Picture: President Zuma's visit to Bishopscourt in 2009

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town has pledged to visit former South African President Jacob Zuma in prison.

The Archbishop said this in a statement issued in response to the Constitutional Court judgement jailing Mr Zuma for 15 months for refusing to obey a court order to appear before a commission of inquiry into high-level government and private sector corruption.

The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba, has written the following letter to his counterpart, the Most Revd Dr Eliud Wabukula, the Archbishop of Kenya:

‘My dear brother in Christ
The Bible tells us that when one part of the body suffers, all suffer together. Yet I write to you, and to the Bishop of Nairobi, Rt Revd Joel Waweru, following the terrorist attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall, to express not only that the Anglican Church of Southern Africa stands in solidarity with you at this time, but that we too share in the grief that this senseless attack has brought. For a very dear churchwarden of my own Diocese, Mr James Thomas, has been confirmed among those whose lives were so brutally taken.

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has made a renewed and urgent call for prayer after the news that coronavirus infections reached a new daily record high in South Africa on Wednesday.

The South African Department of Health announced that there had been 21,832 new coronavirus infections in a 24-hour period, the highest daily number since the outbreak of the pandemic. Noting the “grim milestone”, it said the total cumulative number of cases had risen to 1,149,591.

The Archbishop said in a note to the Bishops of the Province: “The second wave of Covid-19 is harsher and fierce. It calls for us to be more vigilant and perhaps make a call to our respective dioceses for a day of prayer again or to intensify soaking our countries in prayer.”

Jesus spoke to them saying: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” – John 8:12

We, as the Bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, meeting at St Augustine’s, Modderpoort, in the Diocese of the Free State, from 5 to 8 March 2013, greet God’s beloved throughout the length and breadth of this our beautiful Province in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord!

As we gathered, our hearts were filled with gratitude for the many blessings that God bestows on us as a church.

Picture: Revd June Dolley-Major

AN ANGLICAN priest accused of raping a fellow priest was found not guilty of rape in a judgment by a diocesan tribunal of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) on 30 September.

For the past five years, the Revd June Dolley-Major has used social media to accuse the Revd Melvin Booysen of raping her in August 2002 on a trip to the Anglican seminary in Makhanda, previously known as Grahamstown (News, 16 October 2020).

Delivering Thursday’s judgment online, the president of the tribunal, the Rt Revd Peter John Lee, said emphatically: “Booysen is not her rapist.”

Archbishop Thabo – Remembering Marikana with Prayer, Hope and Action
Issued 14 August 2013

Twelve months on from the Marikana shootings, we must acknowledge too little has been done in response to the terrible tragedy, both for those concerned, and for the life of the nation and our sense of who we are and who we want to become. The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, through the South African Council of Churches, and with other partners, has offered assistance, especially spiritually, wherever we can, to the bereaved, injured and traumatised. We’ve distributed food-parcels, clothing and other physical help – some of it donated from beyond the Christian family.