anti-gay laws. He might even be right.

Mr Magister has delivered a few Vatican scoops in his time. So it was more than puzzling that his article referred to Fides as the news agency of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), not that of the Congregation for Evangelisation.

I presume it was an error born of a lapse in concentration. But the distinction is important. If the publication of an article on The Southern Cross’ editorial indeed implies Vatican consent to its substance, as Mr

The blog on L’Espresso’s website which referred to a recent Southern Cross editorial.

Günther Simmermacher

Point of media

Magister suggests, then that in itself is significant. But if the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation were to make it a point of opposing the persecution of homosexuals, then that would be very big news indeed.

Of course, the CDF (nor the SACBC) has made known its views on African anti-gay laws. And yet, there it is on the Web, eternally preserved in the Internet’s caches.

As long as these reports remain unedited, people will be able to form their opinions on account of erroneous information on the websites of L’Espresso and Spero News, and those who copy and paste from them. Future researchers might stumble on these articles through Google, and ascribe to the bishops of Southern Africa and the CDF positions they neither stated nor necessarily occupied.

I offer this experience, which in the scale of things is minor, as an example of how errors—sloppy or calculated—can twist our perception of the facts.

The same is true, of course, about print and broadcast media, though these organs usually have a hierarchy of professionals tasked with maintaining basic journalistic standards. These standards are not universally applied with the same vigour, and sometimes not at all, but the general ethic still represents a benchmark that has not been fully translated on to the Internet.

All this ought to give us pause to reflect on the news we receive from the Internet, where editorial control is much more lax than it is in newspapers, where editorial accountability to sources and readers is often absent, and where even Vatican experts confuse the Roman curia’s doctrinal and missionary congregations.

Our reliance on the Internet for information—on coffee stain-removal tips or hard news—will only intensify. But we cannot take it for granted that what we read on the Internet is reliable, not on Wikipedia and not on news sites.

We need to be media-savvy and discerning. And on news items that are important to us, we will need to be our own factcheckers, because Internet sites simply cannot be trusted to fulfil that function for us.

God’s love is perfect and unconditional Judith Turner

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OD is love and the one who lives in love, lives in God and God lives in him” (1 John 4:16).

February has become known as the month of love because of the celebration of Valentine’s Day on the 14th.

The feast day of St Valentine was first associated with romantic love in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. It evolved into an occasion on which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionary, and sending greeting cards (known as “valentines”).

Today we celebrate Valentine’s Day with symbols such has hearts, roses and chocolates. And it is a crazy day in the market; shops are full of red and white paraphernalia that are highly sought after and sometimes extortionately overpriced.

On Valentine’s Day, I am sure, you have seen children going off to school in red and white clothes, carrying flowers for their teachers. Some adults, too, decide to dress up for work in Valentine’s colours, and some organisations and parishes, including mine, organise Valentine’s Balls to raise funds.

Why is society making such a big deal about love at this time?

In some way it is an attempt to express the fact that we love. But that is only partly so. In our highly sexualised society we more commonly focus on expressing romantic and physical love. And we confuse love and sex. We talk about “making love” as if it invariably is love.

It is easy to express the romantic and physical aspect of love, but more often this is associated only with warm and fuzzy feelings, not the real experience of love.

And we express this aspect of love only to those whom we love. This is where our inadequacy to love is exposed—our inability to know what love is and our belief that love is for us to give to some people and to withhold from others.

Faith and life

a locket pleads for love, but do we always really understand love, asks Judith Turner.

(Photo: jdurham/morguefile) Consider John again: “God is love and the one who lives in love, lives in God and God lives in him.”

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e struggle to understand what this means. If we know God, we will know love. We struggle to know God, and therefore we do not know love—we are longing to know Love, we are longing to experience Love, we are longing for unconditional acceptance and affection and to experience the deep embrace of someone saying to us: “You are wonderful, you are perfect, you are beautiful, you are mine and I love you.”

Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian and Sufi mystic, tells us that love is not something that you have or don’t have.

“A life without love is a waste. ‘Should I look for spiritual love, or material, or physical love?’—don’t ask yourself this question.

Discrimination leads to discrimination.

Love doesn’t need any name, category or definition. Love is a world itself. Either you are in, at the centre…or you are out, yearning.”

God’s unconditional love is not always easy to understand and yet we are commanded “that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12).

How can one love with no conditions?

There are so many people who hurt us, betray us, disrespect us. How do we love them?

The Jesuit writer Fr Anthony De Mello uses the following analogies to explain what love is.

Take a look at a rose. Is it possible for a rose to say, “I shall offer my fragrance to good people and withhold it from bad people”? Or imagine a lamp that withholds its rays from a wicked person who seeks to walk in its light? And observe how helplessly and indiscriminately a tree gives its shade to everyone, good and bad, young and old, high and low; to animals and humans and every living creature, even to the one who seeks to cut it down.

The rose, the lamp and the tree illustrate that love is not something we have, but it is what we are. God does not have love. God is love.

God loves us no matter what we do.

God’s love, as Jesus assures us, is always both unmerited and unconditional, nothing we do can ever make God love us, just as nothing we do can ever stop God from loving us. God loves just as God does everything else, perfectly. God loves everything and everybody perfectly.

God just loves us, pure and simple. God cannot be offended. God’s love cannot be driven away. God does not reward or punish us on the basis of whether we have been good or bad. God simply loves us.

One more time, let us reflect on John’s quote which started this article: “God is love and the one who lives in love, lives in God and God lives in him.”

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

7

Michael Shackleton

open door

What is purgatory like?

I become confused about the existence of purgatory as a destination for the souls who have not repented for all their sins before they died. If these souls are being cleansed by God himself, how can our prayers help them when we pray for them and beg God to be merciful and to let them rest in peace?

D Samuels N Old Testament times, there is evidence of prayers for the dead. Maccabees 12:40-46 mentions sacrifices offered for the dead, so that they may be freed from their sins.

Jesus also gave this warning: “Let anyone speak against the Holy Spirit and he will not be forgiven either in this world or in the next” (Matthew 12:32).

The dead would not need prayer if they were already in God’s heavenly presence, nor if they were doomed to hell. The implication is that they are in an intermediate state.

In the early days, the epitaphs and inscriptions on Christian graves testify to the belief that the dead can be helped by the prayers of the living. The writings of the early Fathers of the Church up to about the 7th century tell of belief in the effectiveness of prayer for the dead.

The Council of Trent in 1563 spelt out the doctrine clearly, saying that purgatory exists and the prayers of the faithful can help those who are detained there, especially through the sacrifice of the Mass.

In medieval days stress was laid on the sufferings endured by the souls in purgatory, making them almost as fierce as the torments of hell.

The image was that of the souls being cleansed by fire. In recent times the understanding is that the soul is purified or purged of the effects of sin in a different way.

When the soul receives the divine judgment, it is overwhelmed by the immense outpouring of God’s love and has a burning desire to return that love. Knowing its state of imperfection, it is in a bittersweet condition, craving God yet still feeling impure for his all-holy embrace.

In praying that the dead may experience God’s mercy, we trust that our Father will hear us and show them mercy.

The reason is that we are all united in Christ in the communion of saints. We live a life of supernatural grace that is not affected by physical death. In the words of the liturgy: “Life is changed, it is not ended”.

We cannot say anything about where purgatory is or what precisely the cleansing process is, but our faith assures us that purgatory exists, and that the souls detained there can be helped by the prayers of the Church on earth, particularly by means of the eucharistic sacrifice.

I

n Send your queries to Open Door, Box 2372, Cape Town,

8000; or e-mail: opendoor@scross.co.za; or fax (021) 465 3850. Anonymity can be preserved by arrangement, but questions must be signed, and may be edited for clarity. Only published questions will be answered.

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The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

COMMUNITY

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The choir at Holy Spirit parish in Stirling, east london, is pictured with parish priest Fr lubabalo mguda (back third from left). (Back row) Choir master Hans wagner, deacon Gerry masters, Fr mguda, allie and Peter weppelman, and Franco Tozzi. (3rd row) Jewel Pretorius, Rose wagner, noreen north, Pam Hawkins, Carol Bell and guitarist anita lee. (2nd row) diane de Beyer, Robyn lucas, norah masters, organist annette Grieb and Janet Calder. (Front row) Colleen Harris, guitarist margie Panhofer, Bev Tickner and guitarist Jenny Gillanders.The choir is over 30 years old and sings Christmas carols at various old age homes every year, as well as holding concerts during the year.

We accommodate small Conferences, Retreats and workshops

eve-lyn and adam Bremner are pictured at Holy Redeemer parish in Bergvliet, Cape Town, with parish priest Fr Seàn wales CSsR after their wedding mass.

We are 5mins from Howick Falls, 10min from Midmar Dam, 20 mins from Pietermaritzburg.

Contact Veronica 083 784 7455, Email redacres@omi.org.za Regrettable due to stolen telephone cables, we do not have a landline anymore.

a group of altar servers from St Catherine of Siena in Kleinvlei, Cape Town, had a day of retreat at St anthony’s in the Valley in Stellenbosch. They were accompanied by coordinators alicia and Jonathan Brown. The retreat was led by Sr Rosaleen o’Kane.

young people at Salesian institute youth Projects in Cape Town celebrated the feast of St John Bosco on January 31 with various games and a screening of the movie of don Bosco. The youth are pictured in the pool at the institute.

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The confirmation class of maria Regina parish in lyttelton, Centurion, is pictured with parish priest Fr arsene mahau (front second right) and archbishop william Slattery of Pretoria.

St Theresa parish in Zondi, Soweto, held a mass for police day. Police from Jabulani were invited to give the congregation tips about safety.

The parish pastoral, financial and building committee members of St anne’s mission in mpophomeni, archdiocese of durban, are pictured with Fr Jude Fernando ToR (front right) and deacon Seraphicus nzimande ToR (back left).

Twin girls ava Jasmine and mia Claire Tyson, daughters of Harry and Cherise Tyson, were baptised by Fr Varghese Kannanaikal Cmi at eucharistic Heart of Jesus parish in east london. This is the first set of twins Fr Kannanaikal has baptised.

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

FOCUS

9

Is faith a challenge at university?

Many Catholic tertiary students find it difficult to maintain their faith, especially when they are faced with new lifestyle options and hostility to religion. The Church offers a support structure to Catholic students, as KERRELIN KHAN explains.

U

NIVERSITY: it’s a place where one learns about the world and how it functions, it’s a place where one is educated, and it’s a place where one is introduced to new ideologies.

But what happens when you meet an ideology that opposes your own? Where does one find guidance on campus?

A reason why many young Catholics are drifting away from the Church is because to them, religion has become political. “As a young person you constantly have to pick a side”, said third-year BCom student Shingle Manamike.

One such issue is gay rights.

“The Church does accept gay people; however students find themselves confronted with the gay rights movement whose agenda incorporates elements that are in conflict with the Church’s teachings”, the student said.

While the teachings of the Church are clear on homosexuality—same-sex carnal activity is against her teachings but homosexuals must be treated with respect and without prejudice— students tend to look for a direction that is in line with the Church as well as with society.

There is an effort to always find a balance between the faith and society.

Another issue is that of sex—an area where students need guidance. Students have to find a balance when they are away from home and do not have the Church

to guide them.

This is where youth organisations have a role: the likes of the Association of Catholic Tertiary Students (Acts) takes the role when the Church is not there. Since Acts is run by students, members often feel more comfortable discussing and following the Church’s teachings. Students are able to talk about these issues with one another, yet at the same time receive teachings and leadership through Acts members who are there to facilitate.

Melita Vurden, who attends Mass at Holy Trinity in Durban, said as a Catholic she feels it is important to remember that sex “should come from a place of love and not lust”. The English masters student explained: “I think the major problem with premarital sex is that in its state of lust, often we find that consequences can be shattering to the heart, mind, body and soul.”

This is an insight which Catholic students can understand, more than abstract Church teachings, as its context is relevant to their lives.

Juandre Duminy from St Philip parish in Steenberg, Cape Town, is apprehensive about asking difficult questions in the Church. “It comes across as me bringing down my faith,” explained the graduate in fashion design.

“You need a priest who is for young people; the teachings are the same but the way they are being taught should change,” said Fr Sammy Mabusela CSS, national youth chaplain and vicar for Acts.

Fr Mabusela said technology and social networking is one way of communicating with the youth.

“Young people need to find the Church appealing again, and that can possibly be done through the Catholic youth organisations.”

“Gone are the days where the priest was the only reference point,” he said.

The challenge now is to raise the presence of Acts on campuses since the organisation might not always be visible on campus.

at university young people may experience a crisis of faith or find it difficult to keep Christ front and centre. This is where Catholic youth organisations can become an anchor point to which students can become connected.

Fr Mabusela is confident that with a reworking of the organisation and movement towards technology there should be a change in how Acts is received. With newsletters and advertising, Acts can make itself visible and attract students’ attention.

While Acts is active and is making a difference on some campuses, membership is temporary due to the nature of student life— one must graduate at some point in time. So maintaining momentum in the organisations can be a problem.

J

esuit father Graham Pugin, the Catholic chaplain of the University of Cape Town, says there are not many options for Catholic youth on campus. If Acts is not active, or if Catholic students cannot find the organisation, they may feel left out.

Fr Pugin said Catholic organisations are very active on rural campuses; often supported by local parishes.

Both chaplains believe that it is not difficult to maintain your faith as a

student. “The problem arises when your faith is being tested in the lecture room,” Fr Pugin said.

“There is a subliminal message, where certain ideologies may cause reservation in who you are, or those in charge critique, ridicule or downplay the [faith-based] notion you put forward” said Fr Pugin.

Apart from celebrating Mass every Wednesday on the UCT campus, Fr Pugin also encourages Catholics to forge sound Catholic relationships on campus; a means for Catholics to support each other.

Fr Pugin is also the chaplain of off-campus Kolbe House, a co-ed residence for Catholic students.

The house was bought by the archdiocese of Cape Town in the 1930s and offers a housing solution to students coming to UCT. Fr Pugin encourages all Catholic students to investigate Catholic housing and residences when applying to their respective universities.

The chaplains’ support for youth ministries is vital to the Catholic student’s university life.

For those unable to find a Catholic community at their campus, there are organisations online that aim to support Catholic

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youth, such as the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS).

The IMCS aims to help youth maintain their faith by working on volunteer programmes and getting involved with society on a local level as well as national and international.

Furthermore, young Catholics who have the opportunity to travel can make their way on pilgrimages and festivals around the world, such as World Youth Day, or local pilgrimages and retreats.

Keeping one’s faith at varsity means that there will always be someone who will put forward a different view. The key lies in the ability to respect that person’s opinion and then move on.

According to the chaplains, there is nothing wrong with questioning and looking for answers.

However, when looking for those answers they advise students to do so with the right people.

For Catholic students there are organisations, local and international, whose objective it is to help them maintain their faith. See http://acts.sacbc.org.za/author/cathol ic-acts/ for more information. n Kerrelin Khan is a journalism student at Rhodes University.

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10

The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

MOVIES

Readers choose more great films about faith In our Christmas edition, we featured ten great movies about faith, and asked Southern Cross readers to nominate their choices. Here are some of the responses.

HE greatest movies about faith need not be biblical or even specifically Christian, though many of them are.

In our Christmas issue, Catholic film critic John Mulderig issued his list of the ten greatest films about faith. Mr Mulderig’s chief criterion was that the film had to engage with the often elusive topic of faith in an accomplished and illuminating manner.

His picks were: Andrei Rublev (1969), Babette’s Feast (1988), Brother Orchid (1940), The Fugitive (1947), Henry Poole Is Here (2008), Lilies of the Field (1963), The Miracle of Marcelino (1955), Ordet (1955), Three Godfathers (1948) and Wise Blood (1980).

It is recorded that the movielover Pope Francis ranks the Danish production Babette’s Feast among his favourites.

handling Christ’s robe. He comes to understand the true nature of God’s power—and demonstrates a fusion of the best qualities of Rome and Christianity. Leaves me with a tear every time.

Ben Hur (1959): One of the greatest movies ever made. A story of healing and forgiveness. Some basis in fact. Magnificent action, lavish sets, a true epic. Oh, and Charlton Heston. Need I say more!

Possessed (2000): The Exorcist was apparently loosely based on a real case of exorcism in the US in the 1940s. Possessed is a dramatisation of those actual events. To what extent it reflects what occurred, is impossible to say.

A secular viewer might class it as a horror (and for that reason it should be approached with some caution), but a believer would more likely regard it as disturbing.

The portrayal of the Catholic Church is fairly positive, even if that of its hierarchy is less than complimentary. Excellent material for discussion. As much of the Church marches into a post-Christian non-future, dismissing Satan as a metaphor and trading in Evangelisation for welfare, this is a salutary reminder of the immense power of malignant, sentient evil—and how it can be fought.

R

S

T

eader Terrence Corrigan nominated the following with his summaries: Shadowlands (1993): Cerebral drama about the life of C S Lewis.

A particularly sensitive treatment of the question of the place of suffering in the Christian faith. Wonderful acting, intelligent dialogue, excellent cinematography.

Chariots of Fire (1981): Based on a true story. An athlete has to choose between running on the Sabbath and his Olympic hopes.

Perhaps an almost comic choice for Christians today, but a reminder nonetheless that obedience to God does not always come cheap. One of cinema’s most memorable soundtracks.

The Robe (1953): A Roman noble suffers a strange affliction after

heilah Poltera offered two films, both made in Iran.

Children of Heaven (1997): A brother loses his sister’s recently repaired shoes which have accidently been taken by a blind beggar. Because their parents are too poor to buy a new pair, the children have to share one pair of shoes. There is much humour here as plans are made to keep the situation from both parents and teachers. A tender,loving film involving sacrifices and amazing compassion.

Color of Paradise (1999): A gifted blind boy is at the mercy of his father’s crippling sense of shame: a blind child will not enhance his widowed father’s chances of remarrying. This sensitive film abounds in soul-searching, com-

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passion and love—and above all the child’s ability to “see” the wonder of life.

Both films are subtitled and made in Iran by Majid Majidi. He can teach all of us about not judging others, but how to practise much love and mercy in our daily lives.

E

ugene Olivier proposed one addition.

Whistle Down The Wind (1961): Starring Haley Mills, the film dealt with the discovery of a criminal in a barn by some farm children. He is woken up by a young girl asking him, “Who are you?” On suddenly waking up, his startled reply is “Jesus Christ!” The belief that he is Jesus returned to Earth is the basis of the most touching film of blind faith that I have yet to see on the silver screen.

P

aul Collins also suggested one movie: Millions (2004): A British movie in which two Catholic boys find a bag containing 265 000 pounds in a field. The younger, who collects prayer cards of saints, gives much of it away to charity; the older is more practical. Although not a Christian movie, the devotion to saints and the saintliness of the younger boy are treated with respect.

A

great film buff, John Lee sent in a comprehensive list of films, which also included Ben Hur and The Robe.

Samson and Delilah (1949): Directed by Cecil B DeMille, it still remains a tremendously entertaining film. The background music, including “Delilah’s Theme”, composed by Victor Young, still remains fresh in my memory, and was a hit at the time.

Quo Vadis (1951): Directed by Mervyn Leroy, this gargantuan adaptation of Henryk Sienkiewcz’s novel starred a cast of thousands, and was touted as “ten years in the making” by the studio.

Meticulous production, set during the reign of Nero, the great fire

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of Rome, and the persecution of the early Christians, included fine location shooting. The fine music score by Miklos Rozsa was based on authentic music of the era, both profane and including an adaptation by Rozsa of a secondcentury Greek Christian hymn (“Let Us Raise Our Eyes and Our Hearts to the Glory of the Lord”, heartbreakingly sung by Christians in the arena as they are led to martyrdom). The film, which I have viewed many times, gives my faith a boost, and great pride every time I view it on video.

Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954): The sequel to The Robe. I have both films in my video library and still enjoy them as entertaining cinema and a fairly reliable record of early Christianity.

The Ten Commandments (1956): Vivid storytelling at its best, from the parting of the Red Sea to the depiction of the writing on the tablets of the Decalogue—these are unforgettable highlights.

David and Bathsheba (1951): Reverently filmed, especially in the dignified performance by Gregory Peck as King David. The scene reverting back to David confronting the giant Goliath is magical and poignant in its effect.

This film never fails to affect me, spiritually.

I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955): Superlative portrayal of the 1930s singer Lilian Roth, played by Susan Hayward, and with Jo van Flee outstanding as her ambitious and controlling mother. It shows Roth’s descent into alcoholism and near-suicide.

It is everything a movie biography should be. This film received the Catholic Christopher Award in the United States at the time for its great inspirational value.

Mr Lee also recommends King of Kings (1961), whose agony in the garden scene, he says, is particularly poignant, and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

“Both films have been very helpful to me in visualising and meditating on the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet and have helped me to deepen my prayer life,” Mr Lee says.

among the great films about faith chosen by readers are Chariots of Fire, The Robe, Children of Heaven, Whistle Down The Wind, Millions, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, and The Passion of the Christ.

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The Southern Cross, February 12 to February 18, 2014

CLASSIFIEDS German, Swiss Catholics on family teachings Continued from page 4 divorce, and while “Catholics’ marriages are somewhat more stable than average”, the difference is not great.

The summary said many of the respondents supported a 2013 initiative of the archdiocese of Freiburg to encourage divorced and remarried couples to speak to a local priest about their situation, suggesting that their status could be resolved as a matter of personal conscience.

Cardinal-designate Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has criticised the initiative and said Catholics “convinced in their conscience that a previous marriage was invalid” must have that belief confirmed by a Church tribunal.

But reforming and streamlining the Church’s annulment process would not make a big difference in Germany, the bishops’ report said, because most remarried people do not regard their original unions as

“null and void”, but rather as having failed. “They therefore frequently consider an annulment procedure”—which declares that an apparent marriage was null from the start—“to be dishonest”.

According to the Church, a person who has not received an annulment is in most cases still bound by his or her original marriage vows and not free to enter into another union. Someone who remarries under such circumstances is therefore excluded from Communion, though not from Church life.

Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis and many bishops around the world have considered the status of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics a pressing pastoral problem; it is one of the problems Pope Francis has said is a matter to be considered at the synod.

Both the German and Swiss bishops’ surveys found the vast majority of Catholics in their countries reject or simply ignore Church teaching that every sexual

Word of the Week

GNOSTICISM: The belief that salvation is to be obtained by means of secret knowledge and that the material world is evil. Gnostic mystery religions abounded in the Roman Empire. The early Christian Church was fragmented into various sects, many of which taught a Gnostic version of the new religion.

Community Calendar

To place your event, call Claire Allen at 021 465 5007 or e-mail c.allen@scross.co.za (publication subject to space)

CAPE TOWN: Padre Pio: Holy Hour 15:30 every 3rd Sunday of the month at Holy Redeemer parish in Bergvliet.

Helpers of God’s Precious Infants meet the last Saturday of the month except in december, starting with mass at 9:30 am at the Sacred Heart church in Somerset Road, Cape Town. mass is followed by a vigil and procession to marie Stopes abortion clinic in

Bree Street. For information contact Colette Thomas on 083 412 4836 or 021 593 9875 or Br daniel manuel on 083 544 3375.

NELSPRUIT: Adoration of the blessed sacrament at St Peter’s parish. every Tuesday from 8am to 4:45pm followed by Rosary divine mercy prayers, then a mass/Communion service at 5:30pm.

Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: February 14: Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg diocese a happy 70th birthday.

act between a husband and wife should be open to the transmission of life, therefore ruling out the use of artificial contraceptives.

The Swiss bishops said that “approximately 60% of participants in the consultation support the recognition of and a Church blessing for homosexual couples”, though the responses showed “no consensus, but rather a polarisation”, with strong negative reactions.

While Catholic teaching insists homosexual people should not be discriminated against, it holds that homosexual acts are always immoral and that marriage can only be a union between one man and one woman.

The German bishops said Catholics in their country, which has recognised “civil partnerships” of same-sex couples since 2000, largely “regard the legal recognition of same-sex civil partnerships and their equal treatment vis-a-vis marriage as a commandment of justice”.—CNS

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 589. ACROSS: 1 Jude, 3 Stampede, 9 Routine, 10 Karma, 11 Midnight Mass, 13 Agnate, 15 Assail, 17 Spiritualist, 20 Trier, 21 Prelate, 22 Palatial, 23 Bees. DOWN: 1 Jeremiah, 2 Druid, 4 Teethe, 5 Make mistakes, 6 Eurasia, 7 Esau, 8 Misinterpret, 12 Flatters, 14 Nuptial, 16 Utopia, 18 Image, 19 Stop.

Liturgical Calendar Year A Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday, February 16, 6th Sunday Sirach 15:15-20, Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34, 1 Corinthians 2:6-10, Matthew 5:17-37 Monday, February 17 James 1:1-11, Psalm 119:67-68, 71-72, 75-76, Mark 8:11-13 Tuesday, February 18 James 1:12-18, Psalm 94:12-15, 18-19, Mark 8:1421 Wednesday, February 19 James 1:19-27, Psalm 15:2-5, Mark 8:22-26 Thursday, February 20 James 2:1-9, Psalm 34:2-7, Mark 8:27-33 Friday, February 21 James 2:14-24, 26, Psalm 112:1-6, Mark 8:34-9:1 Saturday, February 22, Chair of St Peter 1 Peter 5:1-4, Psalm 23:1-6, Matthew 16:13-19 Sunday, February 23, 7th Sunday Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18, Psalm 103:1-4, 8, 10, 1213, 1 Corinthians 3:16-23, Matthew 5:38-48

CLASSIFIEDS

11

Births • First Communion • Confirmation • engagement/marriage • wedding anniversary • ordination jubilee • Congratulations • deaths • in memoriam • Thanks • Prayers • accommodation • Holiday accommodation • Personal • Services • employment • Property • others Please include payment (R1,25 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

DEATH

HAUPT—deacon eric.

Born 28/7/1929 Robben island, died 31/1/2014 St luke’s Hospice. we will always remember the golden memories. love Jutta, Bernard, Teresa, Paul, anne and maryanne and family.

IN MEMORIAM

GOUVEIA—in loving memory of edwardo Gouveia 16/02/1944. on this your 70th birthday, we praise God and thank you. you shared life with us, God give eternal life to you. you gave your love to us, God give His deep love to you. you gave your time to us, God give eternity to you. you gave your light to us, God give everlasting light to you.

Rest in peace with love and light eternal. your loving wife, children, grandchildren and all the family.

072 132 0539 or 011 888-6187 NOTHING is politically right if it is morally wrong. abortion is evil.

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PRAYERS

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

PERSONAL

ABORTION WARNING: The pill can abort (chemical abortion) Catholics must be told, for their eternal welfare and the survival of their unborn infants. See www.epm.org/static/up loads/downloads/bcpill. pdf CATHOLIC TELEVISION: To receive ewTn Global Catholic networks via satellite in the PTa/JHB region, please contact Frans on 082 698 1096 EXPRESS YOURSELF: Creative and affordable art classes for both adults and kids. enjoy a morning doing decoupage, mosaic, jewellery, candles etc.

Contact Fellyn 011 8886187 or 076 110 9164 McCOL PLUMBERS and WATERPROOFERS cc: For all your plumbing and waterproofing requirements. Registered company with over 25yrs experience Contact eric

o moST Holy Virgin mary, who chose to appear on the Sierra de aire, in the Cova de iria, to three young shepherds to reveal the treasures of grace held in the recitation of the Rosary, impress upon our souls a fervent love for this devotion. By meditating on the mysteries of our redemption, may we learn how to use the teachings which lie therein and obtain the graces we ask in this prayer. For the Glory of God and the redeeming of our souls. amen. www.santuario-fatima.pt

THANKS

Blessings, Cecil davids.

GRATEFUL thanks to St Jude Thaddeus for prayers answered.

GmdC THANKS to you St Jude and to the Holy Spirit for answering our prayers. marlene and Julian.

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From double rooms to a penthouse and flats in the Larmenier Retirement Village, Nazareth House has everything you would wish for.

Holy Mass twice daily, safe and spacious gardens, free parking and many other amenities.

For further information please contact The Social Worker: socialworker@nazarethhousejohannesburg.org Tel: 011 648 1002

ON TAPE

A group of readers is preparing audio tapes of excerpts from The Southern Cross for interested people who are blind, sight-impaired, unable to hold a newspaper or illiterate.

Anyone wanting to receive tapes as part of this service, available for an annual subscription fee of only R50, may contact Mr Len Pothier, 8 The Spinney Retirement Village, Main Rd, Hout Bay, 7806 or phone 021-790 1317.

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

CASA SERENA The retirement home with the Italian flair.

7A Marais Road, Bedfordview, Jhb. Provides full board and lodging, medical services and transport.

Senior citizens wishing to retire in this beautiful Home, please phone

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7th Sunday: February 23 Readings: Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18, Psalm 103:1-4, 8, 10, 12-13, 1 Corinthians 3:16-23, Matthew 5:38-48

God is both intimate and remote

G

Nicholas King SJ

OD is holy. When you hear those words, you nod and say, “Yes of course”, while feeling that God must therefore be very remote from his somewhat unholy people.

But in fact Jews and Christians somehow manage the trick of understanding their God to be at the same time both very remote (because holy) and very close (because loving).

In the first reading for next Sunday we discover that God is so holy that Moses has to act as his intermediary, and is told: “Say to the whole congregation [another “holiness” word] of the children of Israel, and tell them that they are to be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”

And how are they to be holy? Our lectionary misses out a good many verses in order to come to the crunch, and we hear: “You are not to hate your brother [or sister] in your heart”, which is not a bad way of living out God’s holiness.

The climax comes at the end, making sense of all our lives before God: “You are to love your neighbour as yourself—I am the Lord.”

So perhaps God is not, after all, too remote from us.

The psalm for next Sunday consists of a

Sunday Reflections

few excerpts from Psalm 103, a beautiful hymn in praise of the Creator, which starts in holy astonishment, “Bless the Lord, my soul”, and admonishes the singer (and us who listen to him) “not to forget all his gifts”, and the many things that this God has done for us.

Not the least of these is the deepest quality of God: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in steadfast love.” Then comes this powerful image: “As far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions; as a father is merciful to his children, the Lord is merciful on his children.”

There is no denying God’s holiness, or our lack of it—but there is something else that bridges the gap between us.

Paul is aware of the gap, and wants to make the Corinthians realise how much damage they are doing by their divisions, and by their

insistence on the spin-doctoring quality of “cleverness” or “wisdom”.

Later on, he will develop the image of the “body of Christ” to make this point; but here he offers the idea of “God’s temple” [another “holiness” word, of course]: “You are the Temple of God, and God’s spirit lives in you.”

From which it follows that they are not to destroy the “Temple”—”for the Temple of God is holy—and that is you”.

So they must turn their ideas of “cleverness” quite upside down, and “become idiots, in order to become ‘clever’. For the ‘cleverness’ of this world is idiocy in the presence of God.” Then he sums up the teaching by showing that the Corinthian personality cults, centred on Paul or Apollos, are looking in the wrong place: nothing else matters, except that “you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God”.

That is how the gap is bridged, between the holy and the unholy.

The gospel gives us the last two of the “great antitheses”—”you have heard it said… but I say to you…”—from the Sermon on the Mount. In each case Jesus goes deeper into the meaning of the divine commandment, to in-

To see others as they are I

N our normal, daily lives we are invariably so self-preoccupied that we find it difficult to be able to accord others the same reality and value we give to ourselves.

In brief, it’s difficult for us to live in true empathy because we are forever consumed with our own heartaches and headaches.

From two famous intellectuals, one speaking philosophically and the other psychologically, we get that same insight.

The 17th century French philosopher René Descartes famously suggested that all true thinking must begin with our own reality: “I think, therefore I am.”

His logic works this way: What’s the only thing you can know that’s real, beyond all doubt? His answer: Your own mind.

You know that your own mind is real because you are inside of it. You are real, you can be sure of that, but you might be imagining or dreaming everything else.

The Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud, centuries later, coming from another angle, reaches basically the same conclusion. For Freud, we are forever so excessively self-preoccupied that we are unable to see other peoples’ lives as being just as real as ours.

If that’s true, and certainly there’s truth there, then it’s not surprising that real empathy and genuine generativity are a struggle for us since both are predicated precisely on being able to accord to other peoples’ heartaches and headaches the same reality and importance that we give to our own.

Conrad

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

But it’s hard to do this. It’s hard to give to others without some level of self-interest being involved. It’s hard to have wholly pure motives in serving others. It’s hard to know other people’s heartaches in the same way as we know our own. It’s hard to be purely altruistic. And...especially it’s hard to overcome this!

Why? Don’t sympathy and empathy come naturally to us? Yes, sympathy and empathy do come naturally to us, but, like everything else, they come mixed with a lot of other things.

F

irst, sympathy and empathy come mixed with our more-primal instincts for survival. We aren’t born generous and empathic, we’re born needy, hungry, and instinctually driven for survival.

As newborns, we are so consumed with our own survival that we have to grow into an awareness of the reality of others. Nature brings us into this world this way in order to ensure that we do what it takes to survive, and this greatly mitigates our empathy.

‘Now breathe deeply.’

Moreover, beyond how nature has built us, our early experiences soon do further damage to our empathic capacities. Simply put, none of us gets loved purely and wholly, and long before we reach our adulthood, all of us have lost our wholeness.

As adults, we are, all of us, to some degree, wounded, fearful, and given over to habits of self-preservation which weaken our empathy.

It works this way: We come into this world with great adaptability. As babies, every instinct inside us works towards life, and, unconsciously, we do whatever it takes to stay alive and we adapt to whatever (food, shelter, clothing, language, environment) we need to adapt to in order to stay alive.

The adaptations we make as young children help ensure our survival but then leave us wounded in ways that make genuine empathy difficult later in life.

What can we do about all of this? There aren’t any easy answers, psychologically or spiritually. We are dealing with deeply engrained instincts that don’t sway just because they are intellectually understood, and with wounds that need to be healed through the heart.

At the end of the day, what would cure us and open our hearts to empathy and real generativity is the experience of genuine, non-exploitative love.

But we can’t make others love us in this way: we struggle mightily to feel God’s love for us when others don’t love us this way.

Moreover, we are caught up in a vicious circle. The very wounds that need to be healed through love are the very things that are making it difficult for others to love us.

Love is the answer. It would make us whole, but we cannot will this love upon ourselves.

So what can we do?

Firstly, we can admit the problem, admit our lack of wholeness, admit our wounds, admit our excessive self-preoccupation, and admit our lack of empathy. That’s a start.

Secondly, we can humbly seek help from others, from family, friends, recovery groups, therapists. An honest request for help, usually brings some help.

Coupled with this, we can expose ourselves more regularly to the poor and their needs, and this will help baptise us into empathy and generativity. Few things have the power to draw us out beyond our own wounds as standing before the needy.

Finally, we need to seek God’s help by throwing ourselves, in prayer, upon God’s wholeness, asking God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, namely, see others as being as real as we are.

dicate how the call to holiness expresses itself to us.

The first is “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth”. Now in the Old Testament that expresses a limit to blood feuds, so that people would not take any more than the damage that had been done them; but Jesus, in his command for us to be holy, tightens it up: “If anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the left cheek also to them.” Then, if a Roman soldier conscripts them to go one mile, they are to go two (and so make the soldier look a fool).

The second “saying” is from our first reading, “you are to love your neighbour”, to which Jesus adds that we are to pray for our persecutor.

We have to admit that we have often acted in just that way, but if we are to take seriously the call to holiness, then we have to give it up, “so that you may become children of your Father in heaven”.

Our reading ends, possibly somewhat dauntingly: “So you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

We cannot, of course, unless the Lord himself bridges the gap between our unholiness and his holiness.

Southern Crossword #589

ACROSS 1. Last letter-writer of the New Testament (4) 3, Panicked rush of the pigs (Mt 8) (8) 9. One rut I get into regularly (7) 10. Dark armada holds your destiny (5) 11. Service at the Witching Hour (8,4) 13. Agent A belongs to the male lineage (6) 15. Attack when you hear what’s on the yacht (6) 17. One who talks to ghosts (12) 20. Oldest German diocese has rite right (5) 21. He’s a high churchman (7) 22. Like the monarch’s house (8) 23. Buzzers (4)

DOWN 1. Major prophet (8) 2. Celtic cleric? (5) 4. The tee will show baby’s new enamel (6) 5. Judge incorrectly (4, 8) 6. Area of two continents (7) 7. Biblical character named in the Thesaurus (4) 8. Pert minister can explain meaning badly (12) 12. Praises insincerely (9) 14. Mass for the married (7) 16. St Thomas More’s island (6) 18. It looks like you! (6) 19. Arrest (4)

Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

A

PRIEST was riding his bicycle while holding his hands folded in prayer when a traffic cop stopped him.

“Father,” the officer said, “it is dangerous to cycle without your hands on the steering bar. I must fine you R250.”

The priest tried to explain: “But, officer, it’s not dangerous for me, because Jesus is travelling with me.”

What?” the officer exclaimed. “Two on a bike.

That’s another R250 fine.”

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