(Silas Isenjia. ACI Africa).
Mgr Thulani Victor Mbuyisa, évêque du diocèse catholique sud-africain de Kokstad, qui a participé à l’atelier sur la transparence et la responsabilité dans l’Église catholique qui s’est tenu à Rome du 16 au 22 juin, a qualifié la convention de “spéciale”.
(Agnes Aineah. ACI Africa).
La famille est confrontée à la “crise la plus importante et la plus grave” dans le monde d’aujourd’hui, a déclaré le cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, qui a averti que les attaques contre la famille cherchaient à décimer la procréation.
Dans sa présentation lors d’une récente conversation en ligne sur le Synode sur la synodalité, le Cardinal Napier a observé que la famille souffre le plus lorsque des attaques sont menées contre l’institution du mariage.
(Silas Isenjia. ACI Africa).
The Synod on Synodality is a call to move from one model of the Church to another, Archbishop Dabula Mpako of South Africa’s Pretoria Archdiocese who participated in the first session of the ongoing synod has observed.
Speaking to Catholic communicators in a webinar last week, Archbishop Dabula Mpako shared that he had had “continued engagement and reflection on the Synod process” since the October 4-29 meeting in Rome last year.
(Wesley Omondi. CISA).
In light of the Child Protection Week, the Catholic Institute of Education (CIE) in South Africa has emphasized the importance of safeguarding and protecting children in educational settings.
Since 2012, CIE has supported Catholic schools in adopting and implementing a National Child Safeguarding Policy to ensure the safety of children. This policy, revised in 2018, emphasizes training schools to protect children, provide support when incidents of harm occur, and ensure legal reporting.
“CIE continues to be deeply concerned about the high levels of violence in South Africa and the impact this has not only on learners but teachers and communities as well,” the organization stated.
(MADELEINE DAVIES. Church Times).
A SOUTH AFRICAN psychologist, Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), is this year’s winner of the £1.1-million Templeton Prize.
Professor Gobodo-Madikizela, who chaired the human-rights-violations committee in the Western Cape office of the TRC, has been a “guiding light within South Africa as it charts a course beyond apartheid, facilitating dialogue to help people overcome individual and collective trauma”, the Templeton Foundation’s president, Heather Templeton Dill, said on Tuesday. She had “a remarkable grasp of the personal and social dynamics that allow for healing in societies wounded by violence. . . Her work underscores the importance in contemporary life of cultivating the spiritual values of hope, compassion, and reconciliation.”
The prize, established by the late global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, honours those whose achievements include “harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it”.
(The Tablet. Marko Phiri).
South Africa’s Catholic bishops urged all politicians to accept the national election results announced on Sunday and to turn their attention to helping the country. The elections held on 29 May saw the ruling African National Congress (ANC) lose its outright majority, which it has retained since the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. Scores of newly-formed parties had contested the election as worsening economic inequality undermined the ANC’s support. In a statement issued on 3 June, the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) called on all “parties to avoid utterances and behaviour that could lead to acts of violence, destruction, and loss of life”.
(João Vissesse. ACI Africa).
The Bishops of Cape Verde’s Catholic Dioceses of Santiago and Mindelo who meet at the same Episcopal conference with their peers from Mauritania, Guinea Bissau and Senegal are looking into ways in which they can collaborate to address problems that are specific to their country.
In their inaugural Cape Verdean meeting that was held between May 28-29, Arlindo Cardinal Gomes Furtado of Santiago and Bishop Ildo Fortes of Mindelo agreed on the need to have what they described as “the First National Council of the Bishops of Cape Verde” so as to be meeting as two dioceses.
(Redaction. ACI Africa).
Fr. Paul Tatu Mothobi, a member the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata (CSS/ Stigmatines) and former Media and Communications Officer of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC), is the latest victim of murder in South Africa.
(CISA. Paschal Norbert).
PRETORIA, APRIL 16, 2024 (CISA) – After an enlightening three-day workshop convened by the Inter-Regional Meeting of Bishops of Southern Africa (IMBISA) in collaboration with the African Synodality Initiative (ASI), rectors of major seminaries in the IMBISA region recommended the inclusion of women in the formation of priests and restructuring of the seminaries’ curriculum to include courses on Synodality.
Under the theme “Synodality and Spiritual Conversation in Seminaries,” the rectors and participants in the formation workshop on the spirit and practice of Synodality were trained on the tenets of spiritual conversations and what it means to be a Synodal leader: understanding the meaning, practice and significance of synodality in priestly formation; and pastoral synodal leadership.
(Catholic Information Service for Africa – CISA. Paschal Norbert).
PRETORIA, APRIL 9, 2024 (CISA)- The Inter-Regional Meeting of Bishops of Southern Africa (IMBISA) in collaboration with the African Synodality Initiative (ASI) have organized a three-day formation workshop designed for training rectors and formators of the major seminaries within the IMBISA region on the spirit and practice of Synodality.