The South African Council of Churches has welcomed the South African government’s decision to allow places of worship to resume services for groups of no more than 50 people. Margaret Blackie questions this enthusiasm at a time when the risk of COVID-19 contamination is the greatest. She argues that an individual hunger to go to church that endangers the community runs counter to the core message of the Gospels. South Africa has just entered Level Three lockdown in the nationwide […]

The Holy Father has appointed Rev Fr. Noel Andrew Rucastle, of the Cape Town clergy and previously parish priest of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Bellville and judicial vicar, as the new Bishop of the Diocese of Oudtshoorn. The Bishop-elect will succeed Rt. Rev. Bishop Francisco de Gouveia who retired on 2 July 2018.  The Rev. Noel Andrew Rucastle was born on 22 April 1968 in Upington, in the diocese of Kimberley. After attending St. Patrick’s Christian Brothers’ College in Kimberley, he studied Civil […]