Home affairs botches permits for Mother Theresa’s missionaries Marianne Merten The government has given marching orders to three nuns of the late Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, who have been running an HIV/Aids care centre in Khayelitsha outside Cape Town. One Mission of Charity sister has been told to leave in January; another in July next year. The third sister has again applied for a visa extension of two years. Her initial application was rejected because she could not say how long she would remain in South Africa.
The sisters – two from India and one from Uganda – have been in South Africa for three years on the instruction of their order, which periodically moves its members from mission to mission across the world. The Khayelitsha hospice was established following a visit by Mother Teresa to South Africa. The handful of Sisters of Charity – dressed in the typical white sari with the dark blue border and wearing plain black plastic sandals – care for about 70 Aids patients and others. Early in the morning several of Khayelitsha’s poor arrive at the nondescript building to receive food. The hospice lies behind a large face-brick church opposite the township’s only park – an open field with large rocks behind a wire fence. In the sandy soils of the courtyard a climbing rose bush struggles for height. The sisters did not want to be interviewed by the Mail & Guardian, saying the rules of their mission prohibit them from publicising their work and that they are there merely to “work for the glory of God”. The Department of Home Affairs has refused to renew the nuns’ work permits despite a recent change in immigration regulations, which has upgraded religious workers to key personnel and relaxed the conditions governing their permits. Home affairs ministerial advisor Mario Ambrosini said this week that the Western Cape regional office might not be up to speed with the changes, which were advertised in a circular last month. Ambrosini said he was not aware of the reasons for the refusal to extend the permits, but advised the religious congregation to write a letter saying the nuns are still needed in the country. Despite requests for comment, the department had not responded by the time of going to print.
Earlier this week Catholic Church officials met Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi in Pretoria to discuss the difficulties its religious and missionary workers face when applying for permits. Cape Town Auxiliary Bishop Reginald Cawcutt said the church would like to see a protocol under which one person in the minister’s office would deal with all permit applications from Catholic missionaries. Ambrosini said most difficulties would be solved once the Immigration Bill became law, as expected before the end of the year. Religious workers would then no longer need to apply for a work permit as the current law stipulates – “We do not regard it [their activities] as work,” said Ambrosini – but general-entry permits applicable to academic sabbaticals, research, voluntary or charitable activities or “other prescribed activities”.
The Catholic Church in Cape Town runs at least six organisations caring for people with HIV/Aids as part of its Catholic Aids Network.
These include the Missionaries of Charity, the Sisters of Nazareth’s home for Aids orphans and HIV-positive babies, the Caring Network home care project, the Zikhulele Aids outreach programme aimed predominately at township youths, and an Aids awareness education/training project for priests. The prison Aids ministry was scaled down after the priest in charge was transferred out of the country. The Missionaries of Charity – also known as Mother Teresa’s sisterhood – was established in 1950 to help the poor and the dying. For this work Mother Teresa was awarded the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.