Year-end Review 2000
January
Thousands of Catholics attend a rally at Kingsmead cricket stadium in Durban to seek a pardon for the failings of the Church and its members over the past 2,000 years.
The Southern African bishops elect Archbishop Wilfrid Napier of Durban president of the SACBC. Bishop Michael Coleman of Port Elizabeth and Archbishop Tlhagale of Bloemfontein are elected vice-presidents.
Pope John Paul describes the appointment of Nelson Mandela as mediator in the stalled Burundi peace talks as a hopeful sign.
Thirty-one missionaries were killed in 1999, according to the Vatican: 15 in Africa, ten in Asia and six in Latin America.
The Vatican calls for a complete overhaul of the commission which translates liturgical texts into English.
Bishop Pavao Zanic of Mostar-Duvno in Bosnia, who called the reported Marian apparitions at Medjugorje a “collective hallucination,” dies on January 11.
The Jubilee 2000 South Africa campaign for international debt relief congratulates the British government for cancelling 100% of the debt owed by 26 countries.
Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern, on a state visit to South Africa, visits Nazareth House in Cape Town, donating R200,000 to the sisters’ Aids unit.
A prominent British nun, author Lavinia Byrne, announces that she will leave religious life following pressure from the Vatican to publicly support the Church’s ban on artificial contraception.
February
South African seminaries will have a record number of students, about 500, during 2000.
The SACBC receives a grant of $5 million from the US Catholic Medical Mission Board and pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers-Squib to fight Aids in Southern Africa.
The SACBC releases its directory on the sharing of the Eucharist.
The African Catholic Priests’ Solidarity Movement holds its annual general meeting in Bethlehem to map out its plan for transformation of the Church in South Africa.
The Catholic Church in Zimbabwe welcomes the “no’ vote in a referendum on a proposed new constitution. The result is widely seen as a snub of President Robert Mugabe.
Namibian church leaders meet President Sam Nujoma, urging him to prevent the Angolan civil war from spilling over into Namibia.
Bishop Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is appointed archbishop of Westminster, succeeding the late Cardinal Basil Hume.
The Vatican says it will reserve judgment over the inclusion of Jörg Haider’s far-right Freedom Party in Austria’s new coalition government. Many European governments have threatened sanctions against Austria.
The number of Catholics in the world has increased to 1,045 billion, or 17,4% of the global population, the Vatican announces.
March
Pope John Paul visits, on two separate trips, Egypt, Jordan and the Holy Land. The pope’s epoch-making pilgrimage is widely acclaimed.
Ten years’ worth of development were swept away by the floods in Mozambique, according to the British Catholic aid organisation Cafod.
Pope John Paul makes an unprecedented apology for the sins of Christians through the ages.
A tape recording purported to be of “the Virgin Mary” is said to have helped convert many people to Ugandan Christian sect whose members were apparently mass murdered.
The nuncio to Southern Africa, Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro is appointed nuncio to Spain.
Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-mei, who spent more than 30 years in Chinese jails for refusing to renounce his ties with the Vatican, dies in exile in the United States on March 12. He was 98.
More than 20 feminists vandalise Montreal’s cathedral in a protest against the Church’s opposition to abortion.
The US National Security Agency spied on Pope John Paul II, among others, a former intelligence official reveals.
April
Special Jubilee Year Passion Plays are performed in Durban and Windhoek.
Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg calls on the South African government to “keep aid flowing” to Mozambique, and to help to find and destroy land mines planted during the civil war in that country.
The SACBC criticises Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe for “encouraging the lawlessness” in Zimbabwe, which includes invasion of farms.
The Jesuit Refugee Service, a worldwide organisation, opens a centre in Johannesburg.
May
More than 40 readers of The Southern Cross make a pilgrimage under the spiritual directorship of Jesuit Father Nicholas King to Egypt and the Holy Land.
Visiting Portugal, Pope John Paul beatifies two of the three shepherd children who reported apparitions of the Blessed Virgin at Fatima in 1917. The third child is still alive.
The so-called third secret of Fatima is released. It makes what might be a direct reference to the assassination attempt on the pope in 1981.
Indian-born Archbishop Blasco Francisco Collaço, former nuncio to Bulgaria, is appointed apostolic nuncio to South Africa and apostolic delegate to Botswana.
The former director of the Catholic justice and peace commission in Zimbabwe, Mike Auret, calls for the excommunication of Robert Mugabe, a baptised Catholic.
Pope John Paul celebrates his 80th birthday.
As part of the Jubilee Year celebrations, Pope John Paul honours Christian martyrs of the 230th century in Rome’s Colosseum.
St Faustina Kowalska, the Polish nun who inspired the Divine Mercy devotion, is canonised in Rome.
The Passion Play of Oberammergau, Germany, begins its six-month run.
June
Italy heeds the pope’s appeals and releases Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot and wounded Pope John Paul in 1981. Agca is deported to his native Turkey, where he is arrested to serve a sentence for murdering a newspaper editor.
The Southern Cross reports that within a couple of weeks of publishing an appeal for a kidney to save a Carmelite nun, Sr Louise Kajowa, more than 200 offers have been received (sadly, she dies in October).
The murderers of Fr Albert Peleman, who was slain in Pietersburg in February 1999, receive life sentences. The judge describes the murder as the worst and most merciless he had encountered in his career.
Rwandan Bishop Augustin Misago is acquitted of all charges of genocide.
The cathedral in Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo is severely damaged by fire after a confrontation between Rwandan and Ugandan troops. Hundreds of civilians fall victim to the clashes.
The US Congress votes to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Pope John Paul.
Catholic Church leaders in the Moluccas, Indonesia, call on the international community to intervene in what they say is a systematic cleansing of Christians on the islands.
Liberation theology is alive and growing, Brazilian Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns says.
Dr Nan Hugo, a prominent South African lay Catholic, celebrates her 100th birthday.
July
The Southern Cross Youth Pilgrimage, led by Fr Michael Hagan, visits Egypt and the Holy Land.
Mgr Donald de Beer, former editor of The Southern Cross, dies suddenly on July 6. He was 68.
The Johannesburg-based ministry for Marriage and Family Life Renewal (Marfam) will continue despite the death of co-founder Chris Rowland, says his wife and Marfam leader Toni Rowland.
Bishop Mogale Paul Nkumishe is transferred from Witbank to Pietersburg following the resignation of Bishop Fulgence Le Roy.
Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo receives death threats in the aftermath to the election slump by Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections.
The SACBC publishes a booklet on sexual violence titled Silent No Longer.
Archbishop Alan de Lastic of Delhi, head of the Indian bishops’ conference, dies in a car crash in Poland. He was 70.
Would-be papal assassin Mehmet Ali Agca tells his “dear brother pope” to resign “immediately” and leave the Vatican, “that rubbish dump of history and the headquarter of the devil.”
Greek Orthodox visionary Vassula Ryden visits South Africa.
The Catholic Church in Germany admits to having used forced labour during World War II, but claims to have treated workers humanely.
August
Hundreds of South African youths join two million young people from around the world in Rome for the Catholic World Youth Day. The event is the biggest single gathering in Europe’s history.
The SACBC, meeting at its plenary session in Mariannhill, says the Church in Southern Africa is becoming increasingly laity-driven.
Fr Pius Mlungisi Dlungwane, rector of St John Vianney seminary, becomes auxilliary bishop of Mariannhill.
Radio Veritas, South Africa’s first Catholic radio station, begins broadcasting, starting with three hour-long programmes a week.
The Vatican releases a new General Introduction to the Roman Missal.
A fire in Cape Town’s chancery destroys the archdiocesan youth office.
The Russian Orthodox Church canonises Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II, and his family.
The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart celebrate the 50th anniversary of their presence in South Africa.
Marist Brother Paul Nolan, 93, one of South Africa’s most prominent religious and an activist for the blind, dies on August 3.
Actor Alec Guinness, a convert to Catholicism, dies on August 5 at the age of 86.
Pretoria resident Ted James, a Southern Cross reader since its first issue in 1920, dies on August 7. He was 95.
September
The publication of a new Vatican document on salvation, Dominus Iesus, is met with an icy reaction by many non-Catholics, who consider it triumphalistic and insulting, and some Catholics, who believe the document will harm ecumenical relations.
Pope John XXIII and Pius IX are beatified in Rome. The beatification of Pius draws protests over the 19th century pope’s alleged anti-Semitism.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission hears that the apartheid security police was responsible for the 1988 bombing of the SACBC headquarters, Khanya House. The bishops say they will not oppose amnesty, provided all conditions for amnesty are met.
Violence between Palestinians and Israeli forces breaks out in the Holy Land. The Vatican calls for a solution on the disputed status of Jerusalem, suggesting an international mandate for the city.
In a highly unusual gesture, a delegation of German Lutheran bishops meets representatives of the Catholic German-speaking community in Cape Town as well as Archbishop Lawrence Henry.
Pope John Paul performs, unsuccessfully, an impromptu exorcism on a teenage girl in St Peter’s Square.
October
The Southern Cross celebrates its 80th birthday with a special bumper edition.
Bishop Edward Risi is consecrated bishop of Keimoes-Upington in front of a crowd of more than 4,000 in Upington.
A Johannesburg billboard advertising Internet portal iafrica.com featuring images of the Blessed Virgin and a pack of contraceptive pills is removed following strong protest by Catholics.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, a Catholic, wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
The pope canonises 120 Chinese martyrs, prompting the indignation of China’s communist government. He also canonises Sudanese St Josephine Bakhita and American St Katherine Drexel.
Fr Christopher Chatteris SJ is appointed editor of Grace & Truth, the theological magazine published by St Joseph’s Theological Institute in Cedara.
Archbishop Emmanuel Kataliko, 68, of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo dies shortly after returning to the diocese following seven months of rebel-enforced exile.
The British House of Commons gets its first Catholic speaker since the Reformation, Glaswegian MP Michael Martin.
A Rwandan court clears two priests of charges of genocide and orders their release from death row.
The Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa, celebrate their 50th anniversary.
Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels says in a book that Pope John Paul might resign after the Holy Year. The Vatican replies that the cardinals “opinion” cannot be “substantiated.”
November
Johannesburg diocese and Cape Town archdiocese mark the Jubilee year with rallies at the packed Standard Bank Arena and Green Point Stadium respectively, issuing a mea culpa for past and on-going failings in the Church.
The Portuguese parish in Johannesburg, under the guidance of Fr Carlos Gabriel, launches an anti-crime initiative, including a march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Pope John Paul declares St Thomas More patron saint of politicians.
South African Catholic Donald Woods, former editor of the East London Daily Dispatch, is featured on the prestigious BBC show This Is Your Life.
Church leaders in the Philippines, led by Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila, call for the resignation of President Joseph Estrada over a corruption scandal. A Church-organised rally draws 70,000 demonstrators.
The bishops of Southern Africa call for a moratorium on the cultivation of genetically engineered crops and foods.
Mgr Jan Jaworski, former chaplain to Poles in South Africa and occasional Southern Cross columnist, receives a prestigious award by the International Organisation of Authors.
According to Voter News Service, US presidential candidate Al Gore won 50% of the Catholic vote against George W Bush’s 47%.
DECEMBER
The South African division of software giant Microsoft presents Nazareth House in Johannesburg with a donation of R10,000 raised by staff.
The Church in Cuba holds its first Eucharistic Congress in 53 years.
Dr Matthew Lukwiya, chief physician of St Mary’s Hospital in Lacore, Uganda, dies on December 5 of Ebola after contracting the virus from a patient.
Italian police defuse a bomb on the roof of Milan’s cathedral, 15 hours before it was set to go explode.
La Cattolicà Civilta, an influential Jesuit newspaper whose contents are reviewed by the Vatican before publication, calls for the regulation of brothels to combat exploitation of prostitutes.
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