17
September 2001
Stuart
C Bate O.M.I.
1.
But there is another side to this story.
1.
The human effort is not in vain as often precious homes and other sites
are saved as a result of this ongoing struggle. The fire is not entirely
beaten but its has often been persuaded. This way not that! Here you shall not
come! There you may go.
2.
And in fact the destruction is not as calamitous as it seems on the
surface. For under the ground and indeed within nature herself a deeper order
is holding things together and indeed preparing the way for newer, stronger
and better life. Under the ground, soil and seed are combined by the heat to
set in process something new. This natural order is there but we have to look
beyond the apparently grim appearances of things. If not we see only the
destruction on the surface and so we despair and we give up. But for the
fynbos, fire is a necessity of life. Fire is the age old way of propagation
and renewal. Without the fire there will not be renewal, there will not be
life.
2.
People today struggle to take the journey beyond appearances. We live
in a world of instant experience. What we see now, feel now and experience now
is our reality. That is our modern culture. Its weakness is its unwillingness
to see below, to go within, to find the deeper realities. The journey inward
and to the depth of reality is the journey which religion makes in the human
experience. It is a journey which helps us see things in a very different way
to what they first appeared. It helps us to see order and purpose to the
apparently unconnected events of life. In a world of instant experience, one
following on from the next like a TV news broadcast or a CD with track
following track or DSTV where you hop from pleasurable experience to
pleasurable experience there is little time or inclination to stop and go
deeper. That is why the modern world has little time for religion unless it
too becomes a consumer product which can give instant experiences like being
slain in the spirit, receiving the Toronto blessing, speaking in tongues or
any of the other emotion charged experiences of popular religiosity.
3.
But religion is far more than that. It is religion that finds inner
truth, inner order and that which is hidden from the eye. Religion finds that
which turns the fire of destruction into the fire of purification and new
life. And for that reason, today more than ever before Christianity needs to
offer more than just an emotion charged atmosphere in which people can Aexperience@
the presence of life, healing and blessing. Yes we do need to do that too but
in a world of confusion and social disorder we have the possibility to help
people dig for hope. The hope people have is that life is not merely
contingent and arbitrary and that it doesn=t
just depend on luck. People need to hear that we are not just the mere passive
playthings of sprits demons and witches and that the devil cannot make us
do anything despite what Hansie said.
4.
Our mission today is to reveal order in the chaos and new life in the
destruction. We must show that the morality and values of religion bring peace
and life and that each person and each community has enough power to fight for
what they believe in and to halt the destruction around home and precious
areas. Our mission is to go beyond the mere appearances of things to see the
deeper order for good that God has placed their. To reveal these spiritual
truths is the task of all ministers of the Gospel. But what does this mean for
us as ministers here in Cape Town?
2.
The Context of Cape Town
1.
In our ordination we receive the threefold responsibility for
ministerial activity: popularly expressed as priest, prophet and king. Presbyterorum
Ordinis deals with priestly ministry, in terms of these three priestly
functions, in chapter II. Probably most of you habitually exercise your
sanctifying and leadership functions in your parish work but what about the
prophetic function? How prophetic our we? I would suggest that in times such
as these when we are beset with tremendous social change, the prophetic role
of the priest is very important. This is because prophecy is the ability to
discern the voice and vision of God in a place and a time: to see beyond mere
appearances. In Gaudium et Spes no 11 we read
1.
The people of God believes it is led by the Spirit of the Lord who
fills the whole world. Moved by
that faith it tries to discern in the events, the needs, and the longings
which it shares with other men of our time, what may be genuine signs
of the presence or of the purpose of God.
2.
I would like to exercise that prophetic role this morning presenting to
you some signs that I think are manifesting themselves in South Africa which
affect your particular context in a special way. These are three issues around
the question of social and cultural identity which are affecting minority
groups in SA today in a different way to the majority and three issues of
social concern in our society. The three issues of identity I call
1.
From Apartheid to New South Africa
2.
From White to Western
3.
From Coloured to identifying African roots and embracing Urban African
life.
The
three Social Issues Are
4.
Poverty
5.
Emotional dysfunction especially in anger, rage and fear.
6.
Youth confusion.
3.
Let me briefly explain what I mean about each of these.
1.
The changes of the last ten years carry with them shifts in the nature
of what it means to be South African.
(1)
The first three issues are related to these changes. From a societal
ethos which saw South Africa as a country of 19 separate nations each with its
own language, culture and territory we have moved to a the vision of one multi
cultured nation with common citizenship and shared destiny. Yet apartheid
continues to exact a legacy especially, for example on the residential level
of local community. And what it means to be a new South African nation is
still unclear. For people in the Western Cape these issues manifest somewhat
differently than in much of the rest of the country. This is because of the
relatively large numbers of whites and coloureds who are able to retain
political hegemony. How do these changes affect these two former Apopulations
groups@?
For many Whites this move increasingly entails the move away from a privileged
racial identity in the South African context to an identification with the
global western context. For coloureds the change is different and somewhat
more complex. On the one hand many, especially the younger and more affluent,
increasingly fit into the global western group where the whites are making a
home. For others, however, there is an attempt to re-appropriate an African
heritage and much study is currently going on particularly regarding Khoisan
roots. On yet another level coloured culture as an Urban working class culture
is, together with its close relative urban black culture, providing some
important identifiers as to the nature, mind-set and value system of the new
South African culture.
(2)
The three social issues raised have emerged as new priorities as a
result of our new context. For example it should be clear that strategies
about poverty have undergone radical change. In the apartheid regime these
issues were transferred to the so called homeland governments and racial
development ministries. In this way the authority was able to deprioritise the
issue. In the new dispensation the struggle against poverty has moved to
centre stage and most of the governments policies are bent on responding to
this particular issue. Anger, rage and fear are three of the major expressions
of the social sickness of emotional dysfunction which affects our country.
Years of abnormal relating as human beings has led to emotional scarring in
all of us. We carry around in our broken hearts attitudes of superiority,
inferiority, prejudice and fear,
anger and hatred. Our history is one of exploitation and dehumanisation of the
other. Now that the oppressive structures have been removed the lid has come
off the boiling pot and we can see the symptoms more clearly: car rage, child
abuse, promiscuity, and an inability to form stable relationships leading to
broken marriages, family suicides, drug abuse and a whole host of other social
problems. But the clearer emergence of the symptoms is also the first step to
healing the sickness and this is the challenge which confronts us. In many
ways the youth are the most vulnerable to all of this since it is in the years
of adolescence and young adulthood that world view, morality and lifestyle
choice are made. Without an effective human society to grow up in youth fall
victim to the apparently effective groupings around the: gangs, prostitution,
drug organisations and the like. Only later, often when it is too late, do
they find that the effectivity of such groups as social institutions is a lie.
4.
So these six issues: three about identity change: of South Africans as
a whole, of whites, and of coloureds; and three about ministerial priorities:
poverty, emotional dysfunction and youth, are what I want to focus on and
challenge you about in my address to you today. In discussing them we will go
beyond the surface to find the order of God=s
vision and the hope that Catholic faith can bring if we look beyond the
appearances of our society today.
3.
The Challenge for ministry
1.
The topic of your indaba is : AWhat
is God asking of us priests for evangelisation in South Africa today?@
Evangelisation is a tricky term. Sometimes it can sound dry and theoretical.
Many see it as the same as catechesis: teaching people about their faith. But
in its simplest form evangelisation is bringing good news to people. Now when
we hear the term Agood
news@
we are wont to think of the scriptures: the gospel. But in what I consider to
be a most important distinction, Albert Nolan has pointed out that the content
of the good news is not so much the text of the bible but the events of the
lives of the people of the day interpreted in the light of the scriptures.
Good News has to be just that: good
news. It must be good and it must be new. And, as any teenage catechism
teacher can tell us, just reading the bible to people is not going to
necessarily be good news. Like the Ethiopian Eunuch, the scriptures must be
interpreted for our lives. I have indicated what I consider to be some
important areas of human life in the Cape context. What then is the good news
about these six major aspects of Cape Town human life that I indicated above?.
How can we respond to such issues and be evangelisers today? Let us explore
each of these six areas in more detail indicating some areas for effective
evangelisation.
2.
The three issues of identity are questions about culture. Culture is an
important aspect of our humanity. It is our culture that provides us with our
world-view, our beliefs and our values. Our Christian faith is always
expressed in terms of our culture, a truth which has been reinterpreted today
in the discourse about inculturation. Indeed we can say that all human needs
are mediated by culture to become wants: just think about food or clothing,
for example. We all need food but the kind of food we want is
given to us by our cultural preferences. All of our ministry is also mediated
by culture since as human beings we live in a world of culture. Just think
about the ministry to the dead and dying amongst different groups of people
you may have ministered to: Irish, Italians, traditional Africans and so
forth. In fact all ministry can be described as Aculturally
mediated pastoral responses to culturally mediated human needs@
(Bate 2001). Issues of culture are then important for all we do as
evangelisers.
1.
Unfortunately, the apartheid regime hijacked the notion of culture and
reinterpreted it in terms of racial ethnos theory. In this theory culture was
ascribed to people in terms of ethnicity. The Population Registration Act 30
of 1950 as amended classified people into
one of 19 racial groups: White, Cape Coloured, Malay, Griqua, Other
Coloured, Chinese, Indian, Other Asian, Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi,
South Ndebele, North Ndebele, North Sotho,
South Sotho, Tswana, Shangana, Venda and Other Black. The act was
repealed in 1991. For many people of course, these categories did not really
express identity. The whites for example were not homogeneous. Amongst them
were Afrikaners, English, Portuguese, Italian and so forth.
The coloureds in particular struggled with questions of social identity
seeing themselves, or being seen by others, sometimes as black, sometimes as
part of western culture and often as people with no culture at all. Blacks in
the melting pot of urban areas also found it increasingly difficult to
identify with this or that ethnic grouping especially within mixed marriages.
Relating ethnicity to culture is highly problematic. Culture is more concerned
with beliefs and values which inform our understanding and way of life than it
is with biological heritage though the latter is of course important as well.
Consequently in the last 50 years and increasingly today there is a shift in
terms of cultural identity and the search is on for new labels to express the
new social realities within which we live and bring up our children. The good
news here is that the struggle to re-examine the question of our human
identity within the freedom given by the elimination of the cultural ideology
people were forced into, is a liberation and a challenge to become more human
and thus more like the image of God which we have received. Community serving
humanity (our pastoral plan in SA) here is the commitment to recognise the
value of this process and to encourage people to work within it. Building
acceptable cultural identities is an empowerment of our humanity. This is the
same good news that Peter discovered in his dream in Acts 10: Ado
not call anything impure that God has made clean@.
2.
Clearly the biggest social change in South Africa is the move from
Apartheid to the so called ANew
South Africa@.
It is important to realise that this social change carries with it a cultural
change. Culture is never static. Just as our culture influences our behaviour
and the kind of society we create so the society we create, its structures and
its institutions, affects our understandings, mind-set and the values we have.
This social change has affected a whole host of beliefs and values about
freedom, democracy, the role of religion in society, ethical judgements,
rights of workers, the role of the state in housing, employment and so on.
These values and beliefs affect who we are. For example values around
authority, submission and patriarchy are undergoing massive change. These
changes will affect parish life and ministry with Athe
>lay=
people@
probably becoming far less inclined to accept the word and will of Afather@
in the way that they would before. This must affect the way in which we
exercise the kingly dimension of our ministry. It is a challenge to us to
democratise our own ecclesiastical structures allowing greater consultation
amongst one another and with others. It is also a challenge to examine
racially divided parish boundaries as well as the attitudes we have to
parishioners from what were formerly different population groups. But it is
also a challenge to look at how we treat one another as priests and to examine
the mini-hierarchies we establish amongst ourselves. The pecking order for
affluent parishes, for example, can be problematic in some dioceses especially
when this carries with it a racial component. Issues like these help us to see
how the scriptures can speak to this particular culture change and help us to
respond to it in a Christian way.
3.
In the 50's and 60's they (we) were Athe
Europeans@
and the rest were the ANon-Europeans@.
Greater identity with Africa in the Afrikaner Nationalist period culminating
in the declaration of a Republic in 1960 led to the gradual replacement of
this identifier with the term AThe
Whites@.
And the rest were, of course, the ANon-Whites@.
The centre of identity moved from a region and its culture: the so called AEuropean
civilisation@,
to a racial identity within the African context although clearly the European
roots of this remained. Now this Awhite@
culture is in many ways a pre-enlightenment culture though it clearly has many
modern overtones. Why do I say this?
It is always important to remember that the Afrikaner whites first came
to Africa in the 17th century. This was before the enlightenment
and modernity began to exert a powerful influence in European social and
cultural life. The Afrikaner culture retains a strong root in a pastoral late
mediaeval European cultural context. Modernity arrived relatively late in
Africa blocked by the success to the pseudo feudal system of European owners
and African workers promoted by colonialism. Indeed in many rural parts of
South Africa it is only beginning to arrive now. Modernity then is only
overlaid on this Awhite
South African@
cultural root. This is one of the cultural factors explaining why South
African whites of the apartheid period and a many even today are at odds with
many of the values of Amodern
civilisation@like
for example the liberty, fraternity and equality of the French revolution or
the UN charter.
4.
Today, however, the culture of the Awhites@
is increasingly untenable and we are witnessing another cultural shift as many
of the whites as well as other more affluent people of other races and
backgrounds see themselves increasingly as westerners and members of the
international global culture. In this way South African whites find themselves
identifying much more with Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians or Italians
than they do with Africans. The global western culture is a culture which has
the United states as its principal metaphor and cultural metropole. The US
prides itself on being a melting pot of peoples from many cultural backgrounds
who together form the American way of life. This unity in diversity paradigm
is promoted by advertising and the global media. Its values and vision can be
encapsulated as the American way of life, wealth, well-being and consumerism.
Many young people from all backgrounds are increasingly seduced by the global
culture of Westernisation. Now there are many values in this cultural move.
One of the principal ones is that it helps white South Africa to move away
from its culture of isolation to becoming involved in the wider human
community. This builds respect: both self respect and respect of others.
Another very important perceived plus is that the global western culture is a
white controlled culture. What good news cab we bring to this culture. First
we must recognise the many positive shifts this move brings in terms of
greater openness to the human family. These should be affirmed. But there are
some very important weaknesses that need exposing if people are not to become
victims. Good news here would be helping people to see these. The principal
one is very subtle and can easily tempt and seduce
5.
Within the global cultural paradigm
religion tends to becomes a consumer product: a part of the so called service
sector. The language of markets and business translates easily into the arena
of religion. To be successful, marketers of consumer religion have to provide
people with what they want. Successful religions provide positive feelings of
well-being and experiences of success: a major value within this culture. The
culture of the markets tell us that successful religions grow whilst less
effective ones will die. Whilst this sounds like good news it may not be the
good news of the gospel which warns us about the wide road and the narrow road
(Mt 7:13-14). Effective Ministry in this context will have to learn how to
respond to these culturally mediated human needs in a way that does not
compromise the message of the gospel and the teaching of the Church. Many tent
churches and television evangelists seem
have lost sight of the demands of the gospel and replaced them with a consumer
religion which conforms too much to the wants of global culture. In this way
the deeper message of the redemptive value of suffering in the imitatio
Cristi is replaced by the gospel of health and wealth based on the healing
stories of Jesus. On the other hand, the recent statement of the Bishops on
the condoms issue was an example of a response which was strong in its
identification with the strict demands of scripture though it perhaps went too
far in not sufficiently taking into account context and culture and so it lost
its interlocutors. In that respect it was a naive statement and not good
evangelisation. Of course if the interlocutor was not South Africa but the
Vatican then it was a statement which responded too much to culture, Vatican
culture that is, and not enough to the gospel.
6.
Coloured identity and culture is a profoundly complex issue and one
which carries much emotion with it. It is, I would suggest, one of the most
important cultural questions for South Africa today. This is because both
coloured culture and its close cultural neighbour, urban black culture,
provide a vision and indicate cultural trends and directions for what will
probably be many of the parameters of the South African common culture of the
future. One of the professors at SJTI, a white Capetonian told us of a concert
he participated in whilst a student at Cedara in the eighties. In the concert
the Capetown people put on an item about Cape Town gangs and he was required
to die his hair black and paint his skin dark. The late eighties were a time
of great political turmoil and emotion as you remember. At the dress rehearsal
he was confronted by one of his politically aware coloured brothers who
scolded him for trying to pretend to be coloured. During the altercation he
asked the white guy. AWhere
was your Father from@.
AFrom
England@,
he replied. AAnd
your mother?@
AFrom
Ireland@
was the response. AAg
man, that=s
all right then. You=re
a coloured!@
7.
The designation Acoloured@
is itself highly complex being esteemed by some and rejected by others.
However its very complexity may in the end turn out to be its strength. The
most valuable social identifiers are those symbols which carry with them a
complexity of meaning. It seems to me that there are two directions in which
the identification of this symbol are moving. The first is a deepening to
research and affirm the African indigenous roots of coloured people. In the
European/non-European period many coloured people tended to vaunt their
European ancestry and often ignore or cover up their African roots. Today the
opposite seems to be happening. This is a very healthy development as it
returns dignity to people as they rediscover and re-appropriate the entirety
of their human heritage. Probably the most visible part of this process at the
moment is that done regarding the Khoisan cultural roots of people. In the
past the labels Abushman@
and AHottentot@
were considered pejorative and used by both black and white to disparage
coloured people. Today there are a large number of research programmes
concerned with recovering the music, traditions and customs of these people.
It should not be forgotten that the Khoisan are generally considered to be the
original indigenous inhabitants of this part of the world and it is no
accident that the new motto of the South Africa is written in a language from
this group.[1]
Evangelisation here implies the affirmation of culture. God has created
humankind in a diversity of cultures and he looks upon all his work
considering it to be good. Christians are called to affirm what is of value in
human culture and assimilate it into Christian practice and morality. This is
and important step in the process of inculturation.
8.
But besides the movement back to a rediscovery of cultural roots and
their values for identity today there is also a movement forward. Culture is
never static just as the good news of the gospel is never exhausted. Coloured
culture and its neighbour urban black culture share a number of
characteristics which describe the reality of the New South Africa in the way
that other cultural groupings do not. Each of these cultures is a mix of
ethnic and cultural diversity. They are urban based rather than rural. They
are working class. They are mobile both as urban commuters and also in travel
away from the urban base from time to time. They are cultures in which sport
and alcohol provide major ways of recreation. They are cultures struggling for
access to the wealth of the nation using trades unions, protest marches
and other ngos to mobilise themselves. They suffer social deprivation
in a number of ways: lack of infrastructure, poor housing, unemployment,
poverty and anomie which is a kind of spiritual confusion and anxiety caused
by social disorganisation. They also suffer from the social ills which go with
this: crime, gangs, drugs, prostitution, high levels of disease and as these
become a way of life for the people they become a culture too, a culture in
need of good news. In these and other ways the coloured culture and the urban
black culture offer a vision of the good and the bad, of where the whole
country could be going. Evangelisation here means an affirmation of what is of
value and a response to the negative aspects of these cultures which offers a
better vision for the future.
9.
The transformation of culture and identity in the new South Africa
seems at times to resemble the fynbos fires of January and February. There is
so much chaos and confusion. Identity confusion needs a site of freedom to
express itself. In times of social disorganisation people will turn to
communities which offer greater order and clarity. Here good news can be the
provision of order in perceived chaos. The Catholic church is one such
community and studies have shown that people will turn to religions and
churches which provide this order. In the US during the period of depression
many people became Catholics. In Cape Town the original success of the Islamic
organisation PAGAD was motivated by its hard line message of order.
The order the church provides in Cape Town can be this site. We are in
a time where South African identity and culture is being remoulded. This is
exciting but also traumatic and confusing. People need a safe place to return
to when things get too chaotic in the world and the Church can provide that.
It is the underlying hidden order that causes new growth after the fynbos is
burnt. The Catholic Church in particular has a role to play in this because of
its stability, its ability to not be completely rooted in any one cultural
context and its timelessness. This provides a safe haven in which people can
be freed to deal with other aspects of their lives. This means that it is
particularly important at this time for us to be strong about our Catholic
identity and affirm a clear moral stance. Sometimes we fail in this and one
gets the impression that we too are confused: going from a neo
conservative maintain the old traditions at all cost approach to the worst
excesses of inculturation and pentecostalism where we become Zionists, African
traditional religionists or Pentecostals. The Church has always managed to
assimilate what is of value from elsewhere but also to transform it and to
retain its own identity and a strong set of demands for its members. This
identity of ours will help people in the remoulding of theirs in today=s
world.
10.
[So what is our order. I have always found this slide very useful and
user it with my students. But it may be new for you. Perhaps here do this
thing with slide showing how the order works.[ [Use the slide of community of
communities if time but I doubt it.]
3.
The three social issues are three out of many but I believe that they
do indicate priorities for ministry and evangelisation today.
1.
Poverty is a perennial issue. But precisely because the nation as a
whole is mobilising to fight it, the value of synergy in human effort demands
that this is a time for us to make it a priority too. We must play a greater
role today in responding to the needs of poor people.
(1)
In this regard the Archdiocese of Cape Town has a proud record. The NGO
Catholic Welfare and Development is nationally and internationally
recognised as an organisation that has played a major role in responding to
the needs of the poor. Whilst it is always important to provide material
assistance for those who have little or nothing its is also important to open
up pathways for them to help themselves. Human dignity requires the respect
which comes from providing people with the resources needed to survive and
prosper. CWD has adopted a supportive role in helping locally based community
development projects to be effective. This has meant empowering grass roots
leadership. We as priests need to
support these efforts and also empower our parishioners to get involved in
providing this kind of good news for people. Indeed evangelisation within the
diocese calls for a common sharing of gifts and talents between rich and poor.
And this works both ways. When I took some the Catholic members of the
International Commission for Roman Catholic - Reformed dialogue to Khayelitsha
three weeks ago for Sunday Mass they came back rejoicing over their
experience. For them that Mass was a celebration of the kingdom of God, a
theme we had been discussing over the previous week. Catholics need to be more
involved in this kind of sharing: helping one another with what they have.
Every group has some riches to share and some needs to be satisfied. In this
way each experiences good news. Responding to poverty is rarely just about
handouts.
(2)
The reflection about poverty is always a reflection about sharing and
in this regard we need to examine ourselves, as priests and our own lifestyle
and priorities. Often we get divided into two classes: those with access to
resources and those without. Such a division, which is common all over and not
only in Cape Town, is one which militates against the unity of the
Presbyterium. How often do we sit down to talk about our own financial
difficulties in a spiritual context? Such a reflection is important as the
parable of Lazarus and the rich man teaches us. In hearing one another=s
stories we can evangelise each another by responding to one another=s
need. Such sharing can be embarrassing. Good news here can be overcoming the
embarrassment to find a site for mutual empowerment on this level as on the
others.
2.
South Africa is a sick society. How could it be otherwise after so many
years of prejudice, oppression and dehumanisation. Indeed the remedy for this
sickness is the re-humanisation of our nation. This means the ability to live
together in mutual respect where the dignity of all is affirmed and where
children can be brought up in a world in which human values are lived, taught
and respected. As Christians we have a clear role to play in this process
since we believe that Christian and Catholic values bring people to the
fullness of humanity promised by God in Jesus Christ. There are many symptoms
of our sick society but I want to focus on the emotional scarring and
suffering that is caused by fear, rage and anger. In its simplest form we can
describe the paradigm as white fear and black anger. The whites and
increasingly the westerners of other racial groups share a fear about things
African. This has been expressed in many ways: swart gevaar, the white
man=s
burden and recently Afro-pessimism. The remedy for this has been to create
enclaves where the problem doesn=t
enter. Hence the importance of separate facilities in the past and the retreat
to expensive suburbs with high fences and villages under security, today.
White fear expresses itself in a number of behavioural outcomes:
road rage, violence, emigration and extreme prejudice and disrespect
for blacks. A black man was painted with silver paint for crossing a farmers
land and a farm worker was tied to the back of a farmer=s
truck and dragged around the roads to his death for suspected theft. These are
more extreme examples of this behaviour but there are other more subtle ones
like cruelty within families, alcoholism and family murders as well as many
other ways. For blacks the symptoms are anger and rage. It is an anger and
rage born out of the experience of being made to be inferior in the country of
one=s
birth. This anger and rage expresses itself in many ways: leaving the country
to join liberation movements, participating in protest marches, toyi toying,
violence in soccer stadiums, drunkenness and abuse within the family, sexual
promiscuity, violence within the family and many other ways. All of these are
symptoms of an emotional imbalance or emotional dysfunction within the people
of our country. These denied, suppressed or inappropriately expressed feelings
need healing. This ministry of healing is a major task for our time.
(1)
Emotionalism has often been dismissed in the past as a weakness and
largely unimportant when compared to reason as a motivator for real human
behaviour. But this is a mistake. In fact all of our behaviour is motivated by
emotions. That is precisely their purpose: to motivate behaviour as any
etymological analysis will show. Examining and understanding our emotional
reactions is essential for true humanity and well being. Good News here means
the exploration, recognition and ordering of our emotional life within the
fullness of our human life. This implies firstly helping people to get in
touch with their emotional life and then helping them to find more creative
and healthy ways of emotion expression. Negative emotions which are covered up
or repressed will find other ways to emerge often reinforcing neurotic and
other dysfunctional behaviour patterns. Addictions, alcoholism, sexual acting
out, violence and drug abuse are probably the most common of these. Once
people are more in touch with their emotions good news becomes the search for
healthy ways of emotional expression.
(2)
Evangelisation here means a greater focus on healing in all of our
ministry. Now is the time to develop healing ministries where people can
express their fears, rage and anger in an environment that can lead to new
life. Jesus=
ministry was packed full of healing: there are 42 healing stories in the four
gospels. Unfortunately our English translations of the scriptures have
obscured the nature of these healings and the illusion is fed that Jesus just
healed by miracle cures something which we cannot replicate. But this is a
false understanding of biblical healing.
We know from scripture that Jesus
heals by dunamis which really means a powerful deed but which is
unfortunately sometimes translated as miraculous power or miracle (Mt
13:54, Mk 6:14, Acts 6:8; II Thess 2:9). The healing effected was either sotso
which is also the word for salvation or therapeuo which is not physical
healing but a total healing the human being (source Kittel). Our English word
therapy comes from the same root. These words both specifically exclude the
notion of physical cure (iasthai) which the English translation Acure
the sick@
seems to imply. This healing is a restoration to the fullness of human life as
salvation. Salvation and healing are two aspects of the same process in Greek
a concept that African languages share but Latin and European languages do not
as they have two separate concepts: curare (to cure) and salvare
(to save). The Church has no mission of its own but the continuation of the
mission of Christ and in Matthew 10, Jesus mandates the disciples to continue
his own work: cast out unclean spirits; heal every disease (the word used is
again therapeuo), preach the kingdom of heaven is close, raise the
dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. This mission mandate has been
unpopular in modern Christian discourse because these things seem so hard to
do. Yet much of this is the kind of emotional healing which processes such as
the TRC and the healing of memories retreats endeavour to do. In the past many
religious congregations were set up to heal the sick. With the demise of the
medical missions many have moved out of healing into pastoral ministry. I find
that to be a problem when there is such a need for the emotional healing of
anger in our people today. We need people whose vocation is to focus on this
area. People have been oppressed, hurt
and violated. They have falsely believed themselves to be superior or inferior
to another group and to behave accordingly. Healing here is facilitated by the
need for emotional release which can occur in just telling the
story to someone who cares to listen. Counselling as well as helping people to
emote creatively and move on to better emotional health is a way to cope with
the trauma of the past and this is so important in our society today.
Evangelisation in this area means healing the sick.
3.
Youth
(1)
And finally I come to youth. This ministry is becoming an urgent
priority. The youth of our country are faced with tremendous challenges. They
live in a country that is being renewed but they were born and brought up in a
society which lived in a state of low intensity war. Many of those who are 21
this year spent the first 15 years of their lives in a most violent, chaotic
and confused society in transition: a country going through the pangs of birth
from old to new. They lived the first ten years of their lives during the
nineteen eighties when the whole country was in turmoil with wars on the
ground between Inkatha and UDF in Natal and the rand; between police and
students, between the Wit Doeke and the comrades in Crossroads between the amaqabane
and the soldiers throughout the country. They went to schools that were
initially racially homogenous, then some were changed into model C mixed
schools and then they completed matric in the new South Africa with the
education system changing yet again. For some this was an encouragement to
commitment and involvement but for most it was the acceptance of poor
education, teachers not teaching and corrupt officials charging for
certificates. In my own parish the high school matric results were cancelled
in 1992 because it was found that the pupils with the collaboration of the
teachers had cheated. How many times had this happened before without them
being found out.
(2)
The Catholic church used to have a powerful influence amongst youth. By
1953 the Catholic Church controlled 15% of all black schools, by far the most
visible Catholic presence in society at the time. Besides this by the 1960s
and 70s there were a number of Catholic youth movements within the country
which provided leadership training for young people. CLG, Chiro, YCW and YCS
were movements which focussed on youth leadership training. In the early 70's
I was an organiser for the YCW and there was a thriving movement in the
Western cape inspired by the work of Canon Edward Mitchinson whom some of you
will remember and organisers such as Bernard Pick, Keith Philander, Roddy
Nunes, Maggie Oewies with the domestic workers and the like. The zealous
priest in Bishop Lavis, Lawrie Henry was chaplain to a number of groups and
the regional chaplain after Mitchinson left was a former parish priest of
Matroosfontein, Eddie Adams. I meet former YCWs=
all over the place. Besides these two bishops, they are in parliament, in city
councils, in trades unions and in leadership positions in the Church.
The YCW which I know best earned the praise of then President Mandela
who in an address to them in 1995 said:
(1)
It is common knowledge that the YCW has made a significant contribution
to building the organs of civil society in South Africa...The YCW=s
approach has always been to acknowledge and challenge injustice, and then to
build the capacity of the oppressed to act in a constructive way that will
bring an end to injustice and create a better world for all of us. (Mandela
1995:2)
(2)
Today the Catholic church has a very small influence amongst young
people. It is the area of ministry in which the church has reduced its
involvement more than any other. Yet it is the most important area for the
future of the church in this country. What I am saying here is that if the
Church is not involved with young people in a meaningful way then the future
for us will be quite bleak. Many young people find the attractions of African
Independent Churches and Pentecostals much more appealing than what we
Catholics have to offer. From a focussed effort in schools in particular, but
also in youth movements, our involvement as church with youth is now
increasingly only on the parish level. Parish youth groups, however, are
unlikely to be very effective. Youth work requires vision, structure and
resources to be effective. It is impossible for individual parishes to do this
work. What the schools provided was an ethos within which people grew up. They
imbibed, if you will a Catholic culture. The ability to do this today is
limited. We cannot compete with the state and whilst some Catholic schools
will continue to exert an important role it will only be small on the societal
level. What the movements do is to provide a structure which allows for
leadership training on a higher level than the parish or even the diocese. It
also allows for young people to exercise leadership in regional and national
NGO fora. I would consider a greater regional and national effort on the
development of youth ministries and movements to be one of the most urgent and
pressing needs for evangelisation today. More priests must be released to
specialise in this work but they must also be inserted into structures which
can train them to do it well. For some this may entail advanced studies but
for others it may just require working within existing effective youth
organisations to learn on the job. Whatever we do, such activities need
planning on a national and regional level.
4.
Conclusion
1.
The mission of the Church is the continuation of the mission of Jesus.
In its simplest form we can understand it as the next step that the people of
God takes on the journey to the Kingdom of God. In this journey the people of
faith meet up with human events of non-faith. Ii is to these human conditions
that we are always called to bring good news. Because it must be good news for
people we cannot just rehash our own stuff or the words of the bible, or the
catechism or the teaching of the Church. Ministry is always culturally
mediated pastoral responses to culturally mediated human needs whether we
acknowledge it or not. The ones who brings good news will be the ones who can
see the events, read the signs of the times, discern the Spirit=s
prompting and bring real good news to people. Sometimes good news is not
always apparent; the cross does not sound like a good idea. Only those who
have walked the journey already and have experienced the good news in their
own lives can evangelise others about suffering, death and resurrection. In
the final analysis, then, evangelisation also means ongoing spiritual renewal
for us priests both on a personal level which many of us do take seriously but
also on a communal level which is often less valued especially
in western cultures. It is this social renewal as priests that you are
involved in during these days and I wish you well. Where two or three are
gathered together in my name I am present says Jesus. May the risen lord bring
you good news in these days.
Texts cited
Bate
S C. 2001. Culture in Christian
Praxis@.
Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 109: 67-82.
Gaudium
et Spes. Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Vatican II.
Mandela
N 1995. Speech during opening
ceremony of the Young Christian Workers world council. Oukasie, Brits. 26
November 1995.
Presbyterorum
Ordinis. Decree on the
Ministry and life of Priests. Vatican II.
www.gov.za/symbols/coatofarms.htm
The
motto is: !ke e: /xarra //ke, written in the Khoisan language of the
/Xam people, literally meaning: diverse people unite. It addresses
each individual effort to harness the unity between thought and action. On a
collective scale it calls for the nation to unite in a common sense of
belonging and national pride - Unity in Diversity.
(Source www.gov.za)