"Victims of rape and all kinds of abuse always knew that they could call on Winnie, who would be there for them," Bishop Victor Phalana said.

The former wife of the late South African President Nelson Mandela "mothered everybody," he added.

Sister Hermenegild Makoro, secretary-general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, also spoke positively of Madikizela-Mandela.

She "was (a) very committed woman in her faith."

Madikizela-Mandela, who had a "complex history," was a "courageous leader," a statement from the bishops' conference said.

"In her resistance to oppression and in her hatred of injustice she inspired a whole country, galvanized the youth and inspired women," it said.

Madikizela-Mandela's funeral service in the township of Soweto was attended by more than 40,000 mourners.

Among the dignitaries at the funeral were the leaders of the Republic of Congo and of Namibia, British model Naomi Campbell and American politician the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The funeral was organised by the African National Congress.

Noting that Madikizela-Mandela had "a suffering and impetuous heart," the bishops said that witnessing the daily "deep humiliations" of her people and observing as a social worker the injustices and human rights abuses of apartheid "were bound to cloud the mind."

In her work as Johannesburg's first black female social worker, Madikizela-Mandela was routinely harassed by apartheid security forces.

She was imprisoned and tortured during Nelson Mandela's 27-year incarceration for his fight against white minority rule.

The anti-apartheid struggle involved separation from her husband and children, banishment and continuous surveillance, "while bearing the expectations of the oppressed millions," the bishops said.

"Her life was played out against the background of world attention."

Madikizela-Mandela's reputation was tarnished when evidence emerged of the brutality of her bodyguards, known as the "Mandela United Football Club."

In 1991, she was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault, but her six-year jail sentence was reduced on appeal to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence.

"The majority of the poor never stopped loving her," Phalana said.

Her "positive attributes were so much more than her flaws.

"Winnie filled the role of mother for so many people who felt abandoned."

She "shared their lives, their pains, their crying and suffering," Phalana said.

Madikizela-Mandela is buried at a memorial park north of Johannesburg.

Source

• New York Times
• Africanews
• Crux Now
• Image: Pinterest

Sparks was the editor of South African newspaper The Rand Daily Mail.

This paper was the voice of liberal opposition to the white Pretoria government and a champion of majority rule.

Spark was working for it when he revealed apartheid opponent Steve Biko was beaten to death by the police in 1977.

Spark's paper later exposed a secret offensive by the authorities against the mainstream news media.

It showed a slush fund was used to establish a government-friendly newspaper, The Citizen, to counter The Rand Daily Mail.

The fund was also used to buy stakes in other publications.

That led to the resignation of President John Vorster in 1979.

In 1981 The Rand Daily Mail owners fired Mr. Sparks.

It was part of an effort to "lower the paper's voice and to shift the emphasis more toward white readers and less toward black readers."

The newspaper went out of business in 1985.

Mr. Sparks went on to become a war correspondent in South Africa for The Washington Post and The Observer in Britain.

He covered the violence between the government and the United Democratic Front.

The United Democratic Front was the leading anti-apartheid group.

Mr. Sparks was nearly prosecuted for quoting Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Her husband Nelson Mandela was the imprisoned leader of the African National Congress.

He befriended Mr. Mandela.

He interviewed Mandela and wrote a 20,000-word article for The New Yorker in 1994.

The article "The Secret Revolution," was about the negotiations that ended white minority rule.

Mr. Sparks later served under President Nelson Mandela.

He was Mandela's television news and current affairs editor for the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

Source

• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• Image: thewashingtonpost.com

Writing in England's Observer newspaper, Archbishop Tutu said laws preventing this are an affront to those affected and their families.

Calling for a "mind shift" in the right to die debate, he said he reveres the sanctity of life, but not at all costs.

The archbishop condemned as "disgraceful" the treatment of his old friend Nelson Mandela, who was kept alive through numerous painful hospitalisations.

On July 18, the UK's House of Lords will debate an assisted dying bill, which has been publicly supported by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey.

But current Anglican primate Archbishop Justin Welby has reaffirmed his church's traditional hostility to any move that would endanger the principle of the sanctity of life.

Continue reading

This extraordinary man, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1962, who served 27 years in jail for his beliefs, walked free, without bitterness, to lead the rebuilding of South Africa as a multi-ethnic nation founded on human rights and the rule of law.

The cause for which Nelson Mandela fought throughout his life was based on the hopes and dreams of South Africans who were excluded from full rights of citizenship and repressed by the evil force of apartheid.

The freedom movement built a mass base not only at home, but also through global solidarity networks around the world.

Those networks extended to New Zealand.

South Africa was far away, and was probably best known to New Zealanders for the strength of its rugby teams.

Many New Zealanders loved the game, too. When the rugby ties with South Africa became the focus for New Zealand's anti-apartheid movement, many were reluctant to acknowledge that accepting engagement with racially segregated teams amounted to condoning the regime that mandated them. Continue reading.

Helen Clark is the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and is the United Nations Development Programme Administrator.

Source: The Listener

Image: Mandela in 1994 looks through the bars of the Robben Island cell he was held in for 18 years Jurgen Schadeberg/Getty Images

For several years, even as your health faltered irreparably and rumours of your increasing fragility could no longer be denied, the world refused to release its hold.

We said prayers, sent love and held vigils until we had brought our Madiba — a man who had lived longer than most — back to life. Such was our belief in the immortality of our hero that we were incapable of relinquishing you.

But now, despite our efforts, you are gone.

I said my own private goodbye almost two years ago, when I visited Robben Island on a trip back to my homeland. As the ferry skated across Table Bay, a cold wind blew in through one of its hatches.

A young man made everyone laugh when he said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, we will vote to have this door open or closed. This is a free and fair election — you will only be allowed to vote once!'

I had left the country a decade earlier, and was touched by the benign, self-deprecating tone so many black South Africans now adopted when referencing the past. The country's social undertone had transformed so radically I felt I could pluck a chunk of it from the atmosphere and take it home with me. Continue reading.

Catherine Marshall grew up in South Africa under apartheid. She is a journalist and travel writer.

Source: Eureka Street

Image: Stephen Davies

On his Facebook page, the Bishop of Auckland, Patrick Dunn, writes:

"The news of his death a day or so earlier filled the world's headlines. His quest for justice and equality, his amazing ability to be a reconciler, to come through the greatest of adversity without bitterness and in a spirit of generosity and forgiveness, were his virtues that were most discussed."

"We all long for a just world without hatred, discrimination and greed. To bring this about, to change the human heart, is exactly why Jesus came into our world." Continue reading

He has a personally signed copy of 'A Long Walk to Freedom'.

His wife bought it for him as a Father's Day gift when she was working as a school nurse at St Mary's Diocesan School for Girls in Pretoria.

"Mandela's granddaughter was at the school and she saw it sitting on my wife's desk and asked why it was there."

"She took it home and he signed it for me."

On the day of Mandela's famous inauguration in 1994, between 100 and 150 of Olivier's students were used as ushers for the celebration.

This was done in recognition of the Catholic school's decision to open their doors to all races after the Soweto uprising in 1976.

"After we opened doors in 76, we were directly targeted by the state," Olivier said.

"None of the state schools would play sport against my college and the government was actively working to shut down Catholic schools in the 80s and early 90s, until the whole mood changed with Mandela."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Hindustan Times

The pontiff praised the "steadfast commitment shown by Nelson Mandela in promoting the human dignity of all the nation's citizens and in forging a new South Africa."

"I pray that the late president's example will inspire generations of South Africans to put justice and the common good at the forefront of their political aspirations," Pope Francis said.

"It was with sadness that I learned of the death... and I send prayerful condolences to all the Mandela family, to the members of the government and to all the people of South Africa," the pope said.

"I ask the Lord to console and strengthen all who mourn his loss."

Pope Francis and Mandela shared a strong belief in the injustice of poverty. The Pontiff's most recent apostolic exhortation, "Evangelii Gaudium," slammed the evils of unfettered capitalism and the world's responsibility towards the poor, stating, "As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems."

Similarly, Mandela once said, "Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom."

Sources

AFP/Christian Post
Huffington Post
CNA/EWTN News
Image: The Christian Post

South African Cardinal Wilfred Napier presided over a Requiem Mass at Emmanuel Cathedral in his archdiocese of Durban on Saturday night, which was followed by an ecumenical service and an all-night prayer vigil; and hundreds more gathered to remember Mandela at Masses in South Africa's largest Catholic church, Regina Mundi church in Soweto, on Sunday.

At a service at St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, the former seat of fellow anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop-emeritus of South Africa Desmond Tutu, the Anglican dean Michael Weeder told a packed congregation that Mandela's life "was an exposition of the African spirit of generosity. And as he dies, he lives again and again. He is resurrected in every act of kindness."

The President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, who has proved unable, or some say unwilling, to deal with the country's increasing violence, corruption and inequality, delivered a eulogy for Mandela at a Methodist service in the northern Johannesburg suburb of Bryanston, which was attended by Mandela's former wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

"He believed in forgiveness and he forgave even those who kept him in jail for 27 years. He stood for freedom. He fought against those who oppressed others. He wanted everyone to be free," said Mr Zuma.

Catholic leaders across the world responded to the news of Mandela's death.

China Auxiliary Bishop Thaddeus Ma, who has been incarcerated in Shanghai diocese's Sheshan seminary since his episcopal ordination on 7 July, 2012, paid carefully worded tributes to the former South African leader on his online blog.

Bishop Ma quoted three sayings of Mandela's, including a quotation from his book Long Walk to Freedom, saying: "Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me … Faith sometimes undergoes painful tests, but I will not give in to pessimism," and "Both the oppressors and the oppressed need liberation. The ones who take away others' freedom are prisoners of hatred. They are locked behind bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, told the BBC's Newsnight programme on Thursday that Mandela's example "challenges us all" and had provided a non-violent basis on which South Africa's political future could be constructed.

"The pattern that South Africa has established - and I know very well the present head of the Anglican Church in South Africa, and you see it in him - is of enormous inclusion; a willingness to accept a prejudice towards welcome and hospitality, rather than shutting out and enmity," he said.

In a telegram on Friday Pope Francis urged President Zuma to keep Mandela's commitment to non-violence and reconciliation at the heart of the country's politics.

At the news of Mandela's death Chris Bain, director of the bishops' aid agency Cafod, urged Catholics to "build the world he wanted to see".

He said: "Today, we have lost a brother, a leader, and a legend. But more than ever now, we must dedicate ourselves in Nelson Mandela's memory to the fight for freedom, peace and justice.

"The greatest honour we can pay him - the legacy that he warrants - is that we build the world he wanted to see: a world free from any form of division, whether between black or white, rich or poor, man or woman."

Church leaders in the United States offered prayers for Mandela, remembering both his courageous anti-apartheid leadership and his promotion of one of the world's most liberal abortion laws.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York, called Mandela "a hero to the world."

"His bravery in defending human rights against the great evil of apartheid made him a symbol of courage and dignity, as well as an inspiration to people everywhere."

Carolyn Woo, president of Catholic Relief Services, said the U.S.-based international relief agency mourns Mandela's passing, calling him "a champion in the struggle for justice and equality for all."

"His life inspires all of us to re-dedicate ourselves to helping the oppressed find their voice and their way to lives of meaning and dignity. His personal example of forgiveness and non-violence will challenge us to work for peace and reconciliation even in the midst of deep conflict."

Sources

The Tablet
Catholic News Agency
Catholic Herald
Image: Chip Somodevilla/news.com.au

The former South African president, 95, was admitted in early June for a recurring lung infection. The South African government has said his condition remains critical and can sometimes be unstable

"Madiba's condition remains critical and is at times unstable," said President Jacob Zuma in a statement, referring to Mr. Mandela by his clan name. "Nevertheless, his team of doctors are convinced that he will receive the same level of intensive care at his Houghton home that he received in Pretoria. His home has been reconfigured to allow him to receive intensive care there."

Mr. Mandela, who turned 95 in July, was admitted to a hospital in Pretoria in June to be treated for a recurrence of a lung infection. His condition has ranged from serious to critical, Mr. Zuma said, and occasionally doctors have had to use "medical interventions" to stabilize him, the government has said.

Mr. Mandela has been in poor health for several years and has been hospitalized several times in the last year. He suffers from lung ailments caused in part by the tuberculosis he contracted while he was a prisoner. His latest hospitalization was such a concern to the nation, and the world, that it overshadowed President Obama's visit to South Africa this summer.

Sources

BBC

The New York Times

The Globe and Mail

Image: http://guardianlv.com/krovfm