Bishops in Malawi Announce “peaceful march” to Clarify Stance on Family, Human Sexuality

The protest is planned at a time when the Constitutional Court in Malawi is deliberating on a case that seeks to interpret Section 153 (c) of the Penal Code of Malawi, which criminalizes consensual same-sex relations between two consenting adults.

In a May statement, ECM alongside the Malawi Council of Churches (MCC), and the Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM)  asked Malawians to sit peacefully outside the High Court in Blantyre, “silently praying to the God of heaven that Malawi, as a nation, shall seek to live by God’s righteousness and not depart from His divine laws governing our morality.” 

The Christian leaders in Malawi added that legalizing same-sex unions “would promote moral decay in our society as our children and young people in schools and colleges, including mission Schools, will openly be taught homosexuality as being normal. This is unacceptable behavior.”

In the July 6 statement, the Secretary General of ECM expresses concern about challenges in families, and emphasizes the need “to do much more in supporting and animating families in our country, especially today when they face so many problems.”

“It’s not possible for any society, let alone an ecclesial community, to be strong without strong families which are domestic churches,” says Fr. Chaima.

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He adds that most of the challenges that families in Malawi face “are largely imposed on Africa, Asia and Latin America by foreign societies; taking advantage of abject poverty in our countries as well as high illiteracy levels in the same continents.”

“As we all know, ‘Family, become what you are’ (St. John Paul II). By implication, and from the Catholic perspective, any attack on the Christian marriage/family which Jesus Christ raised to the status of a Sacrament which until then was inscribed on in human nature, is a direct attack on the Church,” the ECM official says.

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.