From Frank Bompas, Johannesburg

In reference to Mario Compagnoni’s letter (April 8), I am convinced that the beliefs Catholics have in the sacraments are founded on the continuous experience of God’s presence and power in them.

And if we believe in the intercessory power of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints it is because so many have found that they really do help us.

However, apart from organised religion many, some not even orthodox believers, have found the majesty and power of God in nature. Many scientists too have come to the conclusion that only the infinite intelligence of God accounts satisfactorily for the mind-boggling immensity of the universe and the enormous variety and complexity of living creatures.

Philosophers such as Aristotle and theologians like St Thomas Aquinas have tried to show that the existence of the universe demands an ultimate and unlimited cause outside of itself.

The existence of God and his relationship with the world and human beings is the most important issue that mankind has to deal with; and the almost universal acknowledgement of God is probably the greatest achievement of man.

But if man has indeed found God it is because God is continuously trying to reach us. In many ways the history of the world is a history of God endlessly manifesting himself to us and of us reaching out to him.

However, although God is so deeply involved in the world, we cannot always rely on our own individual private experience to discover him, any more than we can rely on our own experiences to prove the theories and laws of science.

The stories of the large numbers of people who have been touched by God in a powerful way have been recorded very abundantly in books and magazines and on Christian radio and TV stations as well as websites.

Those Protestants who look unkindly upon the Catholic devotions to the Blessed Virgin often do not explore it beyond the dogma they reject (such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption), the Marian apparitions for which they have no use, and what they feel is an undue emphasis on Mary in Catholic and Orthodox devotion. There is, however, an awareness of Mary in Catholic thought that should resonate with all the followers of Christ.

A close-up of Mary, part of a larger "Mary and Joseph" statue, by US artist Rip Caswell. (CNS photo courtesy Rip Caswell)

Historically, devotion to Mary precedes the schisms in the Church. St Augustine taught that the mother of the Saviour is “surely the mother of his members”, meaning Christ’s followers. And St Thomas Aquinas wrote: “The Blessed Virgin, because she is the Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good, which is God.”

As the mother of Jesus, Mary is the mother of us all. A relationship with Christ surely is deficient if it excludes his mother. Of course, there may be variations in the manner by which that relationship is maintained.

Catholics are required to hold that the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are infallible. This facilitates our celebration of these feasts in communion, unlike the optional devotions and novenas. For South Africans, the Assumption is particularly important as the country’s patronal feast.

The Rosary and the associated meditations are at the centre of our sacramental devotion. Through the Rosary and other prayers to Mary we find a shortcut to her Son Jesus, who mediates on our behalf with God. As Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium reminds us, prayer to Our Lady fosters intimacy with Christ.

Pope John Paul II in his 2002 apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, which introduced the new Mysteries of Light, put it like this: “The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium.”

Other sacramentals, such as the brown scapular or the miraculous medal, also aid many in deepening their Marian prayer life.

Catholics are not required to believe in the authenticity of the various Marian apparitions, even those approved by the Church, such as Lourdes, Fátima, Guadalupe, Akita and so on, nor hold that the messages that came from these apparitions are communications from Our Lady. Devotions to such apparitions and their reputed revelations are a matter of private choice, an individual piety.

Indeed, the Catholic Church is extremely cautious in how it treats reported appearances of Our Lady, and rightly so. Only a relatively small number has been formally approved as worthy of belief, though devotion to some apparitions, such as those reported by Benedictine Sister Reinolda May in Ngome, KwaZulu-Natal, have the consent of the local bishop.

While we may exercise our discretion, devotions based on Marian apparitions clearly have apparent faith-strengthening properties. Even controversial and unauthorised sites of reported apparitions, such as the Bosnian village of Medjugorje, have produced undeniable spiritual fruits.

Of course, even without these devotions, there is much in Scripture and Church teachings that will enable the Christian to maintain an enriching devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

In his 1987 encyclical Redemptoris Mater, John Paul II located Mary in a central position in the Church: “Mary embraces each and every one in the Church, and embraces each and every one through the Church. In this sense Mary, Mother of the Church, is also the Church’s model.”

Any activity like running, cycling or swimming requires training and effort. It might be cold, wet, windy — but if you really want to improve, you push through the weather and your own laziness and get out on the road. Then, as you get going, your body warms up and you don’t even feel the cold. The hills aren’t so steep as the blood flows to your warm muscles and sometimes you forget that you’re even riding because you’re “in the zone” to go.

A man rides his bicycle through snowfall in St Peter's Square. In his article, Stephen Edwards suggests that building a relationship with God is akin to fitness training.

Growing a relationship with God requires an element of training and self-discipline too. It takes discipline to be quiet and listen to God; it takes discipline to wake up early to talk to God in prayer, or read Scripture—especially when it’s cold and dark outside, or raining.

A relationship with God is like cycling. It often takes some effort to get going in the beginning, but once you’re “in the zone” and riding with the Father in the rhythm of prayer, and you know the security of his warm presence within, then you realise that being on the road isn’t that hard at all. Actually being on the road is pretty fun, challenging and exciting.

Training for cycling or running takes effort, but it’s almost always easier when you’ve got a team holding you accountable or training with you (Prov 27:17). The same is true with a relationship with God—it’s so much easier when you’ve got someone keeping you on the right road.

When we join others, or invite others to join us on the ride of faith, the getting-going is so much easier, and the resistance we face from the world affects us less, because we know that as a team we’re riding towards the same goal (1 Peter 1:9).

When we have the support of a faithful community, we have the accountability to get up and “get prayed up” before we start our day. We can encourage one another to keep riding, and they can cheer us on when our legs hurt and we want to give up (1 Thess 5:11). God wants us to ride with inflated tyres and energetic legs, confident in his love. He’s given us the faith community so that we don’t have to ride alone.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could say with enthusiasm at the end of the road — I got on my bike (rather than sleeping in or pushing it along the road), “I finished the race, I kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7)?

Steven Edwards teaches at a Catholic school in Johannesburg.

Reviewed by Paddy Kearney

Archbishop Denis Hurley once described Pope Pius XI as the second most important pontiff of the 20th Century (the first, in his view, being Pope John XXIII). The archbishop had been a seminarian in Rome in the 1930s when Pius XI was on the throne. Like another famous seminarian of that time, Óscar Romero, who was also studying at the Gregorian University, Archbishop Hurley much admired Pius’s outspoken opposition to the “Great Dictators”: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, whom he castigated in successive encyclicals.

So opposed was Pius to Nazism that when Hitler came to Rome on a state visit in 1938, as Hurley recalled, Pius went to Castel Gandolfo so that he would not be able to receive the Nazi leader and gave instructions that the Vatican Museums be closed to any members of the dictator’s entourage.

Having heard about Emma Fattorini’s book when it first appeared in Italian four years ago, I was delighted to discover that it had been translated into English and most eager to read it. My high expectations were fully realised.

What makes this book particularly fascinating is that it is based on documentation newly made available by the Vatican’s Secret Archives. Now for the first time it is no longer simply rumour or legend that Pius XI’s opposition to fascism grew substantially in his last few years and that on his death bed he had composed his most trenchant indictment of Nazi tyranny, a message that would not see the light of day.

Fattorini carefully examines the Vatican’s newly released archival material and focuses in particular on Pius’s last year when he openly broke with Nazism and in many ways also with fascism, and experienced ever-increasing disillusionment even with Mussolini whom in earlier years he had described as the man “whom providence has sent us”.

Make no mistake, Pius XI was no lover of democracy. In the words of Richard Bosworth, an Australian reviewer of Fattorini’s book, he “was an authoritarian to his bootstraps”. Pius also believed that the Catholic Church was the only institution that could legitimately define itself as “totalitarian” going so far as to say, in 1938, “if there is a totalitarian regime – totalitarian in fact and by right – it is the regime of the Church, as man belongs wholly to the Church, must belong to it as man is the creation of the good Lord.”

As Hurley was quick to point out despite his great admiration for this pope, Pius XI’s opposition to the Great Dictators was generally not because they trampled on human rights, but because they spurned the rights of the Church. Nevertheless, it is highly significant that in Pius XI’s last few months he said with great emotion in a radio broadcast: “Anti-semitism is inadmissible. Spiritually we are all semites”, a statement which would clearly put him on a collision course with the Nazis.

Ever-present in the story of Fattorini’s account of Pius XI’s papacy is Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the Vatican’s secretary of state who would be his successor, Pius XII. Fattorini outlines the extraordinary relationship between these “two tragic individuals so different in character and so indissolubly linked together”, describing them as “ the prudent and diplomatic Pacelli and his impetuous pope”.

It is worth quoting Fattorini at length on this topic because her insights are the essence of good biography: “The make-up of their personalities, their family backgrounds, and their spiritual dimensions were almost diametrically opposed. And yet they were irresistibly attracted one to the other, perhaps because of those very differences and in keeping with the rule that opposites attract in search of complementarity, a complementarity for which both men felt a strong need. The sanguine Ratti  [Pius XI’s civil surname] would never have allowed himself to make such strong attacks had he not known that the diligent and faithful Pacelli was there to smooth things out and heal the diplomatic wounds.”

But Pius XI would not have realised just how diligent Pacelli would turn out to be – after his death on February 10, 1939. This was on the eve of the anniversary of the Lateran Pact, the agreement reached between the Vatican and Mussolini’s Italy. In his last days and hours, Pius was preparing his address for this occasion which was to be anything but a celebration of the Pact – rather it was to be the occasion for his strongest ever condemnation of fascism.

His message represented the views of an increasingly isolated and intransigent pope reaching an extraordinary clarity of thought about the evil political systems dominating Germany and Italy at that time. He had passed through an initial phase of surprise at fascism, followed by disappointment, now he was deeply angered.

Pacelli, who was elected camerlengo (a sort of caretaker/administrator) on Pius XI’s death, moved swiftly to remove the document that Pius had been writing on his deathbed. Effectively he made it disappear, giving instructions that no copies were to be made. This was probably not difficult to achieve because there seemed to be an air of relief in the Vatican about the pope’s death. His strongly anti-fascist views apparently made top Vatican officials fearful about the price that would have to be paid once Pius’s views became fully known.

Fattorini is careful not to use Pacelli’s deliberate suppression of Pius XI’s last message as further evidence of Pius XII’s controversial silence about the continuing Jewish holocaust. She sidesteps that issue, saying that more careful research is needed to determine the truth about that silence.

But she does allow herself this conclusion: “It is right and legitimate to regret that Ratti’s papacy was interrupted too suddenly by his death, just at that moment when, rather than coming to an end, it seemed about to begin anew. It was an end filled with hopes and expectations that rather than being taken up were instead and definitively cancelled out.”

Perhaps the reader can be forgiven for regretting that while Pius XI had Pacelli to temper his prophetic outspokenness, Pius XII did not have a Ratti to give more prophetic edge to his voice – except perhaps, to a limited extent, in his relationship with Archbishop Clemens von Galen of Münster. Von Galen was one of the few German bishops who took on the Nazi regime with any vigour, but it was a vigour that Pius XII thought inappropriate for a pope.

“During those terrible years of war, a saddened pope seemed to be asking that his combative archbishop maintain that hard opposition in which he, as pope, was unable to engage,” Fattorini observes. “A sense of complicity suffused their relationship as they [Pius XII and von Galen] played complementary roles reminiscent of those played by Pius XII and his predecessor.”

The feast of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13, is the occasion every year for millions of devotees to celebrate the apparition of Mary to three Portuguese peasant children in 1917 and to meditate on her call for repentance and conversion by the modern world. For a much smaller but highly dedicated group of people, the anniversary of the first apparition is also an occasion for exploring their belief that, 95 years later, the Vatican is still hiding a portion of Mary’s revelations.

The controversy is associated in a particular way with the pontificate of Pope John XXIII, because one of the Fatima visionaries, Sr Lucia dos Santos, committed the so-called “Third Secret” to writing, with instructions that the pope should read it in the year 1960. Blessed John, who was pope from 1958 to 1963, declined to reveal the secret, which was published by the Vatican only in 2000.

The official version of the secret comes with a Vatican commentary interpreting it as an allegory of the Catholic Church’s past struggles with 20th-century ideologies and characterising its description of a “bishop dressed in white” shot down amid the rubble of a ruined city as a prophecy of the 1981 assassination attempt on Blessed John Paul II. But some argue that the long-suppressed document must contain something even more disturbing, perhaps a prophecy of what they call the “great apostasy”: the modernising changes that followed the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which was called by Blessed John.

Pilgrims carry a statue of Our Lady of Fatima as they leave Pope Benedict XVI's general audience in St Peter's Square in May 2011. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

One man with whom such sceptics would very much like to talk is Archbishop Loris Capovilla, Pope John XXIII’s personal secretary, who was present when the pope read the secret for the first time. Speaking to Catholic News Service, Archbishop Capovilla, now 96, dismisses reports that he told an Italian writer in 2006 that part of the secret remains unpublished. He says that he noticed no discrepancy between the published version and the original. Yet he qualifies his statement with a rare admission of doubt about his own remarkable memory. “I remember a bit,” he says, “but you will understand, after so many years I wouldn’t know how to reconstruct (the secret) fully.”

Nor does he rule out the presence of such a document elsewhere in the archives of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, often referred to as “the Holy Office”. “At the Holy Office there must be a kilometer of paper regarding Fatima,” the archbishop says. “I don’t deny that there may be something else, but I don’t know it.”

When he was prefect of the doctrinal congregation, Pope Benedict XVI wrote the Vatican’s commentary on the secret and insisted that what was published in 2000 was everything. In a book marking the 90th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions, he said publishing the text “was a time of light, not only because the message could be known by all, but also because it unveiled the truth amid the confused framework of apocalyptic interpretations and speculation”. He said he had written the commentary “after having prayed intensely and meditated deeply on the authentic words of the third part of the secret of Fatima, contained on sheets written by Sister Lucia”.

Archbishop Loris Capovilla, 96, the personal secretary of Blessed John XXIII, is pictured in the museum dedicated to the late pontiff in Sotto il Monte Giovanni XXIII, Italy. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Archbishop Capovilla does not disguise his reservations about the cult of Fatima, not least, he says, because it was “sometimes exploited a bit for political ends.”

During the Cold War, many interpreted the Virgin’s prophecy that Russia would “convert” as foretelling the fall of the Soviet Union. But Archbishop Capovilla says he considered those words to mean merely that Russia would embrace Christianity, which he suggests did not exclude the survival of communism. “I have known people in perfectly good faith who were communists, but they weren’t atheists,” he says.

The archbishop’s reservations about Fatima extend more generally to the phenomenon of Marian devotion. “A cloistered nun who has visions – here we underscore one aspect of the Christian life,” he says. Amid the enthusiasm for ecumenism that animated Blessed John’s papacy and the Second Vatican Council, he recalls, “it was concluded, as far as Marian devotion was concerned, that perhaps it would not be appreciated by the Protestants.”

Pope John Paul II had this mosaic of Mary and the Christ Child placed on a wall high above St Peter's Square after he was shot in the square in 1981 on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

An excessive focus on Marian devotion also runs contrary to the express wishes of Mary herself, he says.

Imagining himself receiving an apparition of Mary, Archbishop Capovilla says he would tell her: “Lady, you were present at the wedding at Cana; you said words that remain eternal, ‘Do what Jesus tells you.’ You come now to tell me to convert, to do penance. But he already said all of this; it’s in the holy Gospel.”

He adds that “all of Christianity – all– for me, for the Protestants, for the Orthodox, is summed up in these words: Convert, recognise your condition as little creatures and believe in the Gospel, put it into practice, live it.”

“Having said this,” the archbishop says, “it seems to me that is everything.”

Members of the United Apostolic Church pray at the divine Fertility Caves deep in the Maluti Mountains near Clarens. (Photo: Kim Ludbrook / EPA)

Before Christianity came to our land, Africans believed in the continuity of life after death and that is by moving into the spirit world. However, not everyone who is dead would qualify to be an ancestor (idlozi). According to Dominique Zahan, an ancestor “is first of all, a man who has reached a great age and who has acquired along with longevity a profound experience of people and things”.

One day I heard an expert on such topics saying on the radio that an ancestor cannot be an unmarried person and also a young person. This means that many deceased people are excluded from being ancestors because of their marital status and by their age, irrespective of their conduct in life. This also means that those who are excluded from being ancestors cannot mediate on behalf of their loved ones.

Strangely, most of those who practise this belief ignore the “original” meaning of the ancestor by making people ancestors whose lives were not commendable. After all it doesn’t make sense to ask someone whose life was lived carelessly and without any form of respect for life to be your mediator, let alone believing in God.

Africans are not alone in this belief. Many early Christians were persecuted for their faith, leading many Christians in Rome to hide in the catacombs (an underground cemetery consisting of tunnels). As a result, they found themselves praying and worshipping God surrounded by the tombs and bodies of the dead.  When possible, they sought to pray among the bodies of dead Christians, sometimes using a coffin or tomb for an altar on which to celebrate the Eucharist.

From the early apostolic times, it appears the Church held a respectful veneration for the dead. They reported witnessing healing miracles in connection with the bodies of dead Christians, or observing sweet-smelling myrrh exuding from their bones. This, combined with their belief in the Resurrection of Jesus and future resurrection of all Christians (the Resurrection of the Dead), eventually led to the veneration of saints and of their relics.

Here at home, you find people being told by izangoma, abathandazi or any kind of traditional fortune tellers to go to the wilderness and call upon their ancestors to come with them to their homes. When they do this, all the demonic spirits found on wastelands would join them because they want a home too, because their spirits have never been committed to the Lord after death. This results in people facing problems of evil spirits in their homes which causes them to suffer a great deal.

Even Christians forget that the souls of their loved ones are entrusted to God and therefore cannot live with them in their homes.

The term “ancestor worship” is a misnomer in many ways. In English, the word “worship” usually refers to the reverent love and devotion accorded to a deity or divine being.

In other cultures, this act of worship does not imply the belief that the departed ancestors have become some kind of deity. Rather, the act is a way to respect, honour and look after ancestors in their afterlives as well as seek their guidance for their living descendants.

The Bible takes a negative view of necromancy, or attempts to communicate with the dead (Lev 19:26-31; Deut18:10-11; Job 7:7-10; Is 8:18-20; Lk 16:19-31).

Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke provides further insight into the condition of the dead and what happens after death. It clearly indicates that it is impossible for the living to communicate directly with the dead.

From this, it is evident that there is a clear divide between the righteous and the unrighteous dead, and that the dead do not have freedom of movement, as is suggested by the underlying beliefs of ancestor worship or veneration.

Clearly then, the dead are not able to exert an influence on the lives of the living.

Christ tells us that the dead cannot communicate with the living on any matter. Clearly then, the Bible does not encourage or support a relationship between the living and the dead. Furthermore, these scriptures indicate that the fear of the ancestors is unfounded.

As John Samuel Mbiti, a Kenyan  Anglican theologian concedes, “most, if not all, of these attributive deities are the creation of man’s imagination”.

If we believe that the dead have the ability to intercede for us to God on our behalf then there would be no need for us to believe in Jesus Christ.

While we know that Christ is our intercessor, we are also joyful to know that the saints whom God had sanctified are able to pray to him on our behalf (Rev 8:3-4).

St Cyril of Jerusalem said: “Then during the Eucharistic prayer we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition…”

Whatever we may believe, we must have faith in the Holy Trinity, knowing that our direct prayers to God are heard and are answered by him through Christ’s intercession.

Simangaliso Magudulela belongs to Holy Cross Anglican church in Orlando West, Soweto. This is an adapted version of an article that first appeared in Southern Anglican magazine.

Schoolchildren hold a portrait of Bl Teresa of Kolkata during a candlelight prayer ceremony. In her column, Judith Turner takes her inspiration from Mother Teresa. (Photo: Rupak De Chowhuri, Reuters/CNS)

Every single day we are called to do the above.

When we look at the world around us, on all the stages of life; relationships, politics, economics, church, workplaces—we are asked to choose life above death/evil. But what is asked of us here goes against our grain of human nature.

When someone hurts me, I want to hurt back—those who hurt me must experience what I have experienced.  When others get away with doing wrong—I want to justify my wrong-doing by saying that others also do it.  When we see irregularities in our companies and organisations, we tend to ignore or not get involved.  When relationships break down, it is difficult for us to take the first move towards reconciliation, because we are not “the wrong one”. And so it goes on.

We will never be able, on our own, to rise above and to do what God wants us to do. We will be able to act according to Paul’s words only by knowing with our whole beings that what we are asked to do for others, is what God has already done for us.

Mother Teresa’s words are always inspiring, motivating and encouraging us to stay focused and to realise what really matters. She says:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centred. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

These words cut to the heart of spiritual life. They make it clear what it means to choose life, not death, to choose blessings not curses.

The Vow

By John Mulderig, Catholic News Service

Poor Channing Tatum! Though he isn’t gone, he is forgotten in “The Vow”, director and co-writer Michael Sucsy’s well-intentioned but flawed love story based on real events.

Tatum plays Chicago recording engineer Leo, whose romance with – and marriage to – artist Paige (Rachel McAdams) have made him a happy man. That all changes, however, when a car accident injures them both, and leaves Paige stricken with partial amnesia.

Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams in a scene from "The Vow" (Screen Gems)

She awakens from a coma with no memory of their idyllic courtship or successful life together. Instead, she has mentally reverted to her pre-Leo days as a law school student engaged to go-getter ex-fiancé Jeremy (Scott Speedman).

When her estranged parents, Rita (Jessica Lange) and Bill (Sam Neill), appear on the scene, it develops that Paige also has lost all recollection of the traumatic events that led her to separate from them.

Leo sets out to win Paige’s heart all over again. But Rita and Bill are angling to put their bewildered daughter back on the path to a legal career and drive her back into the arms of conventionally respectable Jeremy.

As penned by Sucsy in collaboration with Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein and Jason Katims, this romantic drama certainly celebrates Leo’s extraordinarily determined marital fidelity. And it manages to strike a generally amiable tone as it does so.

But characterisations are shallow: Mildly bohemian Leo, for example, takes on his conniving 1-percenter in-laws, who we know must be evil because they, um, occupy an Architectural Digest-worthy home in Lake Forest.

The tale’s credibility – and therefore its impact – is also undercut by the excessive cuteness of the initial relationship between Leo and Paige. They’re shown popping chocolates into each other’s mouths and they later write out their self-composed wedding vows on menus from their favourite eatery.

Presumably in a nod to Paige’s profession, those promises are exchanged, not in a church or even at city hall but in a museum gallery. A friend of the bride and groom’s, who has somehow gotten himself temporarily vested with the necessary power by the state of Illinois, presides.

The film contains brief non-graphic marital lovemaking, a premarital situation, fleeting rear nudity, an adultery theme, numerous sexual references and jokes, at least one use of profanity as well as a couple of rough and about a half-dozen crude terms. (Adults)

Mario Compagnoni (“A non-believer’s opinion”, April 18), welcome to the company of seekers: those who are not satisfied with what is given them, but wish to know more about themselves and their lives; those who wish to discover what our existence is all about!

One of the elements you have chosen to investigate is that of faith and belief in God, and that of itself is a giant step forward. Although by your letter you have just scratched the surface and are not all that enchanted by what you find, you are looking for a bit more by your invitation to discussion. May I make the following comments.

God is always there for us. He has said in the sacred books: “Look! I am standing at the door and knocking. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he will eat with me” (Rev 3:20).

Note that he doesn’t come in unless invited, but he’s always available! And I suspect that you, perhaps unknowingly, have opened that door just a chink, and are at present trying to make out what is on the other side. Carry on! Things might not be too clear at first, and perhaps they won’t come easily, but as the door opens it will change your life. It may change it in complete rejection of God’s love, or perhaps it will enable you to accept and experience that love ever more deeply as time passes.

At this stage you could be thinking that you don’t need any more of this “pap”. Perhaps the leap forward is just too much—after all, you’ve only been seeking the confirmation of your own convictions. But in fairness to yourself, give it a try!

What could you lose? You yourself have said that you envy those with a belief system which offers them such comfort. Even if there is absolutely nothing after death, as you believe, does the comfort the believers gain from their faith not make their lives more liveable? Why endure the hardships that you say living without a belief in God entails—what does it do for you? Isn’t the believer’s way, the Christian way, worth a try?

I have said that I believe that you are seeker after truth, the sort of person worthy of admiration if for that reason only. You may not agree, but I think that you have been given a grace from God—he has brought the thought to your mind that you wish to know more about your life, and in continuing your search I believe you will be brought to know him.

In what way, to what persuasion —that’s a subject for another discussion. But you cannot imagine the transformation that God’s acknowledged presence in your life can make. I say “acknowledged”, because he is there anyway.

If you’re really serious in your search, may I recommend to you CS Lewis’s little book Mere Christianity. If I’m not mistaken it formed a part of a BBC TV series. Lewis was an Anglican, by the way.

I wish you God’s grace—I believe you’ve already been given some of it!

In recent years governments have introduced laws about smacking children (this is no longer allowed) and smoking in the vicinity of children is frowned upon (and has also caught the attention of those who want more stringent controls). Parenting “advice” or “trends” abound. It is curious that no mention is made of TV as a major health and developmental issue. Like most things there is split opinion about the impact of TV on kids. If what studies claim have any truth in them then, perhaps, we should be more than a little worried… 

Dr Aric Sigman in his book Remotely Controlled claims that in many families TV has a greater hold and more persuasive powers over kids than parents do. I have noticed when I have been visiting friends with young children: mommy or daddy speaks and there is no acknowledgement of them let alone the words they speak as the child sits transfixed to the TV. In one instant the only time there was any recognition of the mother’s voice was when she eventually marched over, took the remote and turned off the TV!

Sigman warns that TV slows metabolic rates, stunts brain development, permanently hinders educational progress, increases the likelihood of children developing ADHD, is a leading cause of half of all violence-related crime, lowers adult libido and is a major cause of depression. It is a rather scary list!

The first thing someone said to me when we started to talk about children and TV was that it is “educational” and that’s why they allowed their four year old to watch TV – a lot of TV. James Law, Professor of Language and Communication Sciences at City University, claims that putting children in front of a TV thinking that it is going to teach them anything beyond movement of sound and light is silly. All that happens is that they get mesmerised; TV it is too chaotic for them to actually make sense of; they don’t have the level of sophistication it requires and therefore there is no educational value.

One of America’s most prominent child psychiatrists, Dr Alvin Poussiant, is very critical of the well-know kiddies programme Teletubbies.  He says that just because BBC publicised it as “good” for young children (and educational) means nothing. He says that the programme consists of unnatural figures with TV sets built into their tummies, engaging in unnatural high-speed body actions and unintelligible speech which might pass as entertainment but certainly gives no reason to believe that it confers any benefit whatsoever. Researchers at Britain’s National Literacy Trust have concluded that TV stunts the ability of children to speak. Young children do not understand what they are watching and so, they say, programmes like Teletubbies can further cripple language skills.

The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) recommended (in August 1999) that children under the age of 2 be exposed to no screen entertainment at all because it can seriously affect early brain development. The AAP say that early exposure to TV during critical synaptic (brain cell) development can lead to serious attention problems at the age of seven. This is, apparently, consistent with a diagnosis of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). ADHD is however not the only red flag for scientists. TV can also be linked to other kinds of damage. The TV on at home, even in the background, can interfere with the development of “inner speech” – the ability of a child to think through problems and analyse things and so retain their impulsive responses. Some scientists report serious effects on mathematics comprehension, reading recognition and comprehension in later childhood.

Eh-Oh! The Teletubbies might stunt children's language development, according to a scientist.

There is a plethora of other developmental effects that TV may be responsible for. These include sight and hearing difficulties, sleep problems and a greater risk of bullying and violence around the ages of six to eleven. Many children today are in occupational therapy for muscle tone issues – yet another side effect of being a “couch potatoe” and not running around outside playing hide n’ seek, swinging and kicking a ball.

One of the most intriguing links to TV exposure which I came across was the hypothesis that it leads to premature puberty in girls. It is suspected that the increased sexual images on TV actually foster maturity in prepubescent girls in a way that food stimulates salivation. Research in adults shows that watching sexual graphic material causes hormone releases in the body. Accelerated maturity in young girls is serious because studies of girls between six and eleven who have matured earlier suggest that they are more prone to depression, aggression, social withdrawal and sleep problems. Other researchers have said that earlier menstruation can be linked to drinking, smoking, drug abuse, lowered self esteem and suicide attempts.

Most of the issues I have mentioned above are physiological and psychological. There are other side effects – perhaps we can call them “social side effects”. These are questions like what kind of models are we putting before children – who are the heroes they aspire to be like? Do we really want our children to model themselves on the programmes they watch or the dubious characters in soap-operas? TV forms perceptions about beauty, moral issues and knowledge. Is what children are learning about these areas of life on our TV screens helping them to be well adapted players in society? TV also promotes the “cult of the individual” because the screen is most engaging when it focuses on individual faces and voices as opposed to groups. TV lures us into a self-centred culture in which we do not consider the effects of our behaviours on others, the individual is centre stage and there is glamour in expressing oneself at any given moment regardless of context.

Curiously many studies suggest results of TV engagement are revealed “later” in childhood. The effects are not immediate: some studies suggest that continued exposure to TV in childhood and adolescence can lead to educational under-achievement by the age of twenty-six.  This can negatively influence socioeconomic status and well being later on – a real domino effect that we do not always think about.

The Church, in her tradition, places much emphasis on Family Life. May, in the Catholic Church in South Africa, is “Family Month”. We are encouraged to focus on family life and family issues. The “domestic church” is the first and foremost formator of children. In the Sacrament of Baptism we begin by saying that the parents are the first teachers of their children in the ways of faith – and, of course we know, so much more. We have various groups which attempt to reflect on and promote family life. But are we really helping parents and doing enough practically? Writing in The Lancet in 2004 Dr David Ludwig said “Ultimately parents must reclaim from television the responsibility for educating and entertaining their young children”. If what research suggests is true then Ludwig is absolutely correct – we need to reclaim what TV has subtlety taken.

How do we, as a faith community, help stressed, economically pressured and often hard working and tired parents avoid the easiest babysitter and entertainment box around?  It’s much harder to answer this question when faced with the raw reality of life for so many parents – married and single. Any thoughts?