Special Report Transcript Episode 75, Section 4, Time 26:57

We took too long to come to this place of a clearer, uncompromising witness. We allowed others to precede us and take the flack. Too late we conceded that they were right and we owe them an apology for our compromising and often complacent half-heartedness and sometimes for a hardness of heart that could be extremely damaging and hurtful. Archbishop, you yourself bore the brunt of this critique, not only in the nation at large, but even from the membership of your own church. May I, on behalf of the CPSA, offer to you a profound apology, ask for your forgiveness and thank you for your extraordinary graciousness and magnanimity. In a strange way I think many white Anglicans in the CPSA owe an apology to the Afrikaner community for their attitude of moral superiority. But our chief expression of apology must be to our own black membership and I’m using the work black inclusively. Chairperson, our so-called white parishes, like white businesses – I’m thinking of last week’s TRC hearings – have unquestionably benefitted from apartheid and its political predecessors. In their church facilities, including housing and transport for their priests, they have been bastions of relative privilege.

Notes: Michael Nuttall (Bishop: Anglican Church)