Maravi

Dora won’t succeed in fighting the Catholic - Fr Besa

Dora won’t succeed in fighting the Catholic - Fr Besa
By George Chellah in Kasama
Tue 17 May 2011, 13:00 CAT

FATHER Joseph Besa says education minister Dora Siliya will not succeed with her fight against the Catholic Church. And Fr Besa says Catholic priests feel extremely insulted by Siliya’s remarks when she recently visited Mpika.

In an interview over the weekend, Fr Besa, who is St Andrew Parish priest in Mpika, said the Roman Catholic priests were offended by Siliya’s insulting remarks during her recent visit to the district.

Fr Besa said Siliya’s remarks were unpalatable and disrespectful to the entire Catholic Church.

“Dora Siliya had a meeting with teachers and some heads of government departments at Mpika Boys Secondary School. And we are told that in one meeting she started saying that ‘if the Catholic priests want they can leave the Church and join politics so that they have money to start looking after the children they have produced’” Fr Besa said. “This is an insult to us as priests and as a human being teti utemwe umuntu ukulantuka mumusango uyo.

I wouldn’t like to be insulted in that manner. This is not good. Teti aletutuka (she cannot be insulting us. Let Dora insult abo afyala nabo abana (let her insult her own children) not priests.

We have chosen to serve God in this manner out of principle so we shouldn’t be insulted and abused like this.”
He said Siliya had started a fight she would not finish.

“She will not fight Catholics and succeed, let her know that. Like this, we are going to ‘fire’ back and then they will start saying we are partisan,” Fr Besa said. “Dora is just a young girl who is in government and she shouldn’t come here and start insulting priests.

“Let them know that whoever is insulting Catholic priests must fully be aware that they are insulting all the people we shepherd.”

He said the priests were seriously hurt by Siliya’s insulting remarks against them.

“One would have expected that as education minister she would come here Mpika to talk about the real issues that are affecting our education sector and not to insult priests,” Fr Besa said.

“No wonder even the people she addressed where not amused. They have told us that they are disappointed that she didn’t handle the issues they were expecting her to tackle.”

And police in Mpika have released four PF members that were arrested following the fracas that was ignited after Siliya visited the district.

“Those who were arrested were four, two ladies and two men. The first two were released by yesterday Saturday around 22:00 hours and the other two were released this morning Sunday,” said a PF official from Mpika who identified himself as Sichone.

“They were given a fine of K45,000 after being charged with unruly conduct leading to breach of peace. They were arrested for protesting because Dora Siliya has been distributing fliers where they are showing two men kissing, so people were upset.”

Sichone said Siliya’s visit to Mpika yielded nothing.
“She ended up with a closed-door meeting. She met the teachers and all the teachers who attended that meeting are actually even more annoyed with her,” said Sichone.

Labels: DORA SILIYA

posted by MrK @ 4:50 PM