Hey Mr. Black

Yes, I do agree with you whole heatedly! As a student of Religions, I have always been saddened by the fact that there is so much that is the same in all the different religions, that their differences seem less important to me. But I guess it is human nature to rather focus on the differences that celebrate that which is the same, that that could potentially bring us together.

Luckily, I think it highly unlikely that this will lead to violence. As you have noticed, this came from the Bishops, not grassroots. South Africans are strangely tolerant.

Roman Catholicism is not huge here, mostly due to historical facts - it was always under the colonial rule of Protestant European powers. It id grow in stature of late, mostly due to it's fight against Apartheid and it own mysticism, which is very atractive to Africans.

The largest church, as is mentioned in the report, is the ZCC, which mixes Traditional African Religion (TAR) with Christianity. They are so big, that the leader of this church even greatly influences our elections (not necessarily a good thing!!!).

There is just one problem with these priests doing the work of sangoma's - I have no problems with TAR, but some of the practices of the Sangoma's are plain wrong. For instance, and this is horrific - A few years ago there was a massive increase in the number of child rapes in SA. The police then realised that Sangoma's where teaching people that sex with a virgin will cure you of HIV-AIDS. Positive men therefor went out and raped children on advice of these sangomas. The government acted swiflty on this, but it does still happen. Some of the magic of these sangomas are also made by using body parts, and quite often, what is called 'muti-murders' muti being magic potions' still take place in modern SA.

But come to think of it, it might then a good thing that RCC priests take over these task, as they (hopefully) will be less likely to take part in these practices!

But yes, Religious intolerance is a huge shame, and proof that we have indeed not come that far in the last few milenia!


A

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“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”