COVID-19 Effects “have dire consequences for Church in South Africa”: Cleric Reflects

“COVID-19 has already forced certain parishes or even Dioceses into bankruptcy,” the Cleric further observes and adds, “As it has already been ascertained, church attendance has decreased drastically and cash injection for the sustenance of the Clergy and the Parish is impacted.”

Parish bankruptcy has a negative effect “because most Dioceses rely on parishes for their survival,” Fr. Ledwaba says.

However, he further says, “COVID-19 has challenged Parishes and Dioceses to be forward thinking and to find ways to keep themselves financially afloat.”

The Cleric goes on to caution, “If the trajectory of COVID-19 continues as it is, I am afraid a sizable number of Parishes will have to be merged or even closed.”

With a rising number of COVID-19 infections in South Africa, which have claimed several members of the Clergy, Religious men and women, Fr. Ledwaba’s “greatest worry and concern are Priests with comorbidities, who are staying alone in Parishes because of the massive shortage of Priests and still have to carry out their ministerial obligations amidst those underlying conditions.”

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In the wake of the second wave of COVID-19, six Catholic Sisters from the Daughters of Saint Francis in Port Shepstone, Marianhill Diocese succumbed to the disease “within a period of a week, from 10-17 December 2020,” the Conference of Catholic Sisters in the country reported.

“This is a very painful reminder that the scourge of COVID-19 is yet to lessen its devastation to communities and society at large,” officials of the Leadership Conference of Consecrated Life (LCCLSA) said in their December 18 statement shared with ACI Africa.

On the positive side, Fr. Ledwaba says in his January 7 reflection, COVID-19 has provided the Church in South Africa “an opportunity to re-evaluate herself and her efficacy on reaching the people of God.”

“I am consoled by the fact that COVID-19 has provided people with a prolonged ‘retreat’ to assess their relationship with God, to strengthen family bonds and to grow spiritually; to introspect and make certain behavioral changes and to learn to appreciate everything we have,” Fr. Ledwaba says.

He adds, “As we struggle with this invisible yet felt enemy, let us always remember that there is always a light at the end of a tunnel.”