At the door are Umkhonto we Sizwe veterans who visited me in the parish. They were bearers of good news. They are canvassing that our parish, St Charles Lwanga, be declared a heritage site.
This church was the beacon of hope especially during hard times of apartheid. The parish doors were always open for community meetings. It was here that people hunted by evil forces could find refuge. It was in this parish that comrades planned the downfall of apartheid. Under the brave leadership of Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, ours became a Peoples Church. The history of Soshanguve, outside Pretoria, is incomplete without Fr Mkhatshwa or the St Charles Lwanga parishioners.
Remember Fr Mkhatshwa did not volunteer to come to Soshanguve. He was restricted to Pretoria under the Internal Security Act for his activities in the Black Peoples Convention. He was allocated a house in Soshanguve and subjected to 6pm to 6am house arrest. He was the parish priest of St Charles Lwanga when he became the first African general secretary of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference.
A few days after the visit by former ANC combatants, I went to visit St Peters seminary, in Garsfontein, east of Pretoria. The seminary rector, Fr Enrico Parry, lamented that the bishops have decided to close the seminary. Philosophy students will from 2008 be part of St John Vianney seminary in Waterkloof. My heart was already bleeding when the rector assured me that the seminary would not be sold, but put on a lease.
Throughout September this seminary was in many peoples minds and hearts. At almost all Steve Bantu Biko commemorations and at Heritage celebrations I met people associated with the seminary. Everywhere I went people joined the rectors lament. This kind of reaction was not surprising.
St Peters Seminary is an icon of the quest of black people to be free. As the oppressed people of South Africa were landless, so was this seminary uprooted many times. It was moved from Natal to Hammanskraal. Then to Garsfontein.
There was never an official explanation for the move from Hammanskraal. This led to students, staff members and other concerned people to come up with theories. It was not good for a seminary to be next to a nurses college training young African women. The seminary was too close to a township, Temba. It was perceived that black areas would have a negative influence on African seminarians. White students and lecturers preferred to be closer to Pretoria. Now St Peters is moving to Waterkloof, maybe for good.
St Peters was for training African priests when St John Vianney was for whites. In 1981 the bishops decided to amalgamate the seminaries. By then the seminary was a school of freedom.
St Peters produced bishops: Mandlenkosi Zwane, Mansuet Biyase, Paul Mngoma, Mogale Nkhumishe, Zithulele Mvemve. St Peters produced the first group of radical black priests to make a public protest against racism in the Catholic Church: Frs Mkhatshwa, David Moetapele, John Louwfant, Clement Mokoka and Anthony Mabona.
Their protest and manifesto was published in the liberal Rand Daily Mail. It was the St Peters Old Boys Association (SPOBA) which insisted that Cardinal Owen McCann resign after suggesting that Africans were not mature enough to govern. It was at St Peters that the bishops decided to close the seminary because students were getting too political after a few legitimate protests. It was at St Peters that Steve Biko found a platform and his Black Consciousness was nurtured and spread throughout the country. St Peters was a breeding ground for the liberation of South Africa.
To remove St Peters seminary from the face of the earth will deny black people their history and some white people their guilt. But St John Vianney seminary will always be a reminder of our painful past.
The historian Dr Joy Brain in 2002 gave reasons for the existence of two racial seminaries: blacks would have difficulty with English as the medium of instruction, their social customs and educational background were different and separation of the two groups was likely to be beneficial to both.
The walls of St Charles Lwanga church remind the Umkhonto we Sizwe soldiers that genuine monuments are engraved in peoples hearts and memories. Biko was murdered 30 years ago. His spirit lives on. So will that of St Peters seminary.
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