At Last: A Saint of our Own!

On September 13, the Church will beatify the South African martyr Benedict Daswa. BISHOP VICTOR PHALANA of Klerksdorp reflects on this great event for our local Church.

I am so excited that one of our own kind, our own flesh and blood, our own countryman, is to be beatified.

On September 13, 2015, Tshimangadzo Samuel Benedict Daswa, who was born at Mbahe in Limpopo, will be beatified as a martyr. It is the last step before canonisation to the sainthood.

I appreciate how Bishop Emeritus Hugh Slattery and his successor in Tzaneen, Bishop Joao Rodriguez, have stood up and upheld the virtues of Benedict Daswa: The virtues of faith, family life, charity and zeal for evangelisation.

We owe our gratitude to the promoters of the cause, as well as to the clergy, religious and laity of Tzaneen diocese for serving the cause of the Servant of God, Benedict Daswa.

Without their hard work, prayers, research, writing down stories and testimonies, fundraising and many other initiatives, we would not be having this beautiful occasion.

For one to be declared blessed, or to be beatified, a miracle must usually be proven. But for a martyr of faith, this requirement need not be met.

The diocese of Tzaneen presented Daswa’s case to the Church, as someone who was killed for his belief in the teaching of Christ.

Daswa believed that some popular beliefs of his own people in witchcraft were against the faith and he opposed them. He opposed witch-hunting which led to the persecution and even death of many innocent people. He opposed the use of muti, or traditional medicine, to win soccer games. He refused to pay R5 to his village, as everyone else was expected to do, to solicit the services of a diviner, who was supposed to come and smell out witches who could be held responsible for storms and lightning strikes in the area.

The Church teaches: All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to unveil the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers.

They contradict the honour, respect and loving fear that we owe to God alone. All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others even if this were for the sake of restoring their health  are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion.

These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2116-7).

This teaching is what Daswa died for. He was standing solidly on the side of truth and of the Gospel.

In the evening of February 2, 1990, Daswa was stoned, bludgeoned to death and then his body was covered with boiling water. Just 25 years later, we will see him raised as a martyr for the faith.

We must give thanks to the diocese of Tzaneen for inviting the whole of Southern Africa to its region to witness South Africa’s first beatification.

We are grateful to the bishops’ conference, especially the general secretariat, for supporting the cause.

A little while ago, the clergy of Klerksdorp was visited by Fr Sakhi Mofokeng and Fr Smilo Mngadi from SACBC. They explained the story of Benedict Daswa and the cause for his beatification. They also shared with us a prayer to implore favours through the intercession of the Servant of God Tshimangadzo Daswa. It goes like this:

Loving God, keep me free from all deeds of darkness. Protect me from evil spirits and all the powers of evil. Following the example of Benedict Daswa, make me a true apostle of life in my family and in society. May your light, O Lord, shine upon me and through me. Amen.

Let us try, as believers, to make the story of Tshimangadzo Benedict Daswa known to all people. Let us encourage public veneration of this special man: a father, a husband, a catechist, a school principal and a convinced Catholic.

Each one of us in the conference area has been asked to give a R5 coin in memory of Benedict Daswa. These coins are to be sent to Tzaneen, where the diocese is hard at work trying to put up an appropriate shrine for this first recognised martyr of Southern Africa.

All Catholics and people of goodwill, as far as I am concerned, should be there, if they can. This is a special moment, a moment of truth and grace.

The beatification is also an acknowledgement of the hard work of the missionaries. They brought the faith, and people like Daswa embraced it and died for it.

At the same time, the beatification is an acknowledgement that we are now a maturing Church. We are starting to produce our own saints.

This is the Church of Africa coming of age. It is an acknowledgement that there are many other saints in our Church and community cemeteries who are yet to be recognised by the whole Church. This is just a beginning.

Daswa’s story reminds me of the book of Revelation 7:13ff. Who are these, dressed in white? These are the people who have come safely through the terrible persecution. They have washed their robes and made them white with the blood of the Lamb.

Let us pray for Tzaneen diocese. It has a small but vibrant Catholic population. Most of the people in the region still hold on to traditional religions and do not want to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of them rely on the powers of ancestors and have no regard for the Blessed Trinity.

Culturally it is a very rich diocese. The Venda people are kind, hardworking and intelligent. Their landscapes are breathtaking. There is cultural diversity and cultural dynamism in the whole area.

I see it as a fertile ground for true inculturation. I believe that the wonderful cultural values they keep are the seed-beds of the Gospel.

The Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church and the Swiss Mission, among others, have done a lot in trying to evangelise the people, but it has not been easy. Going to that area you realise that it is very difficult for some people to give up traditional religions for Christianity.

Let us pray for more vocations and for passionate evangelisers for Tzaneen.

One dangerous phenomenon in that diocese is the presence of a new form of Pentecostalism, with an overemphasis on deliverance. Most of the people of the area, especially young people, are exposed to these �deliverance services� every week.

These services include mass hysteria and mass deliverance where people fall on the ground, scream and roll in front of cameras and in public view, each and every week. They are made to throw up and to humiliate themselves in front of everyone.

We must also pray for this diocese because there is a strong fear of witchcraft and an exaggerated fear of demons: fertile ground for the mushrooming of sects and strange religious movements.

People are still being accused of being witches; but thanks to the government, the University of Venda and the judicial system, witch-hunting is on a decline.

Tzaneen is an economically impoverished diocese, and for that reason we need to be generous and support them to the best of our ability.

The Servant of God, our first martyr and an apostle of life: Tshimangadzo Benedict Daswa, pray for us.