The Archbishop emeritus of Pretoria Archdiocese has urged religious and clergy to prioritise families and young people in Kokstad Diocese.

In his homily during the centenary anniversary of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Archbishop William Matthew Slattery OFM who served as Bishop of Kokstad Diocese from 1994-2010 expressed concern regarding the future of the Church as young people “are not sure if anybody loves them (or) If anybody cares.”

“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, sit down with them. You don’t have to have big ceremonies, share the Bible with them, they’re crying for love, they’re crying for attention, our young people are in a disastrous situation,” said Archbishop Slattery on Sunday, March 17.

Archbishop Slattery urged religious and clergy to pay more attention to family life as many families in Kokstad and the country at large are headed by single parents, mainly mothers.

He then recalled a conversation, he had with President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018 about birth registration and children born out of wedlock. Archbishop Slattery said, “In 2018 every child born in South Africa got a birth certificate.”

“Three out of five 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,” he lamented.

He went on to urge the Clergy and religious to embrace synodality and to “work with the young people and families. Let us do all we can to help our families.”

The centenary anniversary of St Partick’s Cathedral under the theme ‘Community serving humanity’ saw the participation of 15 Bishops, clergy, religious men and women, representatives of different Churches, and thousands of faithful from Kokstad and other Dioceses.

The Communication office of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) spoke to some of the men and women religious from KwaZulu Natal.

In a conversation with the SACBC Communication office Bishop Stanisław Jan Dziuba OSPPE of neighboring Umzimkulu Diocese congratulated Kokstad Diocese for a “great spiritual celebration” and encouraged the people of God to continue to work together in the spirit of synodality.

“The church is not only the hierarchy, Bishop, Priest, religious, but everyone… As we remember the 100 years of blessing the cornerstone of Saint Patrick Cathedral…I hope It will also revive the spirit of the Church of  Kokstad,” said Bishop Dziuba.