Catholic Church in South Africa

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The Catholic Church in South Africa is part of the worldwide Catholic Church composed of the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, of which the South African church is under the spiritual leadership of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference and the Pope in Rome. It is made up of 26 dioceses and archdioceses plus an apostolic vicariate.

In 1996, there were approximately 3.3 million Catholics in South Africa, making up 6% of the total South African population. Currently, there are 3.8 million Catholics.[1] 2.7 million are of various black African ethnic groups, such as Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho. Coloured and white South Africans each account for roughly 300,000.[2]

Roman Catholic evangelization efforts have traditionally focused on Black South Africans. In the 1950s, however, an effort began to evangelize Afrikaans-speakers, who had previously been ignored by Catholic missionaries. Success in the Afrikaans Apostolate remained minimal until the death throes of Apartheid during the mid to late 1980s. As Catholic texts began to be translated into Afrikaans, sympathetic Dutch Reformed pastors, who were defying the traditional anti-Catholicism of their Church, assisted in correcting linguistic errors. By 1996, the majority of Afrikaans-speaking Catholics came from the Coloured community, with a smaller number of Afrikaner converts, most of whom were from professional backgrounds.[3]

Most White South African Catholics are English speakers, and the majority are descended from Irish immigrants. Many others are Portuguese South Africans, many of whom emigrated from Angola and Mozambique after they became independent and disintegrated into civil war during the 1970s. Others are descended from immigrants from other European countries, such as South Africa's Italian community. The proportion of Catholics among the predominantly Calvinist white Afrikaans speakers, or Asian South Africans who are mainly Hindus or Protestant of Indian descent, is extremely small.

Organisation[]

Jurisdictions[]

The Catholic Church in South Africa consists of five Archdioceses (Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, and Pretoria), 22 Dioceses, 2 Vicariates Apostolic and a Military Ordinariate. The five Ecclesiastical provinces are—

  • Bloemfontein
    • Leadership: Archbishop Zolile Peter Mpambani S.C.J., appointed 1 April 2020
    • Contains the following dioceses:
  • Cape Town
    • Leadership: Archbishop Stephen Brislin appointed 18 December 2009 and Auxiliary Bishop Sylvester Anthony John David, O.M.I, appointed 6 June 2019
    • Contains the following dioceses:
  • Durban
    • Leadership: Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, appointed 29 March 1992.
    • Contains the following dioceses:
      • Dundee
      • Eshowe
        • Vacant.
      • Kokstad
        • Vacant.
      • Mariannhill
        • Bishop Pius Mlungisi Dlungwana, appointed 3. June 2006.
      • Umtata
        • Bishop Anton Sipuka appointed 8 February 2008.
      • Umzimkulu
        • Bishop Stanisław Jan Dziuba, O.S.P.P.E. appointed 31 December 2008.
      • Vicariate Apostolic of Ingwavuma
        • Bishop Siegfried Mandla Jwara, C.M.M., appointed 30 April 2016
  • Johannesburg
    • Leadership: Archbishop Buti Tlhagale, O.M.I. appointed 8 April 2003
    • Contains the following dioceses:
      • Klerksdorp
        • Bishop Victor Hlolo Phalana appointed 25 January 2015
      • Manzini (Geographically external to South Africa - In eSwatini)
        • Bishop José Luís Gerardo Ponce de León, I.M.C. appointed 29 November 2013.
      • Witbank
  • Pretoria
    • Archbishop Dabula Anthony Mpako appointed 30 April 2019.
    • Contains the following dioceses:
      • Gaborone (Geographically external to South Africa - In Botswana)
        • Bishop Frank Atese Nubuasah, S.V.D, appointed 6 June 2019
      • Polokwane
        • Bishop Jeremiah Madimetja Masela appointed 10 June 2013.
      • Rustenburg
      • Tzaneen
        • Bishop Joao Rodrigues appointed 28 January 2010
      • Vicariate Apostolic of Francistown (Geographically external to South Africa - In Botswana)
        • Vacant
  • Military Ordinariate of South Africa
    • Leadership: Archbishop Dabula Anthony Mpako appointed 30 April 2019.

Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference[]

The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference is a collegial body approved by the Holy See and has as its particular aim:

to provide the bishops of the territories mentioned above with facilities for consultation and united action in such matters of common interest to the Church as consultation and co-operation with other hierarchies; the fostering of priestly and religious vocations; the doctrinal, apostolic and pastoral formation of the clergy, religious and laity; the promotion of missionary activity, catechetics, liturgy, lay apostolate, ecumenism, development, justice and reconciliation, social welfare, schools, hospitals, the apostolate of the press, radio, television, and other means of social communication; and any other necessary activity.

Apostolic Nuncio[]

The Apostolic Nuncio to South Africa is Archbishop Peter Bryan Wells appointed to the post on 9 February 2016. He was also the Apostolic Nuncio to Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia.[citation needed]

Catholic Church and apartheid[]

Denis Hurley, Archbishop of Durban and a member of the Central Preparatory Committee of Vatican II, stands perhaps as the most eminent Catholic cleric in South African history. He was appointed bishop at the age of 31 and was a leader in opposing the apartheid regime. Like him, many senior officials within the Catholic Church in South Africa opposed apartheid, but a group of white Catholics formed the South African Catholic Defence League to condemn the church's political involvement and, in particular, to denounce school integration.[4]

People[]

  • Blessed Tshimangadzo Benedict Daswa, First South African Blessed & Martyr
  • Denis Hurley, see above
  • Wilfrid Napier is currently South Africa's only cardinal.
  • Owen McCann (1907-1994), President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC); cardinal.
  • Franz Pfanner, Trappist Abbot and candidate for Roman Catholic Sainthood
  • Christopher Hope, South African journalist, playwright, and poet. In the memoir, White Boy Running, Hope relates his experiences coming from an Irish Catholic South African family, which dealt in different ways with the anti-Catholic face of Afrikaner nationalism.

Education[]

  • Catholic schools in South Africa
  • Catholic secondary schools in South Africa
  • St Augustine College of South Africa

In popular culture[]

  • The Syringa Tree, an award-winning stage play by , relates the life story of Elizabeth Grace, a White South African Catholic girl, during the Apartheid era and its aftermath.

References[]

  1. ^ GCatholic.org
  2. ^ Catholics in RSA 1996 census statistics posted on the website of the Archdiocese of Bloemfontein.
  3. ^ Afrikaans-Speaking Catholics in the Rainbow Republic, Catholic World News, 14 November 1996.
  4. ^ Country Studies. "Religion and apartheid". Source: Rita M. Byrnes, ed. South Africa: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1996.

Sources[]

External links[]

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