This is the Article in the Tablet 9th May 2020 which inspired the Corona Thoughts in this week’s newsletter.
SOUTH AFRICA
We cannot go back to what was normal in the past.
The Church faces two tasks, to help those suffering in the present crisis and to look to a different future
SOUTH AFRICA, even after 26 years of independence, still remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. The immediate need to respond to the health crisis cannot obscure the urgent need to create a more just and equitable society once the pandemic passes. The Church must be involved in both struggles, writes Bishop Kevin Dowling.
The number of infections and deaths recorded so far has been lower than expected. The peak will perhaps arrive only in September, and a long, uncertain road lies ahead. The prevention strategies being implemented only highlight the reality of life for most people here. Since 1 May, everyone who goes to work in a taxi or a car, anyone in the public domain, has to wear a face mask – but they are responsible for making these masks themselves. Social distancing is regarded as essential for diminishing the rate of infections – in that sense it is the right thing to do – but it is simply not always feasible.
Thousands of very poor families in the huge shack settlements around the platinum mines in my diocese live in one room. Social distancing in such conditions is virtually impossible. How can they stay at home and wash their hands frequently, when there is no readily available water?
The same often applies in the overcrowded townships. People are doing their best, but in my once a week trip to town for food I have seen a lot of people moving around outside their homes, including children playing with their friends.
Many people here are desperately hungry. NGOs, the government’s social service departments and ordinary people are responding. But there have been examples of unrest, as thousands of desperate people are not able to find enough to feed their families. We are facing a serious crisis. The Church leadership in Southern Africa, under the bishops’ conference and its president, Bishop Sithembele Sipuka, has encouraged us to respond as creatively as possible to the needs of the people, especially the poorest and the most vulnerable.
A religious community which lives next to me at St Joseph’s Mission, called Tsholofelo Community (“a place of hope”), works in some of the poorest shack settlements. The community supplies over 500 adults and children with food parcels once a week. One sister, a highly qualified nurse, is running a primary health care and ARV clinic in a converted shipping container; other sisters had been running education and training programmes until they were shut down when the lockdown began because they were not considered a “essential service”.
I hope that as time goes on, we can start to discern what the experience of this pandemic calls for from the Church in terms of its vision, mission and ministry. We are living a primarily sacramental model. The closing of churches and the suspension of public Masses is challenging us to become a different kind of Church. We cannot go back to what was normal in the past. We must be a Church which is much more inclusive of the destitute and of those who are suffering in so many ways: the victims of violence against women and children, all those who are stigmatised or suffer discrimination.
This requires addressing honestly the systemic issues in the political fabric of the nation, the massive corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence. But it also requires of us as Church to reflect on and discern what the signs of the times call us to be and do, what model of Church we need to create and develop. I hope and pray that this crisis will bring out the treasures of who we are called to be as disciples of Jesus, and to be the field hospital that Pope Francis dreams of. This means building on what we have achieved in the past – but then, to be creative in imagining something new for the future.
