The WAACSA (We are church also, South Africa), progressive Catholic launch in Rosebank went well with a full hall of about 100 people, breaking into groups after my input and Chris Langefeld’s brief response. Chris will do a later input on the significance of Vatican 2 and my input is likely to be presented again on one, maybe two, occasions in Soweto as well as on the East Rand.

I place a lot of weight on the church activists and hope that this will be part of a revival of that section of the church that was involved in the struggle as opposed to the charismatic, Johnny come lately types who are patriarchal and homophobic. Many of the faces that I saw were people who have worked quietly as nuns in the townships over the years or ordinary church people who believe in the ‘option for the poor’.

There is some resistance to the rise of WAACSA from reactionary elements in the church for I heard that in one city WAACSA is not allowed to use church buildings for their meetings. My hope is that groups of this type can be part of the forces that reclaim our democratic promise ‘from below’.