The Center for Public Health and Human Rights is delighted to join the worldwide community celebrating the 90 th birthday of His Grace, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond M. Tutu. The Archbishop and his family are celebrating today as we join in honoring the extraordinary legacy of this champion of human rights, inclusion, dignity, and truth. Father has given the human family many gifts, but none perhaps more vital than his work on restorative justice—the idea of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which helped his beloved country, South Africa, come to terms and begin to heal from the wounds of Apartheid. There have now been many truth and reconciliation commissions, and they have shared the common theme that to heal, we must forgive, but to forgive, we must all know and recognize the truths of what we have done to others and what has been done in our names. Dearest Father, we send you all joys on this your 90 th birthday. And as a woman running a center for orphans under your patronage in Masiphumalele, an impoverished township, said to then Dean Mike Klag on a visit, “May you live forever!” You certainly will in our hearts.
