Australian nun advises South Africa on Benedict Daswa

One of the key players in the canonisation of Australia’s first saint is hoping that a little bit of help from Australia will contribute to the canonisation of the first South African saint.

Adelaide Josephite Sister Sheila McCreanor recently returned from the South African province of Limpopo where she has been assisting the Diocese of Tzaneen to promote the cause of Benedict Daswa.

Daswa was declared a martyr by Pope Francis on January 22 and will be the first South African to be beatified.

Sr Sheila was heavily involved in the cause for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop, chairing the national media committee.

She said there were a number of challenges facing the South African diocese, not least being that only around 7 per cent of the population is Catholic and consequently there is a lack of resources for his cause. She said Daswa was not well known in some parts of the country and the diocese needed to have his story embraced by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, as was the case with Mary MacKillop in Australia. Sr Sheila said she firmly believed Daswa could be important to South Africa because of his “goodness” and the way he stood up for what he believed in.

Benedict Daswa was born in 1946 in the village of Mbahe and was baptised as a Catholic on April 21, 1963. He trained as a primary school teacher and went on to become principal of Nweli Primary School. In 1980 he married Shadi who converted to Catholicism and they went on to have eight children.

Described as a highly skilled educator and an exemplary husband and father, Daswa was involved in the parish community as catechist, liturgical animator, promotor of works of charity and a builder of justice and peace.

In his private and public life, Daswa took a strong stand against witchcraft, rife throughout the region, because it sometimes led to killing innocent people. A group of men brutally attacked him not far from his home on February 2 1990 and he was praying on his knees when his executioners killed him.

His fame as a martyr soon spread throughout the province and each year, on the anniversary of his death, a growing number of people make a pilgrimage to his grave which is currently located in a small cemetery

(Jenny Brinkworth, The Southern Cross)

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