Blessed Benedict Daswa Youth and Young Adults Pilgrimage

Bishop Siphiwo Vanqa of Queenstown, SACBC liaison bishop for the youth, led a Youth and Young Adults Pilgrimage from February 24-25 dedicated to Bl Benedict Tshimangadzo Daswa. Suprise Ntsako Baloyi interviewed the bishop, incoming youth chaplain Fr Motankane Mahlako and outgoing chaplain, Fr Mthembeni Dlamini CMM.

Bishop Siphiwo Vanqa, SACBC liaison bishop for the youth:

What has your experience been since the youth and young adults started coming to the Shrine of Blessed Benedict Daswa?

Last year in 2023, we had our first pilgrimage with the youth and I think it was very successful. We hoped to make it work even better this year because we invited a lot of people at the right time and encouraged them to come.

We think that it has been more successful than last year, in fact, the number of participants and pilgrims has doubled since last year.

What is the message you pass on to the youth?

You know our mission is to make young people preach among themselves, to take the Gospel and live it by themselves, so what we do is encourage them and equip them to preach and evangelise among themselves. I think they are doing that very well because of the help they receive from the chaplains, who are very dedicated in order to make that mission work.

What is your plan for the next pilgrimage in 2025?

We hope to make it even better than this year. As I said already when I was thanking them for their participation this year, we hope that many other dioceses and chaplains will come on board, so that we can make this pilgrimage a great success. There were a number of those who did not come, we know that they might have had good reasons but then we still have to encourage them to come and bring their coordinators as well.

The incoming Chaplain Fr Motankane Mahlako of Witbank diocese, currently serving in the office of youth and young adults in the SACBC:

What has your experience been with the pilgrimage of the Blessed Benedict Daswa?

I think this pilgrimage is successful in bringing together the youth of SACBC, so that they can come together because of Blessed Benedict Daswa.

As the new chaplain, what is your mission and vision for the youth and young adults?

In the church, we don’t have our own mission and vision. The church has its own mission and vision and it is for me to align myself with church teachings so that we continue to foster the responsibilities that we are given and make sure they facilitate the mission and the vision of the church in growing its youth towards Christ.

What is your message to the SACBC youth and young adults?

It is to make Christ the centre of their lives accept Christ as Lord and Saviour, and let them die for Christ as Christ died for them. If they do this, the youth may change and transform the world through their actions.

Outgoing Chaplain Fr Mthembeni Dlamini CMM (Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries) who worked at the SACBC as the inter diocesan youth chaplain and national chaplain for youth and young adults and ACTS (Association of Catholic Tertiary  Students). He came to the end of his term in February.

How long have you been in the SACBC office?

I started on March 9, 2015, so it’s going to be nine years working in the office of the SACBC.

How has it been for the past nine years, in your experience?

It’s been challenging because when I started, I was stepping into the shoes of someone who had left 2 years previously, so when I got into the office, there was no one, so I had to read the files to make sense of them and then but what helped me a lot was the guidance and meetings with the chaplains of the dioceses.

In all the years you have spent in the office, would you say things have improved in the youth office?

We have tried because there were some materials put together by Fr Michael Hagan during his time but it wasn’t really a clear policy because it was not approved by the bishops, so we managed to get the policy approved in 2018. Our policy was approved but we were asked to rework it after that year. So we are working on that with the conference and discussing the second draft of the policy manual, so in a way, things have improved because we have managed to get clear about who is a youth and who is a young adult, what we expect especially in terms of accompaniment of young people. But there is also a lot that one needs to do in terms of formation of young people.

Would you say that in those nine years as a priest and chaplain, have you improved how the church deals with youth and young adults? What did you learn throughout those years you have spent in the office?

When I joined the office, I was not really new to young people, because I started in Cedara where I was studying. I will say my growth was not just in the office of the SACBC, it started even then when I was a student because that was the moment when one could begin to understand the things that young people struggle with. So I would say growth cannot just be measured in terms of being in the office but I think growth is part of the processes of a person, so if you’re willing to learn, you will always learn every day, be it with young people or with any other group.

Being in the SACBC national office, I would really say that I’ve come to understand that there are challenges that they are facing, not just as youth but also young adults that sometimes they are not found in church and why they are also leaving the church because of multiple challenges that they are also battling with, of which also the church has to support and also respond to.

How did it come about that the youth and young adults office chose this pilgrimage to Tshitanini?

As you recall, Fr Sakhi Mofokeng started with the pilgrimage, he started with the men’s pilgrimage which was a success. Then Covid came, so there was a break of about 2 years.  Sr TshifhiwaMunzhedzi OP and others approached me to ask if I could revive the pilgrimages because people still were interested in them. I thought it would be nice for the youth to  have their own pilgrimage which we introduced at a fee of R120.

Would you say from 2023 to 2024 as now it is the 2nd pilgrimage for youth and young adults, there has been a success or improvement?

Yes definitely there is an improvement. I am not sure about the number but last year I think we were about 700, so here we’ve booked 1400 chairs. Of course, we have few chairs left but we do believe that we have over 1000 young people, so that will be an improvement of about 300 to 400 young people.

As you are leaving the office, what message can you give to the youth and young adults of Southern Africa and also the incoming youth chaplain?

First of all, I would like to thank God for appointing me to that office, I would say it was God because it is not something I applied for and I have never thought of myself working for the SACBC. So thank God, thank the church, and the bishops for entrusting me with this task and I also want to give appreciation for each and every young person that I’ve worked with or encountered or our programmes have reached.

What I want to say to the young people, is they must take all the initiatives done by the church seriously because they are meant for them and their own formation and they must take responsibility just as I did when I was young as a member of the sodality of Mary known as Ikwezi. I took that formation seriously and what I am today is because of that and they are many things that I learned during that time

All these things that are done by their bishops, by their priests, by their religious, in the church is not like a punishment or infringing their rights but it is formation and formation also it requires one to be responsible. And so that’s what I would say is that they must take their formation seriously, be it school, be it communities, be it in the church, they must take it seriously. While there are instances that people end up getting hurt in the church or in the community but in most cases people are intending good for the young ones to grow.

I hope Fr Motankane Mahlako can dedicate his time and love for the young people and he will listen to the voice of the young people in many cases and instances in the church.

Thank you to Fr Mthembani for his dedication to youth and young adults of the SACBC and wish him a long and fruitful journey. Siyabonga, Ra Leboga, Ha Khensa. –  Suprise Ntsako Baloyi