It's time to start 'cleaning house' at the Vatican

Commentators, whether they be Catholic or not, have described Pope Francis’ trip to Brazil for World Youth Day as nothing less than a triumph.

But now back at the Vatican – where he has decided to spend the hot Roman summer without escaping to the hillside retreat of Castel Gandolfo as his predecessors did – the Argentine pontiff faces the real task that cardinals set before him when they elected him in the Sistine Chapel in March: reforming the Vatican, especially the Roman Curia, the Church's central administration.

In some quarters of the Church, especially those who are less instinctively sympathetic to Francis' focus on mercy and poverty rather than on doctrine and orthodoxy, people are becoming impatient.

“We also wanted someone with good managerial and leadership skills, and so far that hasn't been as obvious. It's a little bit of a surprise that he hasn't played his hand on that front yet,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York in a recent interview with the National Catholic Reporter.

The date to look out for will come in early October, when the cardinals' commission for Curia reform he appointed one month into his papacy will meet for the first time after months of preparatory work and private audiences with Francis.

But in recent days the pontiff has already given an indication as to what his approach will be when he finally gets round to 'cleaning house' at the Vatican.

What he seems mostly adverse to is clerics who dabble too imprudently with money – not just those who try to enrich themselves or just give the impression of doing so.

On Wednesday, Francis accepted the resignation of Slovenia's top two churchmen, the archbishops of Ljubljana and Maribor.

Slovenia is a small East European country that has flourished enormously after the breakup of Yugoslavia and its entry into the European Union.

It is a traditionally Catholic country as is its larger neighbor, Croatia. But Slovenia's church has suffered from a scandal that broke in 2010: Maribor archdiocese ventured into a series of hazardous economic ventures, including investing in a national TV channel that was notorious for its porn output.

The business ran up a loss of €800 million (US$1.05 billion) and when the hole started becoming too big to fill the Holy See had to step in.

Benedict XVI ordered the resignation of the previous Archbishop of Maribor but his successor and other Church leaders in Slovenia were found during further investigations to be responsible as well.

Maybe in old times the fact that a culprit had been found out would have been deemed sufficient, and the desire not to rock the boat and confuse the flock would have prevailed. Not with Francis, it seems.

Then there is the case of Cameroon’s Simon-Victor Tonyé Bakot, Archbishop of Yaoundé, the country's capital. The Vatican, as usual, did not give specific reasons for his early resignation.

But Vatican Radio reported, in its French edition, that “according to the Cameroonian press, Monsignor Bakot had been involved in several real estate deals.”

That Francis doesn't like the pomp and the honors traditionally attached to successful careers in the Church is by now a surprise to no one.

It seems that the pope won't content himself with overturning the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank – which is involved in an all-out attempt to show its transparency efforts are genuine.

It has even set up a public website for the first time, but Francis, on the return flight from Brazil, made it clear that all options are still on the table for him, including shutting the bank down completely.

Those bishops and clerics who have secured a somewhat cushy position for themselves in past years, on the other hand, are probably feeling a bit more uncomfortable these days.


Alessandro, Speciale, Vatican City
Vatican City

God of surprises

Were the angels surprised when the triune God sketched out plans for a universe he didn’t need? Surely they were – as surprised as when they saw the first bird take flight and the first humans blink their eyes; as surprised as when they watched God himself sew garments to cover the fallen humans’ shame.

God surprised Abraham with a promise, Sarah with a child and Moses as he knelt before a tree aglow with flame. All Israel walked in wide-eyed wonder as they followed the cloud and the fire, marched beside walls of water and fled to the new land.

God surprised Isaac with a wife, Jacob with a dream and Joshua with unlikely military victory. He surprised Samuel with a voice, Elijah with a whisper and Rahab with an unexpected legacy. God surprised David with kingship, Solomon with wisdom, Hezekiah with life and Isaiah with a vision.

And one day God surprised a teenage virgin with an angelic visitation.

The child born to that girl surprised the learned with his unusual knowledge of God. After coming of age and learning a trade, he surprised those around him by setting off on a mission. On that mission he surprised blind men by opening their eyes and demoniacs by casting their tormentors into swine. He surprised crippled women by straightening their backs and nervous wedding hosts by turning water into wine. He surprised the poor with his attention and children with his affection, the leprous with cleansing and sinners with restoration. It was a surprise to discover him as the Messiah—a Messiah carrying a towel and not a sword. It was a surprise when this Lord washed feet and called his subjects friends.

And this Messiah came into the world telling stories.
Surprising, beguiling, captivating stories.
Stories that shook awake hearts to see what they needed to see.

To shake the self-righteous from their arrogance he told a story about a good Samaritan. To shake the small hearted from their coldness he told a story of a father who throws a party for his repentant son. And to those about to reject him he tells a story about a vineyard owner who sends his Son to collect the harvest, only to have that Son killed by the vineyard’s tenants.

‘How do you make fresh what is thought to be familiar,’ Rowan Williams asks in The Lion’s World, ‘so familiar that it doesn’t need to be thought about?’ How do you get the attention of a world that thinks it knows what Jesus is all about, when it is often only familiar with misconceptions?

You do what Jesus did – you tell stories.
Surprising, beguiling, captivating stories.
Perhaps even stories with a sting in their tail.

In telling of the vineyard’s murderous tenants Jesus sought to shake awake the Pharisees who, blinded by their own misconceptions of the Messiah, would crucify him to protect their own interests. By killing him, the Son, the Pharisees were sealing their own doom. They would trip over the very stone they cast away.

In telling his Narnia stories C.S. Lewis sought to shake awake a less murderous, more indifferent world to the Christ they thought they knew but didn’t. Would they see the Jesus they had cast aside afresh in Aslan? Would they see him as the dangerous-but-good saviour he really is?

The need is no less today – perhaps it’s even greater.

To shake an indifferent world out of its misconceptions of Jesus.

To show that world that Jesus isn’t the distant, otherworldly figure reflected in some of our cathedral artworks, the revolutionary able to be shoe-horned into a favourite political cause, or the happy hipster depicted in those tacky plastic figurines.

No, this is a Jesus who loves lavishly and pronounces judgment. One to be reckoned with, not casually put aside. One who is dangerous but good.

May today’s artists and storytellers speak of him afresh.

This God of surprises who explodes all our misconceptions.

Sheridan Voysey

Christian Hospitality

In the Christian tradition hospitality reflects God’s hospitality to human beings. The Old Testament emphasis on hospitality to strangers is rooted in God’=s welcome to the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt. In the New Testament hospitality is made more radical. It applies to our enemies as well. We are to walk the extra mile, to offer our suit when asked for our shirt, to treat our enemies as we would our friends.

This deepening of hospitality reflects a change of focus from the one who offers hospitality to the one who asks for it. In the Christmas story, God does not simply offer hospitality to us, but seeks hospitality from us. As the carols tell us, the Son of God comes as a baby needing shelter and food, totally dependent on others. In asking for hospitality, God enables us to accept it ourselves.

Jesus also reverses the usual pattern of hospitality when he sends out his disciples to preach the Gospel without money, spare clothing or food. They have no option but to seek hospitality from the people to whom they preach. Those who offer them hospitality will be more likely to listen favourably to God’s word.

To ask for hospitality from strangers, of course, leaves you naked before the calculating. They can ignore your need and use you to send signals to others. But that is also written into the Gospel story. One of the most poignant stories is of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem because the city did not offer hospitality to God’s word.

The practice of hospitality is central in the Christian tradition. The unity of the early church was cemented by a network of hospitality. Christian preachers travelled, were welcomed, shared their insights into the Gospel, and moved on. Later the churches became known for the welcome they gave to strangers and refugees who were repelled by civil institutions.

As the rulers of the Empire became Christian, monasteries became places of hospitality, churches places of sanctuary, and hospitals developed out of the guest-houses that sprouted along the pilgrim routes….

The nature of God can well be described as hospitality. The metaphor picks up the energy, mutuality and unity in diversity which any Christian understanding of God as Trinity must track. It also suggests how creation may be both a free and a natural expression of God’s nature, and that the world, and particularly human creation, images the hospitality of God.

The relationship between human destiny, human moral life, human sin and restoration is also illuminated by the metaphor of hospitality. The nature of hospitality is to respect the otherness of both guest and host. It leads naturally to acceptance of God’s invitation to enjoy God’s life. Sin, as the refusal of hospitality, both distorts personal and structural relationships within the world, and makes it impossible to accept God’s invitation.

Within this theology, it is natural to describe Jesus Christ as hospitality incarnate and, in Irenaean terms, as the natural climax of creation. In him, the Son of God journeys to a far country to seek and offer hospitality. In Jesus Christ God’s invitation is definitively offered to and accepted by humanity.

In Jesus Christ, too, hospitality is expressed in the political and personal relationships of a human life. The Lucan account of the woman at Simon’s house is emblematic. Here the woman who welcomes Jesus as guest, against all the practices which govern political and religious life, finds God as host. As will be the case definitively in the resurrection, the hospitality of God proves victorious over the logic and power of the structures of inhospitality.

The Church is the sacrament of hospitality firstly in the sense that it is the community of disciples who have found a hospitable God in Jesus Christ, and whom the Spirit leads to go out to find hospitality for the Word of God among the poor. Secondly, the Church rep- resents the world transformed by hospitality; she proclaims the transformed world, awaits it, and although in maimed ways, struggles to represent it in her own life.

Finally, the Church is gathered in the eucharist, the sacrament of Gods hospitality. There Christ is welcomed by the disciples who are invited to share God’s hospitality. Furthermore, the cost of hospitality is enacted in the memorial of the Last Supper and passion, in which the disciples of Christ commit themselves to follow the hospitality of Jesus.

Andrew Hamilton

The Will Of God

God does not directly send pain, suffering and disease. God does not punish us, at least not in this life. I hold this confidently because in 1 John 1:5 we are told that, ‘God is light, in him there is no darkness’ – so deadly and destructive things cannot be in the nature of and actions of God. Secondly, whatever we make of the varied images of God in the Old Testament, in Jesus God is revealed as being about life not death, construction not destruction, forgiveness not retribution, healing not pain. There is a huge difference between God permitting evil and God perpetrating such acts on us. We need to stare down those who promote and support a theology that portrays God as a tyrant.

God does not send accidents to teach us things, though we can learn from them. We do not need to blame God directly for causing our suffering in order for us to turn it around and harness it for good. The human search for meaning is a powerful instinct but I think spiritual sanity rests in seeing that in every moment of every day, God does what he did on Good Friday: not allowing evil, death and destruction to have the last word, but ennobling humanity with an extraordinary resilience and, through the power of amazing grace, enabling us to make the most of even the worst situations and let light and life have the last word. Easter Sunday is God’s response to Good Friday: life out of death.

God does not will earthquakes, floods, droughts or other natural disasters: can we stop praying for rain please? If God is directly in charge of the climate, he seems to be a very poor meteorologist indeed. When people ask, ‘why did the earthquake and tsunami happen?’, I think it best if we just tell them the simple geophysical truth: ‘Because the earth shelf moved, setting off a big wave.’ Behind the meteorologist-in-the-sky idea is not the God and Father of Jesus Christ, but Zeus, and I think we have to be careful what we think petitionary prayer does. It cannot change our unchanging God (James 1), so it asks our unchanging God to change us to change the world.

God’s will is more in the big picture than in the small. I believe passionately in the will of God. It is just that I believe it is discovered on the larger canvass rather than in the details. I think God wants me to live out the theological virtues of faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13). Through the blessing of time and place, the gifts of nature and grace, I work with God to realise my potential in the greatest way possible, even if that involves having to do things that are difficult, demanding and sacrificial. This response is not out of fear and compulsion, but comes from love and desire. I think we should be very careful in talking about God’s will using lines like, ‘But for the grace of God, go I’. What about the poor person who was not so blessed? Did God not care about them?

God did not need the blood of Jesus. Jesus did not just come ‘to die’ but God used his death to announce the end to death. This is the domain of ‘offer it up’ theology: it was good enough for Jesus to suffer; it is good enough for you. While I am aware of St Paul in Romans, St Clement of Alexandria, St Anselm of Canterbury and later John Calvin’s work on atonement theory and satisfaction theology, I cannot baldly accept that the perfect God of love set up for a fall in the Fall, then got so angry with us that only the grisly death of his perfect son was going to repair the breach between us. This is not the only way into the mystery of Holy Week. For most of Christian history the question that has vexed many believers seems to be, ‘Why did Jesus die?’ I think it is the wrong question. The right one is ‘Why was Jesus killed?’ And that puts the last days of Jesus’ suffering and death in an entirely new perspective. Jesus did not simply and only come to die. Rather, Jesus came to live. As a result of the courageous and radical way he lived his life, and the saving love he embodied for all humanity, he threatened the political, social and religious authorities of his day so much that they executed him. But God had the last word on Good Friday: Easter Sunday.

God has created a world which is less than perfect, else it would be heaven, and in which suffering, disease and pain are realities. Some of these we now create for ourselves and blame God. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me, ‘I cannot believe in a God who allows famines to happen.’ I think God wonders why we let famine happen. God is responsible for allowing a world to evolve within which the effects of moral and physical evil can create injustices. But God is not responsible because we refuse to make the hard choices that would see our world transformed into a more just and equal place for everyone. In the face of this obstinacy, it is not surprising that we find a divine scapegoat to carry the guilt for our lack of political will and social solidarity.

God does not kill us off. As Catholics, thank God, at least since the 1960s, we do not officially take the scriptures literally until we go near texts about God knowing the ‘hairs on our head’ and the ‘span of our days’ (Jer 1:5; Gal 1:15-16; Prov 16:33; and Matt 10:30). Then we become completely fundamentalist. When I go near a nursing home I am regularly asked, ‘Father, why won’t God take Grandma? To which I reply ‘Because Grandma won’t stop breathing yet.’ I do not actually say this. I have more pastoral sense than that, but I want to. The verb ‘take’ is so revealing of what we think is going on here. Why would God’s desire ‘to take’ a two year old to heaven be more than God’s desire ‘to leave’ this child in the arms of loving parents? In contrast to this, I think it is entirely appropriate to believe that life, from the womb to the nursing home, is not allotted a span, as such, by God, but that our body will live until it can no longer function, for whatever natural or accidental reason. God is not an active player in this process, but, again, has to take responsibility for making us mortal. Then, when our body dies, our soul or spirit begins its final journey home.

Some might think that the theology outlined here presents God as remote or aloof. I do not need to think that God has to be the direct cause of everything in my life to have a strong and lively belief in a personal God. Indeed, I am passionate about God’s personal love and presence. Thinking that God is removed from the intricate detail of how things develop does not remove God from the drama of our living, our suffering and dying. God waits patiently for an invitation to enter our lives at whatever level we want. Christ meets us where we are, embraces us and holds us close when the going gets tough, and helps us find the way forward, even and most especially, on that last day when we find the way home.

Richard Leonard

South Africa: Coming down the mountain

As Nelson Mandela remains in a critical condition in hospital, Rampe Hlobo SJ writes from South Africa to describe the mood of the nation. How has ‘Madiba’ led the people of South Africa through a uniquely transformative period in their history?

As the end of life approaches, one’s thoughts turn inevitably to what lies ahead and also to what has gone before, to the experiences that made that life what it was. It is not only the departing individual that ponders such things, but friends and foes of that person, too. This is what seems to be going on today in South Africa and beyond. The harsh reality that Nelson Mandela is rapidly approaching the end of his extraordinary life is beginning to hit home, and we have started looking back over the time during which we have been blessed with this incredible man.

The collective memory of February 1990 is particularly strong: the whole country came to a standstill to welcome this man back into our community, even though many of us did not know what he looked like as he had been kept from our sight for so long. Despite his unfamiliarity to so many, ‘Madiba’, his clan name by which he is fondly and popularly known, managed to lift the whole country, inspiring us and filling us with hope and vigour. Words will never be able to describe fully how he changed South Africa. It was as if he took all of us up a mountain so that we could have a transformative experience like that of Peter, James and John at the Transfiguration. Not only was it a comfort to have him released from prison and back in Soweto, it was also an extraordinary blessing to have him navigating South Africa through the troubled political waters of the 1990s. As a country we were hit by and traversed huge storms that could have pulled us into a dreadful civil war.

His influence was felt particularly in April 1993 after the assassination of Chris Hani. The popular leader of the South African Communist Party was assassinated on his driveway in front of his young daughter. This led to unprecedented violent protests that only Mandela could control or curb. He displayed excellent and magnanimous leadership, and had an authority that obliged both young and old to listen. Before, during and after his presidency, he made us feel proud of ourselves as a country. Despite our painful and divided past, South Africans experienced for the first time the apostle Peter’s sentiments at the top of that mountain: ‘Master, it is good for us to be here.’ (Luke 9:33)

It is now over 23 years since Mandela’s release and the beginning of our ascent up that mountain; it might sound like a long time, but it is remarkable to consider that this is still less than the amount of time he spent in prison. And in many ways the time has gone quickly, as we have felt glad to be here. Yet the recent news reports about Mandela’s health have revealed that we have all been in denial for some time now. We saw him during the closing ceremony of the 2010 FIFA World Cup looking frail and being driven around the stadium on a golf cart. We surely knew then that the elderly statesman was approaching the end, but because we immortalised him, we refused to accept it.

Our sadness now is exacerbated by many other factors that have little to do with Mandela himself. It is as if we are all part of a family whose patriarch is about to pass on; everyone becomes anxious and aware that we are now going to be left without the responsible adult who has led us for so long. The anticipated vacuum in his absence may not necessarily come to pass, but there is a sense that we are losing a moral beacon, and the uncertainty of a future without Mandela is unsettling. The incumbent political leadership offers little hope or consolation because many have been behaving like the elder brothers in a family who, as soon as the patriarch hits the twilight of his life, begin to misbehave and neglect the wider family and the younger siblings. I am sure that creates anxiety for the departing patriarch as well.

Now with heavy hearts we have begun our descent from the mountain and the feeling is unbelievably sad. The challenge for South Africans, just as it was for the apostles, is to make sense of the spiritual experience that we have lived through and nurture the hope that it has kindled in us.


Rampe Hlobo SJ is the Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in South Africa.

Looking for True Friends? (Opinion)

Building strong relationships with people is one way that can make you
successful in life, career, family or business. For instance; role models,
mentors, motivators, financiers etc. Nothing incredible is accomplished
alone. Therefore, developing good relationship skills with people is key to
success of a person's life.

*You need others to help you, and you need to help others. With the right
team, you can form a web of connections to make the seemingly impossible
practically inevitable. However, there are people among your friends,
family, colleagues or relatives who you should either stay away from (if
you can achieve it) or have to properly manage for you to achieve any
progress in life.

I came across this article on "Friends who bring you down" and thought
it is wise to share it with you.

As a young boy, I used to watch, with a mixture of terror and fascination,
as mongooses killed and ate our chicken. Our homestead was surrounded by
thick bushes which provided a home to the menace that is the mongoose. They
mostly predate on chicks, and terrorized our brood daily.

There is a particular breed that kills its prey through suffocation. It
is bigger and heavier than the typical mongoose and has a terrifying way of
luring chicken to their death. It selects a bush that will provide
excellent cover for its upper body, leaving just its rear end jutting out.
Its anal opening has a rough surface that looks like millet. When it
relaxes its muscles, it spreads quite generously and, from a distance,
looks like millet spread on the ground.

So here is what happens: a chicken searching and scratching the ground for
food notices this ear of millet in the bush. It happily runs towards it and
begins pecking on the free food. One peck, two pecks and suddenly, the trap
springs shut! This peculiar predator traps the poor chicken’s head and
suffocates it, the cries of the prey effectively choked.

Often, we run into people who behave exactly like the mongoose. Realizing
their inability to compete with the rest of the world, they set traps,
attractive traps, for unsuspecting victims.

Such “friends” often lure their prey with deceptive smiles and tales, spun
with dexterous mastery. Unfortunately, by the time we realize that they are
out to take advantage of us, it is too late to avoid the disappointment
that follows. Even when we spot the schemes directed our way, we often fail
to respond effectively as the situation requires, therefore creating the
perfect recipe for the suffocation that ensues.

These types of friends can be found everywhere. There is the colleague
who deliberately makes you look bad in your employer’s eyes to get that
coveted promotion.

There is the jealous neighbor with low self-esteem who makes a habit of
feeding other neighbors with malicious gossip about you so that you can be
as miserable as they are.

It could also be that supposedly best friend who has no qualms about making
sexual advances on your husband or saying false things about you to your
boyfriend so that she can break up your relationship.

There is no easy way of telling true friends from the false ones*. It is
this that allows the mongoose friend to get away with his or her treachery.
They hide and blend so well with the crowd that it is impossible to spot
them.

When it comes to friendship, more is not necessarily merrier. In fact, the
lesser friends you have, the easier it is for you to gauge their character
and make an accurate judgment about the kind of people they are.

Another way to sift genuine friends from false ones, a way that is just as
easy to administer as the traps set by mongoose-like friends, involves
treading carefully.

While it can be difficult to identify the threat before it does real harm,
the signs manifest themselves as loudly as we allow them to.
The first thing you should do is verify before you trust. Take time to know
potential friends before you trust them with your friendship.

The second is to compare their values to yours. What is it that you hold
dear? Is it family, work, friendship, or all three?

If their values are different from yours, then their friendship is not the
kind you want.
--

AFRICAN NUNS BENEFIT FROM AMERICAN HOTELIER-PHILANTHROPIST

When Conrad Nicholson Hilton passed on in 1979, he left a will with a special request...that the foundation he started should pay special attention to the Catholic Nuns for their special work among the poor. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Steven Hilton, the current President and CEO of the Hilton foundation led a high profile delegation to Nairobi Kenya to visit with Catholic nuns.

His visit was to asses and witness for himself the results of the work the Foundation has been doing over the last five years on a programme, he himself initiated, the Sisters Leadership Development Initiative (SLDI). The purpose is to increase access for management and leadership skill-building for African Sisters through training and education and adaptable to the specific needs and contexts in which the Sisters are working.

During his visit, Steven witnessed first- hand the work that the first graduates of the programme had done in their communities as well as among the people they serve. His team visited more than 10 different projects run by the sisters among the poor people of Kenya. They listened to stories of those served by the projects, from kindergarten children to high school children, rehabilitated street children, the sick in hospital, farm workers as well those living with HIV and AIDS. This was proof of the effectiveness of the skills transferred to the nuns over the last 4 years.

In the outskirts of the industrial town of Thika, the Hilton delegation visited the Assumption sisters of Nairobi where they witnessed the activities being carried out by the Nuns in their expansive Karibaribi community. This community encompasses, the mother house and formation house for the sisters, a coffee farm that goes back to the early 60s, a modern agricultural farm where they are growing all types of food crops, a school beginning from Nursery to high school.

The making of a modern Nun!

The Hilton team witnessed how the skills gained by Sisters: Susan Wairimu Njoroge in Project Management, Catherine Kanyua and Mercy Florence in Administration, Basila Musyimi in Finance, all working in different stations across the country has transformed the operations of the congregation to a higher level of effectivity. The skills imparted on the nuns were evidently in use in the projects being run by the nuns and those they had mentored in the expansive Karibaribi community.

In Kasarani, the outskirts of Nairobi, the Hilton delegation visited St. Francis Community Hospital, which is part of a whole range of projects run by the Little sisters of St. Francis in an area that is populated people from low income areas who live in the informal settlements around the hospital. The delegation was taken through the hospital, a rehabilitation centre for street children and listened narrations of people living with HIV and AIDS who are under the care of the nuns. A 7 year old boy Emmanuel John Zachary, a member of the child support group at St. Francis Hospital epitomised the work of the nuns... “I know that I am positive, I have learned to live positively, eat a balanced diet, take my drugs, and work hard at school... my life is the hands of the sisters!!!”

In the Kahawa West area Steven Hilton and his team visited two different congregations serving the poor in schools and a health centre. The Mary Immaculate Sisters of Nyeri run an education centre around Maziwa area that targets the informal settlements around the area. The Mary Immaculata Educational Centre caters for more than 500 children who depend entirely on the nuns to cater for their needs both personal and educational.

In another part of the expansive area of Kahawa West, the Franciscan Elizabethan sisters run chain of Nursery schools within informal settlements surrounding Kenyatta University. The nursery schools also operate as feeding centres that cater for more than 600 children from poor backgrounds. Their nursery schools have taken on board all children including those living with various disabilities as a way to support them. In addition, the nuns also care for HIV positive children who are neglected by their parents.

In one of the encounters with the community, Sr. Wamuyu summed up the experiences of the nuns... “We are all these children have ...we are their father and mother... when the day comes to an end they are afraid to go...some of them have nowhere to go...” Sr. Wamuyu is a beneficiary of the SLDI programme.

The Hilton team participated in the graduation of the 2nd group of nuns having gone through the SLDI training. A total of 43 nuns graduated with skills in general administration and finance management from four countries, Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya at the Chemichemi ya Ukweli centre run by the Association of sisterhoods of Kenya (AOSK). These nuns are working in schools, hospitals, welfare homes agricultural, and microfinance programmes across the East African countries where they are making huge progress and improving the lives of the poor across the divide.
During the commencement, Mr. Hilton promised to continue supporting the nuns in their work as they aspire to work among the poor, he promised increased funding for the project and challenged the sisters to seek better ways of integration as they continue serving among the poor.

Since the initiation of the project in 2007, over 800 nuns have been trained directly in the acquisition of skill in strategic planning, needs assessment, grant writing, financial management, report writing, mentoring, team building and ethical leadership. In the spirit of the founder of the Hilton Hotel chain, to “relieve the suffering, the distressed and destitute” without regard to race, religion, or country, more than 1200 sisters and co-workers have been mentored across 6 African countries; Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana and Nigeria.
Over 2 million dollars have been spent directly by the Hilton Foundation in this endeavour and the President and CEO promised increased and diversified funding for the African Sisters Educative Collaborative and the SLDI project in particular. This is understood in the background of his grand-father’s aspiration to support the Catholic Sisters, “who devote their love and life’s work for the good of mankind.”


THE PLACE OF AFRICAN NUNS AMONG MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Do you ever get the feeling that you’d like a little good news? In the year since Our Africa was launched, the world and the African region within it has had its fair share of calamity and short quick uptakes of breath. Politically, the past year has been momentous. We have seen the people-led overthrow of oppressive regimes in Africa’s North, the emergence of Africa’s second woman President, Joyce Banda of Malawi, and the birth of a new African nation, South Sudan, and moves toward armed and ideological takeover of communities by Muslim fundamentalists in northern Mali. In September 2011, the world lost a visionary leader with the passing of Kenyan environmentalist and outspoken political activist Wangaari Mathaai. A week later, two Liberian women, Leymah Gbowee and President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf joined her in history as Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, representing different but compelling models of activist leadership.

This happens at the global level while in the small confines of numerous homes across Africa, a different of women continue touching the lives of tens and thousands of ordinary people through their extra ordinary acts. Catholic Nuns across Africa continue to carry out small acts of charity in the name of community service that they have done over the centuries. Githurai 44 is a suburb towards the North of Nairobi, inhabited by low income earners, most of who are casual labourers in small industries around the city or are even self-employed in small incoming business. Life here is hand to mouth and they can barely afford to make ends meet. This means a bulk of their of their earning is spent on meeting the most basics of necessities... food, at times this food is not even sufficient. It is the norm in most homes in this area to get one meal a day. Their shelter is in the informal settlement that has developed in the land between the affluent Jomo Kenyatta University and the age old Kamiti Maximum Prison.

In their midst of all these happenings are Catholic nuns of the Elizabethan Congregation who have been silently but effectively ministering among the poor of Githurai 44 who straddle the Kamae, Pambazuko and Soweto slums. The nuns have been running the Vendramin Education Centre that caters for over 600 children. They run 3 nursery schools that also double up as feeding centres of street children. The Vendramin Educational Centre offers a wholistic education inspired by the spirit of the founder of the Elizabethan sisters who believed in ‘High as our origin and High as our destiny’. In addition the nuns also run a community hospital, St. Mukasa hospital that caters for the local community. It is here that they have formed HIV and AIDS support group that has brought together more than 100 persons living positively with the virus.

The Elizabethan Sisters have been beneficiaries of the Hilton Foundation through the Fund for sisters to support their various projects. Sr. Wamuyu a member of this community has been a direct beneficiary of the Sisters Leadership Development Initiative (SLDI) programme. The weight of their community outreach is spread across all the projects they run. The school, while being all inclusive has a larger majority from the surrounding informal settlements, and so many parents cannot afford to pay the fee charged by the school for the education of their children. Thus the nuns are left to bear the costs of running the school, paying for utilities, and salaries for both teaching and non-teaching staff as well as catering for the food that children eat at school. This food is essential, in most cases it is the only food that these children ever get to eat.

The situation is replicated across the ridge at Mary Immaculate Education centre where the Mary Immaculate sisters have also put up a centre to cater for the poor of society around Kahawa Maziwa. The nuns have attempted to establish a complete and self reliant education centre catering for both primary and secondary school students along with the attendant services.

The nuns take care of more than 500 children who entirely depend on the sisters for their schooling and upkeep. Sr. Martha, a beneficiary of the SLDI programme put her skills to work and made proposals to various donors who financed the development of Mary Immaculate Education Centre. The organisations she approached for funding have made a mosaic of supporters of the sisters’ work a tribute Sr. Martha gives to Hilton Foundation for having enabled her to gain skills is project development.
In deed the devotion of the nuns to the care of the lowly attracts all types of support as clearly demonstrated by a building at Mary Immaculate Centre that had a total of four development partners, each having funded a separate aspect of the building that was still to be completed. With the skills imparted through the support of Hilton Foundation, one thing is certain, the spirit of Sr. Martha and her protégés have soared no door will be too heavy to be knocked in search of partnership, all for the sake of the poorest of the poor!


THE MIRACLE OF “FEEDING MULTITUDES” AT KIBAGARE.

Situated at the western part of the city of Nairobi, Kibagare slums is home to over 10,000 persons. This slum, like many others across the city developed as a source of temporary shelter for the poorly paid families, divorcees, the separated and widowed, and those with other social and economic problems.
The sAssumption sisters set foot here in the late 70s and pracitically started a feeding programme in 1980. In their own words; “ we started with almost nothing but big hearts full of love. It started with a desire to love and express the love in simple acts of mercy and concern. It started as a feeding program for 50 hungry informal settlement children.” Today the home still runs the feeding programme having grown hundred fold and they feed over 1500 every Saturday, for every child within a 5 kilometre radius.

The centre that begun with one nun, Sr. Martin, (after whom the school has been named) who walked from door to door to feed 50 children has grown to a complete educational centre. This comprises of a nursery school that caters for children from the age of 4, a primary school that currently holds 625 pupils and an all girls secondary school with 250 students. The centre is run by two nuns assisted by a teaching staff of 28 , 8 non-teaching staff and numerous volunteers who give their time and resources from time to time.

Sr. Catherine K.Ndereba, a beneficiary of the first cycle of SLDI studied in the Administration Track in 2007-9, took her studies seriously and turned her learning into a mentorship that benefited three of her community members who have gone on to replicate the learning in different places.

From the learning, Sr. Ndereba learned skills of resource mobilization, team building, coordinating meetings, and delegation of duties, among others that she employed in her immediate undertaking at st. Martin school. This saw a phenomenal growth in the motivation among the staff, she also went full throttle in the project management, wrote proposals to numerous potential partners and she got responses that resulted in partnerships with such corporates as Christian Fund for Children- Africa (CFCA),Good News Committe Holland, I&M bank. She also forged partnerships with big schools in Nairobi like Strathmore School, St. Marys School, St. Nicholas and Waridi nursery school.

Advocacy and networking skills that Sr. Ndereba learned enabled her to lobby the parents and guardians of the children to contribute directly to the education of their children by contributing at least Ksh.500 ($50) for each child and physically turning up to volunteer at school. These efforts have gone a long way in promoting the growth and development of the centre and gradually the nuns have built good will across the society.

While the Hilton foundation may not have all the funds to run all the projects that the Catholic nuns run across Kenya, and even Africa, the SLDI initiative is definitely an ingenious method that has imparted essential skills to nuns that has enabled them tap their own internal strengths and bring out their inborn talents. In addition, SLDI has given them skills to reach out to the local community, harness resources and forge lasting partnerships that have gone a long way to fulfill the dreams of grandpa Hilton...to support the nuns who spend the whole of their lives to support the poorest of the poor.

Millions of poor people have had a touch of Hilton through the work of the nuns in their various fields of apostolates across the African continent at all levels; children have been touched in their personal, spiritual and social growth by providing material resources and moral support through a variety of holistic educational development programs. The sick and infirm have found healing in the hands of the nuns and their companions in the service of the Lord and ultimately the society is a better place by each nun enabled to be a better manager, an effective steward of resources.