Maravi

Wrong timing

Wrong timing
Written by Editor

The removal of Fr Frank Bwalya as station manager of Radio Icengelo has come at a wrong time. Timing is very important in life. The decision to remove Fr Bwalya from Radio Icengelo at a time when MMD cadres and their leaders are calling for his blood is certainly untimely.

Whether the reasons for doing so are good, it will be a very difficult action for many people who support the work of Fr Bwalya and those who have been working with him.

We are not in any way questioning the decision of the Catholic Church’s leadership to remove Fr Bwalya from Radio Icengelo. They have every right to do so and we sincerely respect that right. But to remove Fr Bwalya in a manner that appears to be a response to calls for his removal by MMD cadres and leaders undermines the leadership of the Catholic Church.

Which bishop of honour will desert his own priest at the insistence of political thugs, intolerant and corrupt elements and still retain a measure of credibility with the people of his diocese? Truly, Fr Bwalya can be a little prickle. But he has every right to be.

It will be very difficult for the Church leadership to convince people that what they have done to Fr Bwalya does not amount to silencing him. Human life and history being what they are, the time will come when new voices with concerns we cannot now foresee and perspective we can scarcely imagine will arise in the household of faith and seek to be heard.

But whether the Church as a whole will hear and respond to such voices tomorrow depends in considerable measure on whether it learns to heed the cries of the voiceless today. This is why someone’s right to be heard within the Christian community is not just a procedural question or a matter of fair play. It has to do with the very nature of the religious community itself.

Fr Bwalya is not the only Catholic priest to be silenced. There have been many before him. And it may be well to remember that the first silencing to occur in the Church, and in some ways the primal one, was that of women. The ‘original silencing’ made an impact in some ways analogous to that of original sin: it has stained everything since. Why and how did it happen? It is incontestable that women played critical leadership roles in the early Christian Church. But as the Church began to adjust itself to the environing culture, something changed.

Whether this was the case or not, the result of this ‘original silencing’, which antedated Fr Bwalya’s by nineteen hundred years, was not just to deprive half of the Church’s members of their full humanity, a wounding that would be serious enough in its own right. It also set an ugly precedent, and it fundamentally distorted the entire structure of Christian worship and teaching. It thinned out the celebration, not just for women, but for everyone.

By muting the sisters, the early Church inflicted on itself a form of deafness that has persisted ever since. Women were the first to be silenced, and in many respects that archetypal silencing continues today. But women were not alone. Once silencing found its way into the company of the faithful, there were others whose songs and stories were also stifled. Women share this disallowance of speech, of saying one’s word, with many, many others.

In the biblical tradition, God is known as the Holy One who speaks to human beings and who expects them to answer. Therefore, to silence someone, it could be said, is a type of blasphemy. It denies that person the opportunity to respond to God’s call, and it therefore denies God. To silence is to fashion a kind of idol, a false god who calls everyone but who does not expect everyone to answer, or who expects some to answer for others. The Christian Church, however, understands itself to be a community that is constituted by the word which God spoke to it in the life of Jesus and to which a response must be given. This is why the practice of silencing and excluding standards in opposition to the spirit that is needed if the Church is to become an inclusive world church.

We can only remind Fr Bwalya that by becoming silent for a while, he would partake of the condition in which those who have no voice – either in the Church or in the world – live all the time. But the hope to which the Church gives voice – or should – is that its unnatural silence will not last forever, that by God’s grace, the mouths of the mute will be unstopped, and one day all will sing the Lord’s song together.

We make these observations with great respect for the Catholic Church and its leadership and the many progressive roles it plays in our country and in the world. But as we observed in our editorial comment of yesterday, no section of the community has all the virtues, neither does any have all the vices. We are quite sure that most people try to do their jobs as best as they can, even if the result is not always entirely successful. It is said that he who has never failed to reach perfection has a right to be the harshest critic.

Again, there can be no doubt, of course, that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life. No institution should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don’t. But we are all part of the same fabric of our national society and that scrutiny, by one part of another, can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of honesty, respect and understanding. It is in this spirit that we make these observations on the removal of Fr Bwalya from Radio Icengelo.

For all we have said, we feel the leadership of the Church still deserve respect from all of us, the friends and ardent supporters of Fr Bwalya and his work. The opposition to the decision and action taken by the leadership of the Church against Fr Bwalya should be carried out with discipline. There is no need to plant seeds of confusion, division and anarchy in the Church over this issue. The decision to remove Fr Bwalya may be questionable but it shouldn’t be used as a pretext for creating confusion and anarchy in the Church. And we urge Fr Bwalya to respond to all this in the most disciplined manner, respecting fully the hierarchy of the Church. Acting otherwise will be dangerous as it can undermine the authority and integrity of those who every day courageously face the challenges of leading this Church.

We also urge the leadership of the Church to mull over its decision to remove Fr Bwalya from Radio Icengelo and consider the feelings of the people who support this priest and the Church itself.

Labels: FRANK BWALYA, RADIO ICENGELO

posted by MrK @ 2:32 AM