Search Spiritans On-Line:

South Africa
Population: 42.5 million Life expectancy male/female: 54/58 years Infant mortality rate: 53‰	Religions: Christians 76.97%; non-Christians 23.03% (Hindu, Muslim, Jews, Buddhists; others). Independence: 31 May 1910 (from the UK) GDP per capita: US$ 3,080

Spiritan presence: since 1923; 6 professed members (2 priests, 1 brother, 3 scholastics).

Statistics for 1991 reveal that the Catholic Church makes up 7.5% of the population, of which 80% are black. It has 30 dioceses and is the second largest in the country. The District was originally German but it is now very international: in 1997, there were 27 members coming from 9 different countries. They are nearly all working in the dioceses of Bethlehem and Durban.
The District has always paid much attention to community life, but it has not been easy to find the right balance between pastoral (or other) work and community life, with time set aside for prayer and meeting together.

The principal focus of the District has been pastoral work in parishes, in farms, in schools and in the hostels for migrant workers. They have also conducted retreats and chaplaincy work for communities of sisters. The District has built several schools in the black townships as well as kindergartens. The confreres have done a lot of vocations work, although this was not always fully understood by the diocese of Bethlehem; the idea grew up that the Spiritans were taking away vocations from the diocese, but this was hardly born out by statistics.

Because of the apartheid laws, the Spiritans were forced to live in white areas, but as close as possible to the black townships where most of their work was done.

The District started receiving candidates for the Congregation quite some time ago, but at present, there is only one South African in perpetual vows. The District has been training candidates from other countries in Southern Africa: the novitiate, philosophy and theology were all done in the country. Out of this has grown the South Central African Foundation (SCAF), in which several confreres have already made profession.

The great change came about in 1994 with the ending of apartheid. It called for a big adjustment from the confreres: instead of doing as much as possible for the people, it was now a question of doing as much as possible with the people. Such an approach was neither permitted nor possible in the past. The arrival of new confreres who had never known the old system was an important help for this evolutionary process. The training of lay people has now become a major work.

Spiritans have also been involved in the search for peace between the different groups, particularly through their work in the hostels for migrant workers.

Back to Africa

Back to World