In the face of South Africa’s worsening social problems, a Catholic bishop has called for more spiritual investment in the lives of young people and for priests to help bring up better families.
Analysts have reported that worsening poverty and growing crimes rates, and the massive unemployment among young South Africans, could threaten the position of the ruling African National Congress at forthcoming elections.
The former Archbishop of Pretoria, the Irish-born William Slattery OFM, last week became the latest of South Africa bishops to demand action on these social challenges.
“We are losing our heritage, we’re losing our future. We must go back to the schools, we really must wake up, we must spend our time with our young people,” he said, during centenary celebrations for St Patrick’s Cathedral in Pretoria.
“Our young people are in a disastrous situation,” he said, citing the rising incidents of drug abuse among youths which are among the causes of a sharp increase in violent crime.
“You don’t have to have big ceremonies. Share the Bible with them, they’re crying for love, they’re crying for attention,” Archbishop Slattery said.
The bishop also noted that one of South Africa’s persisting problems was of single mothers with children without birth certificates, who then go unacknowledged by the state. Authorities have acknowledged an increase in the number of young single mothers signing up for social welfare assistance whose with young children fail to attend early childhood classes because they do not have birth certificates.
“Three out of five children have no father’s name, three out of five have no father’s name on the birth certificate, and so therefore we have a mother with four children and four different fathers,” Slattery noted.
He encouraged priests and religious to start to address these social challenges by helping families in the first instance. “Work with the young people and families. Let us do all we can to help our families,” he said.
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