The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) has launched a programme of moral regeneration to complement Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s programme.
A week-long SACBC plenary session that started in Pretoria on Wednesday will discuss issues ranging from violence, economic justice and reparations for the victims of apartheid to land and housing confrontations and the Zimbabwean crisis that they say are deepening, rather than healing, the “social trauma” experienced by South Africans after 1994.
The SACBC is an association of local Roman Catholic Church bishops and other church officials in South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland.
The meeting comes as South Africans “face a situation of growing social instability”, said the Reverend Efrem Tresoldi, the SACBC’s information officer.
Inspired by their faith, the Catholic Church believes that “a better life is possible”, said Neville Gabriel, director of justice and peace, a department of the SACBC committed to social transformation. “We value the sanctity of life, human development, and a society that is just and caring. The Catholic Church is a significant part of this society.”
A summary report of the plenary session blames dysfunctional alliances between political parties, the failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to ensure payments for victims of apartheid and the macro-economic strategies of the African National Congress as some of the main reasons for the endemic social instability in South Africa. Violence, alcoholism, unethical business practices, environmentally destructive community resettlement plans, buying of stolen goods and gangsterism were also identified as symptoms of moral degeneration.
But the session will appeal to a morally strong society to deal with the causes of these problems rather than discuss the symptoms.
“Rather than telling people to behave, we want to establish the root causes of the problems that are provoking them to disobey the law,” said Tresoldi. He said this would involve active participation with communities throughout the country.
The plenary session will focus on two parallel programmes. The first is a moral regeneration movement and the second a project called Renewal of Society.
The first programme is a broadly based initiative, including business, government and political parties, that was proposed in 1999 by President Thabo Mbeki, Zuma and representatives of the Department of Education. Its first project, a moral charter, will be launched on Friday and aims to start a nationwide campaign to draw a distinction between “what is right and wrong and what constitutes good and ethical behaviour”.
The Renewal of Society project is a three-phase grassroots proposal by justice and peace as part of the moral regeneration movement’s initiative that puts pressure on religious communities to play a more active role in socio-moral regeneration initiatives.
The first phase, completed last year, involved consultation between churches and the community on social renewal. In the second phase a statement will be drafted that “broadly speaks to the themes of dignity of the human person, community service and a spirit of voluntarism”, said Gabriel. The third phase will hand ownership of the programme to local communities to “reflect, discuss and plan social renewal initiatives”.
But the question on most lips is whether the sexual abuse issues that have rocked the Catholic Church over the past few years will be included in the moral regeneration debate this week.
Tresoldi said they are “not high on the list”, because the primary focus is social renewal at local community level. He said the issue would be discussed because “we cannot talk about moral renewal unless we have our own house in order”.
Sister Shelagh-Mary Waspe, the human rights coordinator for the justice and peace office, said there were still cases of abuse, but the problem is in encouraging people to come forward. “They don’t want to let the church down, but by not letting it down they’re letting the abuse continue,” she said.