WeeklySA_AdminNO PERMIT: Two undocumented Catholic pastors describe their trauma after being forced out of South Africa – one this week – after long delays in legalising their stay…
By Agnes Aineah
Ugandan priest Stephen Syambi arrived home in Kampala on Wednesday, feeling dejected and confused – several hours after being deported out of South Africa and slapped with a five-year ban for being in the country illegally.
The 31-year-old cleric felt even more disheartened when he thought about all the people he had left “without a shepherd” at St Ephraim Catholic Church Ikageng, a struggling parish of South Africa’s Catholic Diocese of Klerksdorp in North West province.
He blames red-tape on the part of the South African authorities after he faced long delays for years to have his documents fixed in the country.
Father Stephen says he tried everything he could to stay in the parish where he served as the only priest, but says the South African authorities made him feel unwanted. He had tried without success to secure a working permit in the country for years, and as he left the country on July 16, he was slapped with a five-year ban for “being in South Africa illegally.”
In an interview with ACI Africa on Tuesday, Bishop Joseph Mary Kizito, the liaison Bishop for the Migrants and Refugees Department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) bemoaned the woes of non-locals in South Africa, noting that delays in documentation is forcing foreign priests to leave the country.
He said that he had interacted with Catholic priests, who had been forced to go back to their home countries after attempts to renew their visas hit a snag.
“We are witnessing delays in the processing of documents such as visas. Many priests have left the country because they have failed to secure their documents that show that they are not living here illegally,” Bishop Kizito said.
The Bishop of South Africa’s Catholic Diocese of Aliwal said that the trend where Priests are moving from South Africa, and back to their home countries is not good for the country that he said already has a shortage of Priests.
What next
Even before he was forced out, Father Stephen says he endured countless instances of humiliation in the hands of South African authorities, and was at some point thrown into police custody where he spent a night for being a foreigner.
When he spoke to ACI Africa yesterday, Father Stephen was unwinding at his sister’s home in Kampala, in some state of limbo.
What next for the priest?
“I may have to go to the next mission. There are so many countries and so many Dioceses that are in need of Catholic Priests. I may have to move in that direction.”
Sharing about how frustrating his experience in South Africa had been, Fr. Stephen said, “I left the parish and its outstations, and yes, without a shepherd. I felt unwanted. I felt like we, the missionaries, are insignificant to the South African authorities… I had a nagging feeling that no, we are not actually appreciated.”
His ordeal is not an isolated case in South Africa where non-locals, including Catholic priests and religious from other African countries, are reportedly facing rejection.
At St Ephraim Catholic Church, for instance, Fr. Stephen has been the parish priest since September last year, and the only Clergy, balancing between administrative work and pastoral activities across all the parish’s far-flung outstations.
Stranded parish
“I was the only Priest available, and so, I took care of all the programs,” he said, and added, “Tuesdays were my office days. I visited the old and the sick on Wednesdays. Thursdays were office and adoration days. Same with Fridays. I did more pastoral work on Saturdays. And on Sundays, I celebrated Mass at the Parish and in our two outstations.”
Asked about how he feels about leaving behind the parishioners, the priest said, “It is a sad situation. It weighs so heavily on me.”
“I left behind a painful situation because two of my parishioners, because of the crime in the country, had been gunned down. And there’s a funeral going to happen on Saturday (July 19). And I was supposed to be there as their parish priest. People tell me that they are waiting for me to go and baptise their children. But I don’t know whether that will ever happen.”
Without a work permit, Father Stephen was not at liberty to perform any legal tasks as the parish priest.
“My hands were tied,” he said, and explained, “Legally, I was not even supposed to be parish priest without a work permit. I couldn’t sign at the bank for the Parish. And I couldn’t append my signature on any Parish projects.”
“The Diocese is struggling financially. It can’t even pay Priests’ stipends. This is a place where you will find a Bishop without a car.”
He first went to South Africa in 2017 as a seminarian to study under the Diocese of Klerksdorp. He left in 2019 to complete his studies in Kenya and went back to South Africa in 2021 to be ordained a Deacon, and a priest a year later.
For his studies in South Africa, Fr. Stephen was awarded a seven-year study permit in 2017 which was to expire in 2024.
“When I tried to apply to change the permit from study to work, I faced many challenges arising from delays from the authorities concerned,” he said, adding that it would take over a year to get any response from South Africa’s department of Home Affairs. And it would always be a rejection.
He decided to leave South Africa when the intervention of Bishops in Africa failed to bear any fruit.
“My Bishop and I agreed that leaving was the only option I had because the anxiety was just getting unbearable for me,” he told ACI Africa.
“Even after I decided to leave, I still found myself in trouble,” Fr. Stephen said, and added, “Yesterday (July 16) as I was leaving, I encountered authorities who slapped me with a five-year ban, accusing me of being in South Africa illegally. And I tried to explain to them why and how I’ve been struggling to get hold of my documents, but they still declared me undesirable for the next five years.”
The priest faulted the lack of proper communication between South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs and the Church, saying, “If there was communication, the department would have made things clear for the Church and other entities. We wrote several emails. None was replied to. No phone calls were picked. They share phone numbers which don’t work. They basically block all channels of communication with them.”
Another deported priest
Sharing a similar experience is Father Jude Thaddeus, a member of the Clergy of Uganda’s Catholic Diocese of Kiyinda Mityana, who was sent packing from South Africa in May.
Father Jude, who has been a priest for 19 years, served as a Fidei Donum Priest in South Africa for nearly a decade.
His first role when he arrived in South Africa in 2016 was in the Northern Cape’s Catholic Diocese of De Aar at the Cathedral Parish where he served as the administrator.
He then proceeded to the Eastern Cape to serve in two parishes while also serving in two other mission stations in the Northern Cape.
“I served in four parishes at the same time after working at the Cathedral Parish for one year,” Jude told ACI Africa in an interview yesterday, adding that his two final work stations were in the De Aar Municipality before authorities sent him packing owing to an expired work permit.
Fr Jude blames the COVID-19 lockdown, which took away the time he says he would have used to renew his documents, but also authorities in South Africa for further delays.
“If not for COVID-19, my story could be different perhaps,” he said, adding that a lockdown in his native country Uganda, where he had gone to have his passport, driving licence, and other documents renewed, messed up his plans.
Fr Jude was lucky when he managed to have his fingerprints submitted to the police. “I was asked to pay for the quick delivery of my fingerprints. Months later, I started receiving emails from the police in Pretoria, assuring me that they had received my fingerprints and that everything had been worked on.”
“I waited and waited but the results of my fingerprints did not come,” he said, and added, “I was late for the visa application because of this. I attribute my delay to not receiving the police fingerprints in time, but also the inconvenience that was caused by COVID-19.”
Fr. Jude agrees that sending priests away from South Africa hurts the country, where vocations have gone down compared to other African countries.
In the interview with ACI Africa, Fr. Stephen appealed for collaboration between the South African government and the Church in the country, noting that “frustrating” foreign missionaries in the country is self-sabotaging.
“If the Church is not helped to grow, we are most likely going to end up with a society where people have no faith, have no sense of hope, end up doing things that are just terrible,” he said, and added, “Crime increases because people have become ungodly.” – ACI Africa
