Creating a Catholic Culture

Dear Reader,

Our bright cover this month depicts a reveller in a colourful costume at the Carnival in Rio. Like the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the carnival in the Brazilian city is world-famous — and yet, many people do not know that these celebrations have deep roots in the practice of the Catholic faith as a pre-Lenten ritual, as we read in our feature on pages 24-25.

One of the many disadvantages of living in a country where the Catholic faith has no cultural imprint, such as South Africa, is that we are not used to the Catholic seasons in the way people in many parts of Europe or Latin America are. In South Africa, we have carnivals at any time of the year and Mardi Gras on weekends, which makes about as much sense as having Christmas in May or Good Friday on a Tuesday.

Is there a way in which we, as Catholics, can reclaim carnival? Could we make it a tradition to hold our parish food fairs, bazaars or game nights under the banner “carnival” during the actual carnival season?

Perhaps there is value in having a discussion about the ways in which we can enhance our Catholic culture and identity by plugging into the experiences of our counterparts in traditionally Catholic countries.

Last month we featured a pilgrimage, on motorcycles, to places associated with the Mariannhill Missionaries and their founder, Abbot Franz Pfanner. This month, a reader writes about her experience of making a pilgrimage to the Northern Cape, with the cathedral in Pella a particular highlight.

These articles make an important point: wonderful, enriching and commendable as it is to make a holy journey to the Holy Land or Lourdes or Rome, there are also benefits in making local pilgrimages. We have special holy sites in South Africa — Ngome, Nweli, Mariannhill — but the truth is that any journey made with the right spiritual and prayerful disposition is a pilgrimage, and as such will bring us closer to God who dwells within us. The benefits of pilgrimage, if only to local churches, are available to us even if we don’t leave town. Many parishes know that and make group pilgrimages on foot to other parishes or perhaps up mountains.

The Catholic Church does not have a prominent profile in South Africa’s public life, and where the Church and its people have made an impact, it often isn’t very well known. How many people knew that Dr Benedict Vilakazi — after whom Soweto’s famous street is named — was a Catholic, before his story was told in The Southern Cross in October?

And how many people, even Catholics, know that the Zondo Report into state capture was initiated as a result of intervention by the Dominican Order? Even the life’s work of Archbishop Denis Hurley, a giant in the struggle for justice and democracy in South Africa, tends to be forgotten by secular society.

It is important that the stories of the Catholic Church in South Africa are being told. This month, Dr Andrew Johnson looks back at the historic anti-apartheid march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria by students of St John Vianney Seminary in 1985. As one of the organisers of that protest march, Andrew has the inside track.

How good it is for this year’s cohort of seminarians at St John Vianney to read about the courageous actions of those who came before them — including two bishops — almost 40 years ago. Let all of us be inspired by the Christian witness of our fellow Catholics!

Thank you for reading The Southern Cross, and please tell your friends about your monthly Catholic magazine.

God bless,
 Günther Simmermacher
(Editor)