What Exactly is the SACBC?

by Admin · November 3, 2022

The Southern African Bishops’ Conference comprises 28 ecclesiastical territories — five archdioceses, 21 dioceses and one vicariate — in South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland.

It is an association of local ordinaries (other than vicars general), their coadjutors, auxiliaries and other titular bishops who perform special work entrusted to them by the Apostolic See, or by the conference itself. The SACBC is headed by a troika, which serves once-renewable three-year terms. The current president is Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Mthatha, with Archbishop Dabula Mpako of Pretoria and Bishop Graham Rose of Dundee as vice-presidents.

The bishops’ conference is primarily a consultative body and its resolutions outside the cases mentioned below have no binding force on the ordinaries or their subjects, except in so far as individual ordinaries consent to support them.

Decisions of the SACBC are binding only when prescribed by common law, or specified by a special mandate of the Holy See, or in response to a petition from the conference. The latter are made by a two-thirds majority of those present, and are reviewed by the Holy See.

The SACBC is empowered to set up departments for the fostering of special objectives and activities in accordance with clearly defined terms of reference but without legislative power. Their work is directed by the administrative board which acts as the standing committee of the SACBC. It includes the troika, episcopal heads of departments, and the cardinal.

Based at Khanya House in Waterkloof, Pretoria, the day-to-day running of the SACBC and its departments is directed by the general secretariat. The current secretary-general is Fr Hugh O’Connor, with Sr Phuthunywa Siyali HC serving as associate secretary-general. Both were interviewed in the January 2022 issue of The Southern Cross (above).

Part of a series on the SACBC published in the August 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine