Racial discrimination exists in parts of the Roman Catholic Church, a report by the Justice and Peace Department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference has revealed.
The findings of a report drawn up by the department and released on Thursday include an admission that church members justify racial prejudice in many different ways.
It says some church members still have not come to terms with living in a society that is characterised by cultural diversity. The report says the apartheid structural and organisational legacy remains a feature of some church structures.
Real social reconciliation and the development of non-racialism requires all communities to move beyond their social "comfort zones" and rise above often unconscious feelings of white superiority and black inferiority.
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| Attitudes of mistrust of black clergy, especially in leadership positions, persist |
Attitudes of mistrust of black clergy, especially in leadership positions, persist and black clergy in predominantly white parishes face enormous pressures of proving their competence.
A Eurocentric culture is still considered the norm and becomes the basis of evaluation of credibility in some churches.
The chairman of the Justice and Peace Department of the conference, Bishop Mlungisi Dlungwane, said on Thursday there could be no doubt that the Catholic Church had always maintained a doctrinal opposition to any form of racial discrimination.
However, its organisation of parishes often meant that, in practice, the church reflected the segregation of society.
"We now face the challenge that racial divisions will be institutionalised in post-apartheid South Africa, not only in the local and national social and economic structures but also in the religious practice of South Africans," he said.
Dlungwane said South Africans had to work hard to rid society of the vestiges of racial division, especially in the cultural and economic spheres.
The report had been issued after two years of dialogue and consultation in six dioceses in SA.
- This article was originally published on page 6 of The Mercury on December 17, 2004
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