CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND THE UNITY OF THE CHURCHES

Abstract

... the ecumenical symbol is a potentially exciting, basic faith symbol. Far from imprisoning us a bygone age, it has the power to release us to live together the present and into the future continuity with the past.(1) Much has been made among the Roman Catholic faithful the Cape recently of the Roman Catholic Archbishop Henry serving communion to Dr Nelson Mandela, president of the African National Congress (ANC) and to Dr Allan Boesak, the Western Cape chairman of that political organization. Both were attending mass at the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary of the Angels Athlone. Nelson Mandela was visiting Cape Town at the time. As is his custom, he worships different churches as he tours around the country. Nelson Mandela and Allan Boesak are practising members of the Methodist Church and N.G. Sendingkerk respectively. The objection raised by the Roman Catholic faithful, widely published the readers' columns of local newspapers, is whether non-Catholics are entitled to receive communion the Roman Catholic Church. In response Archbishop Lawrence Henry concedes that the Vatican rules that in general is permitted to (Roman Catholic) eucharist and to the sacraments 'only to those who share its oneness faith, worship and ecclesial life.' However, the exercise of hospitality and special circumstances access may be permitted or even commended for Christians of other churches and ecclesial communities.(2) At the time of the funeral of Chris Hani, the assassinated leader of the South African Communist Party, where Roman Catholic rites were administered, Roman Catholics were enraged. They could not accept that their church could give its allowed last respects to one who was a communist. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Johannesburg responded like the Cape Town Archbishop, by letter to the Weekly Mail. He argued that from his investigations, the late Chris Hani was a committed Roman Catholic. What these cases raise is the extent to which ordinary Christians South Africa are so isolated from ecclesial and sacramental fellowship with their neighbours that they cannot accept what may be termed the invasion of their sacred space. An exclusive Roman Catholic mass is what gives them security and by which they carve out their identity. Second, ordinary Christians cannot understand it when their leaders appear to behave a manner inconsistent with what they teach. More significantly, however, the controversy is hardly just about the Roman Catholic Church but about the sorry state of ecumenical relations South Africa during the period beyond February 1990. The strength and weakness of ecumenical praxis South Africa Many observers of the situation South Africa will recall that at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, churches and other religious communities were united the common struggle against apartheid. It is not only Christian leaders who were victimized under apartheid. Indeed many were banned, endured trial (like the Dean of Johannesburg) and, even more, had their residence permits revoked. The churches realized that apartheid was too powerful for a divided church, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu was fond of saying. Christian solidarity was the mark of ecumenical witness during the worst times of the apartheid repression. Likewise, the pastoral care of black communities, where the effects of apartheid were felt most severely, the churches recognized the obligation for ecumenical unity. In many pastoral situations like burying the dead, meeting the needs of victims, resisting encroachments by marauding bands of police and later of the hit-squads, the churches persistently stood by the people who were suffering. When disunity brought into being warring factions black communities, it was the churches who stood the middle, making peace and preaching reconciliation. Apartheid was, ironically and without doubt, a critical instrument of ecumenical practice. …