| Home | JCTR Bulletin | Bulletin 65 | Letter from the Editor | |||
Quarterly Bulletin |
Bulletin 65
|
||
|
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR It is more than a century now since the State and the Church started working together in Zambia. The early missionaries took upon themselves to do a lot of development projects apart from preaching the word of God. They believed that to be a Christian we have to be real human beings and more to be a Catholic calls us to be socially involved. In being social we look at the societies we live in. We take a keen interest in improving our communities. This is the call to be a neighbour that Jesus emphasised in the story of the Good Samaritan. The early missionaries saw this need and hence built schools, clinics and social centres for the people they were working for. The trade schools helped Zambians equip themselves in bricklaying, carpentry, home craft and other skills that needed practical knowledge. A number of primary and secondary schools in Zambia were started and run by missionaries. For a number of years Zambians preferred to send their children to mission schools because of the formation that they impacted on their pupils and students. The third level institutions have a long history of priests and religious lecturing in them. There is always a chaplain in these institutions who looks at spiritual welfare of the students. In health, a number of clinics and hospitals were also set up by missionaries. It is common knowledge that wherever the missionaries settled, they always built clinics. This helped to reduce distances to government hospitals and clinics since most of these missions were in rural areas, where the government had not yet reached in terms of providing social services. In these areas, we can applaud religious sisters who have single-handedly tried to provide health services under difficult times. Education and health facilities could only become complete with solid food security policies. Hence, the missionaries saw it important to have farms that would sustain their missions. The local people also learned from these missionaries how to improve their own farming techniques. In Chikuni Fr. Moreau taught the Tongas how to use the plough and oxen in agriculture. The recently canonised saint Alberto Hurtado, S.J., was a social and real Christian, who saw the need to get involved in the development of the society he was living in. He worked to change the root causes of injustice in the Chilean society. He called on all Christians to work for justice. He is quoted as having said that: “The priest is a flame to set the world ablaze, a dispenser of a new hunger and thirst… Just as the hero and the saint are not docile citizens, the priest is the eternally dissatisfied one who disturbs the social order in order to work constantly for an ever greater fulfilment. He is the witness of an invisible order and like Christ must be the expiatory victim who carries the sufferings and sickness of people and offers sacrifice for them. In his intimate reality, the priest is to some extent solitary, a man of Sinai. Though he struggles on the plains, part of him remains always on the heights.” As priests and Christians and people of good will, after hundred years of Christianity, what would be our present day contribution to Zambia and Africa at large? In Zambia we are in the process of putting up a Constitution and this is the right time to be real and social Christian, to contribute to the well being of our society. A good Constitution would greatly help the whole country especially the underprivileged that have no one to defend them except the law of the land. We get inspiration from Alberto Hurtado, who inspired the former president of Chile Eduardo Frei to say that: “I must say here that Fr Hurtado’s example has inspired my conduct in the past and guides it now in government. His struggle for justice is so important that I too want to promote justice; his commitment to the poor is so clear and concrete that I cannot remain indifferent in the face of misery; his love of Christ is so strong that I too ask myself every day: what would Christ do if he were in my place? I want Fr. Hurtado to give us a great mission, that of eradicating misery in Chile; I want him to work the miracle of uniting us as brothers and sisters, that we respect each other, that we work together for the good of all and especially for those who suffer most.” This is the challenge to us to reflect on how our daily lives have changed the unjust structures in our society. In this Bulletin the reflections are based on the centenary of our Christianity in Zambia. It has other articles on Constitution, Millennium Development Goals, and the World Bank and IMF policies. The challenge in all this is to look around us and see what needs to be improved and who needs to be liberated from any form of injustice. Bboloka Bubala Nchimunya, S.J |
Related Links |
||
