Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu wowed a crowd of 50,000 crowd at a musical celebration in Soweto ahead of the kick-off in the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa.
Ekklesia reports:
Bouncing around the brightly lit stage in the green and yellow colours of the nation, and clutching his ‘Bafana Bafana’ South African team scarf, Tutu, the globally popular former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, gave a bravura performance to an ecstatic audience.
His main task was to introduce a short film about the life of ‘father of the new nation’ Nelson Mandela, who is now 92-years-old.
“Friends, before I tell you who will be in the final,” Tutu declared with his signature giggle, to gales of laughter, “I think we have to pay a wonderful tribute to the man we all owe this to, if we make enough noise he will hear us.”
But Dr Tutu also used the occasion to speak of Africa as “the cradle of humanity.”
“Every single one of you… from South Africa, or from Germany, or from France, or anywhere… you are African now!” he declared, to whoops and cheers from the large multicultural audience.
“We want to say to the world — Thank you for helping this worm to become a beautiful butterfly,” Archbishop Tutu concluded.