Year-end Review 2011

It was the year in which Pope Benedict presided over World Youth Day in Madrid, the beatification of Bl John Paul II, and the launch of the apostolic exhortation Africae munus. English-speaking churches implemented the new missal, and South Africans mourned the murder of another priest.  GÜNTHER?SIMMERMACHER looks back at the year 2011.

JANUARY
Church officials warn of long-term effects after heavy summer rains in South Africa, which killed 1000 and displaced 6000 people, destroyed livestock and crops.
The Shrine of Our Lady in Lourdes, France, is partially closed until February to prevent a major landslide.
Cardinal Wilfrid Napier acts as a monitor in South Sudan’s independence referendum, which votes to secede from Khartoum.
Pope Benedict institutes the Financial Information Authority to monitor the Vatican’s financial operations.
Brazilian Archbishop João Braz de Aviz of Brasilia becomes the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life, succeeding Cardinal Franc Rodé.
Former English Anglican bishops Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet, John Broadhurst of Fulham and Keith Newton of Richborough are received into the Catholic Church and on January 15 ordained priests in Westminster cathedral.
Domitilla Hyams, founder of the Little Eden Society for people with intellectual disabilities in Johannesburg, dies on January 18 at the age of 92.
The Al-Azhar’s Centre of Dialogue of the University of Cairo, established in July 2010 to represent Muslims in dialogue with the Vatican, suspends its participation in protest against Pope Benedict’s condemnation of a suicide bomb attack on a Coptic Church at Christmas that killed 21 Christians.
Addressing the plenary session of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC)?in Pretoria, its president Archbishop Buti Tlhagale calls on the Catholic Church to play a greater role in society.

FEBRUARY
Marking the 14th anniversary of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act taking effect, Fr Peter-John Pearson, director of the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office (CPLO), calls on Catholics to continue opposing abortion and pledged that the CPLO would work to limit the effects of the abortion law.
France’s senate rejects legislation that would have permitted euthanasia.
The South African Council of Churches condemns as blasphemous President Jacob Zuma’s comment that “when you vote for the ANC, you are also choosing to go to heaven”, whereas not voting for the ANC is choosing the devil.
The former chairman of the music committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, Fr Anthony Ruff OSB, withdraws his support for the new translation of the missal, calling the translation process marked by “deception and mischief”.
After sustaining serious injuries in a crash at a rally, Polish Formula One driver and devout Catholic Robert Kubica is given relics of Pope John Paul II to hasten his recovery.
The Inter-Regional Meeting Meeting of Bishops of Southern Africa call on Zimbabwe to cancel plans for an election in 2011.
Holy Cross Sister Anne Catherine Güntensperger of Aliwal turns 100 on February 23. She dies on June 16.
The results of Phase I of the Interdiocesan Consultation, which began in July, is presented to the bishops.

MARCH
Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Catholic minorities minister, is assassinated on March 2.
The bishops of Southern Africa issue a pastoral letter for the local elections in May, stressing the duty of every eligible South African to vote, and to do so responsibly.
Bishop Oswald Hirmer, retired of Mthatha and author of the bestseller The Joy of Being Catholic, dies on March 5 at the age of 81.
Fr Yves Lafontaine CMM is appointed postulator of the cause of Abbot Francis Pfanner, succeeding the late Fr Georg Lautenschlager.
Following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11, the Vatican’s aid office Cor Unum pledges that the Church will still be there after “many of the secular agencies have gone”.
The SACBC launches a DVD containing the catechetical programme for the implementation of the new English translations of the Roman missal as of November 27.
Congress of South African Trade Unions secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi tells the SACBC’s Justice & Peace Department’s annual general meeting?that the union and the Catholic Church are “lifetime allies” in the fight for the poor.
Bishop John Magee of Cloyne, Ireland, resigns over reports of mishandling of clergy abuse cases.
Bishop Bechara Rai of Jbeil, Lebanon, is elected the 77th patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church, succeeding retired Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir.
The bishops of Southern Africa declare May “Family Month”.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, 40, is installed as the new head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, succeeding Cardinal Lubomyr Husar.

APRIL
Pope Benedict appoints Fr Peter Holiday of Maryvale, Johannesburg, as bishop of Kroonstad. He is ordained in June.
Durban’s Passion Play is performed at the Playhouse Drama Theatre from April 2-24.
The nuncio to the Ivory Coast, Archbishop Ambrose Madtha, says that priests are being targeted in political conflicts in the country.
The new library at St John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria is formally opened.
In a thinly-veiled reference to the National Interfaith Leaders Council, spearheaded in 2009 by Rhema’s Rev Ray McCauley, Archbishop Tlhagale calls on Christian churches to withstand politicians’ attempt to divide them.
In a first, Pope Benedict appears on Italian television to answer four questions posed by the public.
The Vatican withdraws canonical recognition of the International Union of the Catholic Press (UCIP) because of operational irregularities.
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe calls his country’s Catholic bishops “mere puppets of Western countries” and “so-called men of God who lie”.

MAY
Pope Benedict beatifies his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in a ceremony in St Peter’s Square.
Responding to widespread outrage to Mr Mugabe’s presence at Bl John Paul II’s beatification and reception of Communion during the Mass, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier said that as a Catholic Mr Mugabe was free to receive Communion, and that the Vatican had not issued invitations to the heads of states.
Parishes in Pakistan and other predominantly Muslim areas scale back activities as a precaution after the killing by US marines of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden on May 2.
The Hope&Joy network officially launches on May 8.
The Southern Cross is named one of the country’s seven top performers among weekly newspapers for 2010 by Marketing Mix magazine.
Pope Benedict appoints Pretoria’s vicar-general Fr Dabula Mpako as new bishop of Queenstown. He is installed in August.
In a meeting organised by the Pontifical Councils of Culture and Social Communication, Catholic bloggers are called to exercise the virtue of charity in their writing.
The Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office declares the local elections on May 18 “free, fair, robust and mature”.
Commenting on attacks on Christians in Egypt, the nuncio in Cairo, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, says that the country’s Christian minority is hoping for greater freedoms for all in the post-Mubarak era, but fears that Islamic fundamentalists will hijack the revolution.
Italian Archbishop Fernando Filoni is appointed prefect of the Congregation for Evangelisation, the curial office overseeing missionary territories (which includes Southern Africa).
Fr Sammy Mabusela of Pretoria is appointed national youth chaplain, succeeding the long-serving Fr Michael Hagan.
The Vatican issues guidelines on handling accusations of clerical sex abuse to all bishops’ conferences.
Pope Benedict celebrates a Mass for 300,000 people in Venice.
Sr Dulce, Brazil’s “Mother Teresa”, is beatified in Salvador.
The bishops of England and Wales reinstitute the Friday abstinence from meat in their region.
Long-serving Southern Cross director and influential Catholic layman Bernard Pothier dies on May 24 at 81.

JUNE
Pope Benedict visits Zagreb in Croatia.
A high-powered delegation from the SACBC returns from Swaziland, describing the country as being “in turmoil”, and criticises King Mswati III and his regime for brutality.
In separate ceremonies, priests killed by the Nazis are beatified: Fr Alois Andritzki in Dresden, and three Catholic priests who were executed along with their Lutheran pastor friend in Lübeck.
Phase II of the Interdiocesan Consultation is launched on Pentecost Sunday.
Pope Benedict meets with 2000 travellers (or gypsies) and prays for an end to their oppression and rejection.
Among the institutions visited by US?First Lady Michelle Obama on her visit to South Africa is Regina Mundi church in Moroka, Soweto, where she addresses an audience of 2,000 for 45 minutes.
US Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh says that despite all types of social media, Catholic newspapers are still the best way to evangelise.
Pope Benedict presses a button and thereby delivers the first ever papal post, or tweet, on the social networking site Twitter.

JULY
Fr Carlo Adams OSFS, formerly of Kakamas in the Northern Cape, concelebrates in the nuptial Mass of Monaco’s Prince Albert Grimaldi and former South African swimmer Charlene Wittstock, whom Fr Adams prepared for her conversion to Catholicism.
Vatican relations with China deteriorate over two unauthorised ordinations of bishops in the government-sponsored Catholic Church in June and July.
The new state of South Sudan comes into being on July 9 as violence continues in disputed provinces to the country’s north.
A 400-page judicial report outlines cases of clerical sexual abuse and the mishandling of allegations in the Irish diocese of Cloyne.
Cardinal Napier celebrates his 70th birthday, 50th anniversary as a Franciscan, 30th as a bishop and tenth as a cardinal with Mass at Kingsmead cricket stadium.
Bishop Barry Wood steps down as chairman of the Diakonia Council of Churches after serving the maximum of two terms.
The St Vincent de Paul Society in South Africa launches a national development programme, which includes an advertising campaign.
The Church in Australia apologises for its role in forced adoptions over past decades.
Irish Jesuit Father Jim McCorkery, an expert on Vatican II and the theology of Pope Benedict, begins his South African tour of lectures for the Jesuit Institute’s Winter Theology series.

August
World Youth Day 2011 is hosted by Madrid, Spain. Some 1,4 million people attend the vigil and closing Mass with Pope Benedict, as hundreds of thousands ticketholders are denied entry.
Pope Benedict announces in Madrid that the theme for WYD 2013 in Rio de Janeiro will be “Go and Make Disciples of All Nations”.
In Madrid, Pope Benedict announces his intention to proclaim St John of Avila the 34th Doctor of the Church.
Pope Benedict accepts the resignation of Bishop Michael Coleman of Port Elizabeth for health reasons.
A delegation of bishops from Sri Lanka visits South Africa to learn about the experience of the peaceful transition from apartheid and reconciliation.
Nine former soldiers in El Salvador’s army surrender after their indictment in a Spanish court for the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests and two lay people during El Salvador’s civil war.
Bishop José Luis Ponce de Léon of Ingwavuma, KwaZulu-Natal, and a visiting priest from Argentina are attacked and robbed at the bishop’s residence in Hlabisa.
Two young Durban Catholics are part of the quartet from Durban’s Manor Garden’s Primary School to win the International Kids Literary Competition in New Zealand.
Some 3,000 people take part in the annual Eshowe diocesan pilgrimage to the Marian shrine at Ngome, held this year under the Hope&Joy banner.
The SACBC?launches a fundraising appeal in response to the famine in Somalia.

SEPTEMBER
Bishop Andrew Zolile Brook, retired of Mthatha, dies on September 5 at the age of 81.
The SACBC?relaunches its website at www.sacbc.org.za
In its response to the Cloyne Report, the Vatican rejects the suggestion that it tried to interfere in Irish government investigations regarding the Church’s handling of sex abuse cases.
After a decade of struggling, Radio Veritas finally receives a medium-wave licence. Broadcasts on 576AM are scheduled to commence in early 2012.
Pope Benedict makes a four-day state visit to his native Germany, visiting Berlin, Erfurt and Freiburg.
Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Mthatha says in a dialogue on corruption in East London that to stop corruption, people must start with themselves.
Nigerian bishops call on their government to crack down on the Boko Haram fundamentalist Islamic sect which they say foments violence in the country.
Zambia elects a Catholic, Michael Sata, as president.
As Palestine prepares to apply for statehood recognition at the UN, the Vatican’s de facto foreign minister, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, calls for “courageous decisions” towards the two-state solution in the Holy Land.
Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Catholic social and environmental activist who won the 2004 Nobel Peace, dies on September 25 at 71.
US apologist and author Jason Evert delivers a series of lectures in South Africa.

OCTOBER
Government minister Trevor Manuel briefs Catholic bishops and leaders on the National Planning Commission.
Cape Town-born head of Vatican Radio’s English and Italian services, Seàn Lovett, receives the papal knighthood in the Equestrian Order of St Gregory the Great.
US?media expert Sr Rose Pacatte FSP presents a series of lectures in Johannesburg, and leading British lay Catholic visits to lecture on Archbishop Oscar Romero in several South African centres.
Johannesburg hosts its first Hope&Joy festival.
The founder and editor of the Catholic news agency Zenit resigns, citing issues of transparency and trust with the agency’s funders, the Legionaries of Christ.
Syrian Church leaders express fear of chaos and anti-Christian measures if the Assad regime falls.
An Oblate house in Kilburn, London, is named “Denis Hurley House”, after the late archbishop of Durban.
Pope Benedict announces a special “Year of Faith”, from October 11, 2012 to November 24, 2013.
It is announced that the apostolic nuncio to Southern Africa, Archbishop James P Green, will be transferred to Peru in December. In his five years in Pretoria, he helped appoint 17 bishops in the SACBC?region.
Pope Benedict canonises Ss Guido Maria Conforti, Louis Guanella and Bonifacia Rodriguez Castro.
The Vatican’s Justice and Peace council issues a 41-page document proposing economic reforms for greater justice.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace says that the Occupy Wall Street movement is in line with Catholic social teaching.
Pope Benedict hosts the third interreligious Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, 25 years after Pope John Paul II convened the first such event. This time, Pope Benedict included atheists who addressed the gathering.
Holy Family Sister Marie Bergin, a noted anti-apartheid activist in Johannesburg, dies on October 22 at 96.

NOVEMBER
Visiting Benin, Pope Benedict issues the apostolic exhortation Africae munus, based on the second Synod for Africa in 2009.
The Irish government announces that it will close its embassy at the Vatican, saying this is as a cost-cutting measure.
Commonwealth leaders agree to repeal a law that precluded the heir to the British throne from marrying a Catholic.
The SACBC’s Justice and Peace Commission prepares for the COP17 conference in Durban with a series of workshops, road shows and a “bicycle pilgrimage”.
Addressing Angolan bishops, Pope Benedict condemns the killing of suspected witches, tribalism and cohabitation.
A survey shows that almost half of Irish people have an unfavourable view of the Catholic Church.
The bishops of Sudan warn of a return to full-scale civil war in eastern and central Sudan, and conflict with South Sudan, if the international community fails to curb Khartoum’s aggression.
In a pastoral letter on the environment signed by Archbishop Buti Tlhagale, the bishops call on people to change their “lifestyle to reduce our dependence on fossil-fuel energy like coal and oil”.
Sr Valsa John, a 53-year-old Indian activist against mining companies that exploit tribal people, is hacked to death in Jharkand state on November 15.
The Vatican condemns an advertisement for Benetton that depicts Pope Benedict kissing a Muslim sheikh. Benetton withdraw the ad.
Fr Senzo Mbokazi, 35, of Melmoth, Eshowe diocese is found bound and stabbed to death in his presbytery on November 20, two days after he was last seen alive.
The Franciscan custodians of the Holy Land’s shrines object to Bethlehem’s church of the Nativity being declared an UNESCO?world heritage site.
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano writes that there is “little doubt” that William Shakespeare was a Catholic.
Croatian nun Mother Lukrecija Mamica and Italian medical volunteer Francesco Bazzani are murdered in a brutal robbery in Kiremba, Burundi.
German diocese’s divest themselves of ownership in the country’s largest publishing house, Weltbild, over its distribution of erotic materials.
Pope Benedict calls on world leaders to reach a credible agreement on climate change at COP?17.
The new translations of the Roman missal are implemented throughout the English-speaking Church on the first Sunday of Advent.

DECEMBER
The 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference concludes in Durban. Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga leads a 20-member delegation of Caritas to what is called the COP17 meeting.
Cardinal John Foley, previous prefect of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications and then Grand Master of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, dies on December 11 at 76 after a battle with leukaemia.
Bishop Michael Coleman of Port Elizabeth dies on December 17 at 72 from cancer. He had retired as head of the diocese in August 2011.
Eugene Donnelly, former managing editor of The Southern Cross, which he served for 42 years, dies on December 18 at 81.
A Dutch inquiry finds that “several tens of thousands of minors” were sexually abused by Church personnel between 1945 and 2010.
The We Are Church group in South Africa changes its name to We Are All Church and issues a mission statement that declares itself independent from the international movement.
An ecumenical body called Kairos Southern Africa asks the African National Congress to keep its three-day centenary celebrations in Mangaung in January modest. According to reports, the cost of the event to taxpayers would be about R400 million.
At least 39 people are killed in Christmas Day bomb attacks on churches in Nigeria, ascribed to the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, including 35 at St Theresa Catholic church in Madalla.
The German aid agency Misereor announces a donation of R4,5 million towards the construction of the Denis Hurley Centre in Durban.

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