The following are bishops responsible for various departments, offices and bodies within the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC):
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Photo: SACBC
Category: Media Room
The Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa (IMBISA), an Association of Bishops Conferences of Southern Africa, released a statement on the Tropical Storm that made landfall in Mozambique on Monday.
“The storm, caused widespread flooding, significant damage to infrastructure and displaced people, many of whom were already fleeing from the latent insurgency in the country at the moment,” the statement read.
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Photo: IMBISA
“These three positions will be integral for the work of the WCC to continue with a strong and sustainable leadership team after the WCC 11th Assembly,” said Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC central committee. “The three positions are open due to retirement of two deputy general secretaries, at the end of 2022.”
The new staff will be appointed by the Executive Committee in June 2022 and will join the WCC in November 2022, working together for two months with the present colleagues in those positions, for proper handing over and learning.
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The acting Prefect of the Dicastery for promoting Integral Human Development presides over a prayer service for devasted Tonga, reminding that the recent tsunami in the Pacific island shows, once again, that man is not omnipotent and depends on God for all things.
On Monday evening Cardinal Michael Czerny S.J., the ad interim Prefect of the Dicastery for promoting Integral Human Development, presided over a special prayer service for the people of Tonga, which was devasted by the destructive volcano eruption and tsunami of January 15. Although only three people died, the natural disaster has caused massive and long term damage in the island nation which now depends on international aid for reconstruction.
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The South African Council of Churches (SACC) is calling for a National Dialogue on foreign nationals working in South Africa, who have once again come under the societal microscope. This call comes in the wake of other members of society who are publicly calling for the removal of all foreign nationals from South Africa ‘with immediate effect’. “The challenge of addressing the South African attitude to Africans from other countries is a perennial one. The problems of relating to foreign nationals have a direct impact on the communities in which we live, worship and where we have our livelihoods; and we urgently need a national multi-stakeholder and solution-seeking Indaba”, said Bishop Mpumlwana General Secretary of the SACC.
The murmurings about foreign nationals ‘stealing the jobs’ earmarked for local nationals have been growing in mass for years, albeit at varying volumes. In recent months, we’ve seen the transport sector buckling under the weight of the strain of local drivers’ disgruntlement at the employment of foreign nationals over them. It was not long ago that the N3 was blockaded by protesting drivers, creating a ripple effect to the broader economy.
Today, there are voice notes doing the rounds giving deadlines for the removal of mainly Africans from elsewhere in the continent; and in Johannesburg there is the much more organised “Operation Dudula”; and more recently, the EFF put the spotlight on the hospitality industry, making visits to restaurants to establish the nationalities and ratios of their staff compliments.
The government appears to lack the capacity to deal with this matter in a sustainable way – and this has continued to plague communities, resulting in much bitterness, fear, anxiety and conflict.
Given the spread of organised groups taking the initiative to accost foreign nationals, whether legal or illegal, as the distinction is hard to verify in the heat of the moment, the SACC is deeply concerned that it would take one misplaced word or act by one or more persons, to tip these murmurings to violence and, God-forbid – death.
It is for this reason that the SACC proposes a national Indaba to include all sectors that have an interest in this matter, including the representative bodies of foreign nationals; for all to look into various issues concerning foreign nationals in the country.
These should include the whole question of immigration management and the refugee status regime. It should include the consideration of any research made on the activities attributable to foreign nationals – their presumed role in regular crime and especially organised and syndicated crime like in drugs and human trafficking; their contribution to the national economy and the GDP; their contribution to education, including as university professors; the labour and employment situation regarding foreign nationals – this being one of the triggering points in communities in a high unemployment environment.
“We need to look at the difference between poor and middle-class immigrants, legal or not; is it a class thing? Are foreigners objectionable when they are poor and in townships, and not so when they are middle class in suburbs, or are white from, say the Czech Republic?” added Bishop Mpumlwana. He said that it is important to ask what causes the backlog with documentation processes for foreign nationals, and what the role of corruption could be at the borders or in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) house allocation that inordinately favours illegal foreigners.
Furthermore, considering the large numbers from neighbouring countries like Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, how does the South African economy relate to the regional and continental economy, both historically and in the present context? What might be some of the solutions – at community level, at municipal level, sectorally as in types of businesses such as informal commerce, trucking of goods; government and public policy – immigration management, regulation of business enterprises; categorisation even of faith-based businesses. What might be some of the solutions?
“We have a responsibility to ourselves to foster a culture of dialogue that will result in meaningful solutions, which is why this proposed Indaba is a national priority,” said Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana. He acknowledged that our tumultuous past had resulted in much deprivation, and an imbalanced competition for jobs, commodities and housing, but stated that the forced and violent removal of foreign nationals would not a peaceful South Africa make.
“We must appeal to all our communities to desist from what ends up as vigilante action in the absence of effective law enforcement. We saw the effect of people taking the law into their own hands in the fatal vigilante actions of Phoenix; whatever the cause, and however well intentioned, nothing stops popular action against a section of the population from becoming ugly and resulting in serious injury and death,” Mpumlwana added.
The National Indaba on Foreign Nationals will aim to create a fair playing field, and address every area of concern for all affected sectors and communities; and seek solutions, where the rules that apply for one can be applied to all, for the benefit of South Africa and all who live in it.
Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC
Speakers will explore the urgent need to transform our world, exposing and redressing the systemic injustices of racism, colonialism and slavery that continue to pervade all aspects of society – local, national and international.
For Dr Ryan Smith, World Council of Churches programme executive for the Ecumenical Office to the United Nations in New York, this year’s Symposium will be “a great opportunity to bring the voices of the faith community, governments and the United Nations (UN) system together to highlight work that has been done and work that needs to continue to eradicate systemic racism and reshape the future.”
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Photo: Marcelo Schneider/WCC
Photo: GCIS
President Cyril Ramaphosa says the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) is considering whether or not the country will continue with the National State of Disaster legislation currently in place.
The National State of Disaster was declared by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, as a response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020,nearly two years ago.
“We are examining how best we should handle the state of disaster in this period where the infections have tapered down and to see the efficacy of using the State of Disaster legislation or utilising other measures.
“The National Coronavirus Command Council is examining exactly that to see whether we can use health protocols, health regulations to move forward in our management of this pandemic,” President Ramaphosa said.
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Photo: GCIS
The upcoming Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) 9 – 15 February will be the fifth meeting of this central committee since it was elected at the WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea, in 2013.
The central committee meets normally every two years and serves as the chief governing body of the WCC between assemblies, but due to the pandemic the central committee has met online in June 2021. It is responsible for implementing the policies adopted by the assembly, reviewing and supervising WCC programmes and the budget of the council. The current central committee’s mandate terminates at the 11th WCC Assembly, which takes place 31 August – 8 September 2022 in Karlsruhe, Germany.
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Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is mourning the death of Dr John Taylor, who with an initial job title of WCC programme secretary for Christian Muslim relations, later became head of the WCC interreligious office from 1980-83.
He also served as a consultant for the WCC for more than a decade.
He then went on to be secretary general of Religions for Peace and, in the 1990s, was involved in peacekeeping initiatives in the Balkans with his work for the Conference of European Churches.
He also attended and helped support the 9th WCC Assembly in Porto Alegre in 2006.
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Dr John Taylor with Stanley Samartha at a meeting with a muslim delegation from Saudi Arabia, Ecumenical Centre, Geneva, 31 October 1974, Photo: Wendy Goldsworthy / WCC Archive
The course will run fully online, from 14 March-5 June 2022, with an application deadline of 15 February.
Sixty students participated actively in the pilot of the course last year, with students and faculty engaging across a variety of key topics and challenges in ecumenism today.
For the academic dean at Bossey, Rev. Dr Simone Sinn, it was a deeply encouraging experience to teach ecumenism in an online format – not least in view of the opportunities it offers for engagement across the globe in a world that connects by digital means perhaps more than ever before.
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Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC