Your Church in Southern Sudan

Given its history, that the Church has persevered in Sudan over half a century of civil war should raise no eyebrows. Her plain wood altars, scarred crosses, even occasional stained glass, remain against all odds, as if emulating Her theology.

Nothing of the core of the Catholic Church is lost or diminished in southern Sudan. Her role as spiritual guide and haven for the downcast, while more visible against the backdrop of absolute poverty, is neither new nor unexpected. But the Church here has taken on, or more accurately has had thrust upon it, another role that maybe shouldn't be all that surprising but is, in fact, nothing short of astonishing.

The Church in southern Sudan is everywhere and in everything.

If you could see your Church in southern Sudan, along with all the familiar sights, you would see roads, clinics, wells, civic meetings, microfinance institutions, farms and small business. In short, the material supports of civilization are introduced and maintained here by your Church.

The Church was not elected or selected for this role. Rather, it was the one remaining body capable and credible enough in southern Sudan to bring together and join with all the national and international groups that seek to do good in this place.

Governments were preoccupied by war and unimaginably complex politics. Individuals were preoccupied by day-to-day survival. Traditional forms of conflict resolution between neighbors, tribes, towns and states were shattered over decades of war and upheaval.

Only the Church remained and remains stable enough to defy chaos. Like the women who scrub the floor of All Saints Church, the Catholic Church in southern Sudan bends to the practical tasks of civilization, and struggles to make life not only a bit more bearable, but even possible.

Read the entire article here. And consider aiding the heroic Church in southern Sudan.

Father Joseph Otto, of St. Theresa Parish in Magwi, has been a priest for 9 years, overseeing a circuit of churches over a large area. He says Mass every day even if no one attends. Photo by Karen Kasmauski for CRS

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