Lusaka, 28 September, 2022 / 9:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Members of the Clergy ministering in Zambia’s Lusaka Archdiocese have distanced themselves from a social media publication claiming that the Local Ordinary of the Zambian Metropolitan See, Archbishop Alick Banda, has become “a spokesperson for an opposition political party”.
Published Monday, September 26 under the title, “Catholic Priests speak out against Archbishop Alick Banda”, the article depicts the Zambian Archbishop as an emissary of the opposition, having departed “from his role as a shepherd of the flock of the Lord … and speaking about anything he thinks will discredit the ruling government.”
In a Tuesday, September 27 press release, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Lusaka dissociates Catholic Priests of the Metropolitan See from the defamatory publication, adding that he read the published content “with astonishment and disbelief” and Priests are “distraught by the said article”.
“I would like to inform the general public that this is not a collective effort or work of the Catholic Priests of the Archdiocese of Lusaka at all as alleged by the author of the said article,” Fr Solomon Tembo says in the one-page press release.
Fr. Tembo adds, “I doubt whether it is even the work of a Priest. Catholic Priests of Lusaka are equally concerned and distraught by the said article.”
