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Black Roman Catholic priests are not treated equally as their white counterparts. Muntu Vilakazi. 11/03/05. © ST.

AN EXPLOSIVE internal report has exposed widespread racism in the Catholic Church in South Africa.

The Sunday Times has obtained a copy of the 31-page report called Racism and the Catholic Church, produced by the church's Justice and Peace Department after a two-year investigation into race relations among the church's leadership and its three-million-strong congregation.

The hard-hitting report found that the dominance of bishops who "come from the European cultural perspective" in the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference ensured that "white European perspectives and interests always set the agenda of the church".

The report says that Catholics "come into the church as privileged whites and underprivileged blacks. We have inherited a system of inequality."

It goes on: "Black Christians are waiting for a strong voice like that of John the Baptist coming from some African wilderness proclaiming the 10 years of true freedom - freedom from racism, poverty, diseases."

Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, head of the Catholic Church in South Africa, this week described some of the report's findings as "shocking and surprising".

The report reveals:

.White parishes were rich and well-equipped while few black parishes were;

.Poverty and obedience, central requirements of Catholic priests, were "experienced by some as really meant for the black members in practice";

.The interests of white parishes were favoured over those of black parishes;

.There was a different standard of living for white and black priests;

.There was distrust of black priests concerning management of funds;

.There was a belief by some white priests that they had "studied" black people and therefore "knew" them thoroughly; and

.Many white Catholics abandoned their parishes and schools when the numbers of black parishioners increased.

Napier said the report was a follow-up to a letter that the South African Catholic Bishops' Conference wrote on racism in 2003.

"I think it is normal that some people would show some sign of racist attitude," he said. "After all, we come from 300 years of racist attitude. You don't get over it very quickly."

The report noted that there appeared to be a "belief in the superiority of Western culture and the inferiority of African culture".

One black priest recalled in the report how he had accompanied a relative whose child wanted to attend a Catholic school and "a white parent actually screwed up her nose and complained about the safety of [her] children".

In yet another account, a white parishioner in Cape Town said his parish had decided that the "white" church building would be improved first.

This meant that no improvements could be made to the "black" church for a further 10 years.

Bishop Mlungisi Dlungwane, the chairman of the church's Justice and Peace Department, said the report had been commissioned by the Catholic bishops two years ago becauseit was time to stand up and sort it out because "it was embarrassing to have such a problem".

Of all the findings, Dlungwane said the one that saddened him the most was that the church's worshippers still did not celebrate together.

Father Dabula Mphako, a priest at Capital Park in Pretoria, said a group of priests called the African Catholic Priests' Solidarity Movement had organised themselves and had started challenging racism in the church in 1999.

Mphako said he hoped the report would get the church talking openly about its problems.

"It's very sad for us who have given our whole lives to the church and then you are treated as a second-class citizen," he said.

The Rev Molefe Tsele, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, said the organisation had done its own research into racism in churches last year.

That inquiry had identified three areas across all denominations that needed to be dealt with.

"Integration of church members is an area. Not all churches have integrated completely.

"Secondly, the deployment of priests and, thirdly, the benefits that they get. Some [churches] are better off than others but these are the broad areas that we look at," he said.

Ben du Toit, spokesman for the Dutch Reformed Church, said he had no knowledge of any race-related incidents within his church within the last year and said racism was condemned by the church.