CNS STORY: In South Africa's largest cities, U.S. bishops see hope, problems

SAFRICA-JOHANNESBURG Aug-31-2009 (1,010 words) xxxi

In South Africa's largest cities, U.S. bishops see hope, problems

By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNS) -- A U.S. bishops' delegation touring some of Johannesburg's poorest areas saw an active Catholic parish as well as some of the migration problems facing South Africa's largest city.

In Johannesburg's Alexandra Township, the delegation visited St. Hubert's Catholic Church, where about 10 members of a youth choir were rehearsing.

Oblate Father Ronald Cairns told the two U.S. bishops and other delegation members that his parish is thriving, with between 500 and 700 of its members involved in church activities.

"We have a strong parish council," about 400 young people in catechism classes, active sodalities and parishioners training for the priesthood, Father Cairns said Aug. 29.

Johannesburg's oldest township is four square miles and is home to about 540,000 South Africans as well as people from other African countries, the priest said. It has a 70 percent unemployment rate.

Johannesburg was the first stop on an Aug. 28-Sept. 6 visit to South Africa by a church delegation that included Bishop John H. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., and Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, was to join them Aug. 31.

As they walked from one of the parish buildings to the church, the delegation members dodged the crowds and heard the sounds of car horns, music blaring from shops and bars, and the mix of languages on the streets.

Alexandra was where xenophobic attacks began in May 2008. More than 60 people were killed and more than 30,000 people were displaced in attacks on foreigners around the country.

Father Cairns said that, during the violence, hundreds of his parishioners from other countries "were chased out" of the township by South Africans.

"Some of the anger that led to the attacks" built up when Alexandra's South African-born residents found foreigners erecting shacks in their yards, he said.

"They would go to Mass and come back and find that a shack had been put up in their yard," he said, noting that complaints to police went unheeded and shacks continued to be set up on people's land.

"Anger builds up and then explodes," he said.

During the xenophobic violence, St. Hubert's Parish distributed more than $10,000 as well as food and clothing to victims in the township, Father Cairns said.

Ten million people are estimated to have come to South Africa seeking a better life since apartheid ended in 1994.

Johannesburg's Central Methodist Church gives refuge at night to about 3,500 people, mostly refugees from other African countries, and when the U.S. delegation visited there Aug. 29 they were told by its Methodist Bishop Paul Verryn that the church "is on a knife's edge of vulnerability."

Many of the children the church accommodates are "completely bereft of family connections," Bishop Verryn said.

In housing the homeless in the church, "we are trying to enable the church to come to terms with poverty," he said, noting that while the "poorest, most vulnerable" people in the city are refugees, the church's mission is not about housing refugees but rather meeting the needs of the poorest people.

The situation for refugees in Johannesburg "is getting worse," Bishop Verryn added, noting that police frequently spray tear gas to chase them inside the church when they are outside on the sidewalks, chatting to each other or selling small packets of food to passers-by.

The Methodist bishop said refugees tell him that they know they "are not wanted" in South Africa and so "have to get out of this place."

"We want them to understand that they don't have to leave the country" and try to help them find ways to survive, he said.

At the Scalabrinian sisters' Bienvenu shelter in the suburb of Bertrams, the delegation saw women and children who had made their way to South Africa from countries such as Zimbabwe, Congo and Burundi.

The shelter serves as a home for 43 women and children -- many of whom were traumatized by their experiences in their home countries -- for three months while they look for jobs and other accommodations.

Earlier in the day, Father Sean O'Leary, director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute, told the U.S. delegation that "a culture of entitlement" in which South Africans "expect the government to do everything for them" has contributed to xenophobia in the country.

Migrants to South Africa "are much more industrious" than locals and, although they enter the country with almost nothing, they have "managed to climb the economic ladder much quicker," Father O'Leary said.

AIDS "is having a devastating effect on the country, in particular where the youngest and brightest succumb to the disease and leave a vacuum of unskilled workers," he said, noting that "it wreaks havoc in families, leaving thousands of orphaned children to fend for themselves."

Some of these orphans are being taken care of by the Missionaries of Charity in Yeoville, another Johannesburg suburb. The delegation visited the sisters' home, played with the children and talked with patients, including a 15-year-old girl who was dying of an AIDS-related illness.

The following day, delegation members attended Masses at different parishes.

"There was such a welcome-to-the-family spirit, with singing, playing drums and dancing" at the two-hour Mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Soweto, said Francis Butler, president of the Washington-based Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities.

He noted the "stark contrasts" of affluence and poverty within a few blocks of each other, with people driving cars and living in "small but comfortable" houses while, nearby, people lived in shacks.

At a lunch hosted by parishioners at Soweto's Regina Mundi Church, Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg told the Americans of the "growing excitement" in South Africa, which next year will host the World Cup. Soccer stadiums, roads and public transportation systems are being built in preparation for the World Cup, said the archbishop.

However, he said, some South Africans fear that if people who come to watch soccer "decide to stay permanently," there could be a repetition of the 2008 xenophobic violence.

END

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