Talking about time as I did in the last blog – once again time is faster flying than I can keep up with it.
The weekend saw me serving the Catholic Community in Belhar with a very interesting family mass on the Sunday morning. Preparation for the HOPE Cape Town management meeting and a talk, given to readers of “Die Zeit” , a German weekly newspaper, who were on a trip through South Africa. It is always interesting for me to hear opinions and different perspectives to our situation here in South Africa and to learn a lot about how our country is perceived in the first world.
HOPE Cape Town Management meeting yesterday with lots to discuss at senior level. Such a project is developing also in a rapid way and we have to be creative to keep on going in a way serving the communities. From an afternoon with management then directly to Brooklyn Holy Cross Primary School where we celebrated the Feast of the Cross with the school community.
This morning POZ meeting: the working group trying to put up a pastoral care structure for HIV positive priests and religious is battling a bit with the concepts some people of the church hierarchy have. It is not easy to find a way to serve those infected and affected in a sensitive and meaningful way if there is so much fear and phobia within the church tackling the pandemic within our own ranks. Fr Wim and myself had meetings in Rome about the subject in May this year and we intended to be back with first positive steps in November this year, but unfortunately it will take more time. So I canceled yesterday the Rome leg of the trip end of next month in the hope, that next year sees more results.
Making progress in sensitive matters within our church can be quite an issue; and it is not that people would not see the urgency of matters, but the apprehensibility in some quarters of our church makes it at times very difficult. On the other hand: we know that we are as the church moving: slavery, human rights, democracy – the latter have been directly from hell some time ago but today we are the champions when it comes to advocate them for others.
I ask myself whether we are so much different from other organizations – and I guess: no.
Well: Never give up was one of the favorite songs of our first HOPE Community Health Workers and I think, that is a good motto for the days and weeks to come.
Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Society and living environment, Belhar, Church Matters, democracy, human rights, positive priests, POZ, Rome, slavery, time
God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE 