Church mother bodies under fire

THE three church mother bodies handling the national dialogue have a hidden agenda by sidelining the Zambia Centre for Interparty Dialogue (ZCID) and are up to no good, Bishops Council of Zambia (BCZ) secretary general Able Kaela has charged.

Bishop Kaela wondered why the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) and Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) would decide to sideline ZCID when stakeholders had agreed that it would facilitate the dialogue.

He told the Daily Nation that umbrella church mother bodies had beeen meeting to discuss the proposed national dialogue and had agreed that ZCID would facilitate while the Church was to chair proceedings.

Bishop Kaela reiterated that ZCID was created for the sole purpose of conflict resolution among political players and that sidelining them from the national dialogue was illogical.

“Even the secretary generals of political parties agreed during a meeting in Siavonga that ZCID will facilitate the dialogue, so who are we to change that. Honestly we have failed to understand why these people can just rise and make such a decision,” he said.

Bishop Kaela warned that the three church mother bodies handling the national dialogue had a hidden agenda and were up to no good. He reiterated that there was an invisible hand influencing the decisions of the main church mother bodies to arrive at an already thought out decision.

Bishop Kaela said that the three church mother bodies had put the name of the church in Zambia into disrepute. He said that it was unfortunate for ZCCB, CCZ and EFZ to act as if they possessed much more wisdom than all other church bodiesand nationals put together.

“It is a non-starter and tantamount to deceitfulness. Who will trust us now?” he questioned.

Bishop Kaela said the proposed national dialogue was doomed if it was going to be used to advance personal agendas.