State Vice-President Saulos Chilima, who was guest of honour at the event where Mua Catholic Mission in Dedza held a triple celebration on Saturday when they commemorated 115 years of the existence of Mua Parish as well as 50 years of priesthood for the area’s well-known priest, Fr Claude Boucher, aka Bambo Chisale, took the opportunity to make three appeals to people gathered.
His three appeals include touching on protecting the environment, controlling the population and patriotism.
Chilima called on chiefs and other stakeholders to take the issue of population seriously, saying it is a threat to national development.
“Development will be meaningless if it doesn’t tally with populations,” he said.
Added Chilima: “Let us discuss this issue and encourage families ti have children they will be able to look after.”
He also asked people to protect the environment and that citizens should be patriotic to the nation/
“It should not take Fr Boucher to teach us about our own culture and traditions. Patriotism is about caring for our culture and everything in the country,” he said.
Added Chilima: “ Let us be patriotic by protecting our culture and being proud of being Malawians. This is the only country we have and we must take care of it.”
In his homily, Bishop Emmanuel Kanyama of the Diocese of Dedza said people of Dedza, especially of Mua Mission, and the whole nation should be thankful to missionaries who left their homes and made sacrifices to come here and teach the word of God.
Mua Mission was established by three missionaries of the White Fathers congregation in September 1902, and has since grown to have 25 churches and about 25 000 Christians.