Maravi

We welcome our new Bishop

We welcome our new Bishop
By The Post
Thu 02 June 2011, 04:30 CAT

“Our voices on the issues of development will never be silenced. The Church’s voice will always be sound and clear when it comes to issues of justice, peace, reconciliation, morality, development, economics, education, health and other issues that affect our people.

The people of Western Province know the colour, shape, size and taste of development. We shall not hesitate to tell the nation that development has now visited us and has come to stay.

We are still being called the poorest province in the nation, then how can we be told that Western Province is experiencing development? My voice will be heard on these issues. My voice will not silent and silenced.” These are the words of Evans Chinyemba, the Bishop of Mongu diocese on his ordination day.

And Bishop Chinyemba further says that he might be young but he knows what development looked like when it knocked on the people’s door.
Every day, our people are being bombarded with propaganda about how Rupiah Banda and the MMD have developed the country.

Every day, or every other day, Rupiah is in the media commissioning this or that so-called development project. All over the country, there are billboards of Rupiah showing how he is developing the country. But surprisingly, those who provide the money, those who labour are nowhere near, don’t appear anywhere in Rupiah’s billboards. It’s only one man – Rupiah – developing this country.

Everything is attributed to him. What does this remind us? This is how tyranny reigns. This is how dictators govern. We used to see it with Zaire’s Mobutu. Everywhere one went, there was a huge billboard of Mobutu, as if the country was only about Mobutu and nobody else.

How can one go round bragging about development in a country where there are so many people, the great majority of the people, who each day cannot meet the basic needs necessary for a decent life? As we have pointed out before, it is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental needs to remain unsatisfied.

Every day, Rupiah is talking about development projects but every day, the poverty and despair among our people is deepening. Clearly, this only goes to reveal the fact that there is a great danger if government policies and programmes are not combined with a clear social concern. And where this happens, instead of bringing development, government policies and programmes bring socioeconomic deprivation.

We say this because economic justice requires that each individual has adequate resources to survive, to develop and thrive. Economic growth depends in the first place on social progress. Probably this is why Pope Paul VI said development is to pass from less human conditions to more human conditions.

Less human conditions means the lack of material necessities for those who are without the minimum essential for life, the moral duties for those who are mutilated by selfishness. That is less human. Less human also means oppressive social structures, whether due to the abuses of ownership or to the abuses of power or to unjust transactions. Thus, less human are oppressive structures.

As regard the passage from less human to more human, the Pope moved step by step: “More human: the passage from misery towards the possession of necessities, victory over social scourges.

In this case, scourges not of a personal kind but of structures. Also more human is the growth of knowledge, the acquisition of culture. More human is increased esteem for the dignity of others, turning toward the spirit of poverty.” More human is co-operation for the common good, the will and desire for peace.

More human, too, is the acknowledgement by human beings of the absolute values. This is development, which is also a task and a call to action. The creation of a just and fraternal society is the salvation of human beings, if by salvation we mean passage from less human to more human. Salvation, therefore, is not purely religious.

Pope Paul said that what the Church can appropriately contribute is a global vision of the human being and of humanity, a vision that situates the process of development within the human vocation.

Throughout the course of the centuries, human beings have laboured to better the circumstances of their lives through a monumental amount of individual and collective effort. To believers, this point is settled: such human activity is in accordance with God’s will. In the design of God, all human beings are called upon to develop and fulfill themselves, for every life is a vocation.

In this perspective, we understand development as liberation, with all that implies, even in the economic sphere. If this is true, if full, integral and authentic development liberates human beings, then it is included within the human vocation.

Bishop Chinyemba’s statement truly reminds us that we are living at a time when politics has entered a near-religious sphere with regard to man and his behaviour.

We also believe that we have come to a time when religion can enter the political sphere with regard to man and his material needs. And we also shouldn’t forget that Christ’s entire doctrine was devoted to the humble, the poor; his doctrine was devoted to fighting against abuse, injustice and the degradation of human beings.

That is, man’s material need, the basic foundation of life, was the most sacred thing for Jesus. A religion that cares for the supposed sacredness of its objects but turns its back on those who are the real temples of the Spirit is worthless.

To Jesus’ way of thinking, there is nothing more sacred than the right to life. A church that places its patrimonial interests ahead of the demands of justice, life and the people among whom it is inserted is certainly a church that considers man less important than the Sabbath and, like the Pharisees, reverses evangelical priorities.

In his practice, Jesus didn’t separate spiritual needs from the material demands of human life. This is made very clear in the parable of the multiplication of the loaves (Mark 6:34-44).

A multitude, “five thousand men,” had just heard Jesus’ sermon. His disciples came to him and suggested, “This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late: send them away, to go into the country and villages roundabout and buy themselves something to eat.” The people’s hunger couldn’t be a problem to one who preached spiritual life, but Jesus reacted:”You give them something to eat.” You can’t send a hungry crowd away. This, too, is a problem you should confront.

It is interesting to observe that the disciples used the verb “to buy”, and the teacher, “to give”. Yet the disciples didn’t understand Jesus’ proposal: “Shall we go and buy 200 dennarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” There were some who thought money was enough to meet the people’s needs. It was the bolo theory: first have it grow, accumulate a lot of capital and then distribute it among everyone.

Jesus replied, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” He didn’t ask how much money his disciples had; rather, he asked how many goods, how many loaves, they had. Wanting to meet the needs of the collective’s life through income distribution, as social democratic countries seek to do, is very different from meeting its needs through the distribution of goods. Mark went on to say that the apostles checked that there were five loaves and two fishes. “They sat down in groups, by hundreds and fifties.”

People organise themselves to solve their problems. Jesus took the loaves and the fishes, “Looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves” for his disciples to distribute. Throughout the gospels, the distribution of bread symbolises the Father’s kindness and the establishment of fraternity.

What is a miracle? It is God’s power to alter the natural course of things. That power acts mainly on the human heart. That day, those who had goods shared them with those who had none; there was enough to satisfy everyone, and some was left over.

This is the context in which we see the message of Bishop Chinyemba at his ordination. We see it in the context of the advice to a king given in Proverbs 31:8-9: “Speak up for the people who cannot speak for themselves. Protect the rights of all who are helpless. Speak for them and be a righteous judge. Protect the rights of the poor and the needy.”

We welcome our new Bishop and his message. And we add that when a system ceases to promote the common good and favours special interests, the Church must not only denounce injustice but also break with the evil system. It must be prepared to work with another system that is more just and suited to the needs of the day.

Labels: BISHOP DUFFY, CATHOLIC CHURCH, INONGE WINA

posted by MrK @ 9:20 PM