Year-end Review 1997
GUNTHER SIMMERMACHER reviews the year 1997
January 1997
The Southern African bishops in a pastoral letter urge Catholics to observe the Year of Jesus Christ.
Bishop Carlos Belo apologises for the death of an Indonesian soldier, who was beaten to death by youths during celebrations welcoming the bishop home after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Former pro-abortion crusader Dr Bernard Nathanson is baptised a Catholic in New York City.
Fr Tissa Balasuriya of Sri Lanka is excommunicated.
Merrilyn de Gersigny, founder of Birthright in South Africa, is awarded the Michael Bell Memorial Award for Life Initiatives by the International Alliance of Catholic Knights the first such honour in South Africa.
Dominican Sister Vincent de Paul Roberts, 93, on whom the popular musical Nunsense was based, dies.
Mother Teresa announces that she will step down as superior general of the Missionaries of Charity.
The TV programme produced by the SACBC, Light of the Nations, is screened for the last time.
Fr Richard Menatsi succeeds Fr Emil Blaser as the SACBCs associate secretary-general. Fr Blaser becomes the conferences media liaison officer.
Catholics who reject the Church teaching on the ordination of women are not necessarily heretics, but are making a serious error against the faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger says.
February
One of the five children who reported Marian apparitions in Medjugorje, Vicka Ivankovic, visits South Africa. As does Fr Giuseppe Nazzaro, custodian of the Holy Land, and Fr Timothy Radcliffe, head of the Dominicans worldwide.
Bishop Benjamin de Jesus of Jolo in the Philippines is murdered, allegedly by Muslim militants.
The South African bishops write a letter to President Nelson Mandela, expressing concern and offering help on the issue of crime and corruption.
A Canadian missionary, Fr Guy Pinard, is murdered in Rwanda while distributing Communion.
Celebrations of the Salesians centenary in South Africa kick off.
Fr Thomas Plower is elected to head the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Southern Africa.
The SACBC praises the government ban on landmines.
March
A group of 500 South African health professionals pledge not to participate in abortions.
The SACBC says it will not challenge the new abortion law, which came into effect in February, in court, but would lobby for change.
Ann Odre, 73, who was wounded during the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul, dies in the United States.
Durbans retired archbishop, Denis Hurley, celebrates the 50th anniversary of his consecration as a bishop, aptly on March 21: Human Rights Day.
The Holy See establishes diplomatic relations with Libya, ignoring protests by the United States.
The Catholic charismatic renewal celebrates its 30th birthday.
Following an article in The Southern Cross, the Love of Christ Ministries for abandoned babies receive several offers of help, locally and from BBC staff in Britain.
April
Italian Fr Daniele Badiali, 35, is found murdered in the Peruvian Andes, three days after being kidnapped.
Pope John Paul honours five firefighters who carried the Shroud of Turin to safety from the burning Turin cathedral.
Southern Cross columnist Fr Nicholas King SJ is appointed spiritual director of St John Vianney seminary in Pretoria.
Iranian foreign minister Ali Akabar Velayati denies that Iran plotted to assassinate the pope.
Mgr Oswald Hirmer, 67, is appointed bishop of Umtata, succeeding Bishop Andrew Zolile Brook, who retired in 1995.
Jesuit Father Julio Wicht is among the 72 hostages freed from the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru, after the bloody end to the 126-day siege.
May
The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Zimbabwe lists in a report more than 7,000 cases of human rights abuses in the western Matabeleland region from 1981 to 1987.
Thirty seminarians are massacred in Buta, Burundi.
Catholics around the world celebrate the 80th anniversary of the first of the Marian apparitions in Fatima, Portugal.
Pope John Paul receives an enthusiastic welcome during his 31-hour visit to Lebanon.
The South African bishops meet Pope John Paul on their routine five-yearly ad limina visit to the pope and curia.
Pope John Paul urges greater public awareness for those suffering from Parkinsons disease, a condition he is rumoured to suffer from himself.
The weekly New Nation, which was founded in 1986 by the SACBC, publishes its final issue.
June
The Southern Cross publishes its 4,000th issue thats 77 years and eight months of publishing every week, without missing a single issue.
Pope John Paul visits his native country, Poland, for 11 days.
Mother Teresa is awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the Congress of the United States.
Archbishop Peter Butelezi of Bloemfontein, 66, dies on June 10.
Alban Maginnes is elected first Lord Mayor of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Twenty-seven Northern Irish policemen are injured defending a Catholic church in Ballymena from attacks by Protestant loyalists.
The Church in Hong Kong says it has no special events planned for the handover to Chinese rule on July 1, because it cannot decide in what tone it should be held.
The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Buddhists, says in an interview that he has a close understanding with Pope John Paul.
Mother Teresa and Princess Diana meet in New York, the second meeting for two of the worlds most famous women.
July
The South African Law Commission releases a draft legislation which if passed by parliament would legalise euthanasia.
It is revealed that a 1984 State Security Council document targeted the Catholic Church for dirty tricks operations.
Russian president Boris Yeltsin vetoes legislation which would restrict religious freedom for Russian Catholics.
The Vatican denies allegations that it had been a repository for gold smuggled from Croatia by allies of the Nazis.
Cardinal Pio Laghi denies allegations that as nuncio to Argentina from1974 to 1980 he was involved in human rights abuses.
Tennis star Steffi Graf leaves the Catholic Church.
August
Fr John Brady, 91, founder of the Catholic History Bureau in Johannesburg, dies on August 9.
Several Gauteng Catholic schools face closure following successive subsidy cuts.
Italian Catholic leaders reject criticism for holding memorial services for the murdered homosexual fashion designer, Gianni Versace.
Young people from around the world, including 200 South Africans, gather in Paris for the Catholic World Youth Day.
New Church statistics show that the Philippines have overtaken the United States as the country with the third-largest number of Catholic citizens. Brazil remains top of the list.
Increasing vocations in Southern Africa have necessitated expansions of facilities in the regions seminaries, the SACBC plenary session in Mariannhill hears.
Amid rumours of Mary being declared co-redemptrix, Vatican spokesmen say no new Marian dogma was being considered.
The Vatican relaxes some of the rules for releasing priests from celibacy and remarrying deacons.
Pope John Paul beatifies Frederic Ozanam, founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society.
September
Mother Teresa dies in Calcutta on September 5, less than a week after expressing her sorrow over the death of Princess Diana.
A Kagiso church is robbed of R27,600 after a Mass, allegedly by men who had attended the Mass.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Carlos Belo, now an archbishop, visits South Africa to meet with President Nelson Mandela.
Bishop John Murphy, retired of Port Elizabeth, dies on September 18, shortly after celebrating his episcopal silver jubilee.
Johannesburgs oldest church, St Josephs in Mayfair, is closed after being condemned as structurally unsafe.
The mayor of Jolo in the Philippines is linked to the assassination of Bishop Benjamin de Jesus, who was gunned down in February.
Priceless artworks in the basilica of St Francis in Assisi are damaged during a series of earthquakes in central Italy.
Sixteen cardinals and 200 bishops from Africa gather in Midrand for the 11th plenary session of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).
Pope John Paul experiences his first rock concert, as singer Bob Dylan performs at Italys national eucharistic congress in Bologna.
October
Normal procedures would apply in the investigation of Mother Teresas sainthood cause, Pope John Paul says.
Swazi police raid the home of Bishop Louis Ndlovu of Manzini, the president of the SACBC.
In the centenary year of her death, St Therese of Lisieux is made the 33rd Doctor of the Church.
Minister of health Dr Nkosazana Zuma suggests in a letter to Doctors for Life that gynaecologists and obstreticians opposed to abortions should choose different fields of speciality.
A new report on the mystic Padre Pio is expected to accelerate his sainthood cause.
Fr Malachy Skelton, 63, of Hlabiso, Ingwavuma diocese, is murdered during a car hijacking outside the Catholic mission in Mtubatuba in KwaZulu-Natal, on October 24.
Jesuit Father AT Thomas is abducted, tortured and beheaded in Bihar state, India less than a month after a priest was paraded naked, with the consent of the local police.
The We Are Church group says it has amassed 2,5 million signatures globally within two years calling on the Church to modernise.
November
Italy presents Archbishop Denis Hurley with the countrys highest honour, the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica with the rank of Grande Ufficiale.
Fr Juan Vecchi, head of the Salesian order worldwide, visits Southern Africa.
Polands new prime minister Jerzy Bzek, a Lutheran, pledges to follow Catholic social teaching.
The apostolic administrator of Marawi in the Philippines is kidnapped by Muslim militants.
Appearing before a special hearing by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Catholic Church says the Church was divided, but could list several major contributions to the anti-apartheid struggle.
The bodies of two bishops and 23 Catholic priests victims of Stalins 1937 purge are exhumed with 1,000 other bodies in a Russian mass grave.
The nuncio to Southern Africa, Archbishop Ambrose de Paoli, will be transferred to Japan after ten years here, it is announced.
Mary McAleese, a Catholic from Northern Ireland, is elected president of the Republic of Ireland.
- When was Jesus born? An investigation - December 13, 2022
- Bishop: Nigeria worse off now - June 22, 2022
- St Mary of the Angels Parish puts Laudato Si’ into Action - June 17, 2022