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Radio Veritas launches a new look

Romero: Not a question of left or right

Page 10

Page 7

Vatican Radio man schools SA bishops in media

By STUART GRAHAM

V

ATICAN communication experts have run a crash course for bishops in Johannesburg as the Church seeks to build on Pope Francis’ massive media popularity.

Sean Patrick Lovett, the Cape Town-born head of the Vatican Radio’s English service who led the course, told The Southern Cross that the workshop aimed to teach the bishops to make the most of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

“Pope Francis has revolutionised the way we think of media, the way we use media, and what it means to communicate,” said Mr Lovett.

“We have to use our five senses when we communicate. We have to be tactile and engaging. Pope Francis is teaching us how to touch people’s hearts and minds.”

Mr Lovett said the first part of the course aimed to let the bishops discover their own personal communication skills and gifts.

The next involved them experimenting with social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. They also received guidance in dealing with the media, one-on-one, and in understanding their role in the media.

The bishops were guided to see where they were going wrong in communication with the media.

“The bishops are a very different group of men with different experiences skills. It is up to them to find common goals and common methodologies in dealing with the media,” Mr Lovett said.

Mr Lovett, who has worked under five popes since coming to the Vatican in the 1970s, said he draws from the “talents and gifts” of each of these pontiffs.

He said the best way to communicate the Church’s message is to “go out to where people are”.

“We have to go back to the Gospel and look at what the early disciples were doing.

We have to go out to the people and meet them on their home turf; to do that you have to use whatever you have at your disposal.”

Mr Lovett said when he was in the Philippines recently, he heard about priests using dugout canoes to reach people in the area’s 7 500 islands. “The way to get out to people in

Fr Phumlani ndlovu oMi, parishioner Mr van Wyk and Bishop edward Risi wear pro-family T-shirts as they lead a group of pilgrims on the 10km pilgrimage from St nicholas parish in Klipeiland to St Joseph’s in Blaauwskop in the diocese of Keimoes-Upington. The pilgrimage, which was conducted under the motto “i Love My Family”, was also attended by nonCatholics, including Pastor Brink of the Congregational Church. The walk focused on rebuilding and reviving family-life, especially as the Catholic Church in Southern Africa is praying for and with families for the next three years.

Vatican Radio’s Sean Patrick Lovett the Philippines is to get into a dugout and paddle away to the people.”

The bishops based in cities were in a far more fortunate position, he said, as they could use newspapers, radio, television, and social media to reach their congregations.

“You have to use what is available. You have to go to the people and meet them where they are and speak in a language that is meaningful to them. It is not about what I want to say to you. It is about what you need to say to me,” Mr Lovett said Fr S’milo Mngadi, the bishops’ communications officer, said he came up with the idea when he took office in April 2013.

He said the bishops have to decide what the Church’s message is, “brand that and communicate it well”.

“One of my observations was that we need our bishops to be more available for media and comment. In South Africa when people want Christian comment they go to Anglican Archbishop Thabo Mokgoba.

“As the Catholic Church we need to be stronger in our voice to make it heard. Many of the bishops have not been initiated on how to deal with the media.”

Pope’s Peace Day message will focus on human trafficking

By Cindy Wooden

H

UMAN trafficking destroys the lives of millions of children, women and men each year, making it a real threat to peace, the Vatican said as it announced Pope Francis’ 2015 World Peace Day message would focus on the phenomenon.

“Slaves no more, but brothers and sisters” will be the theme for the January 1, 2015, commemoration and for the message Pope Francis will write for the occasion, according to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Pope Francis has called human trafficking “a crime against humanity” and “an open wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ”.

Explaining why Pope Francis chose trafficking as the theme for World Peace Day

2015, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace said: “Many people think that slavery is a thing of the past, [but] this social plague remains all too real in today’s world” with child labour, forced prostitution, trafficking for organs and a variety of forms of forced labour.

Trafficking, which generates huge amounts of income for organised crime, threatens peace because it is based on a lack of recognition of the fundamental human dignity of its victims, the Vatican statement said.

“Fraternity requires us to reject any inequality which would allow one person to enslave another. Our purpose is to build a civilisation based on the equal dignity of every person without discrimination.”

The pope’s full message for World Peace Day traditionally is released by the Vatican in Continued on page 5

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2

The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

LOCAL

Close to 5 000 Catholics from the diocese of Masvingo in Zimbabwe attended this year’s diocesan feast day, Mary Queen of Peace, at Gokomere shrine. The Masvingo diocese has dedicated this year to the family, and all the talks given highlighted family catechesis and Catholic social teachings. The proceedings started with a scripture reflection and Benediction before a solemn candle-lit procession to the shrine as pilgrims recited the rosary.

Apart from the well-researched spiritual talks, prayer, praise and worship, the multitudes were treated to music which rang through the air as people danced the night away.

Gokomere shrine was established in the jubilee year 2 000 and since then, it has been a pilgrimage centre for people from all over the country.

(Photo from Fr Peter Chimombe)

Christian Workers founder dies at 89

By STUART GRAHAM

E

Top speaker at family conference

A

The keynote address, on “The Family, The Church, The World”, will be delivered by Chris and Ruth Busschau.

Workshops will focus on topics such as parenting, spirituality in the home, family counselling programmes for bereavement and divorce, teenage pregnancy, HIV/Aids, the youth in families, the elderly, natural family planning, and more.

At the fun day on Sunday, September 21, Mass will be celebrated at 10:00 by Bishop de Groef and other participating priests and deacons, followed by activities such as

N array of high-profile speakers has been lined up for the family conference this month.

To be held on September 20 at the Bosco Youth Centre in Walkerville, near Johannesburg, the conference covers speakers and mini-workshops. This will be followed by a day of family faith and fun, to which entry is free.

The conference will be addressed by Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg, Bishop Jan de Groef of Bethlehem, Fr S’Milo Mngadi, Toni Rowland, Fr Francois Dufour SDB and Fr Emil Blaser OP.

a braai, games, swimming and a football competition.

The conference, part of the bishops’ three-year focus on the family, is hosted by the SACBC Family Life Desk, Radio Veritas, Marfam, the Salesian Family, and the Johannesburg Family Life Department.

The registration fee for the conference on September 20 is R100.

Child care is available for its duration, from 8:00 to 17:00, to enable families to attend. n Book through bookings@boscocentre.co.za or telephone 011 949 2361 or fax 086 680 5420.

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RIC Tyacke, the founder of the South African branch of the Young Christian Workers who was once banned for opposing apartheid, has died at 89.

“Eric’s whole life was concern for others,” his wife Jean said. “He never wanted to push himself forward.”

The devout Catholic was “always sympathetic to the union approach”, organising black workers during the apartheid days, she said.

Mr Tyacke was a young office worker in Johannesburg when he heard about the YCW, a group founded by Belgian priest Fr (later Cardinal) Joseph Cardijn, who was concerned with workers’ rights.

Mr Tyacke was intrigued by the effect YCW was having in England after World War II and travelled there to work with the group as a trainee volunteer and organiser.

He returned to Johannesburg a year later armed with experience and launched a range of YCW groups.

It was in Johannesburg that he met Jean, who came to South Africa from the United States to work for YCW. Mr Tyacke became the secretary director of the Urban Training Project which helped to service black trade unions. Jean, who assisted him, was the YCW’s first organiser in Cape Town.

The apartheid government took issue with the YCW over its stance for a non-racial trade union movement and in 1978 the security police swooped on the organisation, banning 78 of its members, who were detained in terms of the Terrorism Act. Mr Tyacke and Jean were banned for five years.

Johannesburg’s Archbishop Joseph Fitzgerald condemned the couple’s banning at the time, saying he regarded Mr Tyacke as a model Catholic and “a man of action who avoided any party political involvement”.

“If the Tyackes are the sort of people they are banning now, what sort of future have we?” Archbishop Fitzgerald asked.

eric Tyacke The couple, however, took the banning in their stride.

“It was recognition from the apartheid government about the contribution we were making,” Mrs Tyacke said.

Veteran journalist Sydney Duval described Mr Tyacke as an “early navigator” for the YCW movement.

“He was an outstanding Catholic.

His primary concern was with justice for workers,” said Mr Duval.

Fr Vic Kotze of Johannesburg said Mr Tyacke, whom he had worked with, was “extraordinarily committed” to the anti-apartheid struggle.

“He made an enormous contribution to the YCW,” Fr Kotze said.

The Tyackes, who were married for 54 years, spent their retirement years at their home in Bedfordview, which was where Mr Tyacke died on August 20.

Mr Tyacke leaves his wife and daughters Teresa, Sheila and Kathy. n Mr Tyacke’s work, and that of others in the union movement, are detailed in Donovan Lowry’s Twenty Years in the Labour Movement, The Urban Training Project and Change in South Africa, 1971-91, soon to be republished on www.donovanlowry. co.za

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The Southern Cross, Sepetember 3 to September 9, 2014

LOCAL

Botswana bishop addresses voters STAFF RePoRTeR

B

OTSWANA has been “blessed with good leadership from its birth as an independent state till the present time” and is “enjoying the good fruits of our good leaders”, according to the bishop of Gaborone.

In a pastoral letter on the country’s general election on October 24, Bishop Valentine Tsamma Seane said for Botswana to continue prospering, citizens must exercise their

right to “vote for good leaders of our choice”.

Bishop Seane explained that in Christian terms, leadership involves the “stewardship of divinely provided resources; human and material, centred on the mystery of the Trinity, creation, the fall and redemption”.

“We use our right to vote in order to choose a government that will facilitate the coming of the kingdom of God on earth here and now. A kingdom that will provide

our daily bread, peace, prosperity and respect for human dignity, emphasising the common good and co-division,” Bishop Seane said.

“We are to vote for a government that promotes botho,” the bishop said, using the Setswana word for ubuntu.

Voters must know what the political parties represent by studying their manifestos so that they can make informed decisions, he said, adding: “We vote with knowledge.”

Explaining the role of the

HOPE Cape Town brings joy to little ones By dyLAn APPoLiS

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PROgRAMME:

Registration at Schoenstatt, Constantia Blessing at Schoenstatt Shrine Depart for Constantia Nek (by car) Start of pilgrimage walkConstantia Nek Stations of the Cross Holy Mass – Newlands Forest (followed by lunch) Stations of the Cross End of pilgrimage walk – Villa Maria, (Coffee/Tea/Juice) Conclude with Benediction at ShrineTamboerskloof.

Bishop Seane noted that many of the secular definitions of good governance are found in the social teaching of the Church. These include respect for dignity of the human person, good stewardship, the rights and responsibilities of individuals and communities, subsidiarity, the common good, respect for private property, and the preferential option for the poor.

“Make your voice heard and counted for the good of our proud nation,” Bishop Seane said.

Teamwork builds skills

be able to afford.

The main objective for OPE Cape Town HOPE is to bring joy to the has brought joy to children; there is also an the children of underlying component of Blikkiesdorp in Delft with learning through play. a donation of toys.

“We started off the by “As part of our outreach handing over toys to chilinitiative we have recently dren at a crèche in Blikkiessecured R200 000 worth of dorp,” Mr Docrat said. toys with the support of a “Seeing the children’s faces donor. We received some was fantastic. funds towards the toys “We also handed over from the Dorint Hotel some toys to babies at Group in Germany,” Ithemba children’s ward at HOPE Cape Town donor Tygerberg Hospital. relations manager Fahim “We plan to establish 15 Docrat said. toy libraries and also to disHOPE’S plan is to distribute toys for children to tribute these toys to chilkeep for themselves,” he dren in the various said.

Cape Town donor relations manager Fahim docrat with communities it serves.

The organisation, overjoyed children after receiving their toys in Blikkiesdorp. n To support HOPE Cape Town, contact Fahim Docrat founded as a project of the on 021 9389339, e-mail German-speaking Catholic toy libraries in various impoverished community in the Cape Peninsula, communities allowing children to fahim@hopecapetown.com or see has committed itself to establishing access toys they would otherwise not www.hopecapetown.com

H

Church, Bishop Seane said it has to motivate believers to engage in economic activity for the common good. The Church has to provide “right information so that right policy choice is made, and promote Christian values in order to form a loving nation with good morals”.

While the Catholic Church follows no partisan or ideological line, it “will encourage the faithful to choose the party that fulfills the social teaching of the Church on good governance”.

3

By dyLAn APPoLiS

G

RADE 10 learners from six Catholic high schools in the Western Cape gathered at St Michael’s parish in Rondebosch to participate in an Amazing Race Leadership Day. The schools involved were St Joseph’s Marist College in Rondebosch, Christian Brothers College St John’s, Holy Cross Convent School in Maitland, Springfield Convent School and Immaculata High School in Wynberg, and Marian Secondary school in Matroosfontein.

The aim was to acquire teambuilding skills, to get to know one another, to learn leadership skills— and to grow closer to God and have time to reflect on their faith journey.

The tasks were all completed at St Michael’s and around the Rondebosch area.

“During praise and worship, the learners were enjoying themselves

as they sang every hymn enthusiastically,” Life Teen group coordinator Steven Edwards said.

Archdiocesan youth chaplain Fr Charles Prince gave a short talk on what is really important in life, followed by time for reflection.

“They should put God first in their lives and everything else will fall into place,” Fr Prince said. “We can be very busy, but it’s important to make time for God each day.”

The Life Teen group leaders, under the coordination of Mr Edwards, facilitated the leadership day, which included the Amazing Race, using clues being forwarded via social media.

“Clues for the tasks were mostly given to them on paper, but there were some tasks where they had to send in pictures using WhatsApp,” Mr Edwards explained.

He said he felt the goals were achieved. Learners had a lot of fun, learnt from each other, and enjoyed the worship and reflection time.

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4

The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

INTERNATIONAL

Panic, hunger as people are confined in Ebola areas H

By BRonWen dACHS

UNGER and panic are spreading among people unable to work because of restrictions aimed at containing the spread of Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone, say Church workers in West Africa.

In Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, Church groups “are trying to get food and distribute it to families who have asked us to help, but movement is heavily restricted and there is little we can do”, Salesian Father Jorge Crisafulli, provincial superior in West Africa, said in a telephone interview.

Neighbourhoods in Monrovia have been sealed off under terms of the government-imposed state of emergency.

Food prices in Liberia are “rising steeply and people are hungry”, Fr Crisafulli said, noting that “markets in the city that are usually bustling are now empty and no trading is happening”.

People are unable to get to work and, “while they still have to buy food, they have no money because they can’t work”, he said.

“There is great fear of spread of disease where there are large groups of people,” he said.

Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are the countries mainly affected by the current Ebola outbreak.

“Particularly in Liberia, Ebola has become an economic and social problem as well as a health problem,” Fr Crisafulli said, noting that “panic and fear are now greater problems than the disease itself”.

“Feelings of isolation are brought on by international fear of ‘Ebola countries’ and banning of flights”, he said, adding that “people feel like lepers of earlier centuries”.

Many people recover from Ebola and return to their families, and there are “stories of extraordinary courage” in the face of death, he said.

Hunger is also a major problem in Sierra Leone, said Fr Peter Konteh, executive director of Caritas for the archdiocese of Freetown, citing as an example a complex near his own home that has been quarantined.

Security guards were placed at the gate of the Freetown complex

Mid-East changed forever

By Cindy Wooden

A

LTHOUGH Christians, Muslims and Jews have struggled for hundreds of years to live peacefully alongside each other in the Middle East, “we have never seen the kind of ‘religious cleansing’ we are witnessing today”, said the head of the region’s Franciscans.

“All religious communities must raise their voices against this abomination” being carried out, particularly in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State, said Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM, custos of the Holy Land.

Speaking in Rimini, Italy, at an international meeting sponsored by the Communion and Liberation movement, Fr Pizzaballa said political, economic and probably military intervention will be needed to protect the Christian and other minority communities of the Middle East.

However, he added, their survival ultimately will depend on the courage and willingness of the region’s inhabitants to love and protect one another.

Clearly, the Islamic State’s “fanaticism must be stopped, if necessary even with force”, the Franciscan said. “Nevertheless, the use of force without a plan for reconstruction on every level will resolve nothing. Force stops; it destroys. However, if there is no reconstruction then the void created by the use of force will give life to even greater extremism.”

Fr Pizzaballa, who is based in Jerusalem, said the entire Middle East is undergoing a profound transformation. “The kind of stability that for 40 years characterised relations or non-relations in these countries has ended definitively”— but what will take its place still is not clear.

He said that throughout the region he has witnessed Christians and Muslims coming to each other’s rescue, sharing the little they have even in the most desperate situations. Such gestures, “present everywhere, constitute the secret and necessary power to move beyond and not stop in the darkness of the moment, in the power of Satan.”—CNS

that is home to 54 people after the death of an Ebola-infected doctor who lived there, he said.

While the guards ensure no one enters or leaves, there are stories that some have been bribed by residents “who said they were desperate to get out to buy food”, he said in a telephone interview.

Places affected by Ebola are quarantined for 21 days, he said.

Fr Konteh said he and other Church workers were investigating ways to provide food to people in similar situations “to help prevent desperation”.

W

hile Caritas’ European staffers have returned home, the local staff continue their work, he said, noting that “one of our finance clerks who has lost nine members of her family to Ebola still comes to work every day”.

Food prices have escalated, particularly since the border between Sierra Leone and Guinea was closed in June, Fr Konteh said.

Many people in Sierra Leone buy their food with money earned the same day, mostly through informal

Liberian police in protective clothing control residents of Monrovia’s West Point suburb waiting for food rations to be handed out. Church workers say hunger and panic are major problems in Liberia and Sierra Leone as neighbourhoods are sealed off in an effort to curb the spread of ebola. (Photo: Ahmed Jallanzo, ePA/CnS) trading, he said, noting that the closure of trading places has led to severe levels of hunger.

In Sierra Leone, the government has asked the Salesians to take responsibility for children who have been orphaned through Ebola, Fr Crisafulli said, noting that the order “accepted this challenge” after making careful preparations to do so safely.

“We are planning our interventions in an organised manner, tak-

ing people’s long-term as well as immediate needs into consideration,” he said.

Recognising that “prevention education can reduce levels of fear,” the Salesians have produced and distributed leaflets and billboards in Nigeria and Ghana as well as Sierra Leone and Liberia, he said.

Ebola is spread among humans through direct contact with infected bodily fluids.—CNS

Vatican denies nuncio cover-up

By FRAnCiS X. RoCCA

T

HE Vatican has denied covering up for a former papal ambassador accused of sexually abusing boys and suggested he might have to stand trial on the charges in the Dominican Republic.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ released a statement in response to journalists’ questions about former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, a Pole who served as nuncio to the Dominican Republic until August 2013.

According to an article in the New York Times, the Vatican “secretly recalled [Wesolowski] to Rome last year before he could be investigated, and then invoked diplomatic immunity for Mr Wesolowski so that he could not face trial in the Dominican Republic”.

Fr Lombardi responded that the Vatican, by recalling the diplomat from his post last summer, “moved without delay and correctly in light of the fact that former nuncio Wesolowski held the position of a diplomatic representative of the Holy See”.

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“Far from any intention of a cover-up, this action demonstrates the full and direct undertaking of the Holy See’s responsibility even in such a serious and delicate case, about which Pope Francis is duly and carefully informed and one which the pope wishes to address justly and rigorously,” he said.

The spokesman added that “since former nuncio Wesolowski has ended all diplomatic activity and its related immunity, he might also be subjected to judicial procedures from the courts that could have specific jurisdiction over him.”

The Vatican announced on June 27 that a canonical court had investigated Fr Wesolowski on charges of sex abuse and concluded by dismissing him from the “clerical state,” depriving him of all rights and duties associated with being a priest except the obligation of celibacy. Fr Wesolowski would face a criminal trial under the laws of Vatican City State.

In his new statement, Fr Lombardi said the ex-nuncio’s appeal of his laicisation will be judged “over the course of the coming weeks,

most likely in October 2014,” and criminal proceedings will ensue “as soon as the canonical sentence becomes definitive”.

Pope Francis told reporters in May that three bishops were under investigation for misdeeds related to the sexual abuse of minors.

One—presumably the former nuncio—had “already been condemned,” the pope said.

Previously, the Vatican had acknowledged that a formal investigation was underway against Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the former archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, who resigned in 2013 after admitting to sexual misconduct.

Only a few bishops have been laicised in connection with allegations of abusing minors; they include Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Miranda Melgarejo of Ayacucho, Peru, who was dismissed from the priesthood in 2013 because of sexual misconduct. Retired Bishop Raymond Lahey of Antigonish, Canada, was convicted by a civil court in 2011 of importing child pornography and was laicised by the Vatican in 2012.—CNS

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INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

5

Patriarch: Islamic State is attempting a genocide By doReen ABi RAAd

R Fr Jacques Clemens, who is 105 years old, sits in his house in nalinnes, south-west Belgium, holding a 1936 photo showing him on the day he was ordained as a Catholic priest. Fr Clemens may be the world’s oldest living priest who still holds a regular service, said officials of the Belgian Catholic Church. (Photo: yves Herman, Reuters/CnS)

105-year-old priest still says weekly Mass

F

ATHER Jacques Clemens may be 105 years old, but he still celebrates Mass every Sunday at St Benoit church in Nalinnes, Belgium.

Fr Clemens, who turned 105 on July 11, may be the world's oldest living priest who still celebrates regular Mass, according to RTL Belgium.

Fr Clemens was born in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1909 and later moved to the French-speaking Walloon region of Belgium where he was ordained a priest in 1936.

Seventy-eight years later, he still holds a regular Mass in his parish in the village of Nalinnes, in southwestern Belgium, in front of 80 faithful, the Reuters news agency reported.

“I used to make the service in a barn and in a cellar before the St Benoit church was built in 1957,” Fr Clemens recalled.

When he was about to retire at the age of 75, the local bishop asked him to remain in service

until they found a successor. Some 40 years later, Fr Clemens is still in his job and nobody is there to succeed him.

The priest is popular with his parishioners. One called him “a monument”. Another said: “It is as if it were a member of the family in his own right. Everyone gets along well with him.”

Fr Clemens still remembers entering the seminary in 1930, and the pride he felt at owning his first cassock.

The centenarian priest said he was happy to continue as long as his health permitted it.

Waking up every day at 5:30am and going to bed at 9pm, Fr Clemens believe he owes his long life to a strict routine.

“I always eat at the same hour every day,” he said, and every day at 11am, Fr Clemens drives his car for a few kilometres to the village of Gerpinnes to share a lunch with parishioners.

Former Vatican ‘governor’ dies

C

ARDINAL Edmund Szoka, who rose from poor beginnings to reach the highest levels of service to the Church, died on August 20 at the age of 86.

In 1990, the US cardinal was appointed president of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs of the Holy See, the Vatican’s budget management office, and seven years later was named president of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State, a post he retired from in 2006.

Before that, he was the archbishop of Detroit from 1981-90. He was made a cardinal in 1988 He was born in 1927 to Polish immigrants. He was ordained in 1954.

In 1971, he was named the first bishop of Gaylord, and in 1981 was transferred to Detroit. During his tenure he expressed deep concern over the racism and poverty that

plagued the city.

As president of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs of the Holy See , he initiated reforms which staunched a 20year flow of red ink, and set the course for healthy balance sheets for the rest of his time in the position and for several years thereafter.

In 1997, he was named president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State—informally the “governor”—which put him in charge of a wide range of activities such as the Vatican Museums, and the microstate’s mint, post office and police force.

After retirement, he returned to Detroit.—CNS

Pope’s trafficking concern Continued from page 1 mid-December and is sent, through Vatican diplomats, to the leaders of nations around the world.

Pope Francis is known to be deeply concerned about human trafficking.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio celebrated an annual Mass with the victims of trafficking.

Soon after his election as pope in 2013, he asked the pontifical academies of sciences and of social sciences to study the problem of modern-day slavery and ways for the Church to work with others to stop it.

In March, the Vatican, the Anglican Communion and others launched the Global Freedom Network.

The initiative, based at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, aims to prevent modern forms of slavery; to protect, rescue and rehabilitate victims; and to promote concrete measures that condemn or criminalise human trafficking.

The United Nations estimates 2,4 million people are trafficked at any given time and their exploitation generates $32 billion in annual profits for criminals.

South Africa passed an antihuman trafficking law in July 2013 but still has to enact it.

ETURNING from a visit to the Kurdish region of Iraq, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan called the Islamic State invasion “pure and simple religious cleansing and attempted genocide”.

“What we, the five patriarchs, saw in Ankawa, Irbil and other cities of Kurdistan, was something indescribable in terms of the violation of human rights and the threat of disappearing of various communities among the vulnerable minorities of Northern Iraq,” Patriarch Younan said. “It is a pure and simple religious cleansing and attempted genocide.”

Patriarch Younan and Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II stayed in Iraq for six days after arriving as part of a delegation of Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs who visited Irbil to give moral and spiritual support to the beleaguered Iraqis from the Ninevah Plain.

The displaced minorities—Christians, Yezidis, Shiite Muslims and Shabaks—sought refuge there from their besieged towns and villages, which fell to Islamic State militants in early August after they were evicted for their religious affiliation.

Patriarch Younan spoke to Catholic News Service about the flood of displaced Iraqis they encountered.

In the Kurdistan region, “we saw

Syriac Catholic Patriarch ignace Joseph iii younan (left) speaks with other Christian leaders during a visit to iraqi refugees in irbil. The patriarch has called actions by the islamic State “attempted genocide”. (Photo: Mychel Akl/Maronite Patriarchate) hundreds of families still living on the streets, exposed to an unbearable heatwave, lacking the basic needs, and primarily fearing for their future” as winter approaches, Patriarch Younan said. Temperatures in the Kurdish region currently climb above 40°C, yet winters are harsh and freezing, often with torrential rain and snow.

Patriarch Younan said the mostasked question by many of the Christian refugees was, “Can we ever return?”

“At that question, the most feared answer was: No answer could be given,” he said.

The patriarch said that along with the little financial assistance they could offer the displaced, the patriarchs “prayed with them, consoling, encouraging and inspiring them with Christian ‘hope against all hope’, repeatedly reminding them of the promise of the Lord: ‘Do not be afraid, you little flock. ...

I will be with you until the end of time.’

“The Church’s leaders committed themselves to sound the alarm of the very survival of Christians in Iraq and in the whole Middle East region and pledged to bring the plight of their people to all international arenas: the UN Security Council, the United States of America, the European Union, as well to Russia and China,” Patriarch Younan said.

The patriarchs met at Bkerke, north of Beirut, to further address the crisis. Local media in Beirut reported that Cardinal Bechara Rai, the Maronite patriarch, was scheduled to meet with Pope Francis the following day.

All of the patriarchs involved in the Irbil delegation, along with other Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs of the Middle East and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, are scheduled to participate in the September 9-11 “In Defence of Christians Inaugural Summit for Middle East Christians” in Washington.—CNS

6

The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Mission field Internet

S

INCE about the turn of the century, the definition of friendship has assumed new forms which benefit society, and can aid the Church in its mission to evangelise.

The way people relate to one another has changed since the advent of the Internet, especially by social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but also by Internet forums in which people of shared interests come together, sometimes from all parts of the world, to share their knowledge and opinions in the field of their passion.

Likewise, cellphone technology has made it easier and cheaper to communicate, with instant messaging services such as What’sApp supplanting, at least in informal communication, the by now old-fashioned e-mail.

Where once a friendship depended on physical proximity and access, carefully written letters posted by mail, or a telephone call, now many people routinely maintain friendships by the methods made available by the Internet or cellphones.

It is not unusual for people to consider as friends individuals whom they have never met, and perhaps never will. Where in the days of socalled snail-mail one might have had a small number of penpals whom one might never meet, today such friends are accumulated by the click of a mouse.

Social networking sites such as Twitter can even create a personal connection (albeit usually unilateral) with celebrities and world leaders. While only the most hopeful of Pope Francis’ more than four million followers on Twitter would mistake that relationship for personal friendship, the service has made it possible for the pope to reach out to people on a more intimate level than news reports would allow.

With all the advantages of modern communication, however, one needs to differentiate between friends made on social networking sites and the traditional nature of friendship, which depends on a certain measure of personal contact, companionship and implicit trust.

Friendships created on the Internet can be illusory—though many are not—precisely because one can control the information shared on the Internet and thereby exercise the choice of how to reveal one’s self to others.

In what they post on sites such as Facebook, people can carefully manage the image they project in ways that are more difficult to do in direct interpersonal relations.

Nonetheless, Internet relationships have the potential to do much good as sources for information and inspiration. They can contribute to personal growth by exposure to a variety of interests and opinions. In this way, social networks can also be fertile mission fields.

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, acknowledged and encouraged that notion in a speech he delivered in New York in May. The archbishop encouraged Church leaders and media organisations to reflect on the rapid changes in communication and to use these to engage with people, in the Church and outside of it.

He rightly noted that “the most significant change is not technological but cultural”.

Archbishop Celli explained: “The real challenge is to appreciate how much is changing in the ways people, especially young people, are gathering information, are being educated, are expressing themselves, and are forming relationships and communities.”

The Church’s message must be presented with this in mind, speaking the language of those at whom it is aimed.

Archbishop Celli pointed out that the Church’s evangelising work on digital platforms can be effective only if “we are authentic witness to our faith”.

The best way to do so is for those who seek to evangelise to build relationships and be open to form friendships in the new sense of the word—and be open to the insights and experiences of others.

It may even be a way of promoting vocations by increasing the visibility of the clergy and presenting the priesthood as an affirming life choice at a time when many Catholics see their priests only at Mass.

Social networking sites turn on its head the redundant assumption that the people should come to the Church, not the Church to the people.

Like the marketplaces of ancient Corinth, Antioch and Rome, the Internet is a neutral place where people can meet and evangelise one another. In imitation of St Paul, we must use these forums.

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.

Radio Veritas needs listeners I WAS really pleased to see a report in The Southern Cross that Radio Veritas was to be hosting a Mad Hatter Tea on August 31, the culmination of Women’s Month, mainly to raise much-needed funds, but more importantly to raise awareness so that Catholics know more about the good work being done by the only Catholic radio station in South Africa.

It pains me to know that a very small percentage of Catholics in South Africa support Radio Veritas.

It is estimated that there are about

Bipolar living

T

HE letter by Jill Hopwood and your editorial (August 20), about the stigma attached to those who suffer from mental health disorders, were of particular interest to me.

I have suffered with bipolar disease for over 24 years. It is not an easy road because one goes through high periods when one can change the world, and low periods when one can’t even get up to brush one’s teeth, moments when one feels like dying.

I have had to raise my daughters by myself, but in the periods when I went through my low moments, they had to basically take care of themselves. I thank God for the support of my parents and family.

Bipolar disease doesn’t get the same recognition as, for example, diabetes or hypertension. Family and colleagues might think that you can just snap out of it. Some priests have no compassion for bipolar sufferers.

At one stage, when I really hit rock bottom, a priest told me that it was demonic and that I was possessed by Satan! Bipolar sufferers are not evil and crazy, and all the other names people call us. We are sons and daughters of God our Father who carries us through the darkest times in our lives.

People don’t understand that clinical forms of depression are a disease, caused by an imbalance of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, which can cause a chemical reaction in the brain. We who suffer from this decease need love, support and understanding, especially from the Church.

Through all these years in which I have coped with the disease, when I could not carry my cross, the best I could do was to hand it over to God. Of course, the medication which we have to take is also a lifeline, as is seeking psychiatric help. Psychology helps, but we must also remember that God is but a prayer away.

I pray that priests show more compassion, love and support for those who are living with mental

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4,5 million Catholics in South Africa, of which about 1,5 million are in Johannesburg alone.

As far as I know, only 2 500 Catholics support Radio Veritas with financial contributions, which is just 0,4% of the total Catholic population.

Jesus has called us all to play a role in the transformation of people through the verbal proclamation of the Gospel that has been entrusted to us. As Catholics, we need to meet the challenge of spreading the Good News head on.

health disorders, and that they and fellow Christians will understand the disease and treat us with respect and dignity.

Thank you God for loving us, especially when we experience that dark hole we just can’t come out of.

Marion Jacobs, Port Elizabeth

Truth of the host

T

ONY Sturgess (August 13) says that the host being referred to as “symbolic” is a misnomer. He is quite correct.

Vatican II was brought about by the recently canonised Pope John XXIII and one must surmise that he had his ear tuned into the feeling of his flock. In reality this was done through the bishops of the world Church who were essentially the “ears” of the laity. After Vatican II was concluded, we must accept that “the people had spoken”.

The fundamental difference of faith between Catholics and Protestants hinges on the consecration.

For Protestants the host is a symbolic re-enactment of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, whereas the Catholic belief is that the host becomes the very body and blood of Jesus.

This difference is a matter of faith and, as we know, led to huge upheaval during the Reformation.

St John XXIII’s vision was to bring his “lost brothers back into the fold”, and Vatican II was the result thereof.

St John XXIII had the humility to realise changes needed to take place in our Church to enable this to become a reality and we trust that the Holy Spirit was at work during the process of Vatican II. Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg

Bishops live high

I

REFER to the letter by Mervyn Pollitt (August 13). Pope Francis, who lives a simple life, urges bishops to get closer to their flocks, but this seems to have no effect on some South African bishops.

With the cutback in funding from the United States and Europe, our local bishop shuffles priests.

Gone are the days of getting to know your priest, or he getting to know you, for that matter. After three years or less, the priest gets moved to another parish and the bishop comes to inaugurate him at R5 000 a pop. In our very small parish, he condescended to charge R2 500. After six weeks of second collections we are still not paid up.

Last year we had to collect to buy him a top-of-the-range 4x4 so he could visit his rural parishioners.

Where he finds the time I don’t know, as his main trip seems to be the highway to the airport for his overseas and internal flights.

Another bishop I know of travels with an entourage by the busload.

This at a time when starvation and malnutrition are at an all-time high.

What will it take to end this extravagance—another Reformation?

B Jones, Location withheld

Family planning

J

OAN Largier (July 23) contended that: 1. There is a considerable difference between couples who limit families by using contraceptives,

There are several ways of doing this, and one of them is through the radio. We should consider ourselves blessed to have Radio Veritas, which is doing a sterling job in spreading the Good News and bringing the message of hope to one and all, despite their financial challenges.

It is my hope and prayer that more Catholics will come forward to support the one and only Catholic radio station in South Africa.

By comparison, Zambia has just opened its ninth Catholic radio station—one in each diocese!

Walter Middleton, Johannesburg

and those who do so by using natural family planning, and 2. Couples that use the latter method for justifiable reasons cannot be considered to be acting immorally.

These contentions are indeed correct, morally and doctrinally, for the following reasons.

First, users of contraceptives are contravening the law of Almighty God, the natural law, as explained in the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae.

Second, as most contraceptives (including the Pill) are actually or potentially abortifacient, many of the users of these drugs and devices are thereby practising actual or possible chemical abortion.

However, neither of these two charges can be levelled against the practice of natural family planning, especially when it is used in eminently justifiable circumstances, such as dire economic need or physical infirmity.

Thus any allegation that these two methods of family limitation are similar in any way is both illogical and inaccurate.

Damian McLeish, Johannesburg

Gaza needs Jesus to bring peace

W

ITH regard to the situation in Gaza and other war-torn areas, I feel it is time that someone high up in the Church sends a message to the warlords explaining to them that if they understood the love of Jesus and his loving father, God, then there would be no need for all this senseless killing.

Also, they should be reminded that the route to God is through Jesus Christ.

May Jesus through his father grant the warlords the sense to see the evil of their ways. Amen.

Eddy de Vries, Mandeni, KZN

Pray to Mary

D

URING World War II and until the fall of Communism in Russia, we prayed the Hail Holy Queen after every Mass for the conversion of Russia and for peace.

The world is in a bad way, and particularly the Middle East, where Christians are being slaughtered. In the international news we see the horror in the world.

How about, as a full Church, we say this prayer, asking Mother Mary once again for her help. Some apparitions of Mary have been during times of unrest—during World War I, for example, in Fatima, or in Pontmaine during the FrancoPrussian war in 1871. Surely it’s a good time now to ask her help.

We also need her help in our country where women, children and the elderly are being abused.

Betty Hill, 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

PERSPECTIVES

Left vs Right like Reds vs Blues W HEN secular journalists comment on the Catholic Church they often fall into the trap of using the language of mainstream politics.

They thus talk about one faction being on the up and another on the way out; a shift to the left or a movement to the right; a win for the liberals or a setback for the conservatives.

Given the traditional colours of leftwing and right-wing they even describe the Church in terms of a football match— with the reds beating the blues in extra time. And we as Catholics can sometimes absorb that language inadvertently, perhaps responding to the election of a pope or the appointment of a cardinal as a “goal” for our favourite team.

This does not serve us well. It fails because the Church is not a purely human institution. We can’t interpret the movement of the Holy Spirit in such simplistic terms—but also because the Church is a very complex entity.

I was reminded of this with the announcement by Pope Francis recently—as is often the case with him, a semi-formal comment to journalists on a plane—that the process for the canonisation of Archbishop Oscar Romero should proceed quickly.

“A goal for the liberals! A shift to the left! Francis scores against John Paul II!” Some might take this overly simple view.

Pope John Paul, it is argued, blocked the canonisation of this “turbulent priest” who supposedly sided with communists, was too friendly with free-thinking Jesuits, became enmeshed in the politics of El Salvador, forgot the rich and powerful families on whom the Church depended and was at the centre of a personality cult.

By contrast, Pope Francis sees in Romero a kindred spirit, a champion of the poor, not afraid to overturn stodgy Church customs, inspired by radical Jesuits, able to build alliances even with atheist Marxists, and one who ultimately gave his life for the cause.

Whilst there are elements of truth in both those interpretations, the lenses of left and right, I would suggest, actually blur the picture rather than enhance it.

Some 34 years after Romero’s death—he

Raymond Perrier

was shot dead while saying Mass in a small convent chapel—the images of his life and death remain vivid.

Certainly there is an echo with Francis—living in two simple rooms, walking about with ordinary people, not standing on ceremony.

But there are also echoes with the life of St John Paul—Romero’s role as a voice for the voiceless, his bravery in speaking out to dictators when other Church leaders stayed silent, his ability to take strength from others and give strength to others.

And as an academic and a quiet man, happier alone than in front of big crowds, we even see parallels with Benedict XVI.

Faith and Society

T

he complexity of Romero is part of what makes him attractive—and an interesting saint for our times. Two stories might illustrate this.

A group of young seminarians, fired up by the revolutionary words of their archbishop, were creeping out of the seminary in casual clothes to join a political rally in San Salvador. As they were leaving, they noticed a figure on his knees in the chapel praying, wearing a full black cassock and saying his rosary. Just the kind of old-fashioned priest they did not want to be—too busy with his prayers to go out and fight for the poor on the street! But just then the dark figure got up and turned around and it was their hero, Archbishop Romero!

Another story is captured in John Duigan’s wonderful 1989 film, Romero. The

A flag features the image of the late Archbishop oscar Romero, whose sainthood cause Pope Francis has said is now “unblocked”. (Photo: Ulises Rodriguez, Reuters/CnS)

army have taken possession of a village church and turned it into a barracks.

Romero arrives determined to reclaim the church but is initially deterred by the guns brandished at him by drunken soldiers.

However, he then sees the faces of the people willing him to continue and, taking strength from them, leads the whole village back into the church in the face of the guns and they reclaim the building—and he says Mass. I went to this village some years ago and the people still talk excitedly of that day.

There is no question that Romero was assassinated; the debate is whether it was motivated by politics or by odium fidei— “hatred of the faith”—in which case it would be martyrdom.

But when we reflect more on the life of Romero, we see a man for whom faith and politics were not two different spheres but completely intertwined, both driving to a desire to defend the poor against injustice.

This we see more and more is true of the life of Jorge Bergoglio—as Jesuit, bishop and now as pope. It is also a recurrent theme in the life of Karol Wojtyla—freedom-fighter, bishop, pope and saint.

All holy people—those formally canonised as saints, those in the process, and those still alive and working—are an inspiration to us. They should challenge us to leave behind labels and simple interpretations.

Instead we need to see the reality of a situation, judge what needs to be done and then act on it, even if at some cost to ourselves.

Some call that faith; some call that politics; some might just call it our calling as human beings.

In a South Africa, where traditional distinctions between good guys and bad guys are blurring, are we willing to transcend the labels, see what needs to be done, and then do it?

Dealing with cultural differences Toni Rowland O N one of my recent travels in South Africa I was presented with an opportunity to focus on cultural awareness and differences.

These are appropriate themes for the month of September which in South Africa is Heritage Month, a time when reflection and sharing, especially in families, is important for future harmony in cohabiting in our country.

On one occasion I and a black colleague visited a church. We were hanging around in the hall waiting for someone to fetch us.

At the same time a group was gathering for a small celebration. We felt irritated at being ignored and judged that the other group was being rude by not even greeting us, let alone making a gesture of inviting us to join in the celebration.

We discussed that in the car later after we were picked up. The view was: “Whites are like that. Such a thing would not happen in a black gathering.” I felt more in solidarity with the blacks then the whites.

Discussing the situation again later with some people who had been part of that group another angle was presented. It appears that some of them had felt uncomfortable and unsure what to do with us hanging around. Their leaders had not chosen to address us, so it wasn’t up to them.

That cleared it up, a bit, for me, but my colleague didn’t see it quite the same way.

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There are obviously other perspectives, too. We could have gone and waited somewhere else rather than in a corner of the hall, for example, but it was cold outside.

Another situation began to bother me.

Much of the time I was the only non-Zulu speaker in different groups, many of whom spoke English. There were many times, also at meals, when the conversation was almost totally in Zulu and I was left sitting “met my mond vol tande” (“with my mouth full of teeth”), as the Afrikaans saying goes.

In my own cultural experience that is perceived as rude, and courtesy expects that the conversation be conducted in a commonly understood language. However, “whites must learn Zulu”, is a common attitude. Sure, but...

I

Family Friendly

recount these experiences and my feelings by way of a reflection on cultural differences. Hospitality and courtesy are values dear to us all but expressed differently with consequences that could be hurtful because we still do not understand one another and are sometimes afraid—or too polite—to speak out.

During September the family theme is “diverse and together”. We could make a point of sharing and exploring differences within our families and the different social settings where we meet others.

In our own families we can start by considering how each of a couple comes from

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different backgrounds and have their own family who may differ in religious, socioeconomic, language or ethnic ways. As children grow and eventually choose a lifepartner along the way, many different circumstances will present themselves.

All these are wonderful and enriching opportunities for family communication.

Sharing these may at times need to be fairly structured in order to address issues that arise. Family faith-sharing and family catechesis are ways to do so in a prayerful atmosphere.

For example, we can even ask ourselves whether Jesus was being racist in the way he at first dealt with the Canaanite woman who approached him to heal her daughter.

World news gives us plenty of examples of misunderstandings and more that disrupt harmonious living. The “Thoughts for the Day” in September offer some leads for growing in understanding of one another, starting from the home and reaching out beyond that to others in society.

May the richness of diversity be a power for growth and for good.

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The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

7

Michael Shackleton

open door

Is the Eucharist just a re-enactment?

As an Irish Catholic born 80 years ago, I have been brought up to believe that when we receive the Eucharist, we actually receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Yet your response to the question posed in the issue of May 14 suggests that the Eucharist is only a re-enactment of the Last Supper, and that it is done in memory of Christ. This confuses me. Desmond Foley

I

AM sorry if my response confused you. I did not deny that we actually receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

My words were: “As a community we receive his body and blood, his real presence among us through what the Church calls transubstantiation, which occurs during the sacramental celebration”.

We cannot deny, either, that the liturgy of the Eucharist is an action carried out in obedience to Jesus who said at the Last Supper: “Do this in memory of me”.

What we do in memory of Jesus is not a kind of ritual reminder of what he did at the Last Supper. We do not repeat empty words as if we were saying: “Let’s remember what he said and did that night”.

It would be a misunderstanding to think that, when we celebrate the Eucharist to recall what Jesus did at the Last Supper, we exclude its essential relevance to the sacrifice of his life for our sake on the Cross. The two are intimately linked together.

So, this is the substance of what we do: The priest repeats what Jesus solemnly said: “This is my body which is given up for you”; “This is the chalice of my blood which is poured out for you”.

These words immediately connect the Eucharist with Christ’s sacrificial death on Calvary.

The sacrament is therefore a memorial celebration of Calvary, so that each time we celebrate it we make Christ’s unique redemptive sacrifice really present in the here and now.

The Eucharist does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it. It cannot be understood as something separate or independent of the Cross.

It is a sacramental rite in which Jesus Christ shares with us the fruit of his sacrifice to the Father, as we commemorate what he did and said at table with his disciples.

As a mature Catholic you will remember the prayer said at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament: “O God, who under this wonderful sacrament left us a memorial of your passion, we ask that we may so revere the sacred mysteries of your body and blood, that we may ever feel within ourselves the fruit of your redemption.”

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

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

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The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

COMMUNITY

The parish of St Michael’s in Redhill, durban, hosted a celebration for St John Vianney, the patron saint of priests. The parish’s finance team is pictured with Cardinal Wilfrid napier. (Top from left) nicolette Goodman, Brendan Toohey and parish priest Fr Brett Williams. (Bottom from left) Colette Bengtson, Cardinal napier and Geraldine Prinsloo. (Auriel Parsons and Mohammed Bux are not pictured).

Bishop Giuseppe Sandri MCCJ of Witbank is pictured with the community of Mohlalaotowane in Glen Cowie parish after the celebration of the Liturgy of the Assumption.

Catholic youth from different parishes gathered at the cathedral in Johannesburg for a visit to nazareth House in yeoville where they played with the kids and donated rugby T-shirts and playing equipment. They also visited the old-age home where they entertained with music and singing, and donated blankets to the home.

St Mary’s of the Angels parish in Athlone, Cape Town, held a recruiting Mass for the Knights of de Gama. Parish priest Fr Albert Gonsalves oFM Cap (centre) is pictured with members from the Western Cape.

Send your pictures to pics@scross.co.za Five new lay ministers were received into the lay council at Sacred Heart parish in Mahobe, diocese of Umzimkulu, by parish priest Fr Protas Mkhize.

St Anne parish in Belgravia, Johannesburg, celebrated its patronal feast or fiesta. A multilingual Mass in english, Zulu, Sotho and Portuguese was concelebrated by parish priest Fr Ron Houreld oMi and Fr Pe Cinema Caruaquissuelaca inueiua CM, chaplain of the Portuguese community. The celebrations began with a Rosary procession with the statue of St Anne, followed by a fête with stalls, dancing and a talent contest. Proceeds went towards costs of the repair and maintenance of the church roof and the replacement of plumbing.

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The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

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The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

COMMUNICATIONS

Communication is all our business In his message for the World Day of Communications, Pope Francis called on the faithful to engage in fruitful, sincere dialogue. CARoL GLATZ explains.

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LINE in Pope Francis’ first World Day of Communications’ message revived the question of how Christians are called to both search for truth in others and proclaim the truth in Jesus Christ.

“Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the claim that they alone are valid or absolute,” the pope wrote.

What is being called into question is not the fullness and absolute truth of Christ, but rather the individual’s personal ways of trying to express and live out that truth, said Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, when he introduced the message.

“The thing to understand is that it’s not the faith, the Gospel that is relativised, but how I live the Gospel and how I live that faith,” he said.

Rather than “a relativism” of the faith, he said the pope is continuing his predecessors’ calls for the Church to actively engage with a multicultural and multireligious world.

A major aspect of the three-anda-half-page papal message about communication needing a new “cul-

ture of encounter” was the importance of genuine dialogue in a world where people continue to suffer divisions, poverty, neglect and isolation.

The pope asks: How is it that such problems persist in a world that is being made ever more interdependent, small and connected by so many low-cost, high-speed, hightech tools?

No matter the technology, genuine dialogue is still the answer, his message said. And genuine dialogue, the pope explained, requires seeking others out with love and mercy, sincerely listening to them and believing they may have some goodness and truth to bring to the world.

“The walls which divide us can be broken down only if we are prepared to listen and learn from one another,” the papal message said.

Communication—itself a process of give and take that must be carried out with patience, love and mercy— is what brings people together, builds trust and understanding, the pope said.

“To dialogue means to believe the ‘other’ has something worthwhile to say, and to entertain his or her point of view and perspective,” he said.

Dialogue involves expressing one’s ideas and traditions with sincerity, clarity and transparency, while avoiding the presumption and claim that one’s own ideas are absolute and the only valid ones out there, Archbishop Celli explained.

Dialogue, the archbishop said, demands a deep awareness of and a “pastoral sensitivity” to others’ ideas, concerns, questions and beliefs, and it requires “being con-

within the Church, it recognises that the Spirit is at work in every human person.

Pope Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, reaffirmed the Second Vatican Council’s call that the Church must enter into dialogue with the world.

Speaking to artists and people from the world of culture in Lisbon

in May 2010, he said “people need not only to accept the existence of the culture of others, but also to aspire to be enriched by it and to offer to it whatever they possess that is good, true and beautiful”.

Mgr Paul Tighe, secretary of the social communications council, has said that his 15 years of experience teaching young people about the Catholic faith showed him what role listening and learning play in bringing the truth to others.

“I began with my own very clear way of teaching the Church’s teaching,” he said, but listening to and reflecting on the kids’ questions and misunderstandings led him to look for and express that truth in ways that better responded to their concerns.

“I’m never going to renounce the truth and my understanding that Christ is the one who answers the search for meaning that is at the core of every human person,” he said.

But, he asked, “how can I best express that? Or how do I make that pertinent to the particular dilemmas of the person’s life?”

Mgr Tighe explained: “I’m going to be absolutely clear that Christ is the answer, but I realise my ways of expressing that may be limited [and] may sometimes fall short of the fullness of the Gospel.”

Listening and respecting others in dialogue has “forced me to go deeper and find a richer truth within my own tradition” and re-express the truth in new ways, he said, which is what Pope Francis is proposing.— CNS

He is delighted at the close partnership between Radio Veritas and The Southern Cross, which finds expression in joint ventures such as

the Canonisation pilgrimage earlier this year and the “Saints of Italy” pilgrimage which he will lead next September.

Pope Francis, in his World day of Communications message emphasised a “culture of encounter” in which people genuinely engage each other in multicultural and multifaith societies. (Photo: david Agren/CnS) vinced the other has something good to say, and to make room for their point of view and proposals”.

Such an approach is “in harmony with the entire teaching of the Church,” he said.

W

hile the Catholic Church is convinced that the Holy Spirit works in a full and particular way

Radio Veritas rebrands By dyLAn APPoLiS

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ADIO Veritas is in the process of upgrading its facilities and revamping its corporate brand-

ing.

The new logo is intended to capture the spirit of South Africa as the station moves away from the old corporate colour a rustic red. The new colours are orientated to communicate a dynamic, modern and vibrant image.

The new logo evokes the South African flag and also has shades of purple and brown woven into the fabric of the banner. Concentric circles indicate movement and dynamism against the background of the South African coastline.

Radio Veritas “believes the new logo and banner depict the vibrant life of Africa and the vibrant life of the Catholic Church,” said Fr Emil Blaser, the station’s executive director.

“The logo has within it the bishop’s crosier, the cross, the letters R and V and the symbolism of the Greek letters Chi Ro, which stand for Christ. The bottom legs of X are symbolic of the nails of the crucifixion—or the South African vu-

vuzela,” he said.

Currently the redesign of all branded items is underway, including new brochures, banners, posters, mobile equipment and loudspeakers—all sporting the new logo.

“As soon as we receive new stationery, we will officially introduce the new logo,” Fr Blaser said. This week’s advertisement in The Southern Cross, to mark Social Communications Sunday on September 7, marks a debut of sorts.

“We are planning to redecorate our offices in our new corporate colours and put up new signs on our facilities,” the Dominican priest said.

Radio Veritas’s future plans include starting a school for Catholic journalism. The facilities and teachers are available, but the challenges are in locating funding and identifying talent. These, Fr Blaser said, depend on the support of the Catholic community—bishops, clergy and laity.

“What we need is the necessary funding, because there is an enormous amount of talent out there,” Fr Blaser said.

At the moment only one diocese contributes regularly to Radio Veri-

tas, together with a handful of parishes, he said.

Fr Blaser told The Southern Cross “Were it not for about 2 500 monthly donors and a few generous Catholics [who give larger contributions], there would be no Radio Veritas.” He also noted that the Italian bishops’ conference provided the necessary funding for the transmitter.”

Radio Veritas, which broadcasts in Gauteng on 576AM and on DStv audio 870, has in a short time established itself as a fixture in the broadcasting community.

“We have several commercial outreaches and have a good relationship with Radio Pulpit and other Christian radio stations. We are also on friendly terms with Radio Islam and the whole spectrum in the radio industry. We are often the first port of call for journalists seeking information about the Church. We are well known in the radio industry.”

Fr Blaser stressed the importance of cooperation between the various Catholic media outlets, saying that the recent Catholic Media Expo in Johannesburg was a good example of that collaboration in action.

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The Southern Cross, September 3 to September 9, 2014

COMMUNICATION

The thrifty business lesson of SA’s oldest Catholic press

South Africa’s oldest Catholic printing press has survived the Boer War, both world wars, apartheid and countless recessions, and is likely to face many more battles as technology evolves. But the Mariannhill Mission Press in Durban has an asset that many of its competitors don’t.

STUART GRAHAM visited the press which combines the traditional and the modern.

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MONG the full-colour printers and a digital litho press, in a factory room below the high archways, brick columns and monkey-infested trees of the Mariannhill mission, there are two metal clamps.

At first glance the tools, brought to the mission near Durban by Austrian Trappist monk Fr Francis Pfanner in 1882 to glue hard covers onto books, appear as though they’d be more at home in a museum than in a modern-day printing press.

But the two clamps still have an important role at the press and may hold an important lesson for businessmen, says Rob Riedlinger, the chief executive of the Mariannhill Mission Press.

“We still use them to this day when we glue covers onto hardcover books,” said Mr Riedlinger.

“The technology hasn’t changed much over the years and the clamps still work perfectly. We can still use them without embarrassment,” the 40-year-old father of two explained.

“Some of the equipment from that era is so well built that it has a very long lifespan. It makes sense to use it.”

Besides the clamps, there is also a 57-year-old platen that has been converted into a modern-day die cutter for printing jobs.

“The platen was a traditional printing press previously, but we retrofitted it to be a die cutter and envelope printer,” said Mr Riedlinger.

He believes the Trappist work ethic and thriftiness is the secret to the survival of the Mariannhill Mission Press.

“Primarily Mariannhill has a work ethic that was started by the Trappists. That has been a factor in its survival and success,” Mr Riedlinger said.

Fr Pfanner came to South Africa as a Trappist, but soon founded his own congregation, the Missionaries of Mariannhill.

“The mission and press are concerned with evangelisation and uplifting the community and country through its work,” Mr Riedlinger noted, adding: “When a business is driven by the right motives its chances of success are all the better.”

Mr Riedlinger pointed out that Abbot Pfanner set high standards and was always prepared to invest in the best equipment he could. But it was his austere approach in running the mission that holds many lessons for business today.

“In my previous business and now, his austerity rings true in a very powerful way,” said Mr Riedlinger.

“We don’t need a R20 000 couch in our waiting room or a R40 000 boardroom,” he said.

Rob Riedlinger and the staff of Mariannhill Mission Press, pictured last year.

Today Mariannhill Mission Press offers full-colour digital printing and website development.

“Abbot Francis was never afraid to spend money, but he spent it on productive equipment. Not on trimmings and novelties. He would have no problem with us getting a solid delivery vehicle, but it would need steel rims and not mag wheels,” Mr Riedlinger said, noting that “the first delivery vehicle for the press was a wagon drawn by a donkey”.

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BBOT Pfanner, the son of a farmer and born in 1825 at Langen in the Austrian Vorarlberg, was a forceful and energetic speaker known for inspiring young people.

He founded the Mariastern monastery in the then Turkish Bosnia in 1869 before sailing to Durban with 30 Trappist monks in 1880. The mission was established in 1882.

Fr Pfanner wanted to use the press to print information for wealthier Europeans about the good work the mission was doing in Africa. The project grew steadily, in time offering a tailor, a hospital and a carpentry workshop.

The monastery was made an abbey in 1885 with Fr Pfanner its first abbot. He chose the words of St Paul as his motto: “So run that you may obtain the prize”.

Abbot Pfanner went on to spread a net of mission stations over the southern part of Natal with his monks and with the assistance of the community of the Sisters of the Precious Blood, which he also founded.

The Mariannhill Mission Press developed and, for more than a century, was used to print various materials for catechetical work and liturgical books.

Thomas Merton, the US Trappist writer and mystic, once decribed the missionary work of Mariannhill as “astonishing”.

“Here was the astonishing spectacle of a Trappist mission in which the contemplative monks had achieved in few short years, a success more spectacular than many active orders had dared dream of,” he wrote.

“The most astounding thing about this new mission was that it was operating on purely Benedictine lines. It was an apostolate of prayer and labour, of liturgy and the plough.

“What was taking place in the outposts established by Dom Francis Pfanner was exactly the same process that had marked the Christianisation of Germany and all northern Europe by the Benedictine monks hundreds of year before,” Merton wrote.

Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaugh-

(Above) Mariannhill Mission Press, started in 1882, was used to print various materials for catechetical work and liturgical books for more than a century.

(Below) The printing company’s first delivery vehicle was a donkey and cart, here pictured being driven by founder of Mariannhill mission Abbot Pfanner.

ter, Ela Gandhi, said her grandfather was deeply inspired after his visit to the monastery.

Mr Riedlinger said the Mariannhill Mission Press has played a “pivotal role” in the evangelising efforts of the Church in South Africa and beyond.

Today the press offers full-colour digital printers and a rare digital litho press. Mr Riedlinger said the eye is focused firmly on the future.

He said the survival of the press is an impressive feat considering how many other printing presses have opened and shut down in the same time.

Printing presses, he said, still have a strong future in South Africa and Africa.

“We think print has a long lifespan, particularly here in South Africa and on the continent,” he says.

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“We have moved to digital technology from plate systems. We have one of the rare litho printers. We are blending litho techniques with modern technology. We are crossing that barrier,” Mr Riedlinger said.

And the press isn’t just about printing, but serves the Catholic community’s digital media needs as well. It has designed many websites for Catholic organisations, parishes and dioceses as well as for businesses.

“With our website division we are blending technologies in anticipation for the future. We are waiting for that.”

The hard-working culture at the mission will feed into that. It is a culture, said Mr Riedlinger, that is embodied by the two 140-year-old book clamps that are still at work in the far corner of a printing room at the Mariannhill Mission Press.

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COMMUNICATIONS

Pope Francis turns heads towards us The emergence of Pope Francis has turned the spotlight on the Catholic Church in a positive way, as FRAnCiS X RoCCA writes.

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HESE are not easy times for Catholic journalism, which no less than its secular counterpart has been deeply unsettled by technologically driven changes in how readers and viewers receive and share information. The disruption seems bound to continue indefinitely and there is no consensus about where it will lead.

Yet there are reasons for new hope. The last year or so has witnessed developments within the Church that offer Catholic journalism major opportunities for greater influence, among the faithful and the public at large.

On February 11, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would become the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign. Those who were at the Vatican press office that morning remember how quickly it filled with seemingly all the accredited journalists in Rome, many of whom rarely covered papal events.

Approximately 5 600 journalists were accredited to report on the conclave that elected Pope Francis on March 13.

As it turned out, that papal transition was just the beginning of the

Vatican’s longest stretch of global media attention since the pontificate of St John Paul II, and perhaps since the Second Vatican Council half a century before. The attention shows no sign of ending soon.

Pope Francis’ colossal popularity has been a boon for news outlets of every kind. Practically whatever he does excites curiosity that translates almost instantly into higher television ratings or more online page views.

Yet interest in a pope does not necessarily translate into interest in the Church as a whole.

Much secular coverage of St John Paul focused on his unique work as a charismatic, world-travelling evangelist, and on his role as a protagonist in the struggle for freedom in Eastern Europe.

Pope Benedict’s announcement that he would step down initiated a period of intense coverage of the Church’s traditions, practices, institutions and teachings.

What were the problems within the Vatican that had reportedly prompted the pope to resign?

What would it mean to have two living men who had both served as pope? Such questions reflected an interest in the Church that transcended the actions of any single leader.

Pope Francis has used his popularity to draw attention to a range of concerns, especially the plight of the poor. But, with his ambitious agenda of Vatican reform, his denunciations of “spiritual worldliness” among the clergy and his frank critiques of Church personnel and institutions which he

deems insufficiently merciful or pastoral, the pope has kept the secular press unusually focused on the internal life of the Church at every level.

Here is where the Catholic press

Prayer for Digital Citizenship Dear god,

Composed by gianluca Truda

Pope Francis responds to a journalist’s questions aboard the papal flight from South Korea to Rome. in his article, Catholic news Service Rome bureau chief Francis X Rocca (inset) observes that Pope Francis has used his popularity to bring attention to a range of issues and, in keeping with his charism as a Jesuit, especially the plight of the poor. (Photos: CnS) the Catholic press are uniquely well positioned to help the Church take advantage of an extraordinary opportunity to reveal itself to the world.—CNS n Francis X Rocca is the bureau chief of Catholic News Service in Rome.



In our modern age, where every thought, word, and action is shared with the world; may we have the wisdom to turn those thoughts to You, the courage to spread in those words the holiness of Jesus, and the virtue to act in accordance with Your divine example.

For we are utterly feeble and You are sublime, but with Your constant guidance may we be inspired to echo Your love in every post, tweet, or like.

May we use this tool of social interconnection as a means to create brilliant beauty, testify to Your teachings, and prolong peace, not to abuse it to the detriment of Your children—our fellow man.

Instil in each of our spontaneous selfies the subject of introspection. So we may see our sinful souls and strive instead toward our saviour, for we are humbled by Your ceaseless mercy and forgiveness.

Lead us away from hatred, failure and greed. Lead us toward You. Let us look up from our devices at the beautiful world You created for us. And then let us look up further. Up to the heavens from where You guide us, protect us, and wait for us to reply—‘last seen... in prayer’.

And then let us realise the folly of gaining followers when we forget to follow You. Let us see the absurdity of a hundred digital friends when You are simply waiting to be ours. Let us set aside the photos and the filters and the iPhones and, instead, truly share our hearts with You. We write this on Your holy wall, as we pray it in Your eternal name.

Amen. n Gianluca Truda is a Catholic currently studying for his matric at Michaelhouse School in Johannesburg.

can make a special contribution in at least two ways.

For the benefit of its Catholic readers and viewers, it can provide an explicit corrective to oversimplifications, misunderstandings and outright distortions in secular coverage of the Church.

At the same time, the Catholic press can indirectly inform the many people—including a great number of Catholics—who get their news of the Church primarily from secular media.

Because secular journalists, logically enough, turn to Catholic media for information and guidance when they write about the Church, the better their sources, the better their reporting ultimately will be.

The latter role is a more modest one for the Catholic press, and fulfilling it will do even less to solve the business challenges that almost all its outlets face today.

But in both ways, members of

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CLASSIFIEDS Father John Mehers SDB

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HE Salesians of Don Bosco of the Southern African province bade a sad farewell to their confrere Fr John Mehers, who died on August 8 at Good Shepherd Hospital in Siteki, Swaziland.

Fr John was born in Lancashire, England, in 1934. He made his first profession as a Salesian in 1953, studied theology in Italy and was ordained in 1963.

He came to Africa a year after ordination and spent most of his life teaching, first as a lecturer in philosophy for Salesian seminarians, and then in high schools in Swaziland and Lesotho.

From 1976-81, Fr Mehers was responsible for primary school religious education in the diocese

of Manzini, Swaziland, and supervised the Diocesan Pastoral Centre at St Joseph’s mission, organising seminars for diocesan youth, and running programmes for various diocesan initiatives.

He moved to Maputsoe community, Lesotho, in 1982, and after teaching at St Boniface for several years, he was appointed educational coordinator for the diocese of Leribe.

Fr Mehers moved to Gauteng in 2000, where he ministered in the Salesian works in Bosco Village, Jacksonsdrift and Ennerdale, with special attention to the tragedy of HIV/Aids in the informal settlements.

He invested much energy into the training of home-based care

Liturgical Calendar Year A Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday, September 7, 23rd Sunday Ezekiel 33:7-9, Psalm 95:1-2, 6-9, Romans 13:810, Matthew 18:15-20 Monday, September 8, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Micah 5:1-4 or Romans 8:28-30, Psalm 13:6, Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23 or 1:18-23 Tuesday, September 9, St Peter Claver 1 Corinthians 6:1-11, Psalm 149:1-6, 9, Luke 6:12-19 Wednesday, September 10 1 Corinthians 7:25-31, Psalm 45:11-17, Luke 6:20-26 Thursday, September 11, Commemoration of 9/11 1 Corinthians 8:1-7, 11-13, Psalm 139:1-3, 1314, 23-24, Luke 6:27-38 Friday, September 12, Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary Sirach 24:17-21, Luke 1:46-50, 53-54, Luke 1:26-38 Saturday, September 13, St John Chrysostom 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, Psalm 116:12-13, 1718, Luke 6:43-49 Sunday, September 14, Exaltation of the Holy Cross Numbers 21:4-9, Psalm 78:1-2, 34-38, Philippians 2:6-11, John 3:13-17

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workers. He always had a soft spot for the poor and needy.

He retired due to ill health in 2006, and was buried at St Joseph’s mission cemetery near Manzini.

Francois Dufour SDB

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Miracles, apparitions: Generally, miracle is used to refer to physical phenomena that defy natural explanation, such as medically unexplainable cures. An apparition is a supernatural manifestation of God, an angel or a saint to an individual or a group of individuals.

Our bishops’ anniversaries This week we congratulate: September 6: Archbishop William Slattery of Pretoria, on his 71st birthday.

September 6: Bishop Dabula Mpako of Queenstown on his 55th birthday.

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BÖRSCH—Sr Boniface.

Holy Cross Sister Sr Boniface Börsch, aged 80, passed away in Holy Cross Home, Pretoria, on August 11, 2014. Lovingly remembered by the Holy Cross Sisters, the Börsch family circle in Germany and her former students.

May she rest in peace!

KÖHLER—Henry Charles.

Beloved husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, brother, brother-in-law and uncle passed away peacefully on 13/08/2014. Grateful thanks to Father Joe Leathem for his spiritual support during the weeks preceding Henry’s death as well as ministers of the eucharist in Bryanston parish. deeply mourned by his wife Maureen, children Susan, Michael, Peter and Leonard, sisters Margaret and Ursula, son-in-law Robert, daughter-in-law ingrid, brothers-in-law Lawrence and Winfried, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. May his dear soul rest in peace.

RUTZINGER—Sr Juditha.

Holy Cross Sister Sr Juditha Rutzinger, aged 92, passed away in Holy Cross Home, Pretoria, on August 23, 2014. Lovingly remembered by the Holy Cross Sisters, the Rutzinger family circle in Germany and her former nursing colleagues. May she rest in peace!

SCHNELLER—Sr Maria Carmela. Holy Cross Sister Sr Maria Carmela Schneller, aged 93, passed away in Holy Cross Home, Pretoria, on August 17, 2014. Lovingly remembered by the Holy Cross Sisters, the Schneller family circle in Germany and the people whom she served. May she rest in peace!

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my thoughts. Till we meet again, your ever-loving wife Maureen.

FERNANDES—narcizo. if we could have chosen a dad and grandfather whose love and understanding surpassed all others, we would have chosen you. if we could have picked someone with wisdom, faith and a quiet gentle strength, we would have chosen you. if we could have known how deep your influences would touch our lives through the years, we would have said thank you dad, Grandpa and oupa sooner. you are in our hearts and lives every day.

RiP from all your children and grandchildren.

KEMP—Pauline.

24/11/1939-31/08/2013.

God saw you getting tired and a cure was not to be.

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MULHOLLAND—Cora.

My dearest friend who closed her beautiful blue eyes on 6/9/2012. “The beauty of a well-lived life becomes a legacy that stays behind and warms the heart with every memory.” you will always be missed and fondly remembered. RiP dear friend.

Love Maureen and all the gang.

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PRAYERS

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GOD BLESS AFRICA Guard our people, guide our leaders and give us peace.

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

CAPE TOWN: Fully equipped self-catering 2 bedroom apartment with parking, in Strandfontein.

R500 per night (4 persons) Paul 021 393 2503, 083 553 9856, vivilla@telkom sa.net BALLITO: Upmarket penthouse on beach, selfcatering, 084 790 6562.

KNYSNA: Self-catering accommodation for 2 in old Belvidere with wonderful lagoon views. 044 387 1052.

KNYSNA: S/c accommodation for 2/3 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/walks; beach 20 minute drive. Affordable. 021 880 0242. www.cbcentre.co.za email: cbcstel@gmail.com UVONGO: South Coast. immaculate holiday accommodation, well secured and lock-up garage in complex. Sleeps six.

082 767 0228.

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Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14 Readings: Numbers 21:4-9, Psalm 78:1-2, 34-38, Philippians 2:6-11, John 3:13-17

N

EXT Sunday, we celebrate a feast that is important enough to break the normal cycle of Sunday readings, the celebration of the great feast of Jesus’ cross, discovered by the Empress Helena in Jerusalem, just about where you might expect to find it, near where Jesus was crucified.

We might reflect on the oddity, but also the profound integrity, of giving so much weight to the instrument of Jesus’ disgusting death.

The first reading offers a way of understanding Jesus’ cross that is taken up in the gospel. It takes us back to the time in the desert, under threat from the Canaanites, going from mountain to sea, and taking the long way “round the land of Edom”.

Then, not for the first time, “the soul of the people became impatient on the road”, which shows a certain ingratitude, since this whole expedition was precisely intended to liberate them from oppression. Not only that, but “the people spoke against God and against Moses: ‘Why did you bring us up from Egypt, to die in the desert? There is no food and no water.’ ” So, to bring them to their senses, God sends fiery serpents among them, which kill some of them, and bring the others to repentance. So God (as always) has mercy on them, and Moses

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Discover the message of Jesus’ Cross Fr Nicholas King SJ

Sunday Reflections

is instructed to “make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole”, which, if they look at it, cures the bites inflicted by the serpents.

The psalm (the second longest of all, though we have only a selection from it) is an instruction to learn the lessons of the past; in particular it recalls the incident of our first reading: “When he slaughtered them, then they looked for [God], and they repented, and enquired of God again.” It brought them, the psalmist suggests, to their senses, and “they remembered God was their Rock”; but they had got things badly wrong, and “their hearts were not firm towards him; they were not faithful to his covenant”.

Instead, as always, God “was merciful to them, and forgave their sin; God did not ut-

terly destroy them; he turned back his anger”.

The second reading is the lovely hymn that Paul produces, when he is trying to persuade the Philippians to stop fighting, and imitate Jesus (he might be talking to us today, of course), in whom God unfailingly deals faithfully and lovingly with us.

The central point is that Jesus, “when he was in the form of God did not think it a plundering matter, to be equal to God”. On the contrary: “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave”; and as though that were not enough, he became obedient to death.

It looks as though Paul, to make it clear how radical was Jesus’ obedience, adds “death on the Cross”. That is the price God has to pay when human beings get it wrong.

However, because God is at work the results are spectacular: “Therefore, God superexalted him, and gave him the free gift of the Name which is above all other names.”

Then comes something very extraordinary, that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”; and we should remember here that Paul is quoting Isaiah, where “every knee” in fact is to bow to God, and that is the dramatic point that he makes by concluding:

When it’s time to grow up O

UR bodies and our souls each have their separate ageing process, and they aren’t always in harmony.

Thus, TE Laurence, in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, makes this comment about someone: “He feared his maturity as it grew upon him, with its ripe thought and finished art, but which lacked the poetry of boyhood to make living a full end of life...his rangeful, mortal soul was ageing faster than his body, was going to die before it, like most of ours.”

I suspect that all of us, at some level, fear growing into maturity. It’s not so much that we don’t want to give up the habits of our youth or that we fear that the joys of maturity are second-best to the pleasures of youth. There is, I believe, a deeper reason: We fear, as Laurence puts it, that our maturity will strip us of the poetry of our youth and make us old before our time.

What’s meant by that? We sometimes speak of an old soul inside a young person, and this is meant both as a compliment and a criticism, perhaps more the latter.

We sometimes look at a young person whose body is full of life and overfull with energy and see a precociousness of soul that belies that youth and energy, and we can’t help wondering whether that premature maturity isn’t inhibiting the life principle.

And so we have a mixed reaction: What a mature young person! But is his or her life too grey and sterile before its time?

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Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

Reflecting on this, I was reminded of a comment which the biblical scholar Fr Raymond Brown once made in a class. The context of his remark is important: It was not the comment of a young man still looking to leave a mark on life, but rather the comment of a very mature, successful, and respected man.

Nearly 70 years old, wonderfully mature, universally respected for everything from his scholarship to his personal integrity, he was a mature soul. And still his comment betrayed the subtle fear that perhaps his maturity had stripped him of some of the poetry of his boyhood. His comment was something to this effect: You know when you reach a certain age, as I have now, and you look back on what you’ve done, you’re sometimes embarrassed by some of the things you did in your youth, not immoral things, just things that now, from your present per-

“Every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (And that final phrase means that it is not a power struggle between Jesus and the Father; the two are in complete harmony, just as we are invited to be, with each other.)

The gospel story is taken from the dialogue “by night” between Jesus and Nicodemus, and it focuses on Jesus as the one who links heaven and earth, the “Son of Man”, who is God’s answer to the mess that we have made by demanding our own way and constantly complaining at God. Then the evangelist makes the point in a different way, by going back to our first reading, and Moses “lifting up the snake in the desert”. Now it gets tricky, and we have to face it that “the Son of Man has to be lifted up”; and although that idea includes the exaltation of Jesus, it also means his crucifixion, “in order that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life”. And why does this happen? Because “God so loved the world that he gave his Only Son”, and then the idea of “eternal life” is repeated.

There is much for us to reflect on, this week.

Southern Crossword #618

spective, seem immature and ill thoughtout, things that you are now too wise to ever risk doing. Recalling them, initially you are a little embarrassed. But then, in those moments where you feel your age and your present reticence, you sometimes look back and say: “That’s the bravest thing I ever did! Wow, I had nerve then!

I’m much more afraid of things now!”

T

HE Canadian novelist Jane Urquhart echoed this sentiment. Rereading one of her own books which she had written 20 years before, she commented: “It is tremendously satisfying to be able to reacquaint myself with the young woman who wrote these tales, and to know that what was going on in her mind intrigues me still.”

What’s unspoken in her comment is her present admiration—and dare I say, envy— for the poetry that once infused her younger self.

I had a similar feeling some years ago when, for a new release of my book, The Restless Heart, I was asked to update it. I’d written the book when I was still in my twenties, a lonely and restless young man then, partly looking for my place in life.

Now, nearly 25 years later and somewhat more mature, I was sometimes embarrassed by some of the things I’d written all those years back; but, like Raymond Brown, I marvelled at my nerve back then, and, like Jane Urquhart, it was refreshing to reacquaint myself with the young man who had written that book, sensing that he had more verve in him than the older person rereading that text.

Some of us never grow up. The body ages, but the soul remains immature, clinging to adolescence, fearful of responsibility, fearful of commitment, fearful of opportunity slipping away, fearful of ageing, fearful of its own maturity and, not least, fearful of death.

This is not a formula for happiness, but one for an ever-increasing fear, disappointment, and bitterness in life. Not growing up eventually catches up with everyone, and what was judged as cute at 20, colourful at 30 and eccentric at 40, becomes intolerable at 50.

At a certain age, even poetry and verve don’t compensate for immaturity. The soul too must grow up.

But, for some of us, the danger is the opposite: we grow old before our time, becoming old souls in still young bodies, mature, responsible, committed, and able to look age, diminishment and mortality square in the eye, but devoid of the poetry, verve, colour, and humour which are meant to make a mature person mellow and alive, like a finely aged old wine.

ACROSS 1. Good name of the Cape (4) 3. It enhances your hearing (7) 8. He was killed in Satan's city (Rev 2) (7) 10. Stay in bed (3,2) 11. Paschal procession for the army? (6,6) 13. Insanity (6) 15. They marched from Mahanaim to ... (2 Sam 2) (8) 17. Was king Herod this sort of deadly maniac? (12) 20. Works hard (5) 21. Is stern, places inside (7) 22. Withstood (8) 23. Mutual hostility (4)

DOWN 1. Lord God, ... king (Liturgy) (8) 2. He guides me by ... of virtue (Psalm 23) (5) 4. Famous fables (6) 5. Where arctic bishop rules? (5,7) 6. Late in time (7) 7. Ones of millions of years (4) 8. Are aristocratic pupils taught in them? (5,7) 12. Kind of fenced-off religious order? (7) 14. Papal ambassadors (7) 16. Refits turn to conflict (6) 18. Lament for the dead (5) 19. Leading light of the Magi (4) Solutions on page 15

CHURCH CHUCKLE

A

T Sunday School they were teaching how God created everything, including human beings.

Little Johnny seemed especially intent when they told him how Eve was created out of one of Adam’s ribs.

Later in the week his mother noticed him lying down as though he were ill. She asked: “Johnny, what is the matter?”

Little Johnny responded: “I have a pain in my side. I think I’m going to have a wife.”