Abuse: Let the healing begin
When Pope Benedict met five survivors of clerical abuse—representative of all victims of predatory Church personnel—he communicated a powerful message: today, the Church sides with those who...
April 2008
Mbeki: A squandered legacy
When South Africa’s parliament adopted the country’s exemplary Constitution in May 1996, then-Deputy President Thabo Mbeki delivered his powerful “I am an African” speech, an epochal and...
We should bombard the media for their smutty ads
I received a telephone call recently from a lawyer friend in Johannesburg asking about any recourse pro-life organisations could take through industry regulators against newspapers that ran...
Give us our voice
Radio Veritas, it seems, cannot win. When South Africa’s Catholic radio station previously applied for a national broadcast frequency, the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa)...
Does God work for you?
The Mail & Guardian poster displayed over Easter asked: “Is God working for you?” My first reaction was: “Of course, that is what we believe.” Then I...
Lights out: The Dark Ages come to SA
It is possible. Life without a cellphone. A day without a laptop. Surely it is, but not without pain. Life has not been the same since the...
Much to be proud of in our birds, beasts and blossoms
In these days of violence, crime and political uncertainty—and there seems to be more dark cloud and less silver lining—I have decided to start looking for good...
Get ready to face new challenges
Every era has its own challenges There are challenges that confront people of every time and place; there are challenges that are specific to a specific era....
The Ncube affair: Moving on
Archbishop Pius Ncube, who last year resigned as head of the diocese of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, has admitted to having had a liaison with a married woman....
Scorn and confusion
When the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary issued a modernised list of Seven Deadly Sins, it attracted much ridicule in the secular media (even from some nominal Catholics).
