reading Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), I was deeply struck by its social teaching. How does it refer in the context of our African region, which includes Zimbabwe and corruption in the higher echelons of our own country, South Africa?
Here our leaders appease not the suffering servant but actually afflict him. It seems our government is ushering in a new dark age. We see ourselves increasingly surrounded by victims of violence, immorality, corruption, un-Christian legislation and gross maladministration.
Amazing is the silence of Nelson Mandela, the South African icon who was once a suffering servant. Even Mahatma Gandhi condemned the injustices and violence of his own supporters in India. Mr Mandela now lives in the comfort of a mansion and seemingly no longer identifies with the poor and suffering.
He was conspicuously neutral in the conflict between the ideals of his Nobel Peace Prize colleagues and the opportunism of his party. Instead of chastising his party, he apotheosises it. It seems the ANC is his ultimate value.
Such blind allegiance makes him a questionable model for the country or for any follower of Christ, notwithstanding his former suffering servant image, now tarnished by his party’s corruption, greed and new racism in the name of freedom.
Hopefully the Church, inspired by the latest papal encyclical, will be a strong voice and confront the encroaching new dark age in our land, as it once did in the dark age of apartheid.
Allan Moss OMI, Pietermaritzburg
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