CATHOLIC BISHOPS  PRODDED

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 13:15:10 +0000

By CHIKUMBI KATEBE

CATHOLIC Church Bishops should not relent in their mission of being unifiers and peacemakers in efforts to bring reconciliation between President Edgar Lungu and UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema.

Chikondi Foundation executive director John Mambo said the Bishops cannot fail to bring peace and unity in Zambia which they were well known for from time immemorial.

Bishop Mambo said the nation depended on the Catholic Church as a unifier and peace maker and that Zambians are looking up to them for a successful reconciliation between the two major political parties in the country.

“It makes sad reading that there is a problem among the Catholic Bishops who even failed to hold an elective council over the presidency, but we believe in them for a peaceful settlement in the political arena.

“We know that they recently travelled to Kabwe’s Mukobeko Maximum Correctional Facility in an effort to help reconcile the ruling PF party leadership and the opposition UPND, and we are confident that there will be good results from there,” he said.

He said Zambia, like many other nations, looked up to the Catholic Church for peace and reconciliation and that they have always been a bridge between the government and the people, but that “to hear that they cannot agree among themselves at that level leaves us to wonder what the problem is.”.

Bishop Mambo explained that as the leading church in Zambia, the Catholic Church remained a trendsetter and mentor of all denominations in the manner they handled issues affecting them.

He said the Catholic Church was involved in huge development programmes to support Government and other stakeholders in their operations, which put them above all other church mother bodies in Zambia.

He said the Church had impacted many lives directly and indirectly to assume its role as the Mother Church, and called on other churches to pray for the leadership in the Catholic Bishops to help them find an amicable solution with the peace negotiations.

“We just commit them to prayers so that they can resolve their issues amicably and continue their programmes and be the peacemaker across the nation.

“They are the ones who have been a bridge between Government and its people in matters of health and education, and for that we owe it to the leaders to find a solution to the problems that have forced them to call off their elections,” Bishop Mambo said.

He has since urged other churches and church mother bodies not to take advantage of issues which may arise in the church leadership like politicians did, but rather pray for them to quickly find a solution to the situation with the politicians.

“There is a lot of “pull him down” (PHD) syndrome in the church in Zambia whereas the church is now behaving like politicians.

“Let us emulate the Catholic Church in their works of charity and their respectable leadership so that we too can be looked up to in that manner by the people who follow us,” he said.

President Lungu recently agreed to meet up with the Catholic Bishops over the assumed apprehension in the country and have since taken the role of negotiator into peace talks between the ruling PF and the UPND.