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Sr Hermenegild Makoro, CPS, is the Secretary-General of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC).

As Secretary General, Sr. Hermenegild works in close collaboration and consults with Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town. The Archbishop is the current President of the Bishops’ Conference. The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference consists of Catholic Bishops of South Africa, Botswana, and Swaziland.

It is a dynamic Conference which recently celebrated the golden jubilee of the Bishops’ Lenten Appeal.

“One thing that is evident (about the Bishops’ Lenten Appeal ) is the sacrifice that people make during this time, during the six weeks of Lent… people are generous. The Lenten appeal campaign has become a tradition. Even where a priest sometimes does not remind (parishioners); the people themselves know… (When Ash Wednesday draws near) they will ask for the purple (contribution) envelopes,” Sr. Hermenegild said recently in an interview with Vatican Radio.  

According to Sr. Hermenegild, funds collected during the Lenten period support seminary formation, soup kitchens, HIV/AIDS and several other projects determined by the dioceses themselves. It is a major fundraising exercise that in 2015 raised over 10.8 million South African Rand which translates to more than U.S.$800,000 at today’s exchange rate. 

At the start of this year’s Lenten season, Archbishop Brislin said the Bishops’ Lenten Appeal Fund had impacted the lives of South Africa’s needy.

“The annual collections of the Lenten Appeal has made an enormous impact on the life of the Church and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Southern Africa… the Lenten Appeal was set up to help those in need and the for the works of the Church in proclaiming the Good News," Archbishop Brislin said at the time. 

Sr. Hermenegild attributes the success of the Lenten Appeal to people’s generosity; the entrenchment of what is now tradition; the involvement of children as well as an efficient organisation of the Appeal by the Bishops’ Conference itself. 

The Bishops’ national Lenten Office provides dioceses with the Purple envelopes (Sacrificium envelopes) and Mite boxes for children on time. The Office also prepares and distributes promotional material ahead of time.

However, there is also another factor: South Africa has witnessed a notable revival of faith that is being attributed, at least in part, to the beatification of Blessed Benedict Daswa. He was beatified in 2015.

“The beatification of Daswa has seen a great moment of faith revival,” says Sr. Hermenegild. She adds, “Daswa encompasses everybody. He was a family man, and so men can associate with him; he was a teacher –teachers are also there. He was a Catechist; Catechists are there. He also liked farming. So everyone can really take a piece from Daswa,” Sr. Hermenegild said.

(Fr Paul Samasumo, Vatican Radio)
Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va

Click below to listen to Sr. Hermenegild Makoro on a wide-range of issues affecting the Church in Southern Africa. She speaks to Fr. Paul Samasumo of Vatican Radio’s English Africa Service (13.01”).

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Rome, Italy, Apr 15, 2017 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the conflict in Syria rages on, a Salesian nun honored by the White House as a “Woman of Courage” said that no matter who is in charge, as long as they work for peace they have her vote.

“I like anyone that can help me achieve peace, whether it's Assad or President Trump, or whoever can support us in peace,” Sister Carolin Tahhan Fachakh told reporters April 11.

The nun said that in her opinion, there is still hope for peace in Syria, but that whenever steps in that direction seem to be taken, something happens and “we go backwards.”

Yet despite the ongoing violence, “there is always hope for the future,” she said, “there are steps of peace, we continue to look to the future with a lot of hope, because everything has an end. There will be an end.”

Tahhan, a member of the Salesian Daughters of Mary Help of Christians Order, was one of 13 women who received the “International Woman of Courage Award” from First Lady Melania Trump in Washington March 29.

She was nominated for the award by the U.S. embassy to the Holy See for her work running a nursery school in Damascus that her order established as a safe and friendly space where more than 200 children traumatized by the war, both Christian and Muslim, can play and just be children.

In addition to the school, Tahhan also manages a tailor workshop in collaboration with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, providing much-needed community and support for women who are vulnerable and displaced.

The nomination for the White House award were accepted by the Obama administration, but were held until Rex Tillerson, the current Secretary of State, approved them, allowing them to be handed out. After receiving the award, she came to Rome and spoke to reporters about her work during a roundtable sponsored by the U.S. embassy to the Holy See.

In her comments to journalists, Tahhan said meeting the other 12 women who received the award alongside her is something that “enriched me.”

As part of her trip to the U.S. to receive the award, the nun was also taken to visit several projects that work with refugees and which also offer psychological services, which she said was “helpful for my work.”

Many of the children who come to the school suffer from the effects of war, she said, explaining that while some are less affected, others don’t speak.

She voiced fear for the future of the culture the children are growing up in, noting that “they are all damaged, they have this fear from the war, they have a bit of violence inside, and this is normal.”

Recalling a conversation she had with one of the children after a canon had gone off, the nun said she had heard a loud noise and asked what it was. Immediately one of the children near her said it was a canon.

When she asked the 4-year-old child how they knew, the child responded by saying “when it’s a missile it goes ‘sss-boom,’ and when it’s a canon it immediately goes ‘boom.’”

“I was bothered by this. This is the culture of our children,” she said, and recalled how in a video sent to her by family in Aleppo, one of her nephews showed her a box of “toys” he had collected, which ended up being different sized shells that had landed on their balcony.

“What do we do for the future to take this violence out of our children?” Tahhan asked, noting that the video from her nephew “hurt me a lot.”

However, she cautioned against falling for what she said are false media reports that say that everything is Syria is only destruction.

“It’s not true that everything is terrible in Syria, that everything is this civil war,” she said, explaining that “there is still solidarity, there is still coexistence between Muslims and Christians.”

“We live together, there is co-existence,” she said, explaining that there are many Muslim women who participate in the tailoring workshop, and when she needs materials, it is they who go to purchase them.

“Since 2010 to now, more than 500 women have entered our houses, have gone to sewing classes, and the majority are Muslims,” she said, explaining that if she were to accept only Christians, “then I also become like them, I become a fanatic.”

Many times when bombs go off near the convent, shortly after there will be a knock on their door from Muslim men who come to check on them, saying “Sisters, do you need something? Are you okay?”

Even in the school children don't distinguish between Christians and Muslims, she said, noting that they are damaged above all by war, rather than religious differences. “I'm not saying there’s not fanaticism,” she added, but stressed that there is still coexistence between them.

Going against a growing distaste for President Assad in the global public eye, Tahhan voiced her support for Assad, saying “I like our president.” She said that he and his wife are “very close to us” and have protected and offered material and financial support to the Christians in Syria, including for the school her order runs. She added that Assad's wife called and asked for her personally and met with her and several other sisters to ask if anything was preventing them from carrying out their work and to ask what support they needed.

The international community, however, is beginning to unite in opposition against Assad. On Tuesday G7 leaders – which include the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan and Canada – met with allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to discuss the possible need for new leadership in Syria and to agree on sanctions for his biggest ally, Russia.

Referring to Trump's decision to bomb Syria's Shayrat Air Base after the sarin gas attack, Tahhan said the move was “a step back from peace.”

When it comes to the peace process in Syria, the nun said that while there is always hope for the future, it frequently happens that whenever a step forward is taken, “then something happens and we go backward.”

She recalled receiving the news after walking out of a reception for the award winners in Washington, saying that when she heard about the bombing, “I was very hurt,” and that in her opinion, “right now, for me, we are going backward.”

The war, in her opinion, erupted not because Assad was causing problems, but because “there are different interests” involved, including the country’s natural resources.

Pope Francis “is doing a lot” with all the appeals he is making, particularly to the international community, she said, calling him “a true prophet.”

His words “awaken the conscience…he doesn't stay quiet. He is awakening, his voice is strong. He is also entering into the conscience of everyone.”

Regarding the fear that if Islamic terrorism isn't curbed, there will no longer be Christians living in the Middle East, the nun said the Church is working to ensure this won't happen.

“The Church is working to keep the Christians,” she said, adding that “if the Church exists, then Christians will continue to be there.”

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Vatican City, Apr 15, 2017 / 01:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- During Easter Vigil at the Vatican Pope Francis noted that many people today mirror the sadness and grief of the women who went to Jesus' tomb thinking he was still dead.

However, the Resurrection, he said, offers new hope for those who have perhaps lost it.

“That is what this night calls us to proclaim: the heartbeat of the Risen Lord. Christ is alive!” the Pope said April 15.

It is the excitement of this message, he said, that made them hurry back to tell the others that Jesus had risen: “That is what made them return in haste to tell the news. That is what made them lay aside their mournful gait and sad looks. They returned to the city to meet up with the others.”

Like the women, each us has also visited the tomb during the vigil, he said, and urged Christians to “go back” with the women into their cities with news of Jesus’ rising.

“Let us all retrace our steps and change the look on our faces,” he said. “Let us go back with them to tell the news in all those places where the grave seems to have the final word, where death seems the only way out.”

The Pope told them go back and proclaim the truth that “the Lord is alive! He is living and he wants to rise again in all those faces that have buried hope, buried dreams, buried dignity.”

“If we cannot let the Spirit lead us on this road, then we are not Christians,” he said.

Pope Francis spoke during his homily for the Easter Vigil, which he celebrated, as usual, in St. Peter's Basilica as the culmination of his Holy Week events. Apart from the vigil, Pope Francis will also celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s Square Easter morning and give his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing.

After delivering his homily, Pope Francis administered the Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist – to 11 people, one of whom, Ali Acacius Damavandy, is from the United States.

In his homily, Pope Francis said that as Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb in the day’s Gospel reading from Matthew, it’s easy to imagine their uncertain steps and their “pale and tearful” faces.

These women didn’t run away, but remained steadfast, and were people that had took life as it came and “knew the bitter taste of injustice.” However, they were still unable to accept Jesus’ death, he said.

By imagining the scene as it plays out, we can picture in the faces of these two women the faces of many others who “bear the grievous burden of injustice and brutality,” he said.

“In their faces we can see reflected all those who, walking the streets of our cities, feel the pain of dire poverty, the sorrow born of exploitation and human trafficking,” Francis said, explaining that we can also see the reflection of those treated with “contempt” because they are immigrants.

“We see faces whose eyes bespeak loneliness and abandonment, because their hands are creased with wrinkles,” he continued.

The faces of these women also mirror “the faces of women, mothers, who weep as they see the lives of their children crushed by massive corruption that strips them of their rights and shatters their dreams. By daily acts of selfishness that crucify and then bury people’s hopes. By paralyzing and barren bureaucracies that stand in the way of change.”

Francis pointed to the pain of all those “who, walking the streets of our cities, behold human dignity crucified,” saying this is also reflected in the grief experienced by the two women.

The women can also represent the faces of each of us personally, he said, explaining that like them, many of us can feel driven to continue walking forward and not to resign ourselves to the fact that “things have to end this way.”

While we carry God’s promise of faithfulness inside of us, our faces, the Pope said, often we bear the mark of various wounds, including infidelity on our part or the part of another, or of battles we have lost.

“In our hearts, we know that things can be different but, almost without noticing it, we can grow accustomed to living with the tomb, living with frustration,” he said, noting that even worse, we can also convince ourselves that “this is the law of life.”

By doing so, we “blunt our consciences with forms of escape that only serve to dampen the hope that God has entrusted to us,” and walk, like the women did, the line between the desire for God and “bleak resignation.”

However, with the Resurrection the women suddenly and unexpectedly feel “a powerful tremor,” and hear a voice telling them not to be afraid, because Jesus has risen from the dead.

The message: “Do not be afraid, brothers and sisters; he is risen as he said!” is one that has been passed on from generation to generation, Pope Francis said, explaining that “life, which death destroyed on the cross, now reawakens and pulsates anew.”

“The heartbeat of the Risen Lord is granted us as a gift, a present, a new horizon,” he said, explaining that this heart is given to us and in turn, we are also asked to give it to others as “the leaven of a new humanity.”

In his Resurrection, Christ not only rolled back the stone to the tomb, Francis said, but he also wants “to break down all the walls that keep us locked in our sterile pessimism, in our carefully constructed ivory towers that isolate us from life, in our compulsive need for security and in boundless ambition that can make us compromise the dignity of others.”

Precisely when the religious leaders of the day, in collusion with the Romans, thought they they had the last word, God enters and “upsets all the rules and offers new possibilities,” the Pope said. “God once more comes to meet us, to create and consolidate a new age, the age of mercy.”

This, he said, is the promise that has been present from the beginning and which is “God’s surprise” for his people.

Pope Francis closed by saying that hidden in every life there is a seed of the Resurrection, “an offer of life ready to be awakened.”

He prayed that all would allow themselves to be surprised by this “this new dawn and by the newness that Christ alone can give,” and asked that we not only allow Christ’s loving tenderness to guide our steps, but that we also “allow the beating of his heart to quicken our faintness of heart.”

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