Pope’s Words On Mafia Echo In South Africa
Listening to Pope Francis address a meeting of Italy’s Anti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission got me thinking about our own political situation.
Category: Ntabeni
South Africa’s Catholic Church Heritage
The Catholic Chuch in South Africa has a rich history of suppression and opposition in South Africa – so from the first Mass said around 1487 till today when we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the South African Catholic Church – we also celebrate the lives of those who built the faith in SA.
How My Father’s Death Led to a Book
My father’s death, after almost a lifetime of absence, seems to close the yawning chasm between us. I feel him closer in death than when he was alive. The seed of an “inclination to look back on history” was planted the day I heard he had died.
Why Matthew 25 Haunts Me
Do I see God in the poor as Christ instructed me? Matthew 25:31: All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from...
Are Courts Baby-Sitting our Democracy?
The judicial sphere of government seems to be the only one our people really trust. The Constitutional Court’s judgment on the upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private residence at Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, cemented the decline...
Lovedale Mission: From Soga to Mbeki
To pull herself out of the hole which she had dug with her recent colonialism tweet, Western Cape premier Helen Zille quoted Nelson Mandela: “I was reminded of what President Nelson Mandela had said...
Our Faith, Stripped Bare
I often feel frustrated by the lack of silence in my life because I delude myself into believing that if I had more silence, I would be more contemplative and open to divine inspiration....
The Revealing Diary of a British Trooper
Thomas J Lucas, a trooper in the Cape Mountain Rifles of the Cape Colony during the mid-19th century, kept a private journal. He began it when he was shipped off from London on the...
Imagine Being Evicted After 75 Years?
It has been said the gentrification of our cities is quietly achieving what apartheid regime could not complete: cleansing the inner city areas of the poor. And since the poor in South Africa are...
Why I Need Religion in a Bleak World
President Zuma has been at it again, calling out, in desperation, about how the African National Congress was founded by God, thus wanting to equate it with the church. And by church I mean...
A Look Back on 2016, a Look Ahead to 2017
To say 2016 was a tumultuous year — in national and international affairs, and for me personally — is an understatement. At home, our president careered from one scandal into another. Nevertheless, though bruised,...
What God Wants from Us
God’s first call to us is to be human. Hence St Irenaeus could say: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” The 19th-century Danish theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said: “To need God is...
