Year-end Review 2010

It was the year when South Africa hosted the football world as well as the relics of St Therese of Lisieux, the clerical abuse scandal exploded again in several European countries, Pope Benedict was welcomed warmly in secular Britain and spoke on condoms, and Southern Africans responded generously to the suffering people of Haiti. GuNTHER SIMMERMACHER looks back at the year 2010.

JANUARY
Cape Towns archdiocesan St Francis Xavier seminary closes on January 1. The premises will be used by St Kizitos orientation seminary, which relocates from Port Elizabeth.

At least 37 Church workers were murdered in 2009, almost twice as many as in 2008.

Auxiliary Bishop Barry Wood of Durban says it is important that lay Eucharistic ministers perform a solemn renewal of their special charism each liturgical year.

The Vatican announces that in 2009, some 2,2 million people saw Pope Benedict at audiences and Angelus recitations.

The capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, is devastated by an earthquake on January 12. Among the more than 100000 dead is the citys archbishop Joseph Miot. Within a week, the Catholic Church in Southern Africa raises R3800,00 for Haiti, and more than a million in a month. Final figures exceed 2 million.

South Africas Catholic schools achieved a matric pass rate of 83,9% in 2009, exceeding the national average by 23,6%. Catholic school students writing Independent Examination Board papers had a pass rate of 99,8%.

Petronilla Chikambi Samuriwo, 42, former editor of Catholic Church News in Zimbabwe, dies on January 7 after a short illness.

Pope Benedict visits Romes main synagogue, laying a wreath at a memorial to the citys Jewish Nazi victims.

Bishop Joe Sandri is installed as head of the diocese of Witbank.

Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II in May 1981, is released from a Turkish jail. He promptly proclaims himself the Christ eternal.

Pope Benedict appoints Flaminia Giovanelli undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the first woman to serve a pontifical council in that position in more than two decades.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, Nigeria, says that violence between Muslims and Christians in his region, which killed more than 200 in January, must be attributed to politics, not religion.

Fr Joao  Rodrigues of Witbank is appointed bishop of Tzaneen, succeeding Bishop Hugh Slattery. He is installed in March.

FEBRUARY
Archbishop Stephen Brislin, former bishop of Kroonstad, is installed as head of the archdiocese of Cape Town on February 7.

In the aftermath of revelations that President Jacob Zuma has fathered a child in an adulterous affair, the Southern African bishops issue a statement, signed by Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, calling on political leaders to be worthy role models to young South Africans.

Meeting with Irelands bishops, Pope Benedict calls sexual abuse of children by priests a heinous crime.

Rosemary Goldie, 94, the first woman to hold a senior position in the Vatican when she was appointed undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in 1966, dies in Australia on February 27.

MARCH
As the sexual abuse scandal hits Germany, the countrys bishops ask for forgiveness from victims of sexual abuse at Church-run schools.

Comboni Father Vincent Mkhabela is drugged and hijacked in Pretoria.

Leading an anti-abortion march in Johannesburg, Archbishop Buti Tlhagale says that lawmakers had been binning God and that their hands are dripping with blood.

The SACBC?launches its Church on the Ball website in preparation of the football World Cup in June and July.

Catholics in El Salvador observe the 30th anniversary of the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

The guard of the Love of Christ Ministries home for children, Macson Makado, is killed after being repeatedly shot from close range by a paintball gun.

In a pastoral letter to Irelands Catholics, Pope Benedict says he understands the anger over sexual abuse by Church personnel.

At the request of the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Vatican establishes a commission to study the reported Marian apparitions at Medjugorje.

The Oblates of Mary Immaculate accept a request from Bishop Xolelo Kumalo to take over the running of the Marian shrine at Ngome.

Referring to the abuse scandal in his homily at Johannesburgs Chrism Mass, Archbishop Tlhagale says that all priests must take collective responsibility for the suffering, hurt and scandal inflicted by their clerical brothers in Europe and America.

APRIL
The Southern Cross launches its digital edition.

The Turin Shroud goes on public display for six weeks, for the first time since 2000. Pope Benedict visits it in May.

Polands military Archbishop Tadeusz Ploski and several priests are among those who perish in the plane crash that kills President Lech Kaczynski on April 10.

Zimbabwean Archbishop Pius Ncube, former head of Bulawayo diocese, denies rumours that he is planning to head a political party.

Visiting Malta, Pope Benedict meets with abuse survivors, walks in the footsteps of St Paul and encourages local Catholics to keep the faith.

Marking 16 years of democracy in South Africa, Auxiliary Bishop Barry Wood of Durban says that the country is still making many mistakes, just as teenagers are making mistakes when they are looking for maturity.

Couples for Christ celebrate their tenth anniversary of activity in South Africa.

Pope Benedict promises action on the abuse scandal, while Cardinal Claudio Hummes, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy says that in the abuse scandal, the Church is on the side of the victims.

Former Grand Knight of da Gama and leading jurist Trevor Blunden dies on April 23 at 85.

The Vatican approves the new English translations for the new Roman Missal, with only some local adaptations still pending. It will be fully implemented as of Advent 2011, the SACBC says.

MAY
The Oberammergau Passion Play begins its five-month run of performances, the first since 2000.

Pope Benedict says that the ongoing global economic crisis shows that the free market is not capable of regulating itself in a way that promotes the common good.

The Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office commends health minister Aaron Motsoaledis new HIV/Aids policy.

Pope Benedict visits Portugal, with events at the Marian shrine of Fatima taking centrestage. On the flight to Portugal, he says that the abuse crisis came from within the Church and not from an outside attack.

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna says former Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Angelo Sodano blocked an investigation in the 1990s into the sexual abuse committed by the late Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer.

Archbishop Tlhagale accuses the government and many South Africans of complicity in human trafficking because they fail to do enough to tackle modern slavery.

Singer Lena Horne, a Catholic, dies on May 9 at 92.

Bishop Kevin Dowling is elected co-president of the Catholic peace movement Pax Christi International.

Pope Benedict says that micro-financing, small-scale development and better education can help pull African communities out of poverty.

Paddy Kearney receives the Andrew Murray-Desmond Tutu Prize for best Christian/theology book for his biography of Archbishop Denis Hurley, Guardian of the Light.

Centenarian Holy Cross Sister Theodata Pubec, who once taught Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, dies on May 17 at 103. Just eleven days later, another Holy Cross centenarian, Sr Paschal Halmansegger, dies at 102 in Aliwal North.

US?President Barack Obama went to Catholic Mass for three years and had his first exposure to organised religion through the Church, political analyst Patrick Whelan reveals.

Archbishop Tlhagale hands over a fully-equipped police car to the South African Police Services, bought with money raised in the archdiocese of Johannesburg in remembrance of Fr Lionel Sham, who was murdered in 2009.

JUNE
Parishes throughout South Africa celebrate World Cup Sunday, with some officially welcoming Catholic football fans from around the world. To coincide with the World Cup, the Damietta Peace Initiative and Caritas stage a Peace Cup in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, in which 26 teams representing different immigrant nationalities compete.

Bishop Luigi Padovese, 63, vicar-apostolic of Anatolia (Turkey), is stabbed to death by his driver on June 3.

The Southern Cross is listed as one of Marketing Mix magazines Top Print Performers of 2009, based on Audit Bureau of Circulation figures.

Any form of compulsory military service would be unacceptable in post-apartheid South Africa, says Fr Mike Deeb OP, head of the SACBCs Justice & Peace Commission, after the idea of the reintroduction of conscription is raised by defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

Fr Frank de Gouveia of Cape Town is appointed bishop of Oudtshoorn, succeeding Bishop Edward Adams. He is installed on July 27.

Pope Benedict visits Cyprus, accompanied much of the time by the islands Orthodox head, Archbishop Chrysostomos II.

Fr Monwabisi Majingolo survives being shot through the head in a hijacking. Two men are arrested.

Slain Polish anti-communist priest Fr Jerzy Popieluszko is beatified in Warsaw, almost 26 years after his murder.

It is reported that the climax of the six-season TV?thriller Lost, broadcast in the United States in late May, was filmed in a Catholic school in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Archbishop Tlhagale, as SACBC?president, appeals to President Jacob Zuma to intervene in the political crisis in Swaziland, which forms part of the conference�s territory, after anti-monarchy activist Sipho Jele died in police custody in May.

Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney makes headlines in Britain after being seen wearing a rosary around his neck during training in Rustenburg.

Pope Benedict closes the Year for Priests with a Mass in St Peters Square with 15000 priests from around the world (including South Africa), 350 bishops and 80 cardinals.

The Vatican compares the BP?oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986.

The archdiocese of Johannesburg announces plans to build a new chancery in Berea, and the archdiocese of Durban proposes to demolish its cathedral parish centre to build the Denis Hurley Centre in its place.

Pope Benedict sets up the new Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation.

Fr Georg Lautenschlager CMM, postulator for the cause of Mariannhill founder Abbot Franz Pfanner, dies on June 22 at 80.

The relics of St Therese of Lisieux begin their tour of South Africa, ending in October.

President Zuma posthumously honours the late Vincent Naidoo, a Catholic community activist in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, who was shot dead by gangsters, with South Africa highest honour, the Order of Baobab.

Gene Donnelly, former managing editor of The Southern Cross, retires after 41 years with the newspaper.

JULY
Responding to rumours of renewed xenophobic violence after the World Cup, the SACBC?issues a statement warning South Africans not to attack foreigners, and several Church agencies engage in education on xenophobia.

Bishop Francisco Claver, 81, who drafted the Church statement that led to the revolution that toppled the Philippines dictator Fernando Marcos, dies on July 1.

Chinese Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo is released after 15 months in detention.

For the third year running, the Vatican budget has recorded a deficit in 2009, with a loss of R40 million.

It is reported that Dutch World Cup star Wesley Sneijder of Inter Milan converted to Catholicism shortly before his departure to South Africa.

Australian scripture scholar Fr Gerald OCollins SJ?begins his tour of South Africa as part of the Jesuit Institutes Theological Winter School.

Pope Benedict appoints Archbishop Francis Chullikat, an Indian who served the Pretoria nunciature as secretary in the 1990s, as the Vatican representative to the United Nations.

The Vatican issues its revised procedures for handling cases of alleged sexual abuses by priests.

AUGUST
The bishops of Southern Africa institute a Week of Prayer for prisoners, correctional services staff and victims of crime, starting on August 1, feast of St Peter in Chains.

Archaeologists report to have found what they believe to be the prison where St Peter was held before his execution in Rome.

A new survey released by the SACBC shows a decline in the number of Catholics over the previous year.

Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, a convert to Catholicism, dies on August 8 at 84.

Kenyans vote for the countrys new Constitution, which the Catholic Church opposed because it may loosen restrictions on abortion and allows for the entrenchment of Shariah courts.

Capuchin Father Donal OMahoney, Irish co-founder of the Dalmietta Peace Initiative in Pretoria, dies in Ireland on August 14.

The Catholic Church marks the centenary of the birth of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Rabbi David Rosen, director of the American Jewish Committees department of Interreligious Affairs, visits the Jesuit Institute in Johannesburg. In October, the former chief rabbi of Sea Point in Cape Town later addresses the Synod of Bishops on the Middle East.

The SACBC, in a statement signed by Cardinal Napier, criticises the proposed Protection of Information Bill and the African National Congresss proposed media appeals tribunal.

SEPTEMBER
Pope Benedict visits England and Scotland. Contrary to speculation, the pope is enthusiastically received. In Birmingham he beatifies Cardinal John Henry Newman.

The Southern Cross hosts the Passion pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Oberammergau, led by Bishop Zithulele Mvemve of Klerksdorp.

Fr Mike Deeb of the SACBCs Justice & Peace Department warns that the Mozambican riots over food price increases could be replicated in South Africa.

Chiara Badano, an Italian teenager who died in 1990 of bone cancer, is beatified near Rome, and German Fr Gerhard Hirschfelder, who died in Dachau concentration camp in 1942, is beatified in M�nster.

Belgiums bishops say they will learn from their errors after an independent report highlighted hundreds of cases of abuse by priests.

The Precious Blood Sisters in Mariannhill and Mthatha celebrate the 25th anniversary of their congregations founding by Abbot Franz Pfanner.

Speaking about his favourite composer, Pope Benedict says that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart used his compositions in the Requiem to celebrate Gods love and hope even in the face of suffering and death.

Fr Bruno Cador is elected superior-general of the Dominicans worldwide.

Two suspected robbers are killed in a shoot-out with police at Immaculate Conception church in Pinetown, near Durban, after a Sunday evening Mass.

Fr Roland Pasensie, 47, head of the Kolping Society in South Africa, dies in Cape Town on September 29.

OCTOBER
The Synod of Bishops for the Middle East takes place over two weeks in the Vatican.

Kevin McLoughlin, 38, brother of Fr Donald McLoughlin and a leader in Northriding parish in Johannesburg, is killed on October 4 in a robbery.

Pope Benedict canonises six new saints, including Australias St Mary McKillop and Canadas St Andre Bessette.

Visiting Sicily, Pope Benedict urges young people to reject the path of death offered by organised crime.

Pope Benedict is presented with a flag signed by each of the 33 miners who were trapped underground for 69 days.

The Vaticans visitation of the Irish Church begins.

Pope Benedict names 24 cardinals, including four from Africa.

The Southern Cross celebrates its 90th anniversary of uninterrupted publication.

Church representatives meet with basic education minister Angie Motshekga to discuss Catholic education and proposals for the improvement of the national education environment.

The Vatican appeals to Iraq not to hang Tariq Aziz, a leading functionary of the Saddam Hussein regime and a Catholic, after a court sentenced him to death.

Johannesburgs cathedral of Christ the King turns 50.

NOVEMBER
Pope Benedict condemns as savage a terrorist attack on Baghdads Syrian Catholic cathedral in which 58 people, including two priests, are killed.

In a new book of interviews conducted by German journalist Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict acknowledges that under certain circumstances, the use of condoms as a method of preventing HIV infection can be permissible. Theologians and Church experts on HIV/Aids agree that his comments represent no revolution.

The Church observes the 150th anniversary of the first Indians landing in South Africa.

The bishops of Southern Africa call for an interdiocesan consultation to review the 1989 pastoral plan and chart the way forward.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ?meets with representatives of 100 protestors against clerical sex abuse who are denied permission to gather in St Peters Square.

Visiting Spain, Pope Benedict blesses Barcelonas Holy Family cathedral and visits Santiago de Compostela.

Pope Benedict is ranked at #5 of Forbes magazines list of the worlds most powerful people.

A 33-m high statue of Christ is dedicated in Swiebodzin, Poland.

It is announced that the first group of Anglicans to become Catholics in terms of Pope Benedicts 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus will cross over in January 2011.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari lifts the death penalty passed under the countrys controversial Blasphemy Law of a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi.

Pope Benedict issues his apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini, based on the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God.

Two, young priests who were ordained in October 2009, Frs Monageng Mathole and Baile Swelke, die in a car crash in Pretoria on November 14.

Pope Benedict says that Catholic newspapers play an irreplaceable role in Catholic life.

DECEMBER

Promotion of condoms and calls for abstinence have both failed as prevention strategies in the fight against HIV/Aids, Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town tells a World Aids Day Mass in Lansdowne, Cape Town. He calls instead for behaviour change.

Reviewing the year 2010, Pope Benedict says that in response to the unimaginable scandal of clerical abuse against minors, the Church must reflect, repent and do everything possible to rectify the injustices suffered by victims and to prevent such abuse from ever happening again.

Pope Benedict appoints Bishop William Slattery of Kokstad as new archbishop of Pretoria, and Mgr Abel Gabuza of Pretoria bishop of Kimberley. Archbishop Slattery is installed in January; Bishop Gabuza in March.

The Legionaries of Christ forbid the public display of their disgraced founder, Fr Marcial Maciel, in their centres.

Pope Benedict condemns attacks on churches and other targets in Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Secret diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks show that the United States regards the Vatican as a serious global player.

A South African chapter of the We Are Church movement launches in South Africa.