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South African churches apologise for not opposing apartheid

Tuesday, November 18, 1997 Published at 17:52 GMT

South African churches apologise for not opposing apartheid
The Anglican and Catholic churches in South Africa have begged forgiveness for contributing to the oppression of blacks during apartheid rule.

The two denominations were among a number of English speaking Christian groups to apologise at a special hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission probing apartheid era human rights abuses.

Anglicans and Catholics both voiced varying degrees of opposition to apartheid during its final years.

Bishop Michael Nuttall, representing the Anglican Church of the Province of South Africa, made a personal plea to his former colleague, the truth commission's chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for forgiveness.

[ image: Desmond Tutu]

The cleric described himself as the "number two to Tutu" when the current commission chief was a bishop.

"I offer to you ... a profound apology and ask for your forgiveness, and thank you for your magnanimity," Bishop Michael Nuttall said.

The Roman Catholic Church, meanwhile, said it was not "innocent" of supporting "the sin of apartheid."

While Catholics labelled in 1957 the system of racial separation under apartheid as "intrinsically evil", the church maintained its own racially segregated seminaries until the 1970s.

Bishop Kevin Dowling admitted that the Catholic Church's ranks include "supporters and perpetrators of apartheid atrocities," although the church itself preached "reconciliation between victims and perpetrators."

The Anglican church failed to support Archbishop Tutu in his 1980s bid to win international sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime, and perpetuated racism and inequalities among its own priests, Bishop Michael Nuttall said.

Anglicans condemned Afrikaans-speakers for creating the apartheid system of racial "separate development" while hypocritically perpetuating discrimination themselves, he added.

"I ask forgiveness for our moral lethargy and acquiescence ... our own pattern of racial favouritism."

Desmond Tutu, a former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his peaceful defiance of apartheid, commented that, until recently, white church employees earned more than other races.

The leader of a break-away evangelical Anglican movement, the Church of England in South Africa, meanwhile admitted it was "unsophisticated" in its non-political stance during apartheid.

"It is painful for our members, and embarrassing for us that ... our actions or omissions have caused grief, pain and want," the church's representative Frank Retief said. He called for "God to have mercy on us."

Congregationalists, Methodists and Presbyterians also admitted not doing enough to end the system of apartheid, which began in 1948 and ended in the country's historic 1994 all-race elections.

Archbishop Tutu, South Africa's most prominent cleric, earlier called on all religious groups to admit their failings, and not to point fingers at others.

"There is no church I know of that has nothing to confess. There is no church who has nothing good to say,"

He was opening a special hearing of the truth commission into the role of the various Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu and other communities in the turbulent struggle for, and against the former white-minority regime.

The Dutch Reformed Church (NGK), whose senior members included many Afrikaans-speaking leaders of the apartheid regime, is expected to make an apology on Wednesday.

Internet Links

Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Church of the Province of South Africa

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