Archbishop Thabo Makgoba's statement on the death of Pope Francis

 Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town has described Pope Francis as “the last globally-recognised moral voice in our confused times,” and as a leader who gave “clear guidance in a complex and polarised political world.”

In a statement released after the Pope's death today, Archbishop Makgoba said that “the poor of the world will be those who will miss him the most as a champion and custodian of their hopes and dreams. He was an incredible, prophetic pastor whose vision was a ‘church of the poor for the poor’, to quote one of his favourite sayings.”

The Archbishop added: “We are deeply grateful to him for holding before us the image of the church as a field hospital, and for the incredible ways in which he embraced the marginalised, begging priests to identify with them as  ‘shepherds living with the smell of the sheep’....

“The greater Christian family will miss him as a great human being and a great church leader.”

The full text of Archbishop Makgoba's statement follows:

“On behalf of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and with a heavy heart, I give thanks to God for the life of Pope Francis. For me, as for so many around the globe, his death feels almost like a personal loss. On the numerous occasions I and my wife, Lungi, met him, he made you feel as if you were the only person in the world, holding you in his gaze with those piercing, warm and attentive eyes.

“For many around the world, including people of all faiths and of none, the distinguishing characteristic of his papacy was how close they felt to him. The last globally-recognised moral voice in our confused times, he gave us clear guidance in a complex and polarised political world.

“I will always remember the many special moments he spent with us as Anglican bishops and prelates. Our last meeting with him was particularly special, when he got out of his wheel chair and insisted on walking over to us, then sat down with those of us appointed to greet and engage with him. It was an indescribable experience.

“The poor of the world will be those who will miss him the most as a champion and custodian of their hopes and dreams. He was an incredible, prophetic pastor whose vision was a ‘church of the poor for the poor’, to quote one of his favourite sayings. We are deeply grateful to him for holding before us the image of the church as a field hospital, and for the incredible ways in which he embraced the marginalised, begging priests to identify with them as  ‘shepherds living with the smell of the sheep’.

“He was a master of gesture; he supported all. Although he primarily led the world’s Catholics, he also gave leadership to the whole Christian family. We will remember him for his wise counsel, posing deep theological questions, and his encyclical on care for the environment, Laudato Si', will resonate through generations as we seek to love God’s creation.

“The greater Christian family will miss him as a great human being and a great church leader. In my last brief conversation with him, I asked him to pray for me. His reply, ‘Ora pro nobis tamquam ego vobis’ – ‘Pray for us as I do for you’ – made me feel, just as many including Lungi did, that I had a place in his heart. His memory will be etched in my heart forever, and I pray that his soul will rest in God’s peace.”

Sermon for the Easter Vigil, St George's Cathedral - 2025

The Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba

Archbishop of Cape Town

Easter Vigil

St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town

April 20^th, 2025

Romans 6:3-11; Psalm 114; Luke 24: 1-12

May I speak in the name of God who is our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer:

[The full text of the sermon follows below the news clip from SABC News] 

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may each one of you experience the fullness of life that the Resurrection of our Lord offers us this Easter.

A warm greeting to you all on this holy night, and an especially warm welcome to the parents and godparents present for tonight’s baptism. An equally warm welcome to our new Dean, Moruti Terry, and to Nicky, on this, their first Easter in his new role in this, the mother church of our Province. Thank you, Mr Dean and your team for the work you have put into this year’s Easter services: the Cathedral staff, the Wardens, the Lay Ministers and Sacristans, the Verger and Assistant Verger, our magnificent Choir, the Choir Master and Organists, the flower arrangers and all other members of the congregation who have played a part. Our congratulations to newly-elected Cathedral Councillors, and our heartfelt thanks to the outgoing members.

Tonight rings with those words from the opening verse of our Gospel reading tonight, “On the first day of the week, at early dawn...” Luke sounds those words, historically, in the midst of so many levels of night, of so many layers of darkness, which the disciples had experienced over the days of what we now call Passiontide. It seemed the dreams of where the Jesus story would lead the disciples had crashed; a time during which the power of the various establishments – the political, the religious and the military establishments – had borne down upon them, scaring them into fear and vulnerability; a time during which the darkness of the Roman occupation of Palestine threatened to crush them, rendering them a community deprived of the air of freedom.

Luke’s words are thus, from the word go, a testimony that, as the English poet and priest John Donne, wrote in one of his Divine Meditations,

“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so...”

The reading from Luke, reinforced by Donne’s poem, reminds us as Christians that Easter is a vindication of new, resurgent life. If ever there was an hour when we needed Luke’s words; when we needed the assurance which the Easter message of resurrection and new life offer us, it is now, when our politics around the world and in our own nation are so dysfunctional, when conflict wreaks death, dehumanisation and destruction in at least 40 places across the globe, when domestic abuse and gender-based violence strip their survivors of their dignity, and when we destroy our environment, putting profit above people and making excuses for genocide.

For we live in a time when a European power, Russia, continues its merciless bombing of civilian targets in a neighbouring country, Ukraine. We live in a time when the civil war in Sudan continues without pause; when South Sudan teeters on the brink of a new civil war; and when we look on in despair as Israel expands its occupation of Gaza, where not even those identifying themselves as medical personnel are safe from attack, and where the Israeli government gives every indication of pursuing ethnic cleansing with the collusion of the United States.

In South Africa, it is a time during which the credibility and commitment to good governance of our political parties is seriously open to question. Last week leaders of the South African Council of Churches met President Ramaphosa and members of his Cabinet, where we registered our protest at the way in which members of the Government of National Unity are engaging in grandstanding and political one-upmanship at the expense of resolving the urgent challenges our nation faces. For my part, I am concerned that unless our politicians stop playing these dangerous games and develop a proper respect for the legitimacy of their partners in the administration, the very concept of democratic governance in South Africa is headed for a crisis of confidence.

A section of the leadership of the African National Congress clearly finds it difficult to accept that they no longer enjoy the support of the majority of the electorate, and still behave as if they alone enjoy legitimacy. The Democratic Party sometimes behaves as if its electoral support entitles it just to override the views of those who represented a far bigger proportion of the electorate in the last election. And at municipal level especially, we see small minority parties exercising far more power than their legitimacy entitles them to. Thirty years into democracy, the legitimacy of every party elected to Parliament needs to be respected, and no party should assume a legitimacy greater than their strength at the ballot box gives them.

Respect for the legitimacy of others also needs to be extended to other institutions in society. This has important implications for the National Dialogue being planned by the Presidency, since a successful outcome depends on the process becoming everyone’s business, not just the government’s. The churches support the dialogue, having called in 2017 for a national conversation aimed at confronting societal fragmentation, moral deterioration and the loss of trust in public institutions. But as we have told President Ramaphosa, it is critical for the credibility of the dialogue for it to be free from manipulation by political and economic elites. To avoid that happening, the President’s proposed “Advisory Panel of Eminent Persons” and the dialogue’s steering committee need to be able to act independently, without being dictated to by politicians. The relevance of the dialogue will depend on how representative its deliberations are of the full spectrum of South African society.

As well as offering us new life, the celebration of Easter offers us new hope. Hope, as I have said previously, is not a nebulous, pie-in-the-sky concept. It is rather the driving force which motivates our determination to name our problems, to identify solutions to them and to mobilise people to overcome them. But it is not just about good deeds or good works—it is about promoting justice. As that great African saint, Augustine of Hippo said, “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.” The contemporary American philosopher and political activist, Cornel West, makes a similar point when he says justice is “what love looks like in public.”

We will establish true justice in South Africa only if we fulfill the promises of our Constitution by working together for the common good. If we fail to show that democracy can improve the lives of our people, we run the risk of going the way of those countries in the so-called developed world which are threatening to slide downwards into populist autocracies.

New life and resurrection means turning history round, opening spaces for healing, restoring trust in our public utterances and building a just world. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said: “Easter says to us that despite everything to the contrary, God’s will for us will prevail. Love will prevail over hate, justice over injustice and oppression, peace over exploitation and bitterness.” His words offer us the reassurance this Easter that we can and will build a better South Africa and a better world.

God refuses to let the places of failure and darkness be the final word. Resurrection begins when we call out the darkness for what it is: death. Reacting to the multiple tombs that trap people, dehumanise people, exploit and kill people, Easter says loudly: “Not in my name.” Easter overcomes the darkness and confronts it with the invincible power of life.

A final point, one that is often overlooked, but it is significant. It relates to the role of women and the perceptions of men that first Easter. The women are told by the angel to tell the disciples to go to Galilee and meet Jesus there. But later, we read that they were still in Jerusalem a week afterwards. Luke records that the disciples did not believe the women, and that was because they reflected the prejudices of the time, they reflected the view that some categories of people—in this instance women—were marginalised and that their voices therefore did not count. They were excluded and their contributions ignored, robbing the community of gifts that went unexplored. When we exclude others, we narrow our world, we limit our empathy, we shrink our hearts, impoverish our imaginations and deprive ourselves of creative challenges, rendering each of us less than a fully human person.

But when we open our hearts and our minds and include others, we become more fully human. Easter restores our humanity through others. Easter grows a spirit of community. Easter witnesses for the common good and strengthens Ubuntu. But note this: all our Easter moments, all these Resurrection metaphors demand high levels of risk. When the angels challenge the figures in the Jesus movement to take up the challenge, his disciples had to be willing to take risks. They did not have it all figured out, but they nevertheless had to believe in themselves and take risks in order to move forward. So now, in our fractured and conflict-ridden world, we have to be ready to take the same risk that God took. We have to be willing to put our trust in God even though we might not know the answers or be certain about our futures. If we do this, we can fill the world with light and love, so that all of us will find ways of becoming midwives of a restored humanity.

In that spirit, confident in the words of Jesus, as quoted by Julian of Norwich¹, that ultimately “All manner of things shall be well”, I wish each one of you a risky Easter.

* * * * *

1Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 32.

Archbishop expresses shock over Israeli attack on hospital

Eighteen months after the Hamas attack of October 2023 triggered Israel's disproportionately brutal war on Gaza and its civilains, it comes as a new shock to hear that the Israel Defence Forces have bombed part of the last fully functional hospital in Gaza City. 

The Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, which operates the Ahli Arab Hospital, reports that two missile strikes demolished a two-storey laboratory and damaged the pharmacy and emergency department buildings. 

The Diocese says: “A mere twenty minutes prior to the attack, the Israeli army ordered all patients, employees, and displaced people to immediately evacuate the hospital premises prior to its bombing.” It adds that a child who previously suffered a head-injury died as a result of an evacuation process that had to be rushed.

The attack – the fifth during this war, and carried out on Palm Sunday – is outrageous. The Israeli claim that the hospital was a Hamas “command and control centre” rings hollow in the wake of the untruths around their March 23 killings of emergency workers in Gaza. A broad swath of international public opinion no longer believes Israeli protestations of innocence. 

It weighs heavily on my soul that the Israeli government is now pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, in contravention of international law and with the connivance of the United States. A call to all those prepared to listen is urgent and important. 

The full text of a statement issued by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem follows. 

News reports relevant to this statement can be found here:

Israel changes account of Gaza medic killings after video showed deadly attack - BBC 

and here: 

Israeli air strike destroys part of last fully functional hospital in Gaza City - BBC

A Prayer for the victims of rape in schools

Amid a national outcry over the rape of learners at school, and the slow response in investigating the cases, the Archbishop has issued the following prayer:

God, our Creator and Sustainer, 

With heavy hearts, we prostrate ourselves before your throne of grace,

Our only hope being in you when all organs of the State appear to be failing in their duties.

We bring before you the child victims of barbaric sexual and other abuse in our land,

We pray especially today for those whose lives have been touched by the alleged rapes of a seven-year-old in the Eastern Cape and a 13-year-old in Limpopo,

We bring the victims and their families before you for strength, consolation and healing,

We ask that their families will experience your power and your guidance,

And that your presence will be felt in the schools in which they trusted.

God, they are but children who bear your image as part of this, your world,

A world which you declared to be good and pleasing to you when you created it.

As Jesus, your Son, prayed for his disciples,

So God, we now pray for the victims in these cases, who belong to you, and to you alone,

Keep them safe in this cruel world by the power of your name (Jn 17: 9-11).

As we share at this moment in the anguish of victims and their families,

May you, our God, also groan with us, as we your children, offer this prayer in faith.

As we stand in solidarity with the families of all victims of abuse,

May your unfathomable love envelop the families of these victims now,

May your Holy Spirit protect and guide our communities,

And bring us to union with Christ as we transform and re-create our institutions of learning. 

Lord in your mercy,  

Hear our prayers and heal our country. 

Amen.

††Thabo Cape Town