CATHOLIC BISHOPS DEFEND MALL CONSTRUCTION

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 10:46:56 +0000

By KALOBWE BWALYA

THE developing of the shopping mall at St. Mary’s Secondary School in Lusaka’s Woodlands area is meant to enhance the sustainability in the programmes of the church, Catholic bishops have said.

The bishops have explained that the construction of a shopping mall at St Mary’s was meant to improve the quality of the health care in the Catholic institutions where people would be receiving medical attention, among other things.

Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) secretary general Fr Cleopas Lungu said the Catholic Church in general would not divert its mission from promoting the girl-child education.

Fr Lungu said the Catholic Church would continue with its mission of integral evangelization and that concerns raised by some individuals regarding the proposed construction of the shopping mall were unfortunate, malicious and unfounded.

Fr Lungu said as the Catholic Church would be celebrating its 125 years of working in Zambia, no one would accuse the church of denying a girl-child quality education.

“It is over 125 years since the arrival of Catholicism in Zambia. When the Catholic Church started its mission in Zambia, they had a lot of missionaries through different religious congregations, such as the Jesuit, White Fathers, among others. And they brought with them some resources. So we no longer have the same flow of income from outside Zambia, hence the time has come for us to build the church which is self-ministering, self-propagating and sustaining,” said Fr Lungu.

Fr Lungu said it was important that the Catholic Church found means and ways of raising resources locally in order to sustain its work of evangelization.

He said it was not true that the shopping mall would deny the girl-child of sporting facilities, saying the mall would also give support to the school by improving the car park.

“The Catholic Church in Zambia are aware the developer of the shopping mall shall put in place measures against all the concerns which have been raised. We would like to assure the nation and the parents of the pupils at St .Mary’s Secondary that in no way will this project deny the girl-child or the school itself spotting facilities or disturb their learning environment,” Fr Lungu said.

Fr Lungu said the school would be completely fenced off from the project.