Malawi Catholic Bishops have succumbed to President Bingu Mutharika’s request to withhold their Pastoral Letter and they have indeed not issued the Lenten Letter at the end of Lent period.Catholics throughout Malawi were expecting message from their Bishops during the feast of Easter, but were given a Lenten Prayer for Spiritual Renewal on Easter Sunday mass.
Nyasa Times previously disclosed that Mutharika met the Bishops on January 28th from 8pm until the wee hours of the morning on January 29th where he persuaded the Bishops not to tackle issues of poor governance, Section 65 and prolongation of Parliament in their pastoral letter.
Local churches held special services and other activities to celebrate Easter Sunday - the Resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion on Good Friday –but there was no message from the Catholic Bishops.
"I was anxiously waiting for the Lenten letter. I wonder what has happened to it. The Bishops were supposed to light the torch on social issues at the end of Lent," said Kondwani Goliati at Limbe Cathedral, in Blantyre.
Mutharika was tipped that the Catholic Bishops had drafted a strongly worded letter reminiscent of the one, which challenged the prevailing culture of silence during the one-party dictatorship of Dr. Kamuzu Banda.
In the historical "Living Our Faith," pastoral letter of 1992, the bishops reproached the Banda regime for its authoritarianism and lack of representative democracy; not as biased proponents of specific political groups but rather as champions of accountability, respect for human rights and human dignity.
Priestly sources in the church said the draft Lenten letter denounced corruption and stealing in government, business, and private life and called for "communal renewal".
According to the sources, the letter said that renewal and justice demand restitution.
The message was also critical of the present governance particularly in the areas of rule of law and lack of respect for other arms of governments such as judiciary and legislator.
Mutharika is a Roman Catholic who joined the church in 2003 because of politics in order to gain support from the huge Catholic community in the country. At a meeting in the Capital, Lilongwe in mid-January senior members of the church are reportedly to have resolved to support Mutharika in the 2009 polls because he is a Catholic.
Nevertheless, in his "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world) traditional message on Easter Sunday, POPE BENEDICT XVI urged "solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good" in Tibet, the Middle East and Africa.
"How can we fail to remember certain African regions, such as Darfur and Somalia, the tormented Middle East, especially the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon, and finally Tibet, all of whom I encourage to seek solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good!" the Pope said.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce