Online Articles
FREE e-Newsletter
Sign up below to get our free weekly newsletter packed with news & updates.-
~ We Respect Your Privacy ~
Year-end Review 2010
It was the year when South Africa hosted the football world as well as the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux, the clerical abuse scandal exploded again in several European countries, Pope Benedict was welcomed warmly in secular Britain and spoke on condoms, and Southern Africans responded generously to the suffering people of Haiti. GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER looks back at the year 2010. Read more…
Music for the masses
From Barbara Gregory, Johannesburg
In response to Fr Chris Townsend’s opinion article “Why I Hate Catholic Music” (December 15), I am, with respect, happy that he is not my parish priest.
Our prayers for 2011
Poverty remains the greatest threat to peace in South Africa. The recent food riots in Mozambique, experts warn, could be replicated in South Africa, possibly fuelled by the on-going revelations of price-fixing collusion by producers of staple foods. Read more…
Look before you leap
As the year draws to a close many of us will probably be thinking ahead to 2011 and praying as hard as we can for our political, social and business leaders to have wisdom enough for this country to prosper in an atmosphere of peace, tranquillity and morality.
I’m sure Mary and Joseph bickered
I don’t know why Professor William Ochieng’ threw that huge tantrum the other day.
Prof Ochieng’ is a respected Kenyan historian, one of those who cut their teeth in academia several decades ago by demonstrating that there is indeed African history, a complex and much deeper area of knowledge than European colonialists were willing to admit. Prof Ochieng’ has written extensively about Africa and its peoples.
So, many people must have been shocked when the scholar recently wrote: “Marriage looks to me the most peculiar, irrational, selfish and restrictive institution man ever invented. I only hope future Kenyan generations will have the moral courage to abolish it. For I am sure the human race can continue without it.”
That coming from an African historian? Shocking. If there is one thing that is at the core of African life, it is the family, built on marriage. The world over, Africans are known for their strong families, so much so that the first African Synod of 1994 gave Catholics the concept of the Church as the family of God.
Why is Prof Ochieng’ so damning of marriage? He is not just an African historian but also an elder. In Africa, elders are revered for their wisdom. Why would an elder call on future generations of Kenyans to abolish marriage? Why would he say marriage has no role in the continuity of the human race?
Prof Ochieng’ was commenting on the sad reality that marriage is in a serious crisis in Kenya today. Hardly a day passes without reports of terrible domestic violence. Angry husbands have butchered their wives and children and then hanged themselves. Wives have poisoned their husbands or children before killing themselves.
Alcoholism and drug use connected to dysfunctional marriages are on the rise. Marital infidelity is now the leading source of new HIV infections. The national HIV/Aids agency says there are between 7000 and 10000 commercial sex workers in Nairobi alone every single night.
Even small Kenyan towns now have street children, mostly products of failed families.
This is what led Prof Ochieng’ to despair about marriage. But is his radical suggestion the answer to this problem? That is a good question to ask this Christmas season.
Rarely is the theme of marriage seen as connected to Christmas, perhaps because Baby Jesus is not the biological child of Joseph and Mary. And Church dogma says Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus, till her death.
But that aside, Mary and Joseph were husband and wife. Did they lead a normal married life; I mean characterised by joys of companionship interspersed with tense moments of petty quarrels, mutual resentment, dissatisfaction and loneliness?
There surely must have been a day when Joseph the carpenter was broke and Mary perhaps thought he had drunk all the money, no? Or a day the couple nearly came to blows because Mary didn’t like that flashy woman who seemed to always have a broken something she wanted Joseph to fix in her house, yeah?
The Bible doesn’t dwell on these matters, which could well suggest that Mary and Joseph in fact lived married life “for better or for worse”. Had theirs been a spectacularly blissful life, completely different from the troubled situations of other couples in their neighbourhood, I think the Gospel writers would have noticed and documented it.
And indeed if the only flawless person in the history of humanity was Jesus Christ—and despite that he also got angry and impatient like all of us—it is safe to assume that the Holy Couple also went through the vagaries of married life.
At least I want to think so this Christmas. Someone has said that no matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
How about that, Prof Ochieng’? Because there are no perfect persons, there can be no perfect marriage. There is the good and the bad in each union. We need moral courage to live with the whole package—not to abolish the institution.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Christmas Blessings to all!
To all my readers, I wish you the gifts of this Holy Season and a year of peace.
More reflections on the church, life in South Africa and more will continue in 2011.
Apology to the Holy Father
From Aideen Gonlag, St Michaels-on-sea, Kwa-Zulu Natal
Some six months ago in the midst of the sex abuse controversy in the Church and what appeared to be the silence of the pope on the matter, I lampooned him as the absent-minded professor in his ivory tower, unaware of what was happening around him.
A new mission
Pope Benedict dominated headlines in the secular and Catholic press in 2010. Some of these were welcome, while others most certainly were not.
Put Christmas back into the world
Following years of paranoid political correctness by countries and companies falling over themselves to not offend non-Christians at Christmas-time, sanity has prevailed quite spectacularly in both Britain and the United States, where Mother Grundies have been increasingly active.
Why I hate Catholic music
BY FR CHRIS TOWNSEND
Oh joy! Recently I read a blog by one James Macmillan about Catholic music which made me want to jump and dance and sing. At last, there was someone who isn’t afraid to speak out about how horrific our Catholic music has been allowed to become in the English-speaking Catholic world.
