The idea was taken a step further in 1993 when a discussion group – initiated by Professor Emmanuel Ngara, then the Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Fort Hare University, and including Catholic academics, clergy and business persons – began seriously to consider the matter.
Being Catholic, St Augustine operates in conformity with the provisions of the Code of Canon Law and the 1990 Apostolic Constitution of Pope John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
To this end the two famous Augustinian formulae (Sermons 43; 9) express this coherent synthesis between faith and reason: Crede ut intelligas (‘believe that you may understand’) – faith opens the way to step through the door of truth – but also, and inseparably, intellige ut credas (‘understand that you may believe’) – in order to find God and believe one must scrutinise truth.
In Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II emphasises the relevance of the Augustinian formulae for Catholic universities: they ‘are called to explore courageously the riches of Revelation and of nature so that the united endeavour of intelligence and faith will enable people to come to the full measure of their humanity, created in the image and likeness of God, renewed even more marvellously, after sin, in Christ, and called to shine forth in the light of the Spirit’.
Thanks to the support of the Catholic Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart in Germany, in 2001, St Augustine purchased a campus from the Holy Family Centre, at 53 Ley Road in Victory Park, Johannesburg.
The founding president of St Augustine was Professor Edith Raidt, a Schoenstatt religious sister and renowned expert in the history of the Afrikaans language.
The third president, Dr Magdalene (Madge) Karecki, an American religious sister and expert in missiology, was succeeded from August 2015 until 2021 by Professor Garth Abraham, a South African international law scholar.
Currently, St Augustine College is led by Professor Therese (Terry) Marie Sacco, an eminent educator.
Within the library is the ‘Grimley Library’, a unique collection of 1,665 books addressing Theology, Philosophy and Liturgy, brought to South Africa by Rev Dr Thomas Grimley, the second Catholic Bishop of Cape Town; the collection is one of the oldest in South Africa, including many titles that date back to the 17th and 18th centuries.