75 Years of the SACBC

from 202208

FROM OUR VAULTS

Our structures have been successful, thanks to the efficient coordination of secretaries and directors of various offices and departments. In 2013, the bishops decided to restructure the Conference towards a more coordinated way of working, informed by the intention to evangelise. The bishops wanted each department to ask and answer the question of how its programmes and activities advance the work of evangelisation.

The bishops wanted a more streamlined Conference that would enable a coordinated way of working. The aim is to eliminate duplication and even competition among departments, and to promote collaboration among related departments for effective identification and handling of real issues.

The merging of departments, commissions and offices led to a reduction of departments from nine to six, with an overarching Council for Evangelisation, which is a coordinating and monitoring body that seeks to ensure synergy among departments and alignment with the core vision of the Conference, which is evangelisation. The SACBC also looks beyond its borders. How? In the recent past, the SACBC has tried to express its international character of being constituted of three countries — Botswana, Eswatini and South Africa — and occasionally alternates its venue for plenary meetings among them. It also tries to concern itself with issues affecting the three countries of the Conference.

The SACBC understands its universal character and extends its attention and participation beyond the borders of its territory. It participates and contributes to regional and continental episcopal conferences, namely the Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa (Imbisa) and the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Secam). Two of its members have served as presidents of Imbisa, and currently, one member of the SACBC is serving as the first vice-president of Secam [Bishop Sipuka himself].

Through its Denis Hurley Peace Institute, the SACBC continues to collaborate with other similar bodies to facilitate peace in situations of conflict across the African continent.

The SACBC is awake to the challenges facing the Church in other African countries, and often expresses support and solidarity through solidarity visits and written statements. So we have a good outward focus towards the world and don’t just focus on ourselves. Next month: Part 2 of the interview

A brief history of the SACBC

LITTLE FUSS WAS MADE WHEN THE Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) first met in March 1947 in Mariannhill. There was no grand announcement nor a big celebration — other than that associated with the episcopal ordination of Bishop Denis Hurley for what was then the vicariate of Natal. Southern African bishops had been gathering before, usually for purposes of funerals, jubilees and ordinations, such as that of Bishop Hurley, which brought them together 75 years ago. On one such occasion in 1919, the assembled bishops had given the go-ahead for the founding of The Southern Cross as the national weekly newspaper (it became a magazine the month of its centenary in October 2020). But these were ad hoc meetings. In the 1940s, the apostolic delegate, Archbishop Martin Lucas SVD, urged the bishops of Southern Africa to constitute themselves as a bishops’ conference. With travel having become easier than before, this would enable the local Church leaders to meet on a regular basis, to cooperate more closely, and to speak with one voice, if necessary — and the rise of apartheid soon after made the latter frequently necessary. The first pastoral letter by the bishops’ conference was issued after that initial plenary in March 1947. It called on the faithful to build up the Church in South Africa, for example by modelling their home on the Holy Family, and by sending their children to Catholic schools.

Hierarchy established

The SACBC elected its first president with the establishment of the local hierarchy in 1951 (see our January 2021 issue). That moment saw the restructuring of the old vicariates into dioceses, with four metropolitan sees (or archdioceses): Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. The first SACBC president was Archbishop Hurley, who served in that position until 1961, and again from 1981-87. He was succeeded by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Owen McCann (1961-74), Archbishop Joseph Fitzgerald (1974-81), Bishop Reginald Orsmond (198788), Bishop (later Cardinal) Wilfrid Napier (1988-94, 2003-06), Bishop Louis Ndlovu (1994-2003), Archbishop Buti Tlhagale (2007-13), Archbishop Stephen Brislin (2013-19), and since 2019 Bishop Sithembele Sipuka.

The SACBC was slow in opposing apartheid, though quicker than most other Churches. Conscious of the regime’s innate hostility towards the Catholic Church, the bishops often took a conciliatory position towards the government. This was driven largely by a concern for maintaining the Church’s network of schools and hospitals. Though

The bishops and prefects apostolic of South Africa with leading priests in 1947. (Front from left), Bishops Hurley, Colbert, Chichester, O’Leary, Fleischer, apostolic delegate Archbishop Lucas, Bishops Hennemann, Gothard, Meysing, Thünemann and Mgr Riegler. (Back) Frs Feurer CMM, Baur SMB, Dom Lambert OSB, Frs Hartjies OMI, Catocci OSM, Winterle CSSp, Mgr Lück SCJ, Mgr Schaff OSB, Mgr Rosenthal SAC, Fr van t’Westeinde OSFS, Mgr Boyle, Mgr Lucas OFM, Fr Hebert OMI, Mgr Koenig SAC, and Fr Hyis OSFS. The monsignori were prefects apostolic without an episcopal title at the time.

a first carefully-worded statement against apartheid was issued in 1952, that attitude changed in 1953 when the regime sought to enforce its Bantu Education on Catholic schools. The SACBC spearheaded a huge fundraising campaign to ensure the independence of its schools.

Catholic schools would remain a thorn in apartheid’s side. When in the mid-1970s the Dominican Sisters unilaterally decided to open their schools to all races, with other congregations quickly following suit, the SACBC was caught flat-footed. After an initially cautious response, they soon fully supported the move. Schools apartheid was smashed, at least in private institutions. Apartheid ‘intrinsically evil’

In 1957, the SACBC issued its first condemnation of apartheid. Led by Archbishop Hurley, it denounced apartheid as “intrinsically evil” . But the conference was not united in its stance against apartheid. In the mid-1960s, the polarisation within came to a head when Archbishop William Whelan of Bloemfontein, a man who preferred accommodation with apartheid, clashed publicly with his fellow Oblate, Archbishop Hurley. The apostolic delegates of those times also favoured a more diplomatic approach. According to one scholar, the Catholic Church in South Africa was at once victim, accomplice and perpetrator.

By the late 1970s, the bishops had positioned themselves more unequivocally against apartheid, no doubt influenced by the uprisings of 1976 and the ongoing detentions, torture and bannings of priests, such as that of Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa — who was appointed secretary-general of the SACBC in 1981, even though he was still under banning orders.

In the 1980s, this opposition became increasingly outspoken, and the regime’s response more severe. In 1986 the SACBC founded the weekly newspaper New Nation as a means of propagating news about apartheid oppression and the people’s response to it. The weekly, which published until 1997, became the first alternative newspaper to be banned, for three months, in 1988.

The same year, in October 1988, the SACBC headquarters in Pretoria, Khanya House, was bombed. In 2000, amnesty for the bombing was granted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to 19 former security police members, including the notorious Eugene de Kock.

In 1983, a group of Catholic bishops, led by Archbishop Hurley, was the first official delegation of South Africans to formally meet with the African National Congress in exile, in a London hotel. Post-apartheid challenges

The dawn of democracy in 1994 changed the bishops’ focus to other social and moral issues. The SACBC strongly opposed the legalisation of abortion in 1997, and in the 2000s turned its focus on the HIV/Aids pandemic. While the bishops were divided on the use of condoms as a means of preventing transmission of the virus, they found common ground in setting up the SACBC Aids Office, which under the guidance of Sr Alison Munro OP and Johan Viljoen was the first body in South Africa to systematically set up retroviral treatment clinics, at a time when the Mbeki government declined to do so. The Aids Office continues to do outstanding work today.

Through the Denis Hurley Peace Institute, the Southern African Church was also engaged in peacemaking activities in other parts of Africa, including the mediation leading to South Sudan’s independence in 2011. Throughout the SACBC, different departments and associate bodies are making a difference in fields as diverse as social justice, social and economic development (especially in rural areas), education, health, human trafficking, ecumenism, evangelisation and formation, and so on.

These activities are guided by the current pastoral plan, “Evangelising Community, Serving God, Humanity and All Creation” , which was launched in January 2020 to succeed the 1989 pastoral plan, “Community Serving Humanity” .

Within the global Church, the SACBC was blazing a trail by elevating women to leadership positions. In the early 1980s, Sr Brigid Flanagan HF served as associate secretary-general, at a time when Fr Mkhatshwa was limited in his activities by his banning orders. In 2005, Sr Hermenegild Makoro CPS was first appointed associate secretary-general, and from 2012-20 secretary-general. Currently Sr Phuthunywa Siyali HC is the associate secretary-general, working with Fr Hugh O’Connor.

While in 1947, all bishops were white and many of them missionaries, 75 years later, 18 of the currently-serving 28 bishops are of colour, and 22 are locally-born.

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Why the pope prays the ANGELUS publicly on Sundays

Every Sunday at noon, the pope appears at a window overlooking St Peter’s Square and prays the Angelus. Hannah Brockhaus explains how that came to be

IT ALL STARTED 68 YEARS AGO with Luigi Gedda, an Italian Catholic doctor, political activist, and influential lay leader. In the Marian Year of 1954, Gedda — then president of the association Azione Cattolica (Catholic Action) — convinced his friend Pope Pius XII to recite the midday Angelus publicly from the window of his private study. So on August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Pius XII addressed Catholics in Rome and around the world over Vatican Radio, inviting them to join him “in the pious greeting to the Mother of God” . This was the beginning of a papal custom that takes place every Sunday and on every Marian solemnity, when the pope appears at the window of his library in the Apostolic Palace at noon to lead the faithful gathered below in St Peter’s Square in praying the Angelus in Latin. History of the Angelus

The Angelus has its roots in a medieval practice of praying the Hail Mary three times in a row, as recommended by St Anthony of Padua. In the 1200s, a group of Franciscans proposed that the practice be done in the evening after praying Compline (Night Prayer), as a way of meditating on the mystery of Christ’s incarnation. A bell would be rung to remind the friars and others that it was time to pray the Hail Marys. Over the centuries, the three Hail Marys began to be prayed also in the morning and at midday.

Today, the prayer also includes words from the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she had been chosen to be the Mother of God, and a closing prayer.

Evidence of the modern iteration is found as early as the 1500s, in a book called the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was printed in Rome during the reign of Pope Pius V, and a handbook for Catholics published in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1588.

At the Vatican, many offices have the custom of pausing work every day to pray the Angelus together at noon.

During the Easter season, the Angelus is replaced with the Regina Coeli (“O Queen of Heaven”), a Marian antiphon prayed or sung during Easter.

A N C / a i d e M n a c i t a V : o t o h P

Pope Francis after praying the Angelus in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

Livestreamed prayer

Over the years, popes have used the moment before the recitation of the Marian prayer to give a short catechesis, message, or appeal.

Pope Francis does not stay at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, located outside Rome, but the popes who did would recite the Angelus from the palace during their period of rest.

At certain points during the Covid-19 pandemic, to avoid crowds of people gathering in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said the prayer via livestream from inside his study.

The Angelus is broadcast live around the world and streamed on the Internet. The bells of St Peter’s basilica always ring at noon, right before the pope appears at the palace window for this custom honouring the Blessed Virgin Mary. —CNA