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Like Blessed Benedict Daswa, Let’s Foster “good values, morals” During 2025 Jubilee Year: South Africa’s Newest Cardinal

Credit: SACBC

At the inauguration of the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year in the Catholic Archdiocese of Johannesburg in South Africa, Stephen Cardinal Brislin has highlighted the “good values and morals” that the Blessed Benedict Daswa exemplified throughout his life, and urged the people of God to emulate him.

Blessed Benedict Daswa, a 43-year-old teacher from Limpopo, Northern South Africa, was killed by fellow villagers for his lack of belief in witchcraft, which he considered to be against the teachings of God. 

In his homily during the inauguration of the 2025 Jubilee Year in his Metropolitan See on February 1, the Feast Day of South Africa’s first potential saint, Cardinal Brislin highlighted generosity, integrity, and forgiveness as some of virtues that the Blessed Benedict Daswa exemplified. 

“It is appropriate that we are celebrating the opening of the Holy Year on the day on which we commemorate Blessed Benedict Daswa, who was a person who served God faithfully and offered up his life rather than commit sin,” South Africa’s newest Cardinal said during the celebration that was held at Christ the King Cathedral of his Metropolitan See.

Blessed Benedict Daswa, he said, “was a man of integrity, a man who had good values and good morals. Maintaining his morals was more important to him than life itself, and so he was willing to lay down his life for what he believed.”

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“Our society has a moral and ethical vacuum,” Cardinal Brislin said, and explained, “We hear and have seen how millions, billions, of rands have been stolen through corruption, how the poor continue to suffer because of it, and how those who are guilty do not lose any sleep over what they have done and the suffering they have caused.”

He advocated for conversion during the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year. In this yearlong initiative, it is possible to “return to honesty, to justice, to fairness”; it is possible “to teach our children to do the same,” he said. 

The Local Ordinary of Johannesburg following his 28 October 2024 transfer from South Africa’s Cape Town Catholic Archdiocese to succeed Archbishop Buti Joseph Tlhagale called on the people of God under his pastoral care to “make a preferential option for the poor, to reach out to those who are suffering and to those who are in need – sharing what we have.”

In his February 1 homily, the Cardinal who assumed the Presidency of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) during the January 2025 Plenary Assembly also underlined the need to emulate Blessed Daswa’s generosity.

“In the life of Blessed Benedict Daswa, we see what a generous man he was; a dedicated father and husband; a teacher who had the concerns of his students in his heart; a catechism teacher who spread the faith and guided young people to know and serve God,” he said.

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On Blessed Benedict Daswa’s virtue of humility, the Cardinal said, “Humble service is the mark or characteristic of Christian life. In today's world, it is more difficult because of the culture in which we live which has become very individualistic and self-serving.”

“We are called to be those who are willing to serve through self-sacrifice, not seeking our gain, but learning generosity not only material generosity, but a generosity of spirit, a generosity of saying ‘yes’ to God, and a generosity towards our neighbour who seeks our time, consolation or help,” he added.

The 68-year-old South African Cardinal, who started his Episcopal Ministry in January 2007 as Bishop of South Africa’s Kroonstad Catholic Diocese further said, “We, too, need the ‘yes’ of Mary in our hearts and to know that our faith is witnessed by others when they see our good works.”

He went on to advocate for the practice of forgiveness and reconciliation after the example of Jesus Christ, St. Stephen, and Blessed Benedict Daswa. 

“We think of Jesus on the Cross, forgiving his murderers, St Stephen who also forgave those who stoned him, and undoubtedly Blessed Benedict Daswa also prayed for his killers at the time of his death,” the Cardinal said. 

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The Lord Jesus Christ, he further said, “together with these saints and many others like them, show us the path to liberating ourselves by being able to forgive.”

“In this Jubilee Year we should make a special effort in our families to bring peace and unity to them,” he emphasized.

The South African Cardinal expressed his awareness of the challenges in families. “Every family has its problems and there is no perfect family. There is always a lot that happens in families and, without asking for forgiveness and being able to forgive, families become more and more broken and unhappy,” he said during the February 1 inauguration of the 2025 Jubilee Year in Johannesburg Archdiocese.

The Holy Father announced the start of a Year of Prayer on 21 January 2024 in preparation for the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, the second in his Pontificate after the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015.

He said that the 2025 Jubilee Year will be “a year dedicated to rediscovering the great value and absolute need for prayer in one’s personal life, in the life of the Church, and in the world.”

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Months later, on the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ on 9 May 2024, the Holy Father solemnly proclaimed the upcoming Jubilee Year 2025 at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica, during which he delivered the Bull of Indiction of the planned Jubilee, “Spes non confundit” (Hope does not disappoint).

He officially launched the 2025 Jubilee Year on the Eve of Christmas 2024 with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. The Jubilee Year provides the people of God across the globe an opportunity to participate in various planned jubilee events at the Vatican and in their respective Episcopal Sees and ICLSAL.

Silas Mwale Isenjia is a Kenyan journalist with a great zeal and interest for Catholic Church related communication. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communication from Moi University in Kenya. Silas has vast experience in the Media production industry. He currently works as a Journalist for ACI Africa.