Having been raised by Catholic Nuns, Isaiah says, he considers all Nuns as “my mothers”. Therefore, he says in the video recording ACI Africa obtained, “whoever does anything bad to them (Catholic Nuns) will be dealt with.”
According to ECM members, the April 11 abduction, torture, and assault of the Catholic Nun involved “unknown occupants of a car that stopped for her pretending to be good Samaritans.”
“In the course of assaulting her, the assailants told the Catholic Nun that the assault was due to the fact that they do not subscribe to her faith and to her identity as a Religious,” Catholic Bishops in Malawi recounted in their April 12 statement.
They added, “The assailants went further and demonstrated their intolerance by forcefully removing and throwing out of the car window the Rosary and the Cross she was wearing and thus leaving her hurt, helpless and traumatized.”
Emphasizing the right to freedom of religious practice that they said is enshrined Malawi’s Constitution, ECM members went on to recall their February 25 Pastoral letter in which they warned Malawians against “developing tendencies that demonstrate Religious intolerance.”
“Since this particular matter has been left in the hands of the law enforcers they will diligently investigate this horrific attack on the Catholic nun and other similar cases, so that justice is done and that these degenerating hateful tendencies of religious intolerances are curtailed and dealt with once and for all,” Catholic Bishops in Malawi said.
Isaiah’s threats to revenge against the assailants of the Catholic Nun are a demonstration of religious intolerance and works against efforts towards interreligious dialogues and peaceful co-existence among people of different faith practices, Fr. Valeriano told ACI Africa in a Wednesday, May 8 interview in which he linked his May 6 statement to Isaiah’s video recording that he said has been widely shared on social media.
In the one-page statement, Fr. Valeriano says that ECM members “completely dissociate the Catholic Church from such cowardly acts and utterances that not only militate against national always cherished and promoted and will continue to stand for.”
Alluding to the revenge threats in the video recording, Malawi’s Catholic Bishops “remind all Catholics of one of the fundamental teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ namely: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’” he says, referring to Matthew 5:9.
“As believers, our fight is not against fellow human beings but against poverty, disease, hunger, corruption and spiritual forces of evil,” ECM members further say, and add, “Peaceful Co-existence of believers are among the things that our Lord prayed for during his very last hours in this world: ‘May they all be one, as you Father are in me and I am in you.’”
