The history of the parishes in the Diocese of Eshowe
At the time when Eshowe was still part of the Natal Vicariate, a priest from Mbongolwane used to travel to Eshowe to celebrate Mass for the small community of Catholics. Bishop Spreiter noted in his diary that "Fr. Rosenthal held the services in the town library" (TT 05-06-22). The Benedictines continued this routine after they took over Mbongolwane in March 1924. Over the ten-month period from August 1924 to June 1925, Mass was said only twice in Eshowe (chronicle of Mbongolwane, Aug. 1924 - June 1925, pg. 33). Later, Mass was held once every three months.
On October 15, 1929, the Benedictines made a new foundation in Eshowe, on the outskirts of the town. It was dedicated to St. Theresa of Lisieux (1873-1897), who had been canonized only a few years before, in 1925, and who had been declared patron saint of the missions. The foundation became known as Little Flower Mission.
Two decisions, made by Bishops Spreiter, gave the new foundation a great boost: the transfer in 1932 of the so-called coloured school from Emoyeni to Little Flower, and the establishment of a Benedictine Procure in 1934 under the direction of Bro. Alan Geiger. Bishop Aurelian Bilgeri (19091973) took up residence at Little Flower shortly after his appointment as the bishop of Eshowe. He stayed there until April 1952 when he was able to move into the new bishop's house in the centre of Eshowe. Apart from the Benedictine Procure, the Little Flower Mission also had a carpentry and an engineering workshop. Bro. Heribert Heiß (18991988) was in charge of the carpentry shop (from 1935 to 1961); Bro. Willigis Gaßner (18811962) looked after the garden and the small farm (from 1946 to 1962); Bro. Edmund Baur (18981989) worked as a plumber and mechanic (from 1949 to 1968); Bro. Ethelwold Hettrich (19061969) was an electrician and tailor (from 1932 to 1969) at Little Flower.
On October 31, 1934, the Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing opened a convent at the mission. Teaching became their main apostolate. They started a primary school for so-called coloured children and ran two school hostels, one for boys and another one for girls. In the course of time, they extended the school, opening more classes. By 1945, it had become a fully fledged primary school with seven classes. The Tutzing Sisters left Little Flower in December 1956 and handed the school over to the Benedictine Sisters of St. Alban. The whole mission complex is mostly made up of school and hostel buildings. In the centre is a simple church which was blessed and opened by Fr. Theodos Schall on October 3, 1944. A spacious priests' house was erected in 1969 and a modern convent in 1975. Little Flower is the mother house of the Benedictine Sisters of St. Alban, a diocesan congregation, established by Bishop Aurelian Bilgeri on January 6, 1957.
Bishop Thomas Spreiter administered the Vicariate Apostolic of Eshowe from his residence at Inkamana. He seemed to have had no intention of moving to Eshowe. After his death in 1944 and the appointment of Fr. Theodos Schall as administrator, Eshowe became more and more the centre of the vicariate. When Fr. Theodos was transferred to Little Flower in 1932 he began to look for a property in the town of Eshowe which was suitable for the establishment of a Catholic centre. By 1951 he had purchased adjoining stands which together made up 3,75 hectares (9,3 acres). After one of the old houses on the property had been remodelled, Bishop Aurelian Bilgeri was able to take up residence in Eshowe in April 1952. Later in the same year, a little chapel was opened next to the bishop's house. It served as the church for the English-speaking Catholics in town until the new cathedral was completed and blessed on March 21, 1956.
The opening of the cathedral in 1956 shifted the focal point of the Catholic Church from the Little Flower Mission on the fringe of the town to the bishop's residence in the centre. The latter took over the role which Little Flower had played for some twenty-five years. Lack of personnel forced the Benedictines to reduce their activities at Little Flower. The carpentry workshop was closed down in 1964, the tailor-shop in 1974. Soon afterwards cattle farming was given up. The plumbing and engineering workshops also closed their doors. There was only one brother left in 1974. When he died, twelve years later, the Little Flower Mission was without a brother. The situation developed along similar lines with regard to Benedictine priests. Fr. Theodore Landmann was the last one stationed at Little Flower. The mission no longer had a resident priest after June 1991, when Fr. Theodore retired.
The first Franciscan Sisters of Oberzell, known in South Africa as the Holy Childhood Sisters, arrived in Eshowe in November 1952. In January 1953, they opened a pre-primary school in the centre of town, next to the bishop's residence. Within six years, it grew into a fully developed primary school with boarding houses for boys and girls. The necessary buildings were erected in several stages. A new convent, built in the midfifties and enlarged in 1979/80, and a big school hall, built in 1976, completed the Holy Childhood Convent School complex in the centre of Eshowe.
Catholic schools in South Africa were forced by the government to stick to the race segregation laws which were introduced after 1948. Otherwise they would have risked being closed down. This meant that convent schools, situated in areas where only Whites were allowed to live, catered in fact only for white children. After the Soweto riots in 1976, the Catholic Bishops of South Africa recommended to the various religious communities that ran Catholic schools for white children to ignore the laws of the country and accept children of all races. The Holy Childhood Convent School in Eshowe was one of the first Catholic schools in the country to start racially integrated classes in 1977, in spite of heavy government pressure. The courage of the sisters did much to restore the credibility of the Church among Blacks, who had previously been disillusioned by the fact that the Church seemed to conform with the prevalent race laws.
When Msgr. Mansuet Biyase became bishop of Eshowe in 1975, the diocesan offices were completely revamped and upgraded. A new two-storey residence was built for the bishop in 1979. The old bishop's house has since then served as a residence for the priest who looks after the Zulu-speaking parish. In 1984, the former sisters' chapel, attached to the diocesan centre, was changed into a guest wing. A large strongroom was built in the courtyard of the diocesan centre in 1977. It is used for the storage of the diocesan archives.
Over the years, three focal points have emerged as far as the pastoral work in Eshowe is concerned. For the first ten years, i.e. until the outbreak of the Second World War, the priests concentrated their efforts on establishing outstations for the widely scattered Zuluspeaking Catholics. Englishspeaking Catholics had a regular Sunday Mass from 1944 in the Little Flower church. After 1948, the development of Eshowe, like that of all other towns in South Africa, followed the policy of racial segregation. A settlement for Blacks and another one for people of mixed race were built on the outskirts of the "white" town of Eshowe. Although the Catholic Church never followed the apartheid laws with regard to church services (the different races had to have their own churches and services), it did establish church buildings in the various townships that were set aside for people of a particular race. Churches were built in Sunnydale in 1961, the township for people of mixed race, and in the black township of Gezinsila in 1970. As a result, three separate parishes were formed in and around Eshowe: a Zulu-speaking parish, a so-called coloured parish and a "white" parish. The white and coloured parishes (both Englishspeaking) were combined in 1976 and now make up the Cathedral Parish which had a combined membership of 650 English-speaking Catholics in 1990. The Zuluspeaking parish of Eshowe with its 4700 registered Catholics (1990 figure) is much bigger. Only about a quarter of these live in the township of Gezinsila, the population of which had not yet reached the ten thousand mark in 1990. The majority are attached to one of the eighteen outstations around Eshowe. The church of one of these outstations has become a well-known landmark in the Eshowe district. It is situated fifteen kilometres north of Eshowe high up on the Mandawe Hill, not far from the Eshowe-Melmoth road. It is built in the shape of a milk-pail with a massive concrete cross on top. The church was opened and blessed on March 19, 1967.
Parish Priests of the Zulu speaking parish of Eshowe
Parish Priests of Sunnydale
(Parish for the so-called coloured people)
The Sunnydale Parish was merged with the Cathedral Parish in April 1976.
Parish Priests of the Cathedral Parish of Eshowe
Superiors of Little Flower/Eshowe
Assistant Priests at Little Flower/Eshowe
Benedictine Brothers at Little Flower
Holy Childhood Convent School hcschool@netactive.co.za
This page was last updated on Tuesday, 24 October 2006 17:51:36
