Fr Stanley Botha, Rest in Peace

On Sunday October 6, Fr Stanley Botha of Cape Town died at the age of 73. Here his long-time parishioner and Southern Cross editor Günther Simmermacher remembers a remarkable priest.

With the death of Fr Stanley Botha on Sunday, October 6, the archdiocese of Cape Town lost a priest who always did it his way, in the tireless service of the Lord and his people.

Fr Stan died at the age of 73 after an extended struggle with illness. He had served as parish priest of Milnerton/Brooklyn from 1990 until his retirement in 2022, when he moved into the Archbishop Henry Retirement Centre for priests at Nazareth House in Vredehoek.

His successor was Fr Paul Taylor, only the third parish priest of the community in more than 70 years. Fr Stan himself had succeeded Fr Michael Ward, who had been the parish priest for over 40 years.

Born on August 12, 1951, Fr Stan grew up in Sea Point and attended St Joseph’s College in Rondebosch, where he matriculated in 1969.

Ordained on January 18, 1976, in Cape Town, he had a desire to serve on the missions in rural areas. To that end, Bishop Anton Reiterer of Witbank accepted the young priest into his diocese in what is now Mpumalanga. Fr Stan would often fondly recall that time, the people to whom he ministered, and Bishop Reiterer.

Returning to Cape Town, Fr Stan assisted Fr Ward in Milnerton/Brooklyn for a while and then served at St Anne’s parish in Steenberg, a difficult assignment during the apartheid era. He recalled that time with affection, too.

Fr Ward had been known as the “Bishop of the West Coast”, on account of the number of churches he founded in that part of Cape Town, then still a developing area. Most of these churches are now parishes in their own right.

Fr Stan, however, inherited a parish with two churches: Our Lady of the Assumption in Brooklyn (built in 1950) and Our Lady of the Annunciation in Milnerton (1982). This meant that he had to serve two quite distinct parish communities, often without the assistance of a second priest.

The new priest, a man who could prove to be headstrong, came with the aim of sweeping away cobwebs, which was met with some resistance, especially from parishioners who did not agree with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Since some of them were effectively running the parochial Society of St Vincent de Paul and the Knights of Da Gama, Fr Stan disbanded these and set up Catholicare and the Men’s Society to take their place.

Catholicare in particular went on to become a great success — in big ways, such as setting up an HIV/Aids clinic at Macassar in association with Hope Cape Town, and in small ways, such as making up care packages for priests.

Fr Stan had a particular sense of solidarity and pastoral care for his brother priests. He might not have liked all of them, but he certainly loved them.

Likewise, he had a close relationship with the three deacons he served with: Rev Alwin Hrabovsky, the late Robert Gradidge, and Rev Derrick Kalil, who still serves the parish.

Fr Stan also invested a lot in cultivating the engagement of the laity in his parish. While there never was doubt that he was the priest-in-charge, parishioners were encouraged to be active, whether in decision-making issues or ministries such as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist or music. He saw the laity as collaborators in the Church’s mission.

Fr Stan lived the ecumenical ideals of Vatican II and of Pope John Paul II, forming friendships, fellowship and partnerships with clergy from different denominations in the Milnerton/Brooklyn area.

In the early 2000s, he pioneered the idea of South African parishes twinning with parishes in other parts of Africa. To that end, Brooklyn/Milnerton twinned with a parish in Tanzania. The idea didn’t catch on, and after a lively start, changes of priests in Tanzania meant that the contact also faded.

Fr Stan was active in the local community, even taking on Community Crime Watch patrol duties, with his beloved dogs.

He ministered to the marginalised, such as the sex workers who lined the Koeberg Road thoroughfare outside the Brooklyn church. Sometimes he would joke in his homilies about having picked up a prostitute on Koeberg Road — once the nervous laughter subsided, he would add: “to give her a good talking to”. He never tired of making the point that it is our Christian duty to reach out to those on the periphery.

On a more alarming note, Fr Stan had several encounters with Satanists. At one point some of them even threatened his life, attacking the church, into which the priest had locked himself, with blowtorches.

Fortified by his steadfast faith in our merciful God and the protective mantle of Our Lady, he did not let such frightening experiences rob him of his courage.

Fr Stan was a man of strong opinions and convictions, which he sometimes expressed with modest regard for tact or diplomacy. If you didn’t like what he said, he would counsel, then the problem is yours, not his.

Fr Stan was also a man of great humour. He loved to laugh and interact with people, though he also valued some down-time. Parishioners were left in no doubt that he was not to be troubled with trivial matters on a Monday. His rest was violable only in the gravest of emergencies.

Parishioners will remember Fr Stan as an enthusiastic singer, whose loud voice would lead the hymns during Mass. At Christmas Mass, the Francophile would sing the French carol “Petit Papa Noël”, and even at parish talent shows, he would take the mic to belt out a number.

The parish said an emotional goodbye to their long-time pastor with a packed retirement Mass and reception in March 2023. As befell his predecessor — Fr Ward died in 1991 — Fr Stan’s retirement did not last long, barely two years. At his funeral, the parish community will doubtless come out in great numbers again to say their final farewell to a remarkable priest.