140702

The

S outhern C ross

July 2 to July 8, 2014

Misunderstood in society, we owe our nuns!

Page 7

reg No. 1920/002058/06

No 4880

www.scross.co.za

Catholic action at Grahamstown festival Page 3

r7,00 (incl Vat rSa)

Supermodel on joining the convent

Page 9

Bid to stop TV porn continues

By Stuart Graham

C

Prison visitors Justin Whitehead, Fr Ben mahlangu OmI of Victory Park in Johannesburg, Busi makenete and Cynthia Whitehead bring The Southern Cross to Leeuwkop prison in Johannesburg where inmates read it enthusiastically. the three spiritual workers are from holy trinity parish in midrand.

The Southern Cross is sent to prison chaplains throughout South africa for distribution among prisoners. the initiative is financed by the Southern Cross associates Campaign, which also funds the distribution of South africa’s only Catholic weekly to seminaries, hospitals and army bases. For more information or to become an associate, visit www.scross.co.za/associates-campaign or e-mail admin@scross.co.za or call Pamela Davids at 021 465 5007. (Photo from Fr Jordan Ngondo)

Light a virtual candle: Justice & Peace website calls to prayer

By Stuart Graham

A

JUSTICE AND PEACE website wants to use the power of online prayer to fight injustice and poverty.

Fr Stan Muyebe OP, coordinator of the Justice and Peace Department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said the website is about hope and prayer, although it often covers sad news.

“Prayer has the power to transform our society,” said Fr Muyebe. “We often underestimate such power. At the same time, the mercy of God has the power to transform the structural ills in our society. The website seeks to remind us of such power.”

The website (prayingthehumnanrights news.net) is open to anyone who would like to stand in “prayerful solidarity” with victims of injustice and tragedy, said Fr Muyebe, who started the website in 2013 after being asked to lead the Justice and Peace Department.

Visitors to the site are invited to light a candle by clicking on a news item image.

“I felt that our work with the victims of poverty and injustice in Southern Africa should start and end in prayer,” the Dominican said.

Fr Muyebe said the success of the website is not to be measured by the number of virtual candles lit and prayers posted on the site, but by the number of people whom God has inspired to “embrace the spirituality of praying the news”.

“In our work with the victims of poverty, violence and injustice as a Justice and Peace Department, we have often encountered the structural sin as being the root cause of such experiences,” said Fr Muyebe.

“In praying that structural change happens in the context of the people that are mentioned in the news, our starting point is our need for conversion as a society, our need to acknowledge our need for God’s mercy.”

HURCH leaders are calling on Catholics to support a court battle stopping pornography from being broadcast on South African televisions.

Michael Mayer, a lecturer at the Jesuit Institute, called for Catholics to support an application by the Justice Alliance of South Africa (JASA) to stop StarSat from airing pornography.

“Porn has now made its entrance onto TV screens that can be broadcast into the home,” said Mr Mayer, adding: “The question is, what is the Catholic Church in South Africa going to do about the destruction of morality through porn?”

The matter is due to be heard in the Western Cape High Court on August 11 when JASA will challenge the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s (Icasa) granting a licence to TopTV (now StarSat) to air pornography between 8pm and 5am.

Mr Mayer said that JASA’s John Smyth had requested that the Catholic Church come on board as a friend of the court. He said JASA had access to junior counsel but that a senior advocate “could really assist them”.

Icasa dismissed the application in April 2013 on the basis that opponents argued only on moral and not on scientific grounds.

It said the objectors failed to prove that there is a link between porn and gender-based violence, which includes rape.

Mr Mayer said JASA had expanded its porn concerns to protect children and women from Internet and cellphone pornography.

In January Mr Smyth met with the thenminister for Women, Children and Disabled Persons, Lulu Xingwana, who “expressed her personal concern about Internet and especially mobile phone pornography”.

Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, head of the Moral Regeneration Movement, has warned that the airing of pornography on television channels could have “huge implications” for South Africa “in terms of violence against women and children”.

He expressed concern about “what effect it will have, especially on those of an impressionable age”.

Freedom of expression is a right that should be exercised with extreme caution, Fr Mkhatshwa said.

The court battle comes amid a public outcry after Cape Town high school girls were implicated in a fetish porn video in which they took part in sexual acts with a man while crushing a fish with their feet.

The pornography industry has boomed in

a court bid to stop tV content provider StarSat from broadcasting pornography will continue in august. the past decade due largely to the growth of the Internet and the emergence of smartphones.

Research by website Pornhub found that South Africans watch Internet porn longer on average than the rest of the world. Out of an estimated 35 million daily users of porn, 91 000 are South African and they watch for ten minutes and 35 seconds, far longer than the world average of one minute and 39 seconds.

There are around 25 million porn sites globally, with 12% of all websites being pornrelated.

“Pocket porn” on cellular phones is also a new trend as smartphones become increasingly ubiquitous.

Fr Mkhatshwa said pornography has the potential to commercialise and cheapen sexual relations, but that it is ultimately a matter of choice.

“You can’t hide from it,” he said. “You also can’t guide the behaviour of people by making more and more laws. The Church’s role is to provide leadership and strong moral guidance.”

Rosa Calaca, the director of the Catholic Schools Office in Gauteng, said pornography has been a problem at schools, but that she isn’t aware of an escalation in its use.

There is a concern, however, that social media could play a part in the spread of pornography among school pupils.

“The problem is the misuse of social media of which pornography is a part,” she said.

“Teachers at our Catholic schools work very hard at a systems approach to the problem. We try to create the right climate at the school with a culture of restorative justice and codes of behaviour [which] address everything from bullying to respect for the dignity of each person,” Ms Calaca said.

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the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

LOCAL

Icy winter keeps Cape crisis team on standby

By Stuart Graham

I

CY weather sweeping over the Cape peninsula has kept Catholic Welfare and Development’s crisis relief team on permanent standby.

Nontsikelelo Dwangu, 44, the head of the crisis relief and prevention programme, said battling the cold and wet, as well as encountering angry anti-government protesters, is all in a day’s work for herself and her Khayelitsha-based team of three.

“There has been flooding in the Harare section this morning and we are waiting for a call for us to deliver supplies,” said Ms Dwangu on the day The Southern Cross interviewed her.

“We need to be constantly prepared. We need to make sure that the right things are delivered to the right people.”

It’s not unusual for 180 or even more shacks to burn down in the

areas in which the team operates.

People often lose their shelter, beds, clothing, food and household items. Important documents such as birth and marriage certificates, drivers’ licences and identity documents are often destroyed.

Ms Dwangu and her team are often seen near disaster sites handing out blankets and tinned food to families who have lost their homes and possessions.

Situations are often volatile, however, especially during service delivery protests.

“It can be very risky to go into those areas when people are angry.

They often think we are with the government,” Ms Dwangu said.

“We are often alerted to risks by some community members whom we work closely with.”

The relief team works with the City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management, Eskom and children’s

organisations. “There are a lot of specialists in the field and that makes our job easier,” said Ms Dwangu.

The team uses volunteers to give paraffin-safety lessons in high-need areas such as Masiphumelela and Gugulethu.

Ms Dwangu said the worst incident she had seen was a fire in Langa in 2011 when more than 300 shacks burned.

“We saw how people were displaced. Some were already building up their shacks again. We were assisting the people with food, blankets... I’ll never forget that scene of devastation.”

Ms Dwangu said the team often holds educational workshops to raise awareness about fire prevention.

“We have to get people to reduce these kind of incidents,” she said.

“They are so often preventable.”

Sea Sunday 13th July 2014 The Appeal:

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the board of the Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Company, which publishes The Southern Cross, has said a fond farewell to director mary Lack (seated), who has retired from the board after serving on it since 1995. Chairman Chris moerdyk (right) paid tribute to ms Lack’s loyal dedication and valuable contribution to the company over almost 20 years. With them is Pamela Davids, business manager of The Southern Cross.

Win Holy Land and Rome trip for two in Dominican raffle StaFF rePOrter

T

WO lucky winners of a raffle organised on behalf of the Dominican Order will accompany Fr Emil Blaser OP on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Rome in a prize valued at about R70 000.

Fr Blaser, a Dominican priest and station director of Radio Veritas, said the proceeds from the raffle will go towards financing the training of local priests in the order.

“It costs R60 000 to R80 000 to train just one young man for the priesthood,” Fr Blaser said.

“So by taking part in this raffle you will be supporting a very important cause with long-term benefits, especially at a time when we are having too few priests.

“One priest can make a big difference in the lives of many people over a lifetime. Supporting this raffle is an investment in the future of our Church,” he said.

The pilgrimage, from August 31 to September 11, will be led by Fr Blaser, accompanied by Fr Brian Mhlanga OP. Guided by Rimon Makhlouf, a Catholic Palestinian who recently visited South Africa on a lecture tour, the pilgrimage will visit all the impor-

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tant Christian sites in the Holy Land, such as Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem and the Jordan River. Couples will be able to renew their wedding vows in Cana.

In Rome the group will attend Pope Francis’ general audience and see sites such as the city’s great basilicas and the Sistine chapel, as well as historical monuments such as the Colosseum.

Mass will be celebrated every day, including a special one in the fifthcentury Dominican basilica of Santa Sabina, where such saints as Dominic, Thomas Aquinas and Pope Pius V were based.

Tickets for the raffle are R250 per entry. A maximum of 2 000 tickets will be sold, and the winning ticket will be drawn live on Radio Veritas on July 31 at 7:15. “There is no time to lose,” Fr Blaser said.

He said that there are still limited seats available on the pilgrimage.

To see the itinerary for the pilgrimage visit the website www.fowler tourssa.co.za/dominican-pilgrimage. n To enter the pilgrimage raffle, SMS the word “HOLY” and your name to 41809 or e-mail your name to lydia@so dapop.co.za to receive the bank details.

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the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

LOCAL

Finding God in arts fest StaFF rePOrter

T

HE mission of the Jesuits is to “find God in all things”. To take this theory further, a team from the Jesuit Institute is heading to Grahamstown for this month’s National Arts Festival.

“The event draws together thousands of people from across the country and across the world seeking to be inspired by dance, drama, classical music, jazz and comedy. It is our belief that God is present in all forms of the arts and we are going to help people explore that spiritual dimension,” said Fr John Moffatt SJ. With kind permission of the Franciscans, the Jesuits are taking over St Patrick’s in the centre of the city to host their events.

Each day from Monday, July 7 to Saturday, July 12 there will be lectures and also guided meditations, drawing on biblical and non-biblical texts that connect with the arts.

In addition, there will be “spiritual conversations”—a term coined by St Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits— when the team will encourage people to drop in for a coffee and a chat.

“If you have seen a show that really inspired you, or a performance that touched you deeply, this is a chance to talk to someone about how you felt connected to the transcendent, whatever name you give it,” explained Frances Correia of the Jesuit Institute.

Fr Anthony Egan SJ added that “the extraordinary Stations of the Cross by Joseph Capelle, usually housed at the Jesuit church near Wits University, will be coming down with us. We want to show how a modern artist can give new expression to an ancient devotion.”

The Jesuit Institute activities are part of Spiritfest, an established spiritual sub-festival based around the Anglican cathedral.

Chris Mann of Rhodes University,

F

AITH-SHARING programme Ecclesia in the archdiocese of Cape Town is encouraging its groups to follow the example of Pope Francis by putting their faith into action.

Joan Armstrong, who leads the annual spiritual guidance programme which was launched in 2012, said the Church is hoping to spur people to make a difference as a result of their faith in Christ.

“We want people to look at the poor and hungry and put their faith into action,” she said. “This ties in with what Pope Francis says, which is to live your faith like Jesus did.”

The Ecclesia programme involves faith-sharing meetings of between six and 12 people. The groups meet weekly for the duration of the Eccle-

one of the organisers, was especially delighted to welcome the added contribution by the Jesuit Institute.

Although this is their first time at the festival, Jesuits have a long historical connection with Grahamstown. It was here that they first started their mission in South Africa and ran St Aidan’s College from 1876 to 1973.

Festival-goers can find more details on Page 285 of the programme, or can contact the Jesuit Institute on arts@jesuitinstitute.org.za or call 076 570 2497.

sia programme. Meetings, held in private homes, consist of watching a 10minute Ecclesia DVD, followed by a prayer session.

The members then reflect, share their input, their life experience and bible verses and quotes from Vatican II, provided in an Ecclesia booklet.

“Previous years looked at internal faith,” said Ms Armstrong. “Now we are starting to say what are we doing in the wide world.”

The new portion of Ecclesia launches at Springfield Convent on August 30 under the name “Brave New Church”.

“We have a whole youth and young adult component taking part,” said Ms Armstrong.

Ecclesia has a three-fold motto of sharing faith, building the community and changing lives, she said.

Fatima Saturdays set to grow StaFF rePOrter

T

HE Schoenstatt shrine in Bedfordview, Johannesburg, was filled to capacity in June for the first of “Five Fatima Saturdays”, and convenor Manny de Freitas is hopeful that attendance numbers will increase at the next event, to be held on July 5 at 16:30.

The Five Fatima Saturdays originated when one of the visionaries of Fatima, Sr Lucia dos Santos, received a visit by the Child Jesus and the Virgin Mary, calling on people to confess, receive Communion and say the rosary for five Saturdays in a row.

Mr De Freitas said: “Through the

By Stuart Graham

to care about declaring party funds but they couldn’t broach the topic because the African National Congress would threaten their funders. “They don’t want to touch it—unless we force them to, as citizens.”

Mr Bird said at the round-table discussion, which reviewed the fairness of the May elections, that the media had to hold the government to account for the way it behaved in the run-up to the polls.

He specifically mentioned the department of social development which, he noted, had handed out food parcels shortly before the elections.

“They think we are too stupid to remember things. Or they think we aren’t going to care about things,” Mr Bird said.

“This is where the media is so powerful. We have to remind

S

OUTH Africans must push their politicians to reveal where their money comes from, the director of a media watchdog said at a discussion hosted by the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office in Cape Town.

“One of the biggest scandals we didn’t get to hear about in news media over the election period is party funding,” said William Bird, a director for Media Monitoring Africa.

“This is a substantial gap in our media. None of these political parties want to declare their party funds,” he said.

“This isn’t going to be addressed by politicians, because none of them want to touch this… it’s stinkier than Nkandla.”

Mr Bird said all parties claimed

HOLY LAND & JORDAN

New Ecclesia to launch

By Stuart Graham

Media needs to push for politicians to be transparent and reveal funders them that we do remember these things.”

The Western Cape’s provincial electoral officer, Rev Courtney Sampson, questioned whether it was possible to have free and fair elections “when you live in the most unequal society in the world”.

“You become aware very soon that those who are privileged with money will run to the courts and those who are poor will run to the streets,” he said. “There are different responses to the expression of people’s discontent.”

Rev Sampson said “we have lots to worry about for local government election in 2016”.

He added, that South Africa’s democracy is under threat as desperation edges out the determination to fight for policies that would create a better society.

Holy Redeemer Pilgrimage jOURNEyS OF

One of the Stations of the Cross by Joseph Capelle which will be featured at the National arts Festival in Grahamstown to explore how we find God in the arts.

tireless efforts of Sr Lucia and others, this great, yet simple devotion has spread around the world.”

The Five Saturdays start on the first Saturday of each month from June until October.

“All are invited to recite the rosary at 16:30 on Saturdays August 2, September 6 and October 4 at the Schoenstatt shrine in Bedfordview,” Mr de Freitas said.

At the second of the Five Fatima Saturdays, the Sorrowful mysteries will be meditated on.

Mr De Freitas said that at the last of the Five Saturdays, in October, all 20 mysteries will be meditated on as a culmination of the devotion.

3

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4

the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

INTERNATIONAL

Call to ‘hear the laity’ on Church teachings

By CINDy WOODeN

W

HEN a significant portion of the Catholic faithful ignore or reject a Church teaching, it is often—but not always—a sign that social and cultural pressures are weakening their faith or that Church leaders simply have not found a way to explain the teaching, said members of the International Theological Commission.

The commission published the document “Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church” on the Vatican website, with the approval of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The theologians, who were appointed to the commission by Pope Benedict XVI, had been asked to explain the meaning, purpose and limits of sensus fidei and sensus fidelium—the capacity of individual believers and of the Church as a whole to discern the truth of faith.

“The sensus fidei fidelis,” they said, “is a sort of spiritual instinct that enables the believer to judge spontaneously whether a particular teaching or practice is or is not in conformity with the Gospel and with apostolic faith. It is intrinsically linked to the virtue of faith itself; it flows from, and is a property of, faith.”

While the validity and importance of different Church teachings cannot be the subject of a popular vote, the degree to which they are or are not accepted by most

Catholics is important, the commission members wrote.

“When the reception of magisterial teaching by the faithful meets with difficulty and resistance,” the document said, “appropriate action on both sides is required.”

Catholics “must reflect on the teaching that has been given, making every effort to understand and accept it”, the document said. “Resistance, as a matter of principle, to the teaching of the magisterium is incompatible with the authentic sensus fidei.”

At the same time, “the magisterium must likewise reflect on the teaching that has been given and consider whether it needs clarification or reformulation in order to communicate more effectively the essential message”.

W

riting about Catholic laypeople, the commission said: “Not only do they have the right to be heard, but their reaction to what is proposed as belonging to the faith of the apostles must be taken very seriously, because it is by the Church as a whole that the apostolic faith is borne in the power of the Spirit.”

While “the faithful have an instinct for the truth of the Gospel”, the document said, there are situations in which Catholics claim to be relying on that instinct when, in fact, they are promoting deviations from the Christian faith, particularly on moral issues.

The document explains what

sensus fidei means, gives biblical evidence for its importance, looks at the history of its development in the Church, provides some criteria for discerning when it is authentic and discusses how it is “different from the majority opinion of the faithful in a given time or place”.

Particularly drawing on the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, members of the theological commission rejected the idea that Catholic laity are to blindly obey everything the pope and bishops tell them.

However, the document emphasised the importance of assuming Church leaders are correct, trying to understand the basis for their teaching, for praying, regularly receiving the sacraments, studying and being an active member of the Catholic community before claiming to be able to discern that a Church teaching needs adjustment.

“It is clear that there can be no simple identification between the sensus fidei and public or majority opinion,” the document said.

“These are by no means the same thing.”

“Faith, not opinion, is the necessary focus of attention,” it said.

“Opinion is often just an expression, frequently changeable and transient, of the mood or desires of a certain group or culture, whereas faith is the echo of the one Gospel, which is valid for all places and times.”—CNS The full text can be found online at http://bit.ly/1m7AMfc

a woman looks outside of a shop as people wait for Pope Francis’ arrival in Cassano allo Ionio in southern Italy’s Calabria region. the image of Pope Francis promotes a flavour of ice cream, with strawberry and mascarpone, dedicated to the pope. at a mass with 250 000 people in a field near the town of Sibari, Pope Francis strongly condemned organised crime, saying that mafiosi place themselves outside the Church and must therefore consider themselves excommunicated. (Photo: Paul haring/CNS)

Malyasian court ‘copyrights’ God’s name for Islam

M

Pope opposes legalisation of dagga

By CINDy WOODeN

P

OPE Francis has said legalising marijuana and other so-called “recreational drugs” has never curbed drug addiction rates and has little impact on the criminal organisations trafficking drugs around the world.

“No to every type of drug use. It is as simple as that,” Pope Francis said during an audience with about

450 representatives of national and international drug enforcement agencies.

Pope Francis said he would not be surprised if international drug trafficking leads the world in income production, and “this is sad”.

Even worse, he said, too many young people around the world never get a job offer, but frequently get offered drugs.

“The lives of more and more

young people and adolescents are in danger,” he said.

“Let me state this is in the clearest terms possible: The problem of drug use is not solved with drugs,” he said. “Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise.”

He also urged drug enforcement officials to recognise the need for serious drug prevention programmes.—CNS

ALAYSIA’S highest court has upheld a lower-court ruling that a Catholic newspaper may not use the word “Allah” to refer to God in its Malaylanguage edition.

The lower court had said use of “the word Allah is not an integral part of the faith in Christianity,” adding that “the usage of the word will cause confusion in the community”.

Jesuit Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, a Kuala Lumpur-based Catholic weekly, has said Allah is the word for God in Malay.

He told Vatican Radio after the high-court ruling that although many people believe this ends his case, “there is a provision to have it

be reviewed, and that is what we are going to explore once we get the written judgment of the judges”.

He also told Vatican Radio that the Christian community has been suffering since independence in the 1960s.

“We have been enduring the pain of this situation of...being marginalised in some ways for a long time,” Fr Andrew said.

“We have lost all our schools; it’s difficult to build churches; and now it’s difficult to import books...or any materials which contain the word Allah.”

Some Muslims claim Christians using “Allah” could be used to convert Muslims to Christianity. The majority of Malaysia’s 29 million people are Muslim.—CNS

Nigerian bishop: Boko Haram terror is a result of corruption

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HE bishop of a northern Nigerian diocese has said that among the factors which has led to violence by the radical Islamist Boko Haram group there is the government’s corruption and lack of administration.

“The grounds [Boko Haram] have against the Nigerian state are basically the same as ordinary Nigerians have about the persistence of corruption, the growing inequalities, the fact that the political system is not working and that poverty is increasing,” said Bishop Matthew Kukah of Sokoto.

“There is nothing that Boko Haram does that is tolerable… they are purely and simply criminals who are robbing banks and seizing individuals, they’re kidnapping young women, they’re killing people all over the place.”

Women in Lagos, Nigeria, demand the release of 276 school girls abducted by terror group Boko haram in april. (Photo: akintunde akinleye, reuters/CNS) The bishop’s comments came at the 11th annual meeting of the Oasis International Foundation in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was themed “The Temptation of Violence: Religions between War and Reconciliation.”

Bishop Kukah delivered a paper discussing Nigerians' plight under Boko Haram, which

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launched an uprising in 2009 and aims to impose sharia law on Nigeria. It has targeted security forces, politicians, Christian minorities and moderate Muslims in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north.

Bishop Kukah said Boko Haram’s prominence in Nigeria’s north came against “the backdrop of a state whose apparatus of governance had become very weak while the Muslim ulama (lawyer class) was also losing its credibility and moral authority”.

“Clearly, what is happening today lies in the years of corruption [and] mismanagement of state resources which has consigned our citizens to a life of misery and squalor,” he said.

The bishop said that Boko Haram’s references to “justice” and “sharia” are not only driven ideologically but also an expression of “the frustration that has spread across the country”.—CNA

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INTERNATIONAL

the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

Polish bishops sorry for abuse cover-ups

By JONathaN LuxmOOre

P muna handel and her daughter, maria, 2, from Bethlehem, Palestine, enjoy music at the Bethlehem Live festival. the festival focuses on faith, justice and culture. the project was initiated in 2013 by the holy Land trust, a non-profit peace-building organisation in Bethlehem, which is entirely encircled by an Israeli separation wall. Lucy talgieh, 40, a Catholic, said: “For us Palestinians, any act which helps us relieve our stress is good. all Palestinians are living in a prison, not only those in jail. For us this is a message of hope.” (Photo: Debbie hill/CNS)

Despite attacks, ‘family basic unit of society’

By CINDy WOODeN

T

HE continuing strength of many traditional families around the world and the longing of many people to have such a family demonstrate that “despite past or even current challenges, the family, in fact, is the fundamental unit of human society”, said the Vatican observer to United Nations agencies in Geneva.

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the family “continually exhibits a vigour much greater than that of the many forces that have tried to eliminate it as a relic of the past or an obstacle to the emancipation of the individual or to the creation of a freer, egalitarian and happy society”.

The archbishop emphasised how important traditional families are for the development of the individual and for community development efforts.

Debates about “the nature and

definition of the family” at the Human Rights Council and other UN agencies often give the impression that “the family is more of a problem than a resource to society”, the archbishop said. Yet “most people find unique protection, nurture and dynamic energy from their membership in a strong and healthy family founded upon marriage between a man and a woman”.

And at a time when many countries are debating same-sex marriage, he said, “ample evidence has demonstrated that the best interest of the child is assured in a harmonious family environment in which the education and formation of children develop within the context of lived experience with both male and female parental role models”.

The Vatican, he said, firmly believes “the family and marriage need to be defended and promoted not only by the state, but also by the whole of society”.—CNS

OLAND’S Catholic Church has held a penitential service for victims of sexual abuse by priests, after calls for more action to curb molestation in the country.

“It was said this was America’s problem, and then a problem of Anglo-Saxon countries, and then a problem for the West—the frontiers were pushed ever further so we could insist it didn’t affect us,” said Bishop Piotr Libera of Plock, a former bishops’ conference secretarygeneral.

“As bishops, we must admit that, instead of putting the good of children in first place, we too often allowed ourselves to be deceived by the fraud, duplicity and denial mechanisms of perpetrators of the crime of paedophilia,” he said.

“Ashamed and repentant, we ask for forgiveness,” he said in a Mass in Krakow’s Jesuit basilica. “We ask God and we ask people who were hurt by the priests.”

The Vatican nuncio, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, and Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno also attended the Mass.

At a parallel conference on child abuse at Krakow’s Jesuit Academy, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz said there is “no place in the priesthood or religious life” for people who harm children. He said the evil of a

few caused “the distrust and suspicion of the people,” and the pain of fixing the situation “cannot be compared to the injury inflicted on many young people by certain priests and monks”.

The Polish Church has faced accusations of covering up sexual abuse by priests, at least two dozen of whom have been convicted in publicised cases, although some analysts put the number higher.

In March 2012, the bishops’ conference said it had adopted guidelines in line with Vatican instructions on abuse, but would not offer material damages or “cooperate with the judicial process” when confessional secrets were involved. Last year, it launched antiabuse training programme for priests and religious, and named Jesuit Father Adam Zak as its child protection officer.

In October, the bishops’ conference apologised for abuse by priests and approved new “principles for preventing cases of paedophilia”, as well as three annexes to its 2012 guidelines setting out care for victims, canonical procedures for handling accusations and an abuse-related formation programme for seminarians.

However, it again declined to offer financial compensation to victims.—CNS

Pope calls for religious liberty

By CINDy WOODeN

R

EAL religious liberty includes the freedom to live according to the values taught by one’s faith, Pope Francis told participants in a Rome conference, “International Religious Liberty and the Global Clash of Values”.

“Religious freedom is not just a matter of thought or private devotion,” the pope said. “It is the freedom to live—both privately and publicly—according to the ethical principles that are a consequence of the truth found.”

Pope Francis said ensuring people’s right to live their religious values is increasingly difficult in the modern world “where weak thinking...lowers the level of ethics in general and, in the name of a false understanding of tolerance, ends up persecuting those who defend the truth about the human person and its ethical consequences.”

Religious freedom is a “fundamental right of the human person” and a recognition of the dignity of the human capability “to seek the truth and adhere to it”, the pope said.

National and international laws and organisations must “recognise, guarantee and protect religious liberty,” the pope said.—CNS

Some of the more than 500 sets of twins who took part in a mass in the Indian city of Kothanalloor, in Kerala state.

(Photo from Kothanalloor parish)

Mass for 500 pairs of twins By aNtO aKKara

M

ORE than 500 sets of twins—as young as 54 days and as old as 87 years—participated in a unique celebration for the feast of the twin saints, Gervasis and Prothasus.

Some came as far as 400km from across India’s Kerala state for the celebration at the Syro-Malabar Catholic parish named for the saints, in Kothanalloor.

“The feast is becoming popular all over Kerala and more and more [pairs of] twins are attending the feast each year,” said Syro-Malabar Father George Njarakunnel, a priest in Kothanalloor.

Fr Njarakunnel said the first gathering for twins was in 2007, when 35 sets attended.

Ss Gervasis and Prothasus were

twin brothers who became martyrs after they were scourged and beheaded for their faith in the second century, near Milan.

The celebration in Kothanalloor includes procession of twins, a dedication service led by Palai Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt, Mass and lunch for 3 000 people, including relatives of the twins.

“Our parish members collect funds and host all the guests from across the state on this special feast,” Fr Njarakunnel said.

This year’s gathering included five sets of twin nuns and three pairs of twin priests. One school sent 23 sets of twins.

Kothanalloor parish alone has 62 pairs of twins among its 750 families, and, Fr Njarakunnel added, “We are expecting the 63rd pair [in the parish] soon.”—CNS

5

For itinerary of this pilgrimage see fowlertourssa.co.za/dominican-pilgrimage

6

the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Living in the past denies the Spirit

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

W

Convert the gangsters

P

OPE Francis assumed a great risk to his personal safety when he issued a strong condemnation of organised crime at a Mass in southern Italy in June.

The pope was speaking in the region of Calabria, a stronghold of the ’Ndrangheta crime syndicate which is said to be even more powerful and richer than the Sicilian mafia. So when he declared these criminals “excommunicated”, to the loud applause of the 250 000 people at the Mass, the pope—and with that the Catholic Church—made powerful enemies.

The pope courageously said what needed to be explicitly stated, and thereby offered those suffering under the weight of crime the Church’s solidarity and encouragement.

What goes for the ‘Ndrangheta goes for all organised crime.

When Pope Francis defined the Calabrian syndicate as representing “the adoration of evil and contempt for the common good”, he was also addressing the crime syndicates of Palermo and New York, of Lagos and Hong Kong, Moscow, Juárez, São Paulo, Bangkok and throughout the world.

And he also addressed the gangs that terrorise the communities of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, East London, Polokwane, Port Elizabeth and throughout South Africa.

To all of these, from the Guccisuited godfathers to the gunwielding street gangsters, Pope Francis addressed these words: “Those who follow the path of evil, like the mafiosi do, are not in communion with God; they are excommunicated!”

He made it clear that personal piety does not compensate for an evil lifestyle. Even if the mob families or gangsters go to Mass and decorate their homes and lairs with religious images and items, he said, they have cut themselves off from communion with the Church and with God. They cannot be regarded as Catholics in good standing, and this may compromise their access to certain sacraments.

The secular media, not versed in the finer points of canon law, misunderstood the pope’s words as representing a formal decree of excommunication, akin to an ayatollah’s fatwa (though, obviously, much more welcome).

The pope has no power to

issue a formal collective excommunication except through a due process involving an official declaration by the Church of an interdict being placed upon a guilty party. Such excommunications are known as ferendae sententiae (“sentence to be passed”) and usually involve matters of theology or dogma.

The excommunication the pope referred to is the automatic kind, known in canon law as latae sententiae (“sentence passed”). It means that by having committed certain serious transgressions, such as involvement in an abortion or, according to Pope Francis, involvement in organised crime, one has incurred automatic excommunication by reason of the offence itself and without the intervention of any ecclesiastical judge.

To lift a ferendae sententiae excommunication requires a process of appeals and judgment; to lift a latae sententiae excommunication it is usually enough to make a confession and to renounce the sin or lifestyle which incurred the automatic excommunication in the first place.

This means that there is hope for gangsters and mobsters: salvation and everlasting life is available to them if they convert from their life of iniquity.

The faithful can play a part in that by being agents in their conversion, in communities and in correctional facilities.

Our photo on the front-page of this edition shows prison visitors at Leeuwkop jail in Gauteng.

These commendable missionaries work among people who by their evil acts separated themselves from God, and try to show them a way back to him.

The Southern Cross contributes to this by supplying prison chaplains with weekly issues of the newspaper for distribution among prisoners. Reportedly, these are sought-after items.

In their mission, the prison ministers may invoke Pope Francis’ message: “When instead of adoring the Lord one substitutes the adoration of money, one opens the path to sin, personal interests and exploitation.”

The message prison ministers give to the inmates of jails is the same the Church has to amplify to gangsters: when you persist in doing evil, you separate yourself from God. Turn away from your life of evil and walk in the light of the Lord—before it is too late.

Join us as a sister and through Christ, bring healing and joy to our world

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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.

HY do Catholics so often want to live in the past? They voice such contempt for the dynamism of the living Spirit of God. Living is not static. It is a constant challenge—a battle for creativity against the destroyer of life, Satan.

I am grossly insulted at Fr Bernard Brown writing (June 4): “In those days one felt proud to be a Catholic, with such a living faith in the sacred presence. However, that is not the case today.”

My faith in the “sacred presence” is as deep and total as I assume his is. And I am proud to be a Catholic, a member of the Christian Church I chose to enter in 1965.

I prefer receiving the Sacred Host in a suppliant hand rather than stick-

Spiritual readiness key to Eucharist

I

REFER to the letter from Fr Bernard Brown (June 4) regarding the manner of reception of the Eucharist at Mass in our day.

There are some ridiculous notions that remain with us from our youth. For instance, I can remember clearly the religious sister who prepared me for first Holy Communion going on ad infinitum about the “danger” of toothpaste being swallowed, even accidentally, while brushing one’s teeth, before receiving Communion. Those were the days, of course, of the fast from midnight before receiving Communion.

What is of the utmost importance, rather, is the fervent disposition necessary to receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord in reception of the Eucharist.

I cannot see the importance as to whether one receives the Eucharist on the tongue or in the hand. The argument that the tongue is a more “worthy” means of reception is preposterous. Just see what James 3:512 has to say about the tongue!

What is important to the Lord is the right disposition of the heart.

When Samuel went to Jesse to select a king from among Jesse’s sons, Samuel chose the youngest, David, who tended the sheep, for “not as man does God see, for man sees the appearance, but God looks at the heart” (1 Sam 16:7).

For much of the first millennium, the normal practice of receiving the Eucharist was in the hand.

See St Cyril of Jerusalem, 348AD; St Theodore of Mopsuestia, 428AD; St Bede of Jarrow, doctor of the Church, 735AD. I cannot accept that our Lord actually placed the sacred species on the tongues of the Apostles at the Last Supper! One book I know of even tries to force the argument for

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ing my tongue out at the priest. Also, I prefer to receive the Sacred Blood of Jesus rather than have only the priest receive it on my behalf.

Fr Brown is probably unaware of how many Catholics may have “profaned” the Sacred Presence in their hearts and minds during an only habitual reception while attending Mass under some or other social constraint.

Or of how many may have “adulterated” the presence by not receiving it at Mass while under some or other prescribed misapprehension that led them to remain static in their pews throughout Mass.

These are the “old guard” who still don’t trust coming back to a

Communion on the tongue with a reproduction of a famous painting from the Renaissance period, cleverly altered to make it appear as though our Lord is placing the bread on an Apostle’s tongue at the Last Supper (see Get Us Out of Here

by Maria Simma).

We Catholics often stress the externals to the exclusion of the disposition of the heart towards God. We may “gallop” through ten Hail Marys under the mistaken idea that the number of times the prayer is said is what is important. Yet one fervent prayer of “Jesus, I trust in you” surely cannot fail to touch the heart of God. There are Mass-goers who genuflect on both knees (as at Benediction) to “show” their piety, before entering their pew for Mass.

Others disrupt the flow of communicants to the sacred table by doing the same, along with making the sign of the cross before the priest as they are about to receive, causing the often elderly priest to have to bend down low to place the host on the recipient’s tongue, causing something of a “hiccough” in the stream of communicants to the altar.

Are these externals merely for show, and to attract attention to self? Exhibitionism has no place in the performance of the sacred liturgy.

John Lee, Johannesburg

Henry funeral

T

HE letters from readers as well as

by Fr S’milo Mngadi about the poor attendance of “white” Catholics at the recent funeral of the late Archbishop Lawrence Henry of Cape Town provides much food for thought.

I am painfully aware that some conservative members of our faith were deeply aggrieved when Archbishop Henry officiated at a special memorial service in 2009 for Catholic martyrs Coline Williams and Robert Waterwitch. Both these 20-year-olds died in a limpet mine explosion in 1989, at the height of our campaign in the fight against the apartheid regime.

I believe that the memorial service was a fitting tribute to these fallen comrades, who gave their lives, like the martyrs who perished before them, by paying the ultimate sacrifice for their unwavering faith and belief.

Judging from the resultant tirade in the letters columns of The Southern Cross at the time, it appears that the wounds of our past were and still are fairly raw. The attendance of only a few of our “white” brothers and sisters in Christ at the very solemn Requiem Mass for Archbishop Henry did not surprise me.

In 2009, I was also mandated to write on a special feast day celebration of the Grassy Park parish where His Grace was the main celebrant.

During his homily, Archbishop Henry reminded us that “we are nothing as we are made from the dust of the earth”.

How apt, then, the decision by the archbishop to choose to be buried in the local Maitland ceme-

Church they cannot believe will care for them as individuals. Prescriptions, constraints and laws do not equal “sacralisation”.

The Holy Spirit cannot be harnessed as little as human choices can. It is the risk of freedom, the loving gift of God. And why I chose to enter this real, true Church of God—the Catholic Church—is that it has the greatest potential for unity, the “oneness” that Jesus so fervently prayed to his Father for just before leaving this world in our care, our motley care.

Change, empathy, love and sacrifice embrace us all in a supportive strength towards a creative, humble future together. We only have to understand this to accept it and be reconciled for a peaceful future.

Felicity Brokensha, Cape Town

tery, alongside Coline Williams and Robert Waterwitch.

A true and blessed son of the soil returning to the earth.

Colin Arendse, Cape Town

Attack was most unfortunate

C

ARDINAL Wilfrid Napier’s vituperative attack on the integrity of The Southern Cross and its editor is unfortunate (June 18).

He has sadly displayed his ignorance of the term and constitutional right of “freedom of expression”, or the role of a newspaper and its editors and the ethics thereof.

If only the cardinal were to refer to the disclaimer at the foot of the Letters page, he could have saved himself and other readers from his unnecessary abuse.

The main point of the cardinal’s letter was to disagree with Franko Sokolic’s letter which was critical of Archbishop Denis Hurley. This is fair comment. Generally, I think many readers disagree with Mr Sokolic’s letters.

I find it strange, however, that His Eminence should require “authority” to defend Archbishop Hurley because he “worked” with him. Surely, we all have “authority” to defend anyone if there is a need to do so?

On the matter of the ordination of women, Cardinal Napier quotes Archbishop Hurley as saying, “at least let us discuss it”. If this is the case, then Archbishop Hurley was, in fact, out of line with the curia of today. Even Pope Francis has reiterated Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and the 1994 document Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

Rome has clearly stated that the door is closed and that there should be no discussion on the subject.

Personally, I believe that Pope Francis may sometime soon find a key to that “closed door”.

The cardinal uses outmoded systems such as syllogisms to support his confused views. In spite of what he says, the arguments on contraception and the morals of married couples are still the subjects of much debate within and without the Church.

His Eminence has forgotten that it was this newspaper that allowed his co-authored, controversial book God, Love, Life and Sex the coverage it enjoyed.

In the last paragraph of his letter, he again attacks the editor and pronounces Mr Sokolic’s letter “slanderous in the extreme”. For a “Prince” of the Church to make such immature statements is disconcerting.

Tony Meehan, Cape Town 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

the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Beatitudes teach leaders I N his book Blessings for Leaders, Dan R Ebener reflects on the wisdom of the beatitudes for leaders.

Leadership has always intrigued me, and much of my younger days and adult life has been spent on wondering what it would be like to be a great leader.

It is still astonishing to think that in a world of more than 7 billion people, there are only a few leaders who stand out in our time, such as Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi or Archbishop Oscar Romero.

Although all of these people, and many others like them, are great leaders in their own right, we can be totally mistaken by believing that one first has to reach this level of fame before you can be acknowledged as a true leader.

Leadership is for everyone, not just for a few, whether we are under 23 or over 83, because we have all been asked to go, teach and lead. But before we are able to do that we first come, learn and follow. And throughout our lives we lead and follow, follow and lead, interchangeably, all the time.

The beatitudes are wisdom for leadersin-training and teach us how to come, learn and follow.

Let’s look at the first beatitude and understand what this means for leaders: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3).

Leadership begins with poverty of spirit.

What does it mean to be poor in spirit and why must leaders be poor in spirit?

When we are materially poor—that is, without food, shelter or clothing—there is a material need created in us which results in an urgency for us to get these things to satisfy our material need. It is the same when we are poor in spirit.

When we are poor in spirit, there is a spiritual need, a spiritual vacuum that needs to be filled. And this can be filled only by a close proximity to God. By seeking God’s presence, his grace and his blessings, the poor in spirit build inner strength.

As we become spiritually poor, we develop strength of character. Strength of conviction. Strength of community with others. Strength of a commitment to a mission. Strength of a close relationship with God. This internal strength enables us to face the external challenges of leadership.

I

nterestingly, it is through times of crisis that we are offered the opportunity to grow spiritually and become poorer in spirit.

Consider the years during the apartheid era, especially during the 1980s, when we saw the worst political violence. People mourned and prayed together. Leaders spoke with great conviction. The people

the church on the mount of Beatitudes in Galilee. In her article Judith turner reflects on how the beatitudes can teach us to lead.

(Photo: Günther Simmermacher)

Our big debt to nuns L AST month’s murder of Sr Mary Paule Tacke, the nun responsible for founding homes for orphaned children in the Eastern Cape, has highlighted the importance of making better known the work being done by religious sisters round South Africa.

For the most part these dedicated women identify a need and simply get on with the job. They are generally a self-effacing lot, not given to blowing their trumpets. They simply follow their calling.

Yet their efforts are not always recognised.

In the case of Sr Mary Paule, who knows why the hijackers targeted an 82year-old nun? Did they not know what good work the sisters were doing there? It seems unlikely. And so a saintly woman had to die.

The Catholic Church is, perhaps, the most misunderstood of all religions. I speak from experience. My father was a Presbyterian, my mother a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. I was baptised a Methodist (the only minister in town at the time).

My mother died of heart failure when I was six. My devastated father, left with four small children ranging in age from seven months to seven years, had difficulty coping.

Initially we were farmed out to aunts but eventually my sister and I were enrolled at a government boarding school.

The venture failed. There was no supervision in the hostel. We went to school with our faces unwashed and our hair uncombed. All our clothes were stolen.

We moved from one school to another.

In despair, my father approached the Dominican sisters in Potchefstroom where he worked. Did they have space for his daughters in their boarding school? “Of course,” they said. But the local dominee was appalled. How could my father even think about handing over his offspring to the Roomse gevaar (Roman peril)?

“Will your wife look after my children?” my father asked him. The answer, predictably, was no. “We have no space.”

So, fortunately, we were handed over to Sr Lucina at the Sacred Heart convent.

Several decades have gone by since that wonderful day. My big sister was weeping when my father left us at the convent. An hour later we were having supper with our new friends in the dining room. The sisters had made certain we were not left alone for a moment.

Bedtime was an even happier experience. Sister came and tucked us in, pointing to her cubicle in the corner “in case you are worried about anything in the night”. Then she said prayers with us and we settled down quietly to sleep. spent the rest of my school days at the convent. I wasn’t always good and I got into trouble fairly often, but the sisters were always fair. They instilled a sense of right and wrong—and the need to apologise when necessary. They provided a routine so essential in the lives of the young.

Most important, they showed they cared about us. I never felt alone or unhappy in

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Faith and Life

felt a sense of unity and mission. Churches filled up. The world responded with compassion. We understood our own human weakness, our frailty as a human family and our incapacity to solve problems of this magnitude by ourselves. We turned to God and to each other. We grew in poverty of spirit.

When we face illness or death in our families, we turn to friends, neighbours and family and ask for prayers. We realise, again, that by ourselves we are not able to do anything. These are opportunities to grow spiritually and become poorer in spirit.

It is only when leaders are spiritually poor, hunger for closeness with God, and make that inner journey to fulfil their spiritual need that they are able to make an outward journey and influence others.

This is our leadership mission: to lovingly, intrinsically motivate others to follow. We cannot command and control people to follow us.

When we rely on command, control and coercion, we are more likely to instil fear than love among those being led. It is more difficult to build trust and to encourage kindness in a culture of fear.

Poverty of spirit reminds us of the need for God and others in order to accomplish our mission as leaders.

I enjoyed reading the book by Dan Ebener, a Catholic, which was published in 2012. Next month we will look at the second beatitude—”Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”—and what this means for leaders.

Winnie Graham

Point of reflection

Nuns are misunderstood in society despite all the great work they are doing with love.

I

Judith Turner

their care.

Most of all I loved Sr Gerard, a nun probably in her sixties who did the laundry and washed the dishes after meals. I was always under her feet but she never once scolded me. I loved her so much that I prayed that she could be my mother.

Sixty years on, I still think about her.

On Sundays the sisters trotted all the non-Catholics to their respective churches. Through the years no effort was made to “convert” us—though, to be honest, I longed to be a Catholic. I loved going into the chapel to say my prayers. The church became a retreat for the times I longed for my dead mother. But I was happy to be with the sisters. I wanted to be like them. I basked in their quiet holiness.

Love was not a word much used then, but I know I experienced it with those nononsense Domincans.

It followed naturally that when I had children of my own that I would want them to have the same experience. We enrolled our daughters at Holy Cross Convent in Victory Park, Johannesburg, and our sons at De La Salle College.

It was through them that I am a Catholic today. They came of their own accord, one at a time, asking if they could become Catholics. “Sister says you must see Fr Fidgeon. Please go,” the girls pleaded. And, of course, I did. The boys took the initiative themselves. Within the space of a few years I had four little Catholics in my home. We went to Mass together every Sunday.

Then, one day, I called our parish priest. “It’s my turn now,” I said.

For me it was a homecoming. This was where I belonged. Why had it taken so long for me to realise it? My late husband, Continued on page 11

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Michael Shackleton

Open Door

Voting for proabortion parties?

How does one vote, with mental reservations, for a party that provides abortion on demand?

I cannot follow Pope Benedict’s strictly rational reasoning and fear I make a little speech to myself in the wrong way.

TAH de Ruyter

T

O perform an abortion is always a matter of grave sin. Whoever intends to do so is therefore guilty of grave sin.

A politician who supports this practice and his or his party’s pro-abortion policy is equally guilty. They may not be actively assisting in abortion, but in standing for it publicly they are guilty of formal cooperation in evil.

Formal cooperation means full consent of the will in condoning the practice.

A voter goes into the polling booth, and scans the list of candidates or parties he could vote for. He is dead against abortion but drawn to a party that has an impressive record of community upliftment, yet simultaneously permits abortion on demand.

If he votes for the pro-abortionist, is he also guilty of formal cooperation in evil?

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before he became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote a memorandum in 2004, which you refer to.

He did not use the term “mental reservations” but essentially put it this way: If the voter does not share the candidate’s stand in favour of abortion but votes for him for proportionate reasons, he may do so.

An example of a proportionate reason can be found in the field of medicine. Chemotherapy is a medication that is administered with the intention of treating a cancer patient on the road to recovery. The inevitable and unpleasant hair loss and nausea that accompany this treatment are not intended. The intention is directed exclusively to the good effect of treating cancer, and this is the proportionate reason for permitting the nasty side-effects.

A proportionate or sufficient reason to vote for a pro-abortion party could be that party’s positive commitment to service delivery or some other desirable community benefit which, in the voter’s judgment, is necessary for the common good.

Cardinal Ratzinger was applying the moral principle of double effect that, in general and under certain conditions, says it is morally justified to do something for a good purpose whose positive value outweighs a negative effect. You intend to vote for the good the party says it will do, and do not intend the negative result of abortion.

The cardinal’s view was that if you believe voting in this way is worth it for a good cause, you are not formally cooperating in evil and may cast the ballot in good conscience.

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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8

the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

COMMUNITY

youth from the cathedral of Sacred heart in Pretoria were confirmed by archbishop William Slattery. Confirmands are pictured with archbishop Slattery, Fr Victor Phalana and government ministers Dipuo Peters and maite Nkoana-mashabane.

Sisters of the Capuchin adoration convent in Swellendam, Oudtshoorn diocese, received blankets for winter from benefactors tommy and hester Solomon of St Ninian’s parish in Kuils rivier, Cape town. (Inset) Sr Irma Guzman huddled in her new blanket.

twenty-one candidates from St John Bosco parish in robertsham, Johannesburg, received confirmation from archbishop Buti tlhaghale. rCIa candidates who were received into the Church at the easter vigil mass were presented to the archbishop and received a blessing.

Bishop Zolile Peter mpambani with confirmands after the holy mass at the holy trinity church in matatiele, Kokstad.

St anthony's parish in Sedgefield, Oudtshoorn diocese, celebrated the feasts of Pentecost and Corpus Christi. Fr augustine mbekwa, together with parishioners, took part in a Corpus Christi procession through the streets of Sedgefield. (Inset left) Parishioners adorned the altar of the church for Pentecost. (Inset right) the church’s altar on the Corpus Christi Sunday.

Children from holy Family parish in Bellville received their first Communion from parish priest Fr Bogdan Buksa. Catechist elizabeth Cader is pictured with the children. Catechist ursula Weber is absent from the photo.

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Fr Chikadi anyanele Cmm pictured with Fr Cyriacus Okoro (left), celebrated his 10th year of priestly ordination. Fr anyanele belongs to the Congregation of mariannhill missionaries in mthatha province. he is presently on study leave in Port elizabeth diocese and serving at St Joseph the Worker parish in Chetty.

FAITH

the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

9

Change of habits for model nuns A Spanish supermodel and actress has revealed what led her to become a nun four years ago—and she is not the first model or actress to follow the call to the religious life. Here’s a look at some women called by God to radically change their lives.

S

HE was one Spain’s most glamorous models, with her face on billboards and television screens across the country, but four years ago Sr Olalla del Sí de María walked away from it all to follow a call from God. Sr de María, 36, who was previously known as María Olalla Oliveros, recalled that she had made the decision to join the Mandate and Order of St Michael the Archangel, which was founded in 2009.

She said she had become a nun in blue and yellow cloth after an “earthquake” moment during a visit to the sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal.

“The Lord is never wrong. He asked if I will follow him, and I could not refuse,” Sr de María told the Argentinian newspaper El Diaro de Carlos Paz. Sr de María at first had her doubts, but she found that she could not shake the image of herself dressed as a nun out of her head.

Although she became a nun four years ago, she has only now decided to speak publicly about it.

“Being a model means being a benchmark, someone whose beliefs are worthy of being imitated, and I grew tired of being a model of superficiality,” she said.

“I grew tired of a world of lies, appearances, falsity, hypocrisy and deception, a society full of anti-values that exalts violence, adultery, drugs, alcohol, fighting, and a world that exalts riches, pleasure, sexual immorality and fraud,” the ex-model said.

Sr de María is not the first model to quit modelling in favour of a cloth and veil.

Amada Rosa Pérez was one of Colombia’s top models before leaving to work with a religious community in 2005 after tiring of her stressful life.

Ms Pérez told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo that she had been diagnosed with a disease that left her with partial hearing in her left ear.

The news caused her to question her lifestyle.

“I felt disappointed, unsatisfied, directionless, submerged in fleeting pleasures,” she said.

“I always sought answers and the world never gave them to me. Before I was always in a hurry, stressed out, and got upset easily,” she said.

“I want to be a model that promotes the true dignity of women and not their being used for commercial purposes,” Ms Pérez said.

“Now I live in peace, the world doesn’t appeal to me, I enjoy every moment the Lord gives me.

“Some may think I’m crazy... well, the foolishness of God is more beautiful than the wisdom of men.”

Ms Pérez now works tirelessly with a Marian religious community in Colombia and is featured in The Land of Mary , a 2013 film which is a collection of testimonies from people about their experiences with Our Lady, either by apparitions or miracles achieved by faith.

T

he two models follow in the footsteps of US Benedictine Mother Dolores Hart, who as an actress in the 1950s and early ’60s appeared in films with the likes of Elvis Presley, Montgomery Clift and Anthony Quinn.

In her biographical book The Ear of the Heart, published in 2013, she detailed her journey to the religious life as an encloistered nun, which was also the subject of the Oscarwinning documentary God Is the Bigger than Elvis.

Sr Cristina Scuccia, an Italian ursuline nun, won The Voice of Italy television singing competition.

Her big hit movie, other than her two Elvis blockbusters, was the 1960 Connie Francis vehicle Where The Boys Are, but the role which sealed her call to the vocation was that of St Clare in the film Francis, about the saint of Assisi.

Meeting Pope John XXIII during the filming in Italy amplified her call to the religious life.

She entered the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, as a novice nun and was at first received with scepticism and even some hostility from other sisters there.

She said she cried herself to sleep for many years, but was determined to become a good Benedictine contemplative nun.

Mother Dolores is not sorry to have left behind Hollywood and a life of stardom.

“I think Hollywood reflects what’s going on in the people and I think this is a very dark period in faith.

And I’m not saying faith to be a Catholic but faith in God,” she said in an interview with beliefnet.com last year.

W

hile some women leave the secular life to become religious sisters, one nun recently took to the secular stage to contribute to the Church’s new evangelisation.

Last month 25-year-old Sr Cristina Scuccia, nicknamed “The Singing Nun”, won wide praise after leading her audience in prayer after winning Italy’s version of The Voice.

In her audition, Sr Scuccia, performed the the song “No One” by US R&B singer Alicia Keys.

Sr Scuccia’s performance was so impressive that the audience give her a standing ovation. Clips of her performance soon went viral on the internet.

In The Voice format, contestants are coached by professional singers.

During the “blind audition” phase the four coaches do not see the performers; they sit with their back to them. They were visibly surprised when they turned their chairs to face the singer wearing her religious habit. Singer Raffaela Carrà even asked Sr Scuccia if she really was a nun.

The 25-year-old native of the Italian island of Sicily attended the auditions accompanied by her parents and four sisters from her community.

Throughout the contest, she wore her ankle-length black religious habit, black shoes and a crucifix around her neck.

“I came here because I have a gift and I want to share that gift. I am here to evangelise,” Sr Scuccia said.

She is not the world’s first “singing nun”. Jeanine Deckers, a member of the Dominican Order in Belgium, was also known as “The Singing Nun”, as well as Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile). She scored a world-wide hit in 1963 with her song “Dominique”.

Her early life was dramatised in a 1966 film, The Singing Nun, which starred Debbie Reynolds. The same year of the movie she left the convent and lived as a lay Dominican.

She died of suicide in 1985.

(right) maría Olalla Oliveros, one of Spain’s most glamorous models, followed God’s call to religious life.

(Left) Sr Olalla del Sí de maría is pictured second from right with her fellow sisters of St michael archangel in Spain.

(Below left) mother Dolores hart on the red carpet at the Oscars. the documentary on her life God is bigger than Elvis won the oscar for best documentary. (Below right) amada rosa Pérez left a flourishing career in modelling and acting in Colombia to join a marian community.

10

the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

CRISIS

Refugees battle to keep hope Not long ago, Christians in Syria and Iraq felt safe in their countries. Now many of them, alongside Muslim compatriots, live as refugees in Jordan. DAVE GAVLAK spoke to some of them.

D

ESPERATE to reunite with family in Europe, Moussa a young Syrian refugee, recently paid thousands of dollars to a human trafficker to help him and his brother travel abroad.

Instead, the pair found themselves tricked, half way on the opposite side of the world—in China.

Back in Jordan, with their life savings of R350 000 wasted, they almost gave up hope of seeing their mother again and the chance to start a new life.

Some refugees may consider the pair lucky that they are still alive as so many the world over have perished trying to flee to safety from conflict.

The brothers were trying their luck again and were about to fly to Istanbul in search of yet another way to reach their family.

Moussa said he was hoping to be luckier the second time around.

“I studied English at college, while holding down a job as a salesman back home. My future was bright,” said Moussa, a 33-year-old Catholic man from Syria’s northern town of Qamishli.

“We had to flee Syria because of the dangers of kidnapping and

killing of Christians by militants,” he told Catholic News Service.

Moussa escaped with his brother to Jordan in the hopes of reuniting with family in Europe.

Frustrated about his unfilled dreams, he seemed almost willing to do anything to change his current circumstances, including another attempt with a people smuggler.

He had been sleeping in a room the size of a small closet in one of the Jordanian capital’s churches, perched high up on a hill overlooking the white limestone cityscape.

The church also shelters other Syrian refugees.

“The Jordanian government doesn’t let Syrians work. I feel like my life is passing me by,” the depressed man said.

“Now, my life is sleeping and thinking. I don’t know. It’s just like that. It’s difficult,” he said, his eyes tearing up. “I want to continue my studies, get a job, marry and start a family, like anyone else.”

As Syria’s civil war grinds into its fourth year, Moussa is among the 600 000 Syrians registered with the United Nations in Jordan.

But authorities say there are more than a million Syrians sheltering here, besides the more than 300 000 Iraqi refugees in the country—and their numbers, too, are growing as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants sweep through the north and centre of the beleaguered country.

The huge numbers, in addition to half of the country’s population of Palestinian origin, make Jordan the prime destination for refugees fleeing Mideast conflicts.

Fr Khalil Jaar, who is responsible for much of the Church’s care for Iraqi and Syrian refugees in the Jordanian capital, Amman, understands the plight faced by Moussa and

Do you feel called to the Franciscan way of life?

a Syrian girl in Jordan's Zaatari refugee camp paints her vision of a perfect place to live. about 2,5 million Syrian refugees are sheltered in neighbouring countries like Jordan. (Photo: Dale Gavlak, CNS) other refugees.

A native of Bethlehem, West Bank, the Catholic priest said his Palestinian family fled to Jordan decades ago because of conflict with Israel.

“I was a refugee myself. I am the son of Palestinian refugees,” Fr Jaar said.

“I tell the refugees that they should not be shy or ashamed to receive help. The Lord provided people to care for my family. I now care for you and, someday, you may care for someone else,” the priest said.

“Above all, it is important to protect human dignity.”

I

n this same vein, Pope Francis provided three tonnes of food for these refugees during his recent pilgrimage to Jordan and the Holy Land and met many, listening with care to their difficult stories as he visited Bethany-Beyond-the-Jordan, the site where Jesus is believed to have been baptised at the River Jordan.

A 45-year-old Syrian woman, who for three months has sheltered

Prison Care and Support Network

in Jordan’s largest refugee camp in Zaatari, near the northern border with Syria, said that she is stunned by her present circumstances.

“Never in my life could I ever imagine that I would become a refugee,” said Um Hussein, whose family of ten now struggles to survive in two small tents, after fleeing bombardment and destruction outside Damascus.

“I never ever thought of leaving my homeland, let alone my town, and I certainly could not imagine that I would leave my house,” said the woman, clothed in a long black dress and wearing an Islamic headscarf as she spoke in one of the camp’s dusty, unpaved streets.

“We had a good life full of family and friends and, of course, the basics which everybody takes for granted: electricity, heating, water,” she said.

“But above all, we had security and safety. That’s one of the most important things in life, and we lost it,” she said.

“Of course, we would love to return to Syria. We would do it today, if it were possible. If there were se-

curity, we would go back because this is absolutely necessary for our children,” she emphasised.

“There is no hope now, not only for the Christians, but for others in the Middle East buffeted by war in the region,” said Khalid alMukhtar, an Iraqi Chaldean Catholic surgeon, who escaped with his family to Amman, from Baghdad.

“There is no guarantee of peace.

We are happy here in Jordan, because we have peace and security,” he said.

“We have King Abdullah and that’s the only thing that will keep us here but, in the future, we plan to live abroad and raise my children there.”

Moussa, from northern Syria, echoed the same sentiments.

“Whether Syria, Iraq, even Lebanon, maybe that feeling is the same for all of us,” the young man said, struggling with the waiting.

“Of course, I hope Syria will come back like it was before. But the current situation doesn’t seem to indicate that. I don’t trust the future,” he said.—CNS

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The SKCP volunteers belong to Parish Groups that are established at Parishes in target communities. Through the St. Kizito Movement, the physical, intellectual, emotional and psycho-social needs of OVCs are met in an holistic way. Parish Groups provide children and families with a variety of essential services, while the SKCP office provides the groups with comprehensive training and on-going support.

In order to continue its work, SKCP requires on-going support from generous donors. Funds are needed to cover costs such as volunteer training and support, emergency relief, school uniforms and children’s excursions. Grants and donations of any size are always appreciated. We are also grateful to receive donations of toys, clothes and blankets that can be distributed to needy children and families.

If you would like to find out more about St. Kizito Children’s Programme, or if you would like to make a donation, please contact Wayne Golding on (021) 782 7941 or 082 301 9385 email info@stkizito.org.za. Donations can also be deposited into our bank account: aBSa Branch: Claremont, 632005; account Name: Good hope Development Fund; account Number: 4059820320 this advertisement has been kindly sponsored

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CLASSIFIEDS

We owe a great debt to our nuns Continued from page 7 a devout Methodist, followed last, at the behest of his sons.

All this brings me back to religious sisters. I have never known them ask for acknowledgement for the good they do. They have given their hearts to God and do what is necessary.

Yet, for some reason, all sorts of weird reports occasionally surface about nuns. The sisters are supposedly involved in some or

other alleged wrongdoing. The headlines are blazened across front pages.

The old Roomse gevaar monster lives on in the minds of the uninformed.

In more than six decades—the last three as a Catholic—I have encountered only love and warmth from a range of sisters, be it at schools, hospitals or in the field. In my view they are saintly women to be cherished in our midst.

Southern CrossWord solutions SOLUTIONS TO 609. ACROSS: 4 Serpent, 8 Pardon, 9 Epitaph, 10 In good, 11 Anthem, 12 Hundreds, 18 Obsolete, 20 Career, 21 Stared, 22 Genesis, 23 Wanton, 24 Spirits. DOWN: 1 Upright, 2 Dragons, 3 Honour, 5 Emphasis, 6 Potato, 7 Nephew, 13 Exorcist, 14 Regrets, 15 Bending, 16 Gave up, 17 Veneer, 19 Outlaw.

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: Helpers of God’s Precious Infants meet the last Saturday of the month, starting with mass at 9:30 at the Sacred heart church in Somerset road, Cape town. mass is followed by a vigil at marie Stopes abortion clinic in Bree Street. Contact Colette thomas on 083 412 4836 or 021 593 9875 or Br Daniel manuel on 083 544 3375.

Padre Pio: holy hour 15:30 every 3rd Sunday of the month at holy redeemer parish in Bergvliet.

Good Shepherd, Bothasig.

Perpetual eucharistic adoration in the chapel. all hours. all welcome.

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.

DURBAN: Annual dance on July 5. the parish of St michael’s red hill, Blackburn road.

Venue: St michael’s hall. time: 7pm to 12pm. DJ: richard Noel, r70pp. For tickets contact Nicolette Goodman at 084 563 1298 or e-mail nico ette68@cellc.blackberry. com or ngoodman@ hub.co.za

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Order from books@scross.co.za or www.books.scross.co.za

or call 021 465-5007 or buy at 10 Tuin Plein, Cape Town

It is for this reason that I believe sisters should receive greater recognition for their contribution. They are everywhere: in squatter camps, hospitals, hostels, refugee centres, homes. They deserve our protection and support.

With Sr Mary Paule lost to us we can only pay tribute for all she did for our children. May she rest in peace and never be forgotten by those she loved and nurtured—and by society.

Word of the Week Grace: A free gift of God to human beings, grace is a created sharing in the life of God. It is given through the merits of Christ and is communicated by the Holy Spirit. It is necessary for salvation.

Canon: Greek for rule, norm, standard, measure. Designates the canon of sacred scripture, the list of books recognised by the Church as inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: July 2: Bishop Xolelo Thaddeus Kumalo of Eshowe diocese, on his 60th birthday.

Liturgical Calendar Year A Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday, July 6 Zechariah 9:9-10, Psalm 145:1-2, 8-11, 13-14, Romans 8:9, 11-13, Matthew 11:25-30 Monday, July 7 Hosea 2:16-18, 21-22, Psalm 145:2-9, Matthew 9:18-26 Tuesday, July 8 Hosea 8:4-7, 11-13, Psalm 115:3-10, Matthew 9:32-38 Wednesday, July 9 Hosea 10:1-3, 7-8, 12, Psalm 105:2-7, Matthew 10:1-7 Thursday, July 10, St Veronica Giuliani 2 Corinthians 4:6-11, 16, 17, Psalm 59:2, 10, 1718, Matthew 16:24-27 Friday, July 11, St Benedict Hosea 14:2-10, Psalm 51:3-4, 8-9. 12-14, 17, Matthew 10:16-23 Saturday, July 12, Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary Isaiah 6:1-8, Psalm 93:1-2, 5, Matthew 10:24-33 Sunday, July 13 Isaiah 55:10-11, Psalm 65:10-14, Romans 8:1823, Matthew 13:1-23 or Matthew 13:1-9

the Southern Cross, July 2 to July 8, 2014

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 (R1,37 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

60th WEDDING ANNIVERSARy

BOONZAIER—aubrey and Filida (née Frösler). married July 10, 1954 at St Bernadette’s church, Walmer, Port elizabeth. all praise and thanks to God for this day.

DEATH

FITZPATRICK—Fr michael edward, 23/6/1939 to 22/6/2014.

Beloved parish priest of Bryanston parish of the resurrection, Johannesburg. Will be sadly missed by his parishioners. he touched all our lives. may his dear soul rest in peace.

FITZPATRICK—Fr michael edward, 23/6/1939 to 22/6/2014.

We are saddened by the death of our wonderful parish priest, mentor and friend. Will be sorely missed by Kathy, Div, Dru, maureen and Veronique. may his dear soul rest in peace.

IN MEMORIAM

REEDING—John henry, 2/7/2004 to 2/7/2014. ten years have passed since a loving father and grandfather was called to his heavenly home, to join his wife Sylvia rosalind (who passed on on 21/6/2001) in God’s kingdom. We fondly cherish and honour the memories of the great times we shared together, which words cannot express. Inconsolably missed by your son Wallace, wife yolande and grandchildren alicia and son-in-law Lucien, Garth, renette and evan

PRAyERS

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

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Standard Bank Account: Capuchin Convent Umzumbe – Raffle; Account number: 053431901; Branch: Umhlanga; Code: 05 7829; Acc type: Savings; Reference: your cellphone number.

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. Photostat and distribute.

HOLy ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. to you I have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. help me now in my urgent need and grant my petitions. In return I promise to make your name known and publish this prayer. amen. rCP.

THANKS

GRATEFUL thanks to the Sacred heart of Jesus, Our mother mary and Ss rita, Joseph, anthony, Jude and martin de Porres for prayers answered. rCP.

PERSONAL

ABORTION is murder—Silence on this issue is not golden, it’s yellow! avoid pro-abortion politicians.

CAN yOU be silent on abortion and walk with God? matthew 7:21. See www.180movie.com HOUSE-SITTER/PETLOVER: Based at Benoni parish, will travel/with references. Phone therèse 076 206 0627. www.abortioninstru

ments.com is the graphic truth that will set you free.

HOLIDAy ACCOMMODATION

LONDON. Protea house: Single r350, twin r560 per night. Self-catering, busses and underground nearby. Phone Peter 021 851 5200. 0044 208 7484834.

ANGELWOOD B&B: Linksfield, Johannesburg, 081 590 5144.

DOVE COTTAGE—Selfcatering holiday accommodation on Leisure Isle, Knysna 6 pax. Please call Jock 083 6272464.

KNySNA: Self-catering accommodation for two in Old Belvidere with wonderful lagoon views. 044 387 1052.

KNySNA: S/c accommodation for two/three on dairy farm in gorgeous valley. Winter special r600.

084 458 8397.

MARIANELLA Guest house, Simon’s town: “Come experience the peace and beauty of God with us.” Fully equipped with amazing sea views.

Secure parking, ideal for rest and relaxation. Special rates for pensioners and clergy. malcolm Salida 082 784 5675, mjsalida@ gmail.com SEDGEFIELD: Beautiful self-catering garden holiday flat, sleeps four, two bedrooms, open-plan lounge, kitchen, fully equipped. 5min walk to lagoon. Out of season specials. Contact Les or Bernadette 044 343 3242, 082 900 6282.

STELLENBOSCH: Christian Brothers Centre. 14 suites (double/twin beds), some with fridge & microwave, others beside kitchenette & lounge, ecospirituality library. Countryside vineyard, forest, mountain views and walks; beach 20-minute drive. affordable. Phone: 021 880 0242. Web: www.cbcentre.co.za e-mail: cbctel@ gmail.com

Tony Wyllie & Co. Catholic Funeral home

Personal and Dignified 24-hour service 469 Voortrekker rd, maitland tel: 021 593 8820 48 main rd, muizenberg tel: 021 788 3728 Member of the NFDA

To advertise call Elizabeth Hutton on 021 465 5007 or at e-mail advertising @scross.co.za

LOVINg FATHER bless us, the people of AFRICA, and help us to live in justice, love and peace Mary, Mother of Africa, pray for us For prayer leaflet: sms 083 544 8449

The Southern Cross is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations of South Africa. Printed by Paarl Coldset (Pty) Ltd, 10 Freedom Way, Milnerton.

Published by the proprietors, The Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Co Ltd, at the company’s registered office, 10 Tuin Plein, Cape Town, 8001.

The Southern Cross is published independently by the Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Company Ltd. address: PO Box 2372, Cape town, 8000. Tel: (021) 465 5007 Fax: (021) 465 3850 www.scross.co.za Editor: Günther Simmermacher (editor@scross.co.za), Business Manager: Pamela Davids (admin@scross.co.za), Advisory Editor: michael Shackleton, News Editor: Stuart Graham (s.graham@scross.co.za), Editorial: Claire allen (c.allen@scross.co.za), mary Leveson (m.leveson@scross.co.za) Advertising: elizabeth hutton (advertising@scross.co.za), Subscriptions: avril hanslo (subscriptions@scross.co.za), Dispatch: Joan King (dispatch@scross.co.za), Accounts: Desirée Chanquin (accounts@scross.co.za).

Directors: C moerdyk (Chairman), archbishop S Brislin, P Davids*, S Duval, e Jackson, B Jordan, Sr h makoro CPS, m Salida, G Simmermacher*, Z tom

Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, staff or directors of The Southern Cross.

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15th Sunday: July 13 Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11, Psalm 65:10-14, Romans 8:18-23, Matthew 13:1-23

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F you want to know how God operates in our world, it may be a good idea to watch your garden grow. That is what the readings for next Sunday suggest to us. But be warned—it is not easy (those of you who are farmers or gardeners already know that, of course).

In the first reading for next Sunday, the prophet (we do not know precisely who he was, but we are grateful for those who preserved him for us) meditates on the effect of the rain that God sends (not to mention the snow, of which the Israelites did not, it must be said, know a great deal): “It will not return until it has watered the earth.”

For God never ceases to pay creative attention to the world that he has given us, “and he gives seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats”. The point is that God never ceases to pay careful attention to us and to our needs; and that, the prophet argues, is how God’s word works.

The psalm likewise picks up the agricultural image, and tells God: “You have visited the earth and given it to drink.”

Like all in the ancient Near East, the poet is well aware of the effects of God’s attentive generosity: “God’s stream is filled with water, with it you provide its grain.”

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Watch your seedlings grow Nicholas King SJ

Sunday reflections

He continues the agricultural image: “You crown the year with your goodness, your paths are dripping with fertile rain”, and follows it up with lovely pictures of “the meadows…the hills…the pastures…the valleys”, and concludes by imagining them all singing a song of joy: “They exult and they sing.” We should allow this wonderful metaphor to beguile us.

In the second reading, Paul is not precisely using an agricultural metaphor; rather it is taken from the discourse of birth and labour; but in both images, there is a confidence that all is going to be well.

Paul is trying to persuade his Roman correspondents that they have great grounds for confidence, just as a mother who is about to give birth has: “I reckon that the sufferings of this present moment are not fit to be com-

pared with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”

He goes on to speak of the “revelation of the children of God”, and likens the whole of creation to a great birth-pang, and argues: “Creation is going to be set free from mortal slavery, in the direction of the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Then he becomes even more explicit about the birth-metaphor: “For we know that the whole of creation is groaning and in its birth pangs, right up to the present moment”.

Of course, as soon as you speak of “birthpangs”, you know that we are looking to a happy outcome, and so Paul continues with this heartening image: “We groan in ourselves, waiting for adoption as God’s children, which is the buying-back of our bodies.”

We can more or less follow, and clearly we are on the verge of something that will make up for all the pain.

In the gospel for next Sunday, we come back to perhaps the best-known of Jesus’ agricultural images, the story of the sower, or rather, you might argue, the story of the different kinds of soil, which Jesus’ Galilean audience will easily have grasped.

God’s mic to a deaf world HERE’S a story in the Hindu tradition that runs something like this: God and a man are walking down a road.

The man asks God: “What is the world like?” God answers: “I’d like to tell you, but my throat is parched. I need a cup of cold water. If you can go and get me a cup of cold water, I’ll tell you what the world is like.”

The man heads off to the nearest house to ask for a cup of cold water. He knocks on the door and it is opened by a beautiful young woman. He asks for a cup of cold water. She answers: “I will gladly get it for you, but it’s just time for the noon meal, why don’t you come in first and eat.” He does.

Thirty years later, they’ve had five children, he’s a respected merchant, she’s a respected member of the community, they’re in their house one evening when a hurricane comes and uproots their house.

The man cries out: “Help me, God!” And a voice from the centre of the hurricane says: “Where’s my cup of cold water?”

This story is not so much a spiritual criticism as it is a fundamental lesson in anthropology and spirituality: To be a human being is to be perpetually distracted.

We aren’t persons who live in habitual spiritual awareness who occasionally get distracted. We’re persons who live in habitual distraction who occasionally become spiritually aware. We tend be so

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Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final reflection

preoccupied with the ordinary business of living that it takes a hurricane of some sort for God to break through.

CS Lewis, commenting on why we tend to turn to God only during a hurricane, once put it this way: God is always speaking to us, but normally we aren’t aware, aren’t listening. Accordingly pain is God’s microphone to a deaf world.

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owever, none of us want that kind of pain; none of us want some disaster, some health breakdown, or some hurricane to shake us up.

We prefer a powerful positive event, a miracle or mini-miracle, to happen to us to awaken God’s presence in us because we nurse the false daydream that, if God broke into our lives in some miraculous way, we would then move beyond our distracted spiritual state and get more serious about our spiritual lives.

But that’s the exact delusion inside the biblical character in the parable of Lazarus and Dives, where the rich man asks Abraham to send him back from the dead to warn his brothers that they must change

their way of living or risk the fiery flames.

His plea expresses exactly that false assumption: “If someone comes back from the dead, they will listen to him!”

Abraham doesn’t buy the logic. He answers: “They have Moses and the Prophets.

If they don’t listen to them, they won’t be convinced either, even if someone came back from the dead.”

What lies unspoken but critically important in that reply, something easily missed by us, the reader, is that Jesus has already come back from the dead and we aren’t listening to him. Why should we suppose that we would listen to anyone else who comes back from the dead?

Our preoccupation with the ordinary business of our lives is so strong that we are not attentive to the one who has already come back from the dead.

Given this truth, the Hindu tale just recounted is, in a way, more consoling than chiding. To be human is to be habitually distracted from spiritual things. Such is human nature. Such is our nature.

But knowing that our endless proclivity for distraction is normal doesn’t give us permission to be comfortable with that fact. Great spiritual mentors, not least Jesus, strongly urge us to wake up, to move beyond our over-preoccupation with the affairs of everyday life.

Jesus challenges us to not be anxious about how we are to provide for ourselves.

He also challenges us to read the signs of the times, namely, to see the finger of God, the spiritual dimension of things, in the everyday events of our lives.

All great spiritual literature does the same. Today there is a rich literature in most spiritual traditions challenging us to mindfulness, to not be mindlessly absorbed in the everyday affairs of our lives.

But great spiritual literature also assures us that God understands us, that grace respects nature, that God didn’t make a mistake in designing human nature, and that God didn’t make us in such a way that we find ourselves congenitally distracted and then facing God’s anger because we are following our nature.

Human nature naturally finds itself absorbed in the affairs of everyday life, and God designed human nature in just this way.

And so, I think, God must be akin to a loving parent or grandparent, looking at his or her children at the family gathering, happy that they have interesting lives that so absorb them, content not to be always the centre of their conscious attention.

Matthew sets it up with a wonderful picture, of “many crowds” who are standing on the shore and looking at him, as he tells the story of the sower, some of whose seed “fell beside the road”, while other “fell on rocky ground” and other seeds “fell on thorns”, while a fourth category of seed “fell on good soil, and yielded fruit, one seed a hundred, one seed sixty, and one seed thirty” (any one of which would have been an enormously profitable crop).

There is more, however, for the disciples, who in the gospels perform the useful function of asking the dim-witted questions that we should ourselves like to ask, and never quite dare: “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

The answer appears to be that the disciples (that is, you and I) “have it given to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of the Heavens”, “but not them”.

So Jesus gives an explanation that his fellow-Galileans would readily have grasped; but are you and I aware, as this new week starts, that we must learn to watch how God gives growth in this wonderful world in which we are invited to live?

Southern Crossword #609

ACROSS 4. Garden creeper? (7) 8. Beg for it penitently (6) 9. You can’t read yours if you’re late (7) 10 and 24. How you will find happy souls (2,4,7) 11. Hymn for the nation (6) 12. Roman numerals in Cs (8) 18. Lose to be made out of date (8) 20. Walk of life (6) 21. Gazed (6) 22. It starts in the Beginning (7) 23. Now Anton displays unbridled conduct (6) 24. See 10

DOWN 1. Honest in a vertical way (7) 2. So grand are these monsters (7) 3. High respect (6) 5. Stress in the same ship (8) 6. It’s in the Irish stew pot (6) 7. He’s auntie’s, relatively speaking (6) 13. Devil of a job (8) 14. Repines (7) 15. Suiting yourself with the rules (7) 16. Surrendered (4,2) 17. Varnish, change direction around north-east (6) 19. Fugitive from justice (6) Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

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JESUIT, a Dominican, and a Franciscan were walking along an old road, debating the greatness of their orders. Suddenly, an apparition of the Holy Family appeared in front of them, with Jesus in a manger and Mary and Joseph praying over him.

The Franciscan fell on his face, overcome with awe at the sight of God born in such poverty.

The Dominican fell to his knees, adoring the beautiful reflection of the Trinity and the Holy Family.

The Jesuit walked up to Joseph, put his arm around his shoulder, and said: “So, have you thought about where to send the boy to school?”