1. I have had the advantage of listening to a sermon delivered by Bishop Mupandasekwa of the Catholic Church. I’ve not heard a more powerful delivery in a long time. The message is loud and clear: the Bishops are undeterred. They remain resolute. #themarchisnotended
2. The Bishop says leaders prefer to be given letters in private, so that they can reject them or pretend to the citizens that they are smart. But Pastoral Letters are for the flock. They are not private letters as a boyfriend would write to a girlfriend #ZimbabweanLivesMatter
3. He says Pastoral Letters are written to the flock so that they know the position of the Church & they also stand in that position. Pastoral Letters are not determined or stopped by political leaders. He says they are not communicated in private & don’t skirt around the truth.
4. The Bishop’s sermon was based on a passage in the book of Isaiah in which Shebna was dismissed and replaced by Eliakim. Shebna had failed his mandate. The Bishop says if the Bishops fail to communicate the word as they did, they too would be sacked like Shebna #ShebnaMustGo
5. The Bishop spoke eloquently about leadership being like good fatherhood. A good father leads and protects. He does not murder his children. If he disciplines the children he does so proportionately. He does not abuse power. #ZimbabweanLivesMatter #themarchisnotended
6. Why do we see those in leadership without the spirit of fatherhood; murdering people, he asks A father encourages his children. He does not shut the children out of the home because they are naughty. A father might disciple his child but he does not hurt or murder him, he says
7. The Bishop goes on: whatever a good father does, he does so in the spirit of love; he knows when to begin & stop; he is forgiving. If this spirit of good fatherhood is not in a political leader, according to Isaiah God says “ngaabviswe”(he must be removed) #themarchisnotended
8. If the regime thought the Bishops were going to be cowered into submission, it miscalculated. I said in the #BSR that Mnangagwa had gotten himself into an expensive war. He may have had his way before, but this time he failed the basic rule: choose your battles carefully
9. But like a man armed with a hammer, he will treat the Bishops like a nail. This is how he has gone after dissenting voices. He just hammers on them like they are nails. The persecutor the Church and the Bishops is the next stage of this authoritarian regime’s unholy enterprise
10. Thank you to the Catholic Bishops and to all the clergy that have rallied around them and the people of Zimbabwe for your courage in the face of tyranny. For too long there has been prevarication & sugarcoating. This is changing #ZimbabweanLivesMatter
