(Vatican Radio) South Africa’s anti-Apartheid leader and former president, Nelson
Mandela, is again in hospital being treated for a recurrent lung infection. The 94
year-old Mandela was admitted to hospital on Saturday morning. His condition is reported
as ‘serious but stable’. Mandela served as president from 1994 until 1999, after successfully
negotiating an end to Apartheid and a multi-racial general election. He voluntarily
handed over power at the end of his term as president – something the editor of South
Africa’s largest Catholic weekly newspaper, the Southern Cross, Gunther Simmermacher,
told Vatican Radio was significant not only for South Africa. “Mandela’s presidency
certainly set a template for peaceful transition,” said Simmermacher, not only for
South Africa, but for other countries, as well.” For his work toward non-violent reform
and national reconciliation, Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace
in 1993, together with former president F.W. de Klerk. Listen: