Tag: Pope Francis

    Climate change is a very serious religious issue

    Climate change is a very serious religious issue Featured

    November 7, 2021 by Socialist Party Zambia in

    Following last week’s COP26 in Glasgow the issue of climate change is still very much on my mind. And this Sunday I turn to the religious for leadership and guidance on this very serious and urgent challenge facing humanity.

    There is a long history of religious thinking and attention to the role of humans as stewards of the earth and the environment. These theological underpinnings stem from the idea that God created earth and humans, therefore, God’s children have a responsibility to care for his creations. This perspective is shared across a number of faiths.

    In June 2015, Pope Francis issued an encyclical urging Catholics and all people on earth to focus on a broad range of issues and problems in the environment including pollution, climate change, biodiversity and global inequality of ecological systems.In February 2006, a group of 86 evangelical leaders, under the auspices of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, challenged the Bush administration on global warming. Other religious groups and leaders in the USA, and other countries, have taken positions as well.

    A robust policy strategy – regarding support in the religious community – should pay careful attention to the effects of both climate change and climate policy on the poor in both developing nations and the developed world itself. Understanding the cultural dimensions of climate change requires understanding its religious aspects. Insofar as climate change is entangled with humans, it is also entangled with all the ways in which religion attends human ways of being.

    Religious leaders should continue to call for bold action in defense of God’s creation.Pope Francis, who attended the Earth Day summit, encouraged the leaders of the world’s largest economies to “take charge of the care of nature, of this gift that we have received and that we have to heal, guard, and carry forward.” These words are increasingly significant because of the challenge the world faces. As Pope Francis said, “We need to keep moving forward and we know that one doesn’t come out of a crisis the same way one entered. We come out either better or worse. Our concern is to see that the environment is cleaner, purer, and preserved. We must take care of nature so that it takes care of us.”Meeting the scale and scope of the climate crisis will require all religious leaders and activists, along with political leaders of all faiths and no faith, to unite around climate justice priorities.

    The moral case to address the climate crisis is resounding in faith communities around the world. It’s up to political leaders to make the investments and changes necessary to safeguard and secure humanity’s survival and protect God’s creation.

    Fred M’membe

    Pope Francis is a great source of my daily inspiration – M’membe

    Pope Francis is a great source of my daily inspiration – M’membe Featured

    June 13, 2021 by Socialist Party Zambia in

    I love this Pope – Francis. He is a great source of daily inspiration in my revolutionary work, and especially in these election campaigns. I closely follow his teachings.

    Meeting a group of French priests pursuing higher ecclesiastical studies in Rome on Monday, Pope Francis recalled a favourite imagery of a pastor, urging that priests be “shepherds with the ‘smell of the sheep’”, grounded in the situation of their flock.
    “The studies you undertake in the various Roman universities prepare you for your future tasks as pastors and enable you to better appreciate the reality in which you are called to proclaim the Gospel of joy”, he told some 19 priests of the ‘national church of the French’ in the Italian capital. He said they should not go into the field to apply theories without considering the environment in which they will be working or the people entrusted to their care. “I wish you to be shepherds with ‘the smell of the sheep'”, the Pope said, repeating once again the analogy he used in his homily at the Chrism Mass on March 28, 2013, a fortnight after his election.

    He said pastors should be “people capable of living, of laughing and crying with your people, in a word, of communicating with them”. He expressed concern that sometimes reflections and thoughts on priesthood are laboratory sample: this priest, that priest and so on. He said priesthood isolated from the people of God, is neither a Catholic priesthood nor a Christian one.

    “Strip yourselves of your pre-constituted ideas, your dreams of greatness, your self-assertion, in order to put God and people at the center of your daily concerns,” the Pope said, stressing that a pastor is one who puts God’s holy faithful people at the centre. For those priests who would like to be an intellectual, not a pastor, the Pope said, it is better for them to be lay persons. A priest has to be a pastor in the midst of God’s people because God has chosen him for that.

    Pope Francis also advised the French priests regarding their community life, saying individualism, self-assertion, and indifference are some of the challenges of living together. He warned them against “the temptation to create small closed groups, to isolate oneself, to criticize and speak ill of others, to believe oneself superior, more intelligent”.

    The Pope said that gossip is a habit of closed groups, of “bachelor’ priests who talk and malign others, undermining all. “We need to let go of this habit and look at and think about God’s mercy”. The Pope wished that they always welcome one another as a gift. “In a fraternity lived in truth, in the sincerity of relationships and in a life of prayer, we can form a community in which we can breathe the air of joy and tenderness.”

    The Holy Father encouraged a community life of sharing and prayer with joy. He said, “The priest is a man who, in the light of the Gospel, spreads the taste of God around him and transmits hope to restless hearts”. To those visiting their community, they can communicate the Gospel values of a “diverse and supportive fraternity”, and make them feel the fidelity of God’s love and His closeness.
    In this regard, the Pope offered to them the model of St. Joseph, inviting them to “rediscover the face of this man of faith, this tender father, model of fidelity and trusting abandonment to God’s plan”. St. Joseph, he said, teaches us that faith in God includes believing that He can work even through our fears, our frailties and our weaknesses.

    Our frailties is a “theological place of encounter with the Lord”, the Pope said, adding, a “fragile priest”, who knows his weaknesses and talks about them with the Lord, will do well. Instead, “superman” priests end up badly. “With Joseph,” the Pope said, “we are called to return to the experience of the simple acts of acceptance, tenderness, and the Joy and sense of humour.

    The Pope also urged the young French priests to build a Church that is entirely at the service of a world that is more fraternal and in solidarity. They should not be afraid to dare, to risk and to go forward, assured that with Christ they can be apostles of joy and be grateful for serving their brothers and sisters and the Church.

    This joy should be accompanied by a sense of humor, the Pope pointed out, adding, a priest who does not have a sense of humor is not liked, something is wrong. “Imitate those great priests who laugh at others, at themselves and even at their own shadow,” he said, adding, “a sense of humor is one of the characteristics of holiness”, as he pointed out in his Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et Exultate.

    Recalling their priestly ordination, he reminded them that they have been anointed with the oil of joy and are to anoint others with the oil of joy. He said only by remaining rooted in Christ can they experience a joy that moves them to win hearts. “Priestly joy is the source of your action as missionaries of your time”, he said.

    Another virtue the Holy Father encouraged the young priests to cultivate is gratitude to God for what they are to one another. “With your limitations, your frailties, your tribulations”, Pope Francis reminded them, “there is always a loving gaze resting on you and giving you confidence”.

    Gratitude “is always ‘a powerful weapon'”, he said, which “allows us to keep the flame of hope burning in moments of discouragement, loneliness and trials”.

    Fred M’membe
    President of the Socialist Party

    (Image, Credit Reuters)

    Statement of the Socialist Party to mark the International Day of Peace

    Statement of the Socialist Party to mark the International Day of Peace

    September 21, 2020 by Socialist Party Zambia in

    Each year, the International Day of Peace is observed around the world on September 21. The United Nations General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, through observing 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire.

    This year, it has been clearer than ever that we are not each other’s enemies. Rather, our common enemy is a tireless virus that threatens our health, security and very way of life. COVID-19 has thrown our world into turmoil and forcibly reminded us that what happens in one part of the planet can impact people everywhere.

    In March, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on all warring parties to lay down their weapons and focus on the battle against this unprecedented global pandemic. While the message was intended for armed parties, solidarity and cooperation across borders, sectors and generations are also needed to win this new fight against the worst public health crisis of our time.

    In these difficult times of physical distancing, even though we may not be able to stand next to each other, we can still dream together about a world full of justice, equity and peace.

    The 2020 theme for the International Day of Peace is “Shaping Peace Together”. Let’s celebrate this day by spreading compassion, kindness and hope in the face of the pandemic. Let’s stand together against attempts to use the virus to promote discrimination or hatred.

    There’s need to preserve human existence and world peace in the face of complexities, dangers and challenges.

    Peace has been the golden dream of humanity, and the peoples’ aspiration, at every moment in history. Thousands of nuclear weapons are hanging over humanity’s head. Preventing the most brutal war that could be unleashed has undoubtedly been the fundamental objective of efforts by religious leaders of churches directed by men such as Pope Francis, Pontiff of the Catholic Church, and His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

    To struggle for peace should be the most sacred duty of all human beings, whatever their religion, country of origin, skin colour, advanced or youthful age may be.

    Issued by Fred M’membe on behalf of the Politburo of the Socialist Party

    Mwika Royal Village, Chinsali