God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

05/25/2010 • 6:02 pm Comments Off on 25.05.2010 A long way…

25.05.2010 A long way…

This morning meeting with the Archbishop of Cape Town regarding our working group on “pastoral work for HIV positive priests and religious”.  We awaiting a letter from the SACBC on our request for support and I hope, this letter will arrive in time for the next meeting, so that we can consider it and then our way forward. Before today, bishops we have spoken to have had a very supportive attitude, telling us, that nobody could reject pastoral work for those infected within the church. One bishop even offered to be the patron for the project. The indication today was that this attitude might have changed during the discussion amongst the bishops. So we are awaiting the letter with great anticipation, specially after all the willingness of the authorities within the Vatican to tackle this problem pro-active. Ecclesia siemper reformanda – we are at a defining moment within our church seeing all the scandals in Europe and else in the world – there is always hope – as the title of this block also clearly states.
I am sure there is always a way forward.. in an email, a colleague of mine mentioned my “gnadenlose Hoffnung” – my merciless hope.. – a very interesting expression. 🙂

Otherwise a day to catch up with all the emails lying in the mail box and lots of contacts with the HOPE Cape Town office – running an organisation means lots of small nitty gritties.. from banking problems to missing keys… it is real life….

Filed under: HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , ,

05/16/2010 • 8:46 am Comments Off on 15.05.2010 Third Day of the Ecumenical Church Day in Munich

15.05.2010 Third Day of the Ecumenical Church Day in Munich

Saturday and the last day of the Ecumenical Church Day in Munich. Together with Fr Wim we venture into the city of Munich – all over Munich, the churches are open during day and some during night to give chance for prayer and the experience of silence. On the “Marienplatz” we attend a prayer service – it is amazing to see, how the people join in into the singing even the temperatures are freezing cold today. Then we quickly pop into the “Virtualienmarkt” and later to buy some chocolates for the altar servers of Manenberg – German chocolate is different to their not so tasty South African counterparts… 🙂

The afternoon sees us heading again to the trade fair center – last meetings and an interview for the SWDR are scheduled. In Trier, there will be the nights of lights beginning of June – and the donations obtained at that occasion are partly for HOPE Cape Town. A good opportunity to speak about the work, HOPE Cape Town is doing as well as specific church related problems within the prevention work in our days.

At the OEKT Lounge, I bump into the Federal Minster of Interior –  a brief chat and hopefully we see each other again in South Africa during the Soccer World Cup or latest at the annual HOPE Gala in Dresden. A brief chat with one of  the auxiliary bishops of Trier and Martin, who happened to do an internship in Cape Town and is now a so-called “Gemeindereferent” in German parishes.

Then time to go back again to the inner city of Munich to attend a special service at the St. Lukas parish – a full church, beautiful hymns, a good and dynamic sermon – church as it should be. We leave with inner joy and walk back through the cold night to our hotel for some dinner. Another day full of experiences not to be missed and the reflection shows, that the networking was indeed working: we have many invitations and we had many meetings where a follow-up is needed still this year. All will benefit our work at home a great deal.

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , ,

05/15/2010 • 8:49 am Comments Off on 14.05.2010 Ecumenical church day II

14.05.2010 Ecumenical church day II

Breakfast @ 7 am already with Steffi, donor, initiator of a fundraising trip, which brought Constance, our first HOPE Community Health Worker to Germany when the International Prayer Day focused on women in Africa.
Then a brief cab ride to the “Staatskanzlei” to meet with Dirk Brand from Cape Town and State Minister Schneider and others driving the partnership between Bavaria and the Western Cape. We are a bit late as the taxi driver is not sure, where “his” government resides…  The Bavarian House during the Soccer World Cup 2010 but also the general political and social situation in South Africa as well as the question how to involve the local churches more into the partnership are further topics to be discussed.
Luncheon then with the Vice-president of the Bavarian parliament and his wife before heading to the international trade centre again to meet with Bishop Stephan Ackermann for an intensive talk on various subjects.
A brief walk through the halls to have at least a clou what organisations are all participating before the radio broadcaster of “Hessen” are waiting for a live interview on “sexuality and moral theology” in our days.
With all the “meet and greet” in between it is late evening, when we arrive back at our hotel to have dinner, reflect the day and then it’s time to rest – the next day will have its own challenges.

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , ,

05/09/2010 • 9:11 am Comments Off on 09.05.2010 On the way…

09.05.2010 On the way…

Cape Town – Johannesburg – Frankfurt – Hannover… the first leg of the trip, Fr. Wim Lindeque of Manneberg and I are flying to meet a lot of interesting people and to hopefully push forward our common agenda regarding the pastoral work for HIV positive priests and religious. While the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference considers our proposal, we are heading also to Rome to introduce our concept to two papal councils. After that to Munich where I am invited to join a podium about South African children and HIV. Lots of talks with politicians and church people are also on the agenda. Finally to Muenster Sarmsheim to join for a fundraising evening in lieu of HOPE Cape Town and the next day discussion with some students of a local school.

But first to Hannover and Wolfsburg to meet “brother” Joachim and Sandra and their team to prepare for some challenging events next year.

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

04/30/2010 • 11:05 am Comments Off on 30.04.2010 Human mankind

30.04.2010 Human mankind

Does human mankind ever learn? Most people will answer with a clear “no”… We see it already in our small little world how difficult it is to keep peace with the neighbours or to avoid prejudice. In the finance sector of our days we see that the circle of failures already and those who have spoken about changing the system to avoid another crash of the markets are continuing their same old path.. some minor corrections are allowed to please the public.

In Bangkok people take a whole city hostage – stand-offs, shootings, killings, endangering of innocent people seems to be “normal” – nobody wants violence but everybody is captured so much in his own world and thinking that without “wanting it” one just jumps on every opportunity to gain and to damage those considered to be “the others”.

In our church, the “hype” about sexual abuse creates interesting reactions: the right wingers within our church try to equalise sexual abuse = homosexuality, the left-wing in the church proclaims the conjunction between celibacy and abuse – and instead of investigating the real reasons behind all these, one uses the opportunity for each convictions own gain. This is an abuse in itself and insults the victims. This times can be times of an honest review how church performs – as HIV and AIDS can be a subject to trigger an honest review of parts of our moral theology. Are we able to stand the test of times – or do we fail – again, as many would say.

Difficult times… indeed..

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

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