Regional Report: South Africa

Susan Rakoczy IHM, PhD
St Joseph's Theological Institute, Cedara, South Africa

Part One: Overview

Population:

• 44,000,000[1]

Ethnic Groups:

• Black 75.2%
• White 13.6%
• Coloured 8.6%
• Indian 2.6%[2]

Number of Catholics:

• 3,081,000[3]

Other Christian Communities:

Dutch Reformed Church, Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, African Indigenous Churches. Christians are about 68% of the population.[4]

Other Religions:

Muslim 2%, Hindu 1.5%, African Traditional Religion 28.5%,[5] About 90,000 Jews[6]

Faculties of Theology

St Augustine College of South Africa
PO Box 44782
Linden 2104
South Africa
+27-11-782-4616
fax: +27-11-782-8729
admin@staugustine.ac.za
http://www.staugustine.ac.za

St Joseph's Theological Institute
Private Bag 6004
Hilton 3245
South Africa
+27-33-343-3293
fax: +27-33-343-5948
libsjti@futurenet.co.za

Seminaries

St Francis Xavier Seminary
PO Box
Glosderry 7702
South Africa
+27-21-697-1420
fax: +27-21-697-1835
seminary@iafrica.com

St John Vianney Seminary
PO Box 17028
Groenkloof 0027
South Africa
+27-12-460-2039
fax: +27-460-3596
sjv@global.co.za

Ecumenical Institutions

Faculty of Theology
Stellenbosch University
Private Bag X1
Matieland 7602
Stellenbosch
South Africa
+27-21-808-9111
http://www.sun.ac.za

School of Theology and Religion
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Private Bag X01
Scottsville 3209
South Africa
+27-33-260-5540
fax: +27-33-260-5858
theo-sec@theology.nu.ac.za

Faculty of Theology
University of Pretoria
PO Box
Pretoria 0002
South Africa
+27-12-420-4111
fax: +27-12-362-5128

Faculty of Theology and Biblical Religions
University of South Africa
PO Box 392
Pretoria 0003
South Africa
+27-12-429-3111
http://www.unisa.ac.za

Theological Education by Extension College (TEEC)
PO Box 74257
Turffontein 2140
Johannesburg
South Africa
+27-11-683-3284
fax: 27-11-683-3522
admin@tee.co.za

Part Two: History of Theology

Beginnings of Theological Education in South Africa

Historically, the work of theology in South Africa begins with the training of priests before Vatican II.  As a mission country, priests from Europe and to a lesser extent, North America, were sent to provide pastoral care for the European settlers and to evangelise the black population.[7] Prior to 1922 no priests were trained in South Africa.

In his encyclical Maximum Illud (1919) Pope Benedict XV mandated the training of indigenous priests in their own countries. In 1924, the first Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Jordan Gilswijk, met with bishops and religious superiors to discuss the training of priests in South Africa. They decided that white candidates would be sent overseas and black candidates would study in South Africa because "blacks would have difficulty with English as the medium of instruction, their social customs and educational background were different and separation of the two groups was likely to be beneficial to both" (Brain 2002:7).

St Mary's Seminary for black candidates was opened in 1925 at Mariathal near Ixopo, first as a minor seminary and from 1929 as a major seminary. In 1946 the major seminary for coloured and Afrian candidates was transferred to Pevensey near Reichenau in Natal. It was run by the Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries, and from 1957, by the Dominicans. A new seminary, now called St Peter's, was built in Hammanskraal in the then Transvaal province and was opened in 1963.

In the early years, only the Society of the Sacred Heart in the Aliwal North diocese educated their white seminarians in South Africa. A seminary was opened in 1929 and closed in 1945 because of staff shortages. It had begun to educate white and coloured candidates from the dioceses and prefectures.

A new effort, St John Vianney Seminary, was opened in 1948, first in Queenstown and from 1951 at the new campus in Pretoria under the direction of the Irish Franciscans. The two diocesan seminary systems-one for black candidates and one for white-operated with little or no interaction in the years of apartheid. It was not until 1981 that St Peter's became the common philosophate for all students and St John Vianney as the common theologate.[8]

The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate began St Joseph's Scholasticate in Pietermaritzburg in 1943 when it was not possible to send candidates to Europe for theological studies during World War II. In 1953 the Scholasticate moved to the present campus in Cedara. Because the introduction of apartheid legislation in the 1950s made the situation illegal and pressure from the police made life increasingly difficult, St Joseph's was obliged to send all non-white students away in the 1950s. But after some years coloured (mixed race) and Indian students were admitted and in 1972 black students also began to study at the Scholasticate. Black candidates had been sent to St Augustine Seminary in Lesotho. The OMI students, together with some from other religious congregations and a few diocesan candidates who studied at St Joseph's as a multi-racial community, were always one small step ahead of the government authorities trying to enforce the apartheid laws of separate accommodations and study.

Priests who were students during those years recall the impact of apartheid at St Joseph's. Joe Money OMI who began his studies in 1960 recalls:

We were four so-called 'coloureds 'living in a 'white' community in a 'white' area. There was the constant fear of being discovered, especially when the police came to investigate complaints from the neighbouring farmer about 'non-whites' living in a white' area…We had to be constantly looking over our shoulders" (Money 1993: 27-28).

Clem Lazarus OMI, who arrived in 1967, describes St Joseph's attempts to be a non-racial community:

During the bleakest days of apartheid, St. Joseph's was a sign of hope for South Africa. In the days of segregated audiences, our annual plays were performed before mixed audiences. Our farm workers enjoyed a better quality of life. Moreover, the mere fact that we were a non-racial community was in itself a powerful witness…On the whole, St. Joseph's was a living sermon on the heresy of apartheid (Lazarus 1993:29).

During the years before Vatican II, seminary education reduplicated that of any other country in the Catholic Church: a prescribed curriculum of scholastic theology was taught in Latin. Writing in 1962, Archbishop Denis Hurley OMI described this approach: "At the end of this course of study the average seminarian has a fairly good text-book knowledge of the faith in terms of magisterial decrees and scholastic definitions…And it must be admitted that there is very little about the average seminary curriculum that is designed to breed prophets and apostles" (Hurley 1997a: 14).

As in the rest of the church, theological creativity and inquiry was not encouraged. The Church in South Africa was a small minority in the country and its efforts were focused on pastoral care and evangelisation, not the intellectual life.

The separation of black and white candidates in the seminaries, while reprehensible from a 21^st century perspective, reflected the prudential judgements of church leaders in the years of apartheid. The importance of the social factor of race in the South African context cannot be over-emphasised. It is this context of racial injustice during the years of apartheid and now the quest to create a South African society of equity, justice and reconciliation which marks Catholic theology in South Africa as an engaged theology.

Theological Development Since Vatican II

New Institutions

In the last thirteen years there have been three major developments in Catholic theology at the institutional level. In 1990 St Joseph's Scholasticate, Cedara was re-structured into two components: the Scholasticate as the formation institution for OMI students and St Joseph's Theological Institute, the academic institution, with its own Board of Directors and Administration. In that same year, the Institute became a founding member of the Pietermaritzburg Cluster of Theological Institutions, together with the School of Theology of the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg and the Federal Seminary of Southern Africa.[9]

Membership in the Cluster provides St Joseph's staff and students with a distinctly ecumenical perspective to its work of theological education. There is exchange of students and faculty at the academic level, a unified library system, interaction through subject committees, common worship twice a year and social events.

In 1996 St Joseph's and the School of Theology signed an agreement through which St Joseph's is able to offer honours,[10] masters and doctoral programmes. Students take courses at both institutions and thesis supervision is done by St Joseph staff. The degrees are conferred by the University of Natal, which as of January 1, 2004 is now known as the University of KwaZulu-Natal, as a result of the merger with the University of Durban-Westville. St Joseph's also offers a two-year diploma programme in Catholic Studies and opportunities for a sabbatical year.

In 1999 St Joseph's began a collaborative relationship with the Tilburg Faculty of Theology in the Netherlands. A joint conference was held in June, 2001 on the theme of "Doing Contextual Theology in South Africa and the Netherlands". The papers of the conference have been published as Juxtaposing Contexts: Doing Contextual Theology in South Africa and in the Netherlands (Cluster Publications, 2003).

Plans for a Catholic University in South Africa had been discussed for many years. In 1993 a group of Catholic academics, clergy and business began to explore seriously the viability of such a project. A Board of Trustees was set up in 1997 and in 1999 the South African government gave St Augustine College of South Africa conditional permission to function as a private higher education institution. It now offers the degree of Master of Philosophy in five fields: Applied Ethics, Culture and Education, Philosophy, Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, and Theology and the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in these same five fields.

The University is under the patronage of St Augustine of Hippo in order to emphasise its African identity. The mission statement of St Augustine's states that is seeks "promote intellectual and ethical leadership by contributing the resources of the Catholic intellectual tradition to the critical development and transformation of human culture".[11]

A second diocesan seminary, St Francis Xavier, was opened in January 1999 for the seminarians of the Archdiocese of Cape Town. The Archbishop, Lawrence Henry, explained his decision as based on the impossibility of "a general programme to truly cater for the needs of very specific situations and particular churches" (Denis 1999:149).

However, the same could be said of any diocese in the country since the there is so much cultural diversity.

Other Theological Initiatives

Soon after Vatican II, the Theological Advisory Commission of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference was established in 1967. The first chairperson was Oswin Magrath, OP who was the rector of St Peter's Seminary. The TAC assists the bishops by providing theological research and initiates projects as needed. Members are appointed by the Bishops' Conference and the First Vice-President of the Conference is the official liaison.

One of the earliest, if not the earliest task the TAC was given was to prepare the bishops for the extraordinary synod (in 1968) on the relationship between the episcopacy and primacy - at stake was whether future synods would have a deliberative or a consultative vote. Prof Brian Gaybba, a member of the Commission at that time, remembers that "the working document sent to the bishops was outrageously biased in favour of primacy, the general tone being that the bishops can ask for crumbs from the table of the person who possessed plena potestas, etc. We divided the bishops up into groups and each of us attended a group and led them through the document while feeding them with Vatican II texts. The result was that the bishops produced a very balanced critique of the working document, even listing all the moral limitations that existed on papal authority. The crunch in the forthcoming synod was whether or not the Bishops' Synod would have a deliberative or a consultative vote. The SACBC I am glad to report came in the end to press for a deliberative vote!"[12]

Other projects of the TAC have included preparing materials for the bishops for the Synod of 1977 on priestly celibacy, drafting the Pastoral Plan of the SACBC in 1987 under the theme "Community Serving Humanity",[13] a study of violence, the just war theory and peace which was published as The Things That Make for Peace (1985) which was very controversial. Issues in the 1990s included a document on capital punishment which argued for its abolition, preparations for the African Synod held in 1994, a theological commentary on the Ecumenical Directory and research on sexual violence against women and children which eventually became the book Silent No Longer: The Church Responds to Sexual Violence, published in 2000.[14]

A broader-based initiative for theological formation in South Africa was the Winter School project. Begun soon after Vatican II through the initiative of Archbishop Denis Hurley, OMI, the Winter Schools were held each year in June-July (winter in the Southern Hemisphere) in several locations around the country. Theologians from other parts of the world, eg Bernard Häring, Elizabeth Johnson, Enda McDonagh led workshops and courses on pertinent theological themes. South African theologians included Larry Kaufmann CSsR and Albert Nolan OP. The Schools were attended by laity, religious and clergy. The last ones were held in the early 1990s.

The Catholic Theological Society of Southern Africa began through the initiative of Archbishop Stephen Naidoo CSsR of Cape Town. An organisational meeting was held in August, 1982 in Johannesburg. Paul Decock OMI, Brian Gaybba and Patrick Hartin were elected as the first steering committee. Its first congress was held in October, 1983 with the theme "Catholic Theology in the Southern African Context". At that meeting Brian Gaybba was officially elected as the first chairperson; other members of the executive were Richard Broderick, Bernard Connor OP, Patrick Hartin, and Marie-Henry Keane OP.

The CTSSA promotes the work of theology within the church in Southern Africa. Full membership is open to persons who hold post-graduate degrees in theology and associate membership to those interested in theology. The CTSSA published Becoming a Creative Local Church in 1991[15] which explored the various dimensions of the Pastoral Plan. A second volume, Serving Humanity: A Sabbath Reflection followed in 1996.[16]The CTSSA co-sponsored an important conference on HIV/AIDS in February 2003; the proceedings were published as Responsibility in a time of AIDS (Cluster Publications, 2003). The CTSSA is organised in regional groups and also meets bi-annually.

The theological journal Grace & Truth was founded in 1980 under the sponsorship of the Federation of Dominicans of Southern Africa (FEDOSA). It was edited by Bernard Connor OP until 1993 when FEDOSA requested St Joseph's Theological Institute to assume sponsorship. It resumed publication in 1995 and three issues on specific themes ranging from Scripture to inculturation issues are published each year.

A more recent theological journal is St Augustine Papers which was begun in 2000 by St Augustine College of South Africa. Its contents are not only theological but also reflect the diversity of the College's programmes, eg philosophy, ethics, religious education. Authors are both South African and overseas scholars, together with some students of the College.

Theological Developments Since Vatican II

Catholic theology in South Africa is an engaged theology. It is actively in dialogue with the challenges of South African life in this post-apartheid era. A brief review of some of the main events in South African history since 1962 when the Council held its first session demonstrates the complexity of that history.

Two years before the Council began, the Sharpeville Massacre took place on 21 March 1960 when 69 black persons who were demonstrating against the pass laws were gunned down by the police in a township near Johannesburg. In 1963 Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment. June 16, 1976 was the beginning of the Soweto uprising, led by high school students protesting the use of Afrikaans, the language of the oppressor, as the medium of instruction in black schools. The 1980s were both a time of increasing repression by the apartheid government and the rise of black trade unions through COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and the organisation of the United Democratic Front, an umbrella group of anti-apartheid groups. In 1985 the Kairos Document, written by an ecumenical group, challenged the church to be a prophetic church. The secret negotiations between the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and the apartheid government about the future of the country began in 1987. In February 1990 the African National Congress was unbanned and Mandela walked free. The next four years were a very tense time as the constitutional framework for a democratic South Africa was negotiated. South Africans of all race groups voted in the first democratic elections held in April, 1994 and the world rejoiced when Nelson Mandela was inaugurated on 10 May 1994. The years since then have been a time of efforts to transform South African society into one of justice, equity and reconciliation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the 1990s was a notable example of this process. And now the HIV/AIDS pandemic, not imagined in 1962, affects everyone and everything in South Africa.

Catholic theology in South Africa thus must be engaged with the realities of South African life; otherwise it has nothing to say to anyone. Five themes demonstrate its complexity: black theology, contextual theology, theology of inculturation, feminist theology and its ecumenical context. Often they overlap in the mosaic that is the new South Africa.

Race: White Reticence and Black Theology

The Church's voice on questions of race and apartheid was not a particularly strong one during the years of apartheid, other than the prophetic insights of Archbishop Denis Hurley OMI. Statements issued by the bishops of South Africa in 1952, 1957, 1962, 1964 and 1966 were generally "quite mild and very paternalistic" (Bate 1999:156). However, in 1957 the bishops described apartheid as "something intrinsically evil" and spoke of "the fundamental evil of apartheid" (:157). The bishops tried to appeal to the white conscience to see that apartheid was evil, but the "settler church" for the most part ignored them.[17]

In 1964, in a lecture delivered under the auspices of the South African Institute of Race Relations, Archbishop Hurley spoke forthrightly about the evil of apartheid:

The evil of apartheid is that it refuses recognition of this human dignity and by every cruel refinement of law, custom and convention pours scorn on the humanity of men and women created with an inborn hunger, for recognition, for acceptance by their fellow-men … in South Africa a White man's love for God is on trial every time he meets a non-White neighbour. We who are ministers of the Gospel know that only too well, but have we the courage to preach it? A minister of the Christian Gospel should have no peace of mind as long as he knows that his congregation, while proclaiming itself Christian, accepts apartheid, inside or outside the house of God. What kind of a congregation can it be? What kind of house of God? (Hurley 1997b:72-73)

The 1970s saw the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement and the Soweto uprising. The insights and work of Steve Biko (murdered by the South African police while in detention in 1977) galvanised the black community, especially the young people. Biko defined Black Consciousness as

The realisation by the black man to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression-the Blackness of their skin-and to operate as a group in order to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude (Biko 1978:49).

In 1977 the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference issued the "Declaration of Catholic Commitment on Social Justice" which was "a call to the whole church, the clergy and the laity, to struggle against apartheid" (Nxumalo 1982:52).

Linked to black theology in the United States and influenced by the writings of James Cone, Malcolm X and Albert Cleage, South African black theology aimed "to present God to the suffering and oppressed blacks as a God who does not merely liberate people from suffering, but liberates them so that they are able to live in a new and appropriate situation and that they are able to do and proclaim justice to all human beings in the world and in turn help liberate the oppressor from the oppression of their insecurity" (Mbanjwa 2002:3).[18]

In his study of three black theologians, Mokgethi Motlhabi, Buti Thlhagale and Mandlenkosi Zwane, Zaba Mbanjwa emphasises that "the three theologians, true to the Catholic social teaching approach, are more issue driven in their doing black theology than just dealing with ethnic/race" issues (:71).

Mokgethi Motlhabi first studied for the priesthood at St Peter's Major Seminary in the 1960s, completed his philosophical studies and left after one year of theology. He then became involved in the University Christian Movement and was introduced to the Black Theology Project. Two of the directors of the Project, Basil Moore and Sabelo Ntwasa, had been banned by the apartheid government and thus Motlhabi's name appears as the editor of the first book on Black Theology published in South Africa, Essays on Black Theology[19] which was banned by the government before it went into circulation.

In the Introduction, Motlhabi wrote:

This collection of essays is clearly geared at killing the notion both within ourselves as blacks and in those who call us non-whites, that our history was a history of barbarism in which we are supposed to have lived by senseless and cruel violence alone; our religion was ignorant superstition filled with dark deeds and reeking Macbeth-like witches brews; our corporate tribal life was a foul impediment in way of individualistic conversion; our music was unable to contain fresh content; our illiteracy was taken to be a sign of our stupidity and the emptiness of our heads of wisdom, intelligence or reason; perhaps which regarded us a little more than troops of baboons with remarkable human resemblances (Motlhabi 1972:2).

His doctoral thesis focused on the moral evaluation of apartheid and analysed the "strategy and praxis of the liberation movements using criteria from Walter Muelder's moral laws developed as a common ground between secular (philosophical) and religious (theological) ethics" (Bate 1999:164). Motlhabi is now Professor of Ethics at the University of South Africa and is the editor of The Journal of Black Theology in South Africa. He has served as a member of the Theological Advisory Commission of the Bishops' Conference. His writings focus not only on Black Theology but also African traditional ethics and Black liberation ethics.

He contributed the essays "Black Theology: A Personal View" and "Black Theology and Authority" to the book Black Theology: The South African Voice.[20] In the first essay he describes Black Theology as "a re-interpretation of the Scriptures in the light of the existential situation of our daily black experience" (Motlhabi 1973:78). He also contributed the Introduction and the essay "The Historical Origins of Black Theology" to the collection of essays The Unquestionable Right to be Free: Essays in Black Theology.[21]

Archbishop Buti Tlhagale, OMI did his undergraduate and post-graduate theological studies in Lesotho and Rome and was ordained a priest in 1976. He was involved with the birth of AZAPO, the Azanian People's Organisation, part of the Black Consciousness Movement. His ministry has included seminary teaching, parish ministry and the position of Secretary General of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference. He served as the Archbishop of Bloemfontein from 1999 to 2003 and is now the bishop of Johannesburg, the largest diocese in South Africa. His writings focus on black theology, labour and inculturation issues.

In his essay "On Violence: A Township Perspective" which was first published in 1986, he discussed the situation of injustice in South Africa from a black perspective and evaluated the arguments about the use of violence within the Christian tradition. He concluded that "If violence is to be avoided and peace to be established then apartheid must be uprooted completely. Nothing less than the fulfilment of this simple demand will do" (Tlhagale 1986:150).

Mandlenkosi Zwane, from Swaziland, studied philosophy and theology at St Peter's Seminary and was ordained in 1964, the second Swazi priest. He became bishop of Manzini, Swaziland in 1976 and focused his ministry on lay ministry, social development, communications and refugee issues. He died in a car accident in 1980.

His writings focused on issues of human development, freedom and human rights. In the essay "Black Catholics", Zwane issued a series of challenges to the church:

The task of the church is to reassert the principle of justice as an essential dimension in the proclamation of the Gospel.

It is imperative for the church to work out a sound, forceful and popular biblical theology of the development of the whole human person with special emphasis on social justice.

The church must come out very strongly in defence of 'man'-men, women and children.

The church has a role in society as a medium of truth. (Zwane 1982:121-122)

Xolile Keteyi SJ was another important South African theologian who contributed to Black Theology. He was a seminarian during the Black Consciousness era and "was deeply involved on both pastoral and intellectual levels with Black Theology" (Egan 1999:346) and was one of the drafters of the Kairos Document in 1985. Keteyi contributed important insights to the theology of inculturation which will be discussed below. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1994.

In the years leading up to 1994, the Church-all Christian bodies-was described as a "site of struggle". This means that

… if the Church's internal structures, theology and practices are left untransformed, the Institutional Church, located in civil society, will tend to continue playing an ambiguous role in society and thereby remain an obstacle to the project of the liberation of women, workers and oppressed people (Langfeld 1993:113).

The contributions of South African to black theology helped move the theological process forward as they considered issues of power, violence and justice.

Contextual Theology

While black theologians including Catholics were shaping South African black theology, white Catholic theologians were coping with the rejection that they experienced. Whites could not do Black theology. But what kind of theology could they do as the Struggle, the concerted effort of liberation from apartheid, intensified after the Soweto uprising?

One resource was found in Latin American liberation theology with its synergy of faith and praxis. This concern "led to an increased interest among left Catholic intellectuals in economics and the critical use of Marxist social analysis" (Egan 1999:340).

Prominent amongst these intellectuals was Albert Nolan, a South-African born Dominican who was the chaplain of the National Catholic Federation of Students in the 1970s. His lectures on Jesus at NCFS conferences evolved into the book Jesus before Christianity, which was published in 1976. He presented Jesus as one who "challenged the rich to identify in solidarity with the poor, a spirituality of solidarity that resonated with white Catholics seeking a new, progressive direction" (Egan 1999:340).

Larry Kaufmann CSsR, a South African Catholic moral theologian, has stated that "it would not be out of place to say that the name Albert Nolan is synonymous with contextual theology in South Africa" (Kaufmann 2001:17). The events of 1976 impelled Christian intellectuals, including Catholics, to confront the soul-searching question of where and how the churches were involved in the Struggle for justice. There were both the practical questions-what should the predominantly white churches do?-and theological: can theology contribute in any way to the end of apartheid?

In 1980, an ecumenical group of South African religious leaders and theologians met in Cape Town in order to discuss these urgent theological questions.[22] Influenced by the challenge of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) to Allan Boesak about the need for an body which would do contextual theology, they discussed how this challenge could be implemented.

In the preamble to the first working document, they stated: We are convinced that the time is ripe for establishing an institute from which a contextual theology can be actively pursued and supported, particularly in the light of the increasing importance of similar work in Third World countries elsewhere. Recent historical historical developments in South Africa bring much more sharply to the fore the economic and structural aspects of power in our situation, and the roots of conflict (quoted in Kaufmann 2001:19-20).

The original plan to house the new institute at the University of Cape Town was not feasible and the Association of Southern African Theological Institutions (ASATI) became its sponsor. It opened its first office in Johannesburg in September, 1981 and within two months two of its four staff members, Frank Chikane and Cedric Mayson, were arrested and detained by the South African security forces.

At its first conference in June, 1982 two important addresses were given by the prominent black theologian Bonganjalo Goba and Albert Nolan. Goba described the aim of the new Institute of Contextual Theology as bringing "all sorts of Christians together, not just 'churchy' people (such as) professional theologians and ministers" (quoted in Kaufmann 2001:22). Albert Nolan expanded this, stating that the ICT

wants to do theology quite explicitly and consciously from within the context of real life in South Africa. It wants to start from the fundamentally political character of life in South Africa. It wants to take into account the various forms of oppression that exist in South Africa: racial oppression, the oppression of the working class and the oppression of women. And finally it wants to start from the actual experience of the oppressed themselves (quoted in Kaufmann 2001:23-24).

The mention of the oppression of women is to be noted as most unusual since the Black Theology and the Struggle in general had put gender concerns on the "back burner", telling women to that they had to wait until freedom was achieved and then their problems could be dealt with.

Nolan and the ICT saw their theological task as moving away from academic theology, as done in universities and published in academic journals in language accessible to academia, and becoming "a people's theology".

In a speech given in 1990 at Regis College in Toronto when he was awarded an honorary doctorate, Nolan continued to describe the goals and method of contextual theology. Since "different questions give rise to different theologies" (quoted in Kaufmann 2001:26), where one stands, one's race, economic class, education, gender all shape the theological questions which matter. Nolan stated that

one's context, one's assumptions and one's questions, provide one with a particular perspective on the Bible, and this perspective can either open one's eyes to what is already in the Bible or it can blind one to what has already been revealed (quoted in Kaufmann 2001:27).

While in a sense all theology is contextual, that is, a theologian works out of the intellectual currents of her/his time and the received tradition which itself is contextual, Nolan states that what is different today is that we have a historical consciousness which helps us to be aware that all theology is and has been contextual.

The influence of liberation theology is shown in the importance given to various levels of analysis: political, cultural, economics, psychological-and today we must add gender analysis. Nolan stressed that contextual theology listens before it speaks (and writes) and it must listen to ordinary people and the questions which matter to them. In this process he envisioned that the "academic monopoly over theology…will have to be broken, so that all Christians can be empowered to do their own theology" (quoted in Kaufmann 2001:29). He asserts

Theology is not a career to be pursued by individuals in competition with one another, each seeking to outdo the other. Theology is a community exercise, a form of co-operation and sharing in which we listen to one another, support one another and arrive at some measure of consensus (quoted in Kaufmann 2001:29).

In the 80s and early 90s the ICT focused on the crisis of apartheid, the use of violence, the negotiations towards a new government, the on-going violence in the black townships and the meaning of democracy in the new South Africa which was birthed in 1994. In addition to Albert Nolan, Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, a priest of the Archdiocese of Pretoria, also served as the director of the ICT.

Since 1994, the ICT has gone through many twists and turns as it seeks its role as a NGO in the new South Africa. However, the method of contextual theology is now a prominent methodology in theology in South Africa. Using variations of "see, judge and act" and "reading the signs of the times", Catholics and their sisters and brothers in the wider Christian community endeavour to bring the Gospel and the key issues of the day into a dynamic synergy.

This is a predominant methodology of St Joseph's Theological Institute in its approach to theological education. It is also the underlying philosophy of the selection of themes for the journal Grace & Truth. Recent issues have focused on issues such as integrity in public life, religion and violence, sexual and ministry, bioethical issues, HIV/AIDS in Africa, inculturation in the liturgy and initial formation in Africa.

This methodology has also had an important impact on the documents of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC). A brief list of some of their statements clearly demonstrates the engaged quality of episcopal statements:

• Catholic Commitment on Social Justice (1977)
• An Urgent Message to the State President (1986)
• Pastoral Letter on Christian Hope in the Current Crisis (1986)
• The South African Situation and the Question of Economic Pressure: An Explanatory Paper (1986)
• Discussion Booklet on Negotiations (1990)
• Pastoral Letter: Towards a Democratic Future (1993)
• Economic Justice in South Africa: A Pastoral Statement (1999)

Inculturation

During the years of apartheid and the Struggle leading up to freedom in 1994, concern for issues of culture and the process of inculturation was not a dominant theological focus in Catholic theology in South Africa, in contrast to the active interest in other regions of Africa.[23] During these years there were publications by Heinz Kuckertz CSSp and the Lumko Pastoral Institute which began to address this crucial area.

Africa received the Christian faith from western missionaries who communicated it in their thought patterns and through the medium of their culture. While they are criticised on many levels-as lackeys of the colonial governments, agents of religious-cultural imperialism-the fact remains that persons live inside, not outside, their cultures. Therefore it was impossible for the first missionaries in the 18^th and 19^th centuries to communicate the Gospel other than in western thought patterns and garb.

But it does not have to remain so. In 1964, when Pope Paul VI visited Uganda, he forcefully encouraged the African church by saying, "You may and you must have an African Christianity." This can be seen as a mandate for inculturation.

The African Synod in 1994 describes inculturation as "an urgent priority" which has two dimensions: "the ultimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in Christianity" and "the insertion of Christianity in the various human cultures" (EA 59). In culturally-diverse South Africa, the question is: which culture?

On the day of his ordination as a bishop, Bishop Mandlenkhosi Zwane of Swaziland stated that, "The missionary era is over; it is the time for the local church" (quoted in Egan 1999:310). Anthony Egan comments that "Were it not for the enthusiasm of Bishop Zwane, inculturation would have been totally absent from the bishops' agenda in Southern Africa" (:310).

Inculturation is a multi-faceted concept. It means much more than African-style vestments and using drums in the liturgy instead of an organ. Stuart Bate describes three important contributions of inculturation to the local church in South Africa: reappropriation of culture in the South African context, the effort to engage with the issues of unity and diversity in the diverse ecclesial context and a historical perspective which gives a fuller understanding of various aspects of culture (Bate 1995:16).

Culture was a contested idea under the apartheid government which used the diversity of ethnicity in the country to mandate separation in all aspects of life. In the post-apartheid context, there is a danger that inculturation will be focused only on certain aspects of ethnic identity and miss the larger task of the faith becoming truly at home in South Africa, even as it challenges South African believers to be faithful to Gospel values. Bate argues that "inculturation as a theological model can thus help in the reaappropriation of history and tradition of the community of faith in South Africa" (l995:18).

Bate focuses on the local church as the locus and agent of inculturation. Here transformation happens within a common culture. In South Africa today, it is difficult to determine the depth of such a shared culture, which embraces values, institutions, and a shared sense of community. However, in contrast to the years of apartheid, which literally means "apartness", progress and growth are continuing.

Bate emphasises that "It is only such an inculturated local Church which can challenge the deficiencies of the culture so that it may be a transforming influence within that culture" (:19), healing its roots.

Xolile Keteyi, SJ was in the midst of developing a "synthesis of a theology of inculturation with Liberation Theology" (Egan 1999:346) when he died. Keteyi described culture as a "site of struggle":

On the one hand the settlers used culture by imposing European values on the indigenous people. In so doing, they suppressed and manipulated the African cultures for political gain. On the other hand, the indigenous people used culture to defend themselves against invasion (Keteyi 1998:22).

He outlined four approaches to culture within the South African reality. The first is a focus on ethnicity, which acknowledges that "each culture has a validity of its own for the people who belong to it" (:25). Secondly is the interpretation of cultural heritages which in the South African context are European, Asian and African. The third is "to treat culture from perspective of Black culture and Anglo-Boer culture"(:25). Black culture has emerged from the experience of oppression and apartheid while Anglo-Boer culture is that of racial domination. Black culture "rejects the Anglo-Boer culture as the norm and model for black people" (:25). Keteyi sees each of them as having a limited usefulness in the South African context which is one of cultural diversity.

Lastly he describes a new and emerging cultural reality which is coming through all those who are working to end apartheid. There is "a new consciousness that the South African people of African, European and Asian heritage are bound in a common destiny" (:26). His reflections were written in the early 1990s and today could be expanded to include all those working to make South Africa a place of justice, peace and reconciliation.

When Keteyi applied his insights on culture to the process of inculturation in the church, he discussed it in reference to evangelisation.

The culture is evangelised when it transcends its limitations which are imposed by its particularity. This takes place when the culture recognises those practices which impede human development, trample on human dignity and close one society to another. However, in those areas in which there is nothing fundamentally opposed to the gospel, culture can be helped to refine itself. Thus if inculturation takes places properly, culture continues to develop according to the gospel and its best values are confirmed by the gospel (:37).

Two simultaneous processes happen in inculturation: evangelisation with sensitivity to culture and a "culturally based process of conversion" (:38). Keteyi emphasises that inculturation takes a long time; this is a very important insight since sometimes people judge that when various external aspects of a culture are prominent in the life of a local community, inculturation has been achieved. But this is a surface interpretation.

Bate outlines eight areas in which inculturation must occur: in the family and clan, in the ethnic group, in the local community (eg village, township, city), in one's dominant heritage, in the Catholic tradition, in the oppressor/oppressed paradigm, in dialogue with modernity and with the emerging national consciousness in South Africa (Bate 1998:31-32). He emphasises that the process of inculturation is the emergence of the local church in a place "which is at the same time truly local as well as reflecting the fullness of the Universal Church" (:32).

Bishop Jabulani Nxumalo OMI, theologian and since 2002 assistant bishop of the Archdiocese of Durban, asks some probing questions about inculturation:

Are we engaging an African culture of the days of yore?…Or is it for ideological reasons and a reaction to the past subjugation and suppression of prized African cultural values that the African person engages in this process of inculturation, or is it for the good of Christian spiritual life that it is done? Does this inculturation process take place in religion only or has it to take place in the entirely of African life? (Nxumalo 1996:148-149).

How is this local church emerging in South Africa? What is being discussed in the dialogue between culture (s) and the Gospel?

One very crucial area of inculturation is the liturgy. Thomas Plastow SJ describes "creative assimilation" as the most appropriate model of liturgical inculturation. This is the process of "the absorption into the Christian liturgy of the rites and practices of contemporary cultures" (Plastow 2000:15).[24]

One important aspect of this process is the place of the ancestors in Christian life and in the liturgy. In African cultures, the ancestors refer to family members who have lived a good life and are understood to be intercessors for their families and the clan. Some cultures name only men as ancestors, while others include both women and men.

Archbishop Buti Tlhagale describes the dual function of ancestors:

While ancestors are generally described as being well-disposed towards members of their descent group, they are also attributed with inflicting suffering (on the living) either due to their capriciousness or due to wrong-doing or neglect on the part of their descendants (Tlhagale 2000:33).

Sometimes parallels are made with the saints but there are two crucial differences: saints never inflict harm on the living and ancestors are related only to their families, while the saints have a universal function in the Christian community.

Various traditional rituals at important times such as birth and death involve the ancestors and the slaughtering of animals. Thus there is an on-going debate in the church in South Africa about how to honour the ancestors in the liturgy. One approach is to invoke the ancestors of the parish or diocese, eg the holy people of that parish, the previous bishops of that diocese. The use of animal sacrifice as part of the liturgy is much more controversial.

These rituals are done within the homestead. Can they also be done in the Christian homestead of the parish church? Tlhagale asks a series of important questions:

In view of the fact that traditionally the sacrifice to the ancestors is sacrifice to the ancestors of a particular clan… what meaning would this have in a parish context where the boundaries of clans and tribes have been superceded? If ancestral shrines were to be brought into the parish church (symbolised by the branches of a tree, etc) what would their meaning be in relation to the altar, the tabernacle or the sanctuary lamp? Can a family, clan or tribal religious practice and its symbols be integrated into christian religious practice? (Tlhagale n.d.:4).

Healing is a very important aspect of African cultures and the traditional healer has a crucial role in society. Healing includes not only the physical dimension of illness, but the psychological, spiritual and communal aspects. A person is called by their ancestors, frequently through dreams, but also through illness which does not heal, to become a diviner who is able to discern the cause of people's problems including illness. The person then undergoes a long and rigorous process of training and formation.

The issue is raised today whether a Christian can also be a traditional healer and receive the Eucharist. Tlhagale comments that

The question is about aspects of compatibility or non-compatibility of the African belief system and Christianity. It is a question of how far down the road is the process of evangelization and whether or not a critical attitude is being developed toward custom and culture in the light of christian faith (Tlhagale 2000:53)

Religious professions and ordinations are other events in which aspects of African culture become part of the liturgy. Some congregations of women religious adapt the rituals used by the bride before marriage in the clothing ceremony and/or the rite of profession.

Other aspects of African culture are more contested. Since polygamy is a traditional marriage form, should it be approved? African cultures are often characterised by negative views of women who are considered subservient to men and even seen as the property of their husbands after marriage. Christianity does not have a good record on women's dignity but today it does affirm women's full humanity and equal dignity. When African cultures meet Christian values regarding women, some men exalt culture over faith. But Keteyi reminds us that "the liberating content of the gospel is challenging to cultures that are characterized by male prejudice" (Keteyi 1998:40).

Pope Paul VI challenged Africans to have a truly African Christianity. This is a long and complex process. Today we understand more clearly the dynamics of the interaction between faith and culture, but we cannot put the process on fast-forward and bypass the need to allow culture and faith to grow together into a reality of new and nourishing richness.

Feminist Theology

Feminist theology came somewhat late to South Africa. While North American and European women began to shape the outlines of this new approach to the Christian theological tradition soon after Vatican II, in South Africa (and throughout Africa) there was no similar engagement of Catholic women and little by women of other Christian communities. The emphasis in the Struggle was on political liberation and the oppression of women in society and the churches received scant attention, if any.

Until the 1980s, women in the Catholic Church in South Africa had no opportunities for theological education unless they attended one of the state universities with a faculty of theology such as the University of South Africa, studied through TEEC (Theological Education by Extension College) which is a distance-learning institution or studied overseas.

In the mid 1980s women students began to do the full BTh course of studies at St Joseph's Scholasticate (later the Theological Institute). In 1996 the opportunity for post-graduate theological education was opened to both women and men through St Joseph's collaborative relationship with the University of Natal. The Catholic Studies Programme at St Joseph's, a two-year diploma programme, also has given women a new possibility for theological formation. The opening of St Augustine's College of South Africa provided another opportunity for women's theological education. Today a few women study at St John Vianney Seminary.

Dr Marie-Henry Keane OP, who was a member of the faculty of the University of South Africa in the 80s and early 90s, was the first Catholic woman theologian to hold such a post and to contribute to the emergence of feminist theology. Gradually other women, some educated in South Africa and some overseas, earned doctorates and began to make significant contributions: Dr Celia Kourie (UNISA), Dr Patricia Fresen, OP (St John Vianney Seminary and St Augustine's),[25] Dr Madge Karecki, TOSF-SSJ (UNISA), Dr Susan Rakoczy, IHM (St Joseph's Theological Institute), Dr Jennifer Slater, OP (St John Vianney Seminary), Dr Megan Walker and Dr Edwina Ward (University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg). Other women have earned masters' and honours degrees. Dina Cormick, artist and theologian, is the co-founder of Women's Ordination South Africa (WOSA), which keeps the ordination issue and other aspects of women's ministry in public view.

Their theological reflections are found in various South African journals such Grace & Truth, the Journal for Theology in Southern Africa and Missionalia, overseas journals and various books. South African women theologians work in the areas of ethical issues, liturgy, missiology, practical theology, scripture, spirituality, and systematic theology.

What is still missing in the development of Catholic feminist theology in South Africa is the voices of a considerable number of women from the black, coloured and Indian communities. As they study and earn degrees they will certainly make significant contributions to feminist theology.

Catholic feminist theologians are active members of local Circles of the Circle of Concerned African Women theologians, founded through the vision of Dr Mercy Amba Oduyoye of Ghana in 1989. The Circle is ecumenical and brings women together to reflect, write and publish their contributions to African women's theology.

The Ecumenical Context

As we have seen in the overview of the themes of theology in South Africa, Catholic theologians in South Africa actively work in cooperation with Christians of other faith communities. This occurs in a number of ways. The Theological Commission of the Catholic Bishops' Conference and the Anglican Theological Commission have had reciprocal membership for many years; each has a member from the other Commission.

Catholic theologians teach in ecumenical contexts such as the University of South Africa (UNISA) and through the Pietermaritzburg Cluster of Theological Institutions.

Catholic theologians are members not only of their own professional society, the Catholic Theological Society of Southern Africa, but of other professional societies which are ecumenical: The New Testament Society, the Old Testament Society, the Theological Society of South Africa, the Missiological Society of Southern Africa. Such membership and participation allows for a rich fertilisation of ideas and research.

The most important ecumenical magazine for the general public, Challenge, was founded by Albert Nolan, OP. The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians is richly ecumenical in its membership.

Theological reflection on major issues of South African life is consciously ecumenical. An important example is the HIV/AIDS pandemic which is discussed in Grace & Truth and other South African journals and at professional conferences.

Part Three: Challenges for the Future

Catholic theology in South Africa is an evolving tapestry of many threads: black theology, contextual theology, theology of inculturation, and feminist theology. This engaged theology is done in the context of a South Africa which passed from the death-dealing forces of apartheid to life-engaging processes of justice and reconciliation in 1994. Today Catholic theologians grapple with a wide range of issues and questions, many of which are integral to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its impact on every facet of South African life. Together with their colleagues in many other Christian communities, they endeavour to offer critical words of hope and challenge to society and to the church as a whole. It is only from this perspective that Catholic theologians will be able to meet the challenges of their context in the 21^st century and beyond.