10 More Famous South Africans You Probably Didn’t Know Were Catholic

1. Thembi Kgatlana

“I am Catholic, and I’m very strong in my faith,” so said South Africa’s national women’s soccer team Banyana Banyana player and Atletico Madrid centre-forward Thembi Kgatlana in a 2021 GOAL magazine interview.

The 26 year old, who missed playing in the rest of Banyana Banyana’s victorious inaugural African Women’s Cup campaign this year due to injury, is a parishioner of the Our Lady of Africa Church in Mohlakeng in Johannesburg’s West Rand.

When not playing for her Spanish team or in camp for Banyana Banyana, Kgatlana is often found engaging in various activities or giving motivational talks to young people at her home parish.

2. Thembisile Chris Hani

Arguably the best known South African catholic politician, Hani’s 1993 assassination had a significant impact on South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy.

Raised in a staunchly catholic family in Cofimvaba village in the Eastern Cape, Hani attended the local catholic primary school, St Mark’s Primary School. At the age eight he became an altar-server.

His intention was to study for the priesthood. However, his father refused him permission to enter the seminary. Hani believed that by becoming a priest, he could make a meaningful contribution to the betterment of his community in his village and elsewhere.

However, in thwarting his ambition to become a priest, his father took him out of St Mark’s Primary School and enrolled him in a public school.

Fortunately for Hani, this happened after he had developed a love for languages and literature as a student of the Catholic primary school.

“My early Catholicism led to my fascination with Latin studies and English literature,” he said in a 1988 interview. In 1961 he graduated with a BA degree in English and Latin Studies from Fort Hare University.

On his return from exile, and resident in Johannesburg’s Boksburg suburb, he became a board member of the St Anthony Education Centre. A fellow board member was his close friend, fellow activist and fellow catholic Tokyo Sexwale.

The St Anthony Education Centre was started by Franciscan priest Fr Stan Brennan. It was Fr Brennan who presided over the funeral service at the St Francis Church in Boksburg following Hani’s April 1993 assassination.

3. Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe

The wife of the South African billionaire entrepreneur Patrice Motsepe did not become Catholic by marriage. Born into a strongly Catholic family in Rockville in Soweto, she attended boarding school at the St Anne Mission in Modimong, near Rustenburg.

As a high school student, she along with her fellow students used to help out at the St Anne Mission clinic. “The dire health conditions of the clinic’s patients from the nearby villages propelled me to my decision to become a medical doctor,” she said in a 2017 newspaper interview.

4. Lesetja Kganyago

The current governor of the South African Reserve Bank was born in Alexandra township in Gauteng, and was raised in the village of Mashashane in Limpopo.

He attended both primary and junior secondary school in his home village. He completed high school at Pax College, a Catholic boarding school, near Polokwane in Limpopo, run by the Brothers of Charity.

“My mother and grandmother were my earliest influences. Not only were they disciplinarians, they were women of very strong Catholic conviction,” he stated in a 2021 interview with Leadership magazine.

His involvement in the struggle against apartheid started at Pax College in 1981. “I, together with other senior students, convinced our school chaplain Fr Jerry to dedicate a Mass service in commemoration of the death of Steve Biko.

After Mass, there were animated debates in the dormitories. Students were pulling out old press articles to discuss and try to steer the debates. These debates got really intense, and some students kept disappearing into a cubicle, only to return more animated and passionate. I discovered five years later, at university, that the students who were moving in and out of that cubicle were actually reading from the Freedom Charter,” he revealed in the interview.

Kganyago was the guest speaker at the 2018 inaugural Catholic Business Forum annual lecture in Johannesburg. He is a parishioner of St Thomas More Church in Centurion in Gauteng.

5. Jackson Mthembu

The former political activist and minister in the presidency was a parishioner of the Sacred Heart Church in his hometown of Witbank in Mpumalanga.

Upon his passing, parish priest Fr Linda Zwane said: “Mr Mthembu was a humble and jolly member of our church. He was always looking for ways to help. He was always accessible, resourceful and wanted to see growth and improvement in his parish.”

6. Angie Motshekga

The longtime minister of Basic Education is a parishioner of Sacred Heart Church in Midrand. In 2019 she made an appearance on Radio Veritas for World Book Day.

7. Sophie De Bruyn

Born in 1938 in Villageboard, in the Eastern Cape, Sophie De Bruyn attended primary school at the St Patrick Catholic Primary School in her hometown. She went on to complete her high school education at the St James High School, a Catholic high school in her hometown of Schauder, Port Elizabeth.  Ms De Bruyn is the last surviving leader of the famous Women’s March in Pretoria on August 9, 1956.

She, together with Lindiwe Mabuza, was a guest speaker at the 2019 Women of substance conference in Johannesburg, hosted by Radio Veritas. She is a parishioner of the Church of the Resurrection in Bryanston in Johannesburg.

8. Lindiwe Mabuza

The former ANC chief representative in Sweden and South African High Commissioner to the United Kingdom reveres her Catholic faith. A prolific poet, she contributed the foreword and a number of poems for In Quiet Realm, a 2020 poetry anthology by Fr Lawrence Mduduzi Ndlovu.

In her retirement, she would often be seen in attendance at various church events around Johannesburg. A memorial service in her honour was held at Regina Mundi Church in Soweto when she passed on in December last year.

9. Edna Molewa

“Father, everyone in cabinet knows that I’m Catholic, and they don’t take chances trying to convince me otherwise,” Edna Molewa once told then-priest Bishop Victor Phalana of Klerksdorp.

Originally from Garankuwa in Pretoria, the former North-West Province premier was conferred with an honorary membership of the diocese of Klerksdorp Catholic Women’s League (CWL) in 2017. She was a parishioner of the cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Pretoria. This is where her Requiem Mass, broadcast live on Radio Veritas, was held upon her death in 2018.

10.  Elizabeth Dipuo Peters

In 2017, the former minister of Energy and Transport travelled on pilgrimage to the centenary celebrations of our Lady of Fatima as part of a pilgrimage group.

The group also attended the canonisation of Saints Jacinta and Fransisco Marto, two of the three shepherd children who witnessed the Marian apparitions reported in 1917 at  Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal.

Ms Dipuo Peters  is an active parishioner of St Boniface Church in her hometown of Galeshewe near Kimberly in the Northern Cape.