From Our Vaults 28 Years Ago: August 2, 1998

Church unites in killing fields

Following political assassinations in the Richmond area in KwaZulu-Natal’s Midlands which have claimed 30 lives, many rural people go to town to sleep safely at night, Fr Dominic Mulheim CMM has told The Southern Cross. But his parish of St Joseph’s remains a place of unity. “Politically the community is very divided — people are afraid to go through each others’ territory — but all of them are still coming to church.”

Mandela visits ill youth

President Nelson Mandela visited a 15-year-old parishioner of Sunnyside, Pretoria, in hospital. Mandela encouraged Nelson Olival, a talented cartoonist who is putting up a brave fight against cancer, to keep faith in God. The two football-

loving Nelsons discussed the recent World Cup in France. [Nelson Olival died in October 1998.]

Oblates pass the baton

Fr Jabulani Nxumalo has become the new provincial superior of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, succeeding Fr Barry Wood. [Fr Nxumalo would later become auxiliary bishop of Durban in 2002 and archbishop of Bloemfontein in 2005. Fr Wood would become Durban’s auxiliary in 2005; he died in 2017.]

Everybody’s a missionary

In his editorial, Michael Shackleton writes that every Catholic can be a missionary by being well-informed about their faith and through their example “by the way we deal with others”.

Previous “From The Vaults” articles at www.scross.co.za/category/from-our-vaults