(Chapter 24 of The Irish Capuchins: Record of a Centenary 1885-1985, Capuchin Publications, Dublin, pp.200-206)
The beginning of Catholic missionary activity in the west of what is now called the Republic of Zambia goes back over one hundred years. A group of Jesuit missionaries came to spread the Gospel among the people of Barotseland. Despite heroic efforts over a number of years they eventually had to leave because of ill-health and the death of a good number of their men. Their great effort at founding the Church in that part of Africa came to an end.
It was fifty years before another effort was to be made. In 1930, a small group of Catholics had gathered together in Mongu, the capital of the Barotseland Protectorate. They used to meet on Sundays for prayer under the leadership of a convert from Anglicanism, a teacher called Mr. J. J. Consterdine. In the same year, a Polish Jesuit priest, Fr. Siemienski, flew to Mongu in a light plane to visit the Catholic community. He gave them Mass and the sacraments, encouraged them to persevere, and promised to do what he could to get a priest to live among them.
Less than a year later, towards the end of 1931, a group of Irish Capuchin missionaries arrived in Livingstone to begin work in the new mission assigned to the Irish Province by Propaganda. The territory in question was over 200,000 sq. km. in area, comprising the Western Province, the Zambezi district of the North-Western Province, and the Livingstone district of the Southern Province. The population of about 250,000 people was spread among 23 tribes, each with its own language, customs and traditions. The first missionaries included Fathers Alban and Casimir, Seraphin, Phelim, Killian and Declan.
At first things went very smoothly. They set up the church, now the cathedral, of Saint Thérèse in the town of Livingstone, which was then the capital of Northern Rhodesia, of which Barotseland was a part. From there they moved out into the rural areas so as to become established in the heartland of their new mission. They went to a small place called Loanja where the river of that name is joined by the Kanyenza stream; their mission their mission was built on a rise of ground almost surrounded by a mosquito-infested swamp. It was a hopeless place, with hardly any people in it, but the friars had no alternative as they were prohibited from working in any large centres because of the prior presence of Protestant missionaries. Even their freedom of movement was limited to a few miles from Loanja mission.
Schools
This discouraging situation continued for five years until they were given the opportunity of moving out of Loanja on condition that they became involved in school work. At that time there was only a handful of schools in the whole territory; these had been set up by Protestant missionaries. So the friars, of necessity, became school- teachers. They began by building the schools with the assistance of the local people; then they began, with the passage of time, to train people as teachers. In later years they gradually handed over the administration of schools so that, by the time of Zambia’s independence in 1964, the primary school system was almost ready to be transferred to local control.
The school was the primary means of evangelization in those days. The course consisted of the four R’s: reading, writing, arithmetic and religion. Each mission had a school often with boarding hostels for boys and for girls, in addition to a network of smaller schools in outlying areas. The Sisters, who first came in 1936, helped very substantially in educational, medical and social work. Institutions such as a hospital, leper village, orphanage, trade school, home-craft school, etc. helped to foster a strong sense of community and solidarity among the new Christians. The mission became the most important centre in its own area. People went there for the services it provided including the opportunities for employment on the building programmes which were a constant feature of the life of the mission for the first forty years or so. Capuchin brothers played the leading role in this activity and passed on their skills to many local men.
The hope was that young Catholics in the schools would find in the mission and its environment the support necessary to enable them to grow in the faith. Such support could not be provided simply by baptizing isolated groups scattered over a wide area. It was hoped that these young Catholics would become the Catholic parents of the next generation. To a considerable extent this hope was realized. Despite many problems and limitations it can be said that the policy of working through schools justified itself in that particular time and situation. A foundation was laid on which later generations could build.
Politics
While these developments were taking place, other movements were getting under way which were to change the face of Africa in a generation. In the years following the second world war, Northern Rhodesia, like other colonies, was beginning to move towards independence. Local leaders were coming forward, principally through the teaching profession, through trades unions, and through social welfare associations. They demanded that the direction of the affairs of Africa be placed in the hands of Africans. So it was that, on 24 October 1964, the protectorate of Northern Rhodesia became the independent Republic of Zambia.
From Mission to Church
Parallel with that development was another, within the Church. The mission founded in 1931 became an apostolic prefecture in 1936, under the direction of Msgr. Killian Flynn. In addition to giving a substantial measure of local control, this was recognition of what had been achieved in five years. In the years which followed, the growth of the Church continued: by 1981, there were 60,433 Catholics in the diocese, while, by 1983, there were 179 priests, brothers, sisters and lay volunteers in it. In 1950, the apostolic prefecture became an apostolic vicariate under Bishop Timothy Phelim O’Shea, and, in 1959, with the erection of a local hierarchy, it became a full diocese.
Bishop O’Shea is the great figure of the Capuchin mission in Zambia. From his arrival in 1931 with the first group of missionaries until his death in 1979, he was inseparably associated with all the phases of the development of the mission. It was a measure of his achievement that, twenty five years after becoming bishop, he was able to retire and hand over to a Zambian, Most Rev. Adrian Mung’andu, who, in 1984, became archbishop of Lusaka, the Zambian capital. The small beginning at Loanja in 1932 had grown by 1975 to 24 parishes and 72 small Christian communities, many of which could be regarded as potential parishes. Bishop O’Shea is remembered with great esteem and affection by the ordinary people of the river, the forest and the plain. He was a great walker and visitor, and he made it his business to know every corner of the diocese and many of its people in a personal way. He will long be remembered.
Pastoral Policy
Substantial changes took place in the diocese in the nineteen sixties and seventies. The second Vatican Council placed a new emphasis on the active role of the laity in the Church. The transition from colony to independent republic brought a new outlook. In 1974, the process of handing over schools to government control was completed. A new pastoral policy was called for, and was developed. It involved a substantial change of emphasis from the child to the adult, from the priest to the lay person, and from the central mission station to the local community in each area. Each area within the parish is encouraged to develop a self-ministering, self-supporting and self-propagating community. A substantial part of the work of a priest is to train is to train these local leaders so that they can fulfil their functions. This policy, founded on basic Christian communities, is the official pastoral policy of the countries of east Africa. It is still too new a policy to be able to be measured with any accuracy in terms of success or failure.
Numbers
The number of friars from the Irish Province grew substantially from 1931, when the first group arrived. A peak was reached in 1972, when there were fifty Irish friars on the Zambian mission. This was in addition to those from the province who were at work in the western United States, New Zealand, South Africa and Kenya. A group of American Capuchins from the New Jersey province came in the mid-sixties and staffed houses in the northern part of Livingstone diocese. From 1972 there was a steady decline because of old age, ill-health and the fall in the number of vocations in Ireland. Another factor was the increase in the number of men leaving the priesthood.
Local Vocations
These factors gave added impetus to the work of fostering local vocations. This had already begun in 1961 with the establishment of Limulunga, near Mongu, of Saint Lawrence’s minor seminary. Its purpose was to foster vocations to the priestly and religious life. However, this effort was abandoned in 1976 as it was recognized that the seminary was not achieving its purpose. In the fifteen years of its existence none of its pupils went forward to the priesthood.
A new effort was made in 1980 with the opening of a postulancy got the Order in Limulunga. Since then, year by year, numbers of young men from various parts of Zambia have come forward to offer themselves to the Order. In 1984, there were 4 Zambian Capuchins in perpetual vows, 4 in temporary vows, 2 novices and 4 postulants. Each year a large number of young men enquire about joining the Order. It is certainly a sign of hope for the future, as well as a sign of God’s blessing on the prayers and work of the early pioneers of the mission that this growth is now taking place.
The implantation of the Order in Zambia received a further boost with the opening in 1984 of Our Lady’s house of studies for the friars in temporary vows. This house, situated in Livingstone, is another step towards the creation of a complete Capuchin formation system in Zambia. The hopes and prayers of the friars, as they look towards the future, are linked to the growth of the work of formation of young Zambians who will work with the missionaries as partners in the one task of building up Christ’s Church in Zambia.
May God, who sowed the seed, bring it to harvest in his own time. To him be praise and glory and thanksgiving for ever.
List of Regular Superiors of the Zambian Mission
Fr. Casimir Butler 1929(?)-1935
Fr. Killian Flynn 1935-1946
Fr. Phelim O’Shea 1946-1950
Fr. Alfred O’Mahony 1950-1967
Fr. Brian Browne 1967-1973
Fr. Theophilus Murphy 1973-1979
Fr. Bruno McKnight 1979-1985
Fr. Theophilus Murphy 1985-