S. African Catholic priests moonlight in witchcraft
Pastor Dale Morgan
S. African Catholic priests moonlight in witchcraft*
August 17, 2006 Posted: 1403 GMT (2203 HKT)
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- Southern Africa's Catholic
bishops have warned its priests to stop moonlighting as witch doctors,
fortune tellers and mystic healers, and to rely on Christ for miracles.
The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, which represents
bishops in South Africa, Swaziland and Botswana, said on its Web sites
some priests were adopting the traditional African practice of calling
on ancestors for healing.
The bishops ordered priests to "desist from practices involving
spirits," and to steer clear from witchcraft, fortune-telling and
selling spiritual powers or magic medicines.
"The belief that ancestors are endowed with supernatural powers borders
on idolatry. It is God, and God alone, who is all-powerful while the
ancestors are created by him," said the pastoral letter to priests
issued earlier this month.
Many in Southern Africa turn to sangomas -- or traditional healers -- to
cure illness, ward off evil spirits and even improve their sex lives.
Sangomas, who play a key role in rural communities but are also revered
by many in towns and cities, call on ancestral spirits to heal and give
advice.
Some cultic sects, like the South Africa-based Zion Christian Church,
fuse traditional African beliefs about the power of the ancestors with
orthodox Christianity.
The Southern African bishops said Catholic priests should instead heal
in the name of Jesus Christ, and should tend to the soul, not just the
body.