The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Iwene Tansi was born in 1903 at Igboezunu in Nigeria. When he was baptised at the age of nine, he received the name Michael. He worked as a catechist and teacher before entering the seminary. He was ordained a priest of the Onitsha diocese in 1937 at the age of 34. While serving as a priest in the diocese, his ministry was marked by great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and by spending long hours in the confessional. He also baptised the future Cardinal Arinze and inspired him to respond to a priestly vocation. In 1950, Fr Tansi came to England to join the Cistericians of Strict Observance (Trappists) at Mount St Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire. He remained there until his death in 1964. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 22nd March 1998, in Nigeria. In the year of his beatification, the first pilgrimage to honour him took place at the Abbey. Since then it has been held annually in Grace Dieu Manor; but this year the pilgrimage returns to the Abbey on Sat 29 August, beginning w...

One thing about blogging is that after you have been in the bear pit of a heavily biased television show, you can later write at length on any of the questions raised and dealt with in a few seconds of live TV. James Preece has done this in an excellent article: The Pope and Condoms in Africa

Recently, I mentioned an article by Kathryn Jean Lopez, referring to Edward C. Green, the Director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, who said that the Pope was right and that the best evidence that we have supports his comments. (See: Support for the Holy Father from Harvard .) The Italian journal Il Sussidiario has interviewed Edward Green . Green says that as a social liberal it is hard for him to admit it, but the Pope is right. At one point, he says: People began noticing years ago that the countries in Africa with the highest condom availability and highest condom user rates, also had the highest HIV infection rates. This does not prove a causal relation, but it should have made us look critically at our condom programs years ago. His comments on "risk compensation" are important in understanding why it is that condom programmes have not reduced HIV infection rates.

Have a look at this inspiring production "The Change Is On", an educational video produced in Africa and posted in several parts on YouTube. The video is in support of the programme "Education for Life. A Behaviour Change Process." It documents the response to HIV/AIDS in the diocese of Tzaneen, which has implemented a multi faceted and authentically Catholic response, rooted in the Gospel of Life. Here is part 6 as a sample: I will give a couple of quotations that particularly struck me, the first one from Joanna Thabathi. Here we have a Director of Social Services (Mopani District, Limpopo Province) who encourages parents to take responsibility for educating their own children in intimate matters rather than leaving the task to others: "Let us talk to our children. Let us not be afraid of our own children. Let us give them the respect and the guidance that they want; because they need to be guided, they need to be shown the way. Let us not wait for our neighb...

Yet again, the Holy Father has become the object of worldwide media outrage. Replying to questions from journalists during his flight to Cameroon, the Holy Father's answer was asked about the Catholic Church's approach to HIV/AIDS, "considered by some as unrealistic and ineffective." The Vatican Information Service gives his reply as follows: "It is my belief believe that the most effective presence on the front in the battle against HIV/AIDS is in fact the Catholic Church and her institutions. ... The problem of HIV/AIDS cannot be overcome with mere slogans. If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem. The solution can only come through a twofold commitment: firstly, the humanisation of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another; and secondly, true friendship, above all with the...

Reuter's reports that the residence of the Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, has been damaged in a mortar attack by the rebel "Forces for National Liberation" during the latest outbreak of violence in the small but crucially important nation in the central lakes region of Africa. (See: Burundi rebels bomb capital, hit papal envoy's home ) Fortunately, Archbishop Gallagher was out of the country at the time and nobody was hurt at the residence. It is unlikely that the Archbishop's residence was deliberately targeted. Nevertheless, it must be a worrying time for him. He was ordained for the Liverpool archdiocese and has worked for many years in the Vatican diplomatic service. He moved to Burundi in 2004, replacing Archbishop Michael Courtney who was killed in a roadside ambush. I knew Archbishop Gallagher when I was in Rome as a student and would be very grateful if you could remember him and his mission in your prayers as well as praying for p...

Yesterday, Zenit carried an interview with Matthew Hanley headed AIDS in Africa: abstinence works . Matthew Hanley is the technical advisor for Catholic Relief Services, the international relief and development agency of the Catholic Church in the US. He says: When we conducted training recently with five dioceses in Ethiopia, one of the participants, a wife and a mother, spoke for the group by saying how much she appreciated the emphasis on fidelity and related human values such as respect and communication. She was puzzled as to why such basic themes are not more routinely promoted in the context of HIV prevention, adding: "Why hasn't anyone explained it like this before?" He has some interesting figures: [...] researchers have noted that in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, HIV transmission rates have remained high despite a considerable increase in condom use. For example, condom sales in Botswana increased from 1 million in 1993 to 3 million in 2001, while HIV pr...

The other day, courtesy of a kind reader, I received a copy of the book "Culture of Life - Culture of Death", edited by Luke Gormally and published by the Linacre Centre. The book is a collection of 22 articles on various aspects of the subject. In the page about the book from the Linacre Centre you can see a list of the articles and some quotations from reviews of the book. My correspondent particularly wanted me to read Sr Miram Duggan's article "Combating the spread of AIDS". Sr Miriam is a gynaecologist and was (at least at the time of publication in 2002) Superior General of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa . She has worked as a missionary doctor in Africa for 30 years. She describes a practical and down-to-earth approach to behaviour change, working especially through the "Youth Alive" workshops which promote sound spiritual, moral and cultural values among the young and offer character-building to help them to live these values. She...