Ad Laos - To the People of God – October 2025

 The Archbishop's letter to the laity of Cape Town in its newsletter, Good Hope:

 Dear People of God, 

It feels like yesterday that I last wrote to you! Since then, the Gaza ceasefire has come as a great relief – although we have already seen breaches. Please keep Gaza in your prayers as people return to their homes, many of which have been obliterated by bombing. It is easy to destroy, but much harder to rebuild, not only infrastructure but especially trust of one nation by another. 

For me, both the Lord who made heaven and earth and Jesus, the Son God unites us with, agonised over the starving and killing of children in this war. The war industry which profitted off the drones and bunker buster bombs tested my soul and left me struggling for words to pray. We continue to wait upon the Lord, reassured by Martin Luther King Junior's words that although the arc of the moral universe is long, it does bend towards justice.

In London for meetings this month, one of the things I did was to spend some time in a Lambeth Palace boardroom with an artist who wanted to measure my face, my nose and my head for a portrait! It was good to be forced to be still, and also to pray for our worldwide Anglican community as we engage once again in robust debate about who we are and want to be.

I also met the team from the Anglican Communion Office which is preparing two webinars on the Lambeth Call on Reconciliation in November. The call, issued by the last Lambeth Conference of bishops, will enable Anglicans from around the world to share insights from their work in peace and reconciliation ministry. Anyone can register and take part. I invite you all to join, which you can do here >>

In London I also joined an annual meeting of the Mining and Faith Reflections Initiative, the dialogue I have been part of for the past 12 years in which faith leaders mainly from the Vatican and Methodist and Anglican churches engage mining communities on how they can best serve the common good. 

Back to South Africa, and to Pietermaritzburg where I presided over the consecration of Bishop Amos Nkosi as the new Bishop Suffragan of Natal. I love these services, which are always inspiring and glorious, especially the music from all our Anglican traditions. Scroll down on our Provincial Facebook page for the congregation's rendition of the Nicene Creed! 

Finally, home in Cape Town for the glorious dedication of our new church in Crossroads. During the 1970s and 1980s, when women living in defiance of the pass laws were expelled from their homes, church activists lay down in front of bulldozers to stop their homes from being destroyed. When they were made homeless, churches across the Diocese gave them refuge. Later, when the state fomented conflict within communities, the then Bishop Desmond Tutu flew to Cape Town to mediate between the “comrades” and the “witdoeke”. For many years the congregation worshipped in effect in a shack, which was once burned down during violence. When they regrouped, they called their church Eluvukweni (Resurrection) believing they would rise again. Thank you to all of you who helped them, and I urge others to donate during Advent via the Diocesan Office.

Now our communities have new challenges: gang violence and crime, and to follow up on the extensive coverage Good Hope gave to that struggle last month, I urge you to redouble your prayers and practical efforts to combat that scourge. 

Elsewhere in this edition you will read about the latest Anglicans Ablaze – congratulations to Growing the Church for another successful celebration of our faith! Finally, our warm congratulations go to Bishop Sarah Mullally of London, who will be the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and in our own Diocese to the Ven Mcebisi Pinyana, who will be consecrated as Bishop of Grahamstown in Makhanda on November 22. 

God bless

††Thabo Cape Town