Special Hearings — Faith Community Hearings — 1997-11-17

UNKNOWN: Indeed Sir, I would agree with you entirely. There are   two aspects to this issue. First, I would like us to remember that one of the   most difficult things about apartheid was not always what apartheid made the   whites do to us, but also what apartheid made us do to ourselves. We have records   of some of the debates in our conference at the time when the government was   taking the schools from our church. And sadly, but truthfully, some of the people   who argued very strongly at the time for the church to surrender some of the   schools given the pressure that was exerted on the church, came from our black   communities and that is a very sad thing when we look back at our history and   or course, needless to say again, the white leadership at the time and again   I have indicated to you that one of the problems in the Methodist Church for   a long time was the suppression of black leadership, the white leadership at   the time turned around and said we don't believe that it's a wise move, but   who are we to say when some of the key leading black people say that maybe this   will bring education cheaper to all of their people. It is a very unfortunate   situation, but it is true that we also burnt our fingers.
But having said that, we should be ashamed, and we are ashamed that we did   not put up a stronger resistance to our schools being taken from us by the state.   We must confess even more our sins that at that time when we should have been   not only vigilant but also at our most creative we were not creative enough   to look at how we could have developed other alternatives to bring education   to black communities. It is one of the key areas at the moment that is occupying   us in the Methodist Church in our discussions. We took a decision a few years   ago that as part of our process of getting back to the formation of our people,   we must challenge every single Methodist Church to try and get back into early   child education and one of the most successful programmes at this point in time   of the Methodist Church is precisely that. I have now eluded in my submission   to the fact that we have called on all our churches to now start further programmes   that will help those people who were disadvantaged through education or lack   of education, to be assisted to regain those skills. Therefore in our fellowship,   we are very conscious of the great challenge for the church to get back into   some form of education again.

CHAIRPERSON: Joyce?

MS JOYCE SEROKE: Bishop Dandala, you mentioned earlier that one of the things   you were unhappy about was the unequal stipends that were based on the colour   of the skin of the priests. What is the situation now?

UNKNOWN: I don't want to be frivolous in the presence of this meeting,   but you do know that the English structures and language sometimes confuse us   and sometimes says things that sound good, but in fact are not quite that. We   have, in terms of our books, corrected that misnomer and therefore until you   go beyond the books of conference, you will not find inequality in the stipends   among our ministers. But when you actually go down to the local churches you   will find these. One of the most vexing problems is the problem of a church   that has a tradition where ministers have primarily received their stipends   through the congregations they serve. Now, what we have done is to try and encourage   the breakdown of those dividing lines so that where our ministers work together   to serve our people together, those distinctions will be overcome. I can say   therefore in the Methodist Church today, there is no inequality strictly according   to race, but I can go on and say that there is inequality that arises from the   unequal socio- economic situations of our people and the Methodist Church has   to deal with this problem.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. I don't know, is there anything that you   wanted to add, Viv? No. Thank you for your submission and we are very deeply   touched by what you have said and how you have said it and we are aware of how   you yourself were moved when you were speaking about what happened when the   break with the Transkei happened, that you had some difficulty. We had some   difficulties ourselves when you were making that - but we are thankful that   up to now the presentations are presentations of people seeking to be the publican   and not the pharacy. Thank you very much.
We now call on the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. Order please!   Thank you.
We welcome you very warmly and you will say, you will tell us that there are   only the two of you but the house is full of angels here (laughter) who are   accompanying you. Thank you very much Bishop. Are you both going to make the   submission? So both of you will take the oath.
ADMINISTERS OATH.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. We are deeply grateful that you have come   and I am even more grateful that you are so understanding about the need to   flexible time wise and we are quite certain too that you will be precise and   show us how you can say these things in as few words as possible. Thank you   very much. Bishop.