South Africans still euphoric, still poor: Pope will visit nation facing complex issues

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 15, 1995 by Robert F. Drinan

The pope's visit to South Africa, Sept. 16-18, is one more welcome sign to the new government in Pretoria that it is no longer a pariah in the community of nations. John Paul's visit to South Africa is the first by any pontiff.

The pope will find a nation of 43 million people, 35 million of them black, filled with an astonishing sense of euphoria and optimism 17 months since the first all-race election in the history of South Africa in April 1994.

The pope will find strengths and weaknesses in the Catholic church in South Africa. The country has 31 dioceses, 1,038 priests, 3,339 nuns, 268 brothers and 3.2 million Catholics. Of the priests, only 293 are diocesan while 745 are members of several religious orders. That imbalance will not be changed soon because there are only 54 seminarians studying theology for the diocesan clergy.

Foreign missionaries who built the church in South Africa in the past 150 years are declining sharply in numbers. The leaders and the heroes of the Catholic church in South Africa have been the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. For generations the OMIs have come from France, Germany, Ireland and elsewhere. At one time the Oblates in South Africa numbered more than 700; they now have 450 conducting an astonishing array of parishes, schools and seminaries.

The pope will reveal and comment on the final version of the pastoral of the African Synod of Bishops held in Rome some months ago. It is hoped that the document will give direction, unity and solidarity to a continent that over the past 100 years went from 2 million Catholics to some 120 million.

The pope will almost certainly talk about the incredible poverty and economic degradation that face at least half the people of South Africa. Joblessness and illiteracy afflict 40 percent of the population. These deplorable conditions can presumably be corrected in a nation that has immense resources in gold, diamonds, metals and agriculture. But 17 months after Africa's election, there are too few clear signs that sound economic programs are being developed to meet the massive needs for housing, education and health care. Yet, contrary to the 300 years of oppression and 40 years of apartheid, there is now hope.

One of the complex problems facing black people in South Africa is the extent to which they should insist that the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation discover and reveal the countless crimes committed during the years of apartheid. The commission has announced that those who come forward and confess their crimes will receive immunity. The wrongdoers who do not speak up can be prosecuted and punished. The assumption is that the victims have a right to know the identity of their victimizers and that this knowledge will help to develop a sense of national reconciliation.

But no one wants a witch-hunt or a period during which the revelations of some create an era of accusations and counteraccusations.

The model the commission adopted is that of Chile. However, the people of Chile were oppressed by a dictatorship for only some 15 years after a democratic government of almost 100 years. In South Africa the blacks, 87 percent of the population, have been treated as noncitizens since the beginning of the colonial period.

The white minority lives in fear that the demands that they tell all about their ghastly deeds against the blacks may lead not to a process of reconciliation but to one of recrimination and revenge. Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds his congregation that "whites fear that we will do to them what they did to us."

Equally complex are the dilemmas involved in land reform. Should compensation or restitution be required of white farmers who have cultivated vast lands seized from black persons? Should black families be able to demand damages for the thousands of persons killed or injured by the hated police? In short, when do the demands for restitution result not in an era of reconciliation but one of recrimination?

The pope may want to urge South Africa not to weaken its present strict law forbidding abortion. He may also desire to recommend that the new Parliament clarify and broaden its provision for government financial assistance to church-related schools. The provisions for religious freedom in the new constitution are generous and comprehensive but there is no specific guarantee of monetary aid to religiously affiliated schools. President Nelson Mandela attended a Methodist school and has always praised and cherished institutions of that kind.

The pope will witness a high level of ecumenical activity. The Catholic hierarchy has just agreed to change its status in the Southern African Council of Churches from associate to full membership. The new atmosphere of political and ecclesiastical good feelings has produced an exciting new independent Christian periodical edited by Fr. Albert Nolan, former provincial of the Dominicans and the author of an excellent book, God in South Africa.

Despite all the euphoria, the pervasive poverty of the 130 million people in the 11 nations of southern Africa is appalling. Mozambique and Angola are trying to recover from their wars and to dispose of the thousands of land mines that make life dangerous for children and farm workers. The countries surrounding South Africa have the understandable hope that the benefits of the expected economic improvements in South Africa will flow over to others. That hope has not yet been realized.