Father Joe Falkiner OP to Speak at International Webinar

by Admin · July 10, 2022

Dominican Father Joe Falkiner, well-known in South Africa for his social activism, will be the speaker at an international webinar entitled “A Priest for Workers” on Tuesday, July 12, at 11:00am South African Time (19:00 Australian eastern time).

The webinar is hosted by the Australian Cardijn Institute, which is dedicated to the work of Cardinal Joseph Cardijn, the Belgian founder of the Young Christian Workers (YCW) movement.

Last year, Fr Falkiner published his memoirs, A Priest for Workers, in which he recalled his many years of work as chaplain of the South African YCW movement under the apartheid regime during the 1970s and ’80s.

Fr Falkiner was born in Springs in 1934. After completing high school with the Christian Brothers, he studied geology at university.

After this, he began work with the Anglo-American Corporation mining conglomerate, which sent him to Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Through this work, he saw the terrible way in which black workers were treated by their employers, eventually leading to his resignation and search for his vocation.

In 1962, he applied to enter the Dominican Order, joining their community at Stellenbosch in 1963, leading to his ordination in 1969.

Soon after joining the Dominicans, he came into contact with local teams of the South African YCW. As a priest in a parish from 1970, he began a greater involvement with the movement, setting him on the path to eventually becoming a national chaplain.

A Priest for Workers was reviewed by Günther Simmermacher in the March 2022 issue of The Southern Cross