Political leaders should respect the church’s initiatives of gathering them together, says Suzaane Matele

COUNCIL Churches of Zambia has called upon leaders to respect the church’s initiatives of gathering them together to try and iron out the challenges that they faced going forward in their campaigns.

CCZ general secretary said in a statement to Mwebantu Media that the church has always and continues to pray for the peace of this nation.

“The church has many times called upon our political leaders to implement the communiqué to which they all consented to on the March 29, 2016 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

“The politicians made serious commitments on how they would conduct themselves going forward vis a vis campaigns towards the August 11, 2016 general-elections,” Reverend Matale said.

She said politicians committed to end political violence, to apply the Public Order Act fairly during the campaigns but these commitments made in the presence of church leaders, and God has been a silent listener to those commitments.

Rev Matale said the church would have been happy to heed the call for prayer had it been prayers to thank God for using our political leaders to calm our nation by heeding the call of the Church in the first place by putting their own houses in order.

She said, “We are not against the call for prayers, Zambians are encouraged to respond positively after all prayer is our core business as church. However, a fair deal would have been that when the church calls our political leaders to listen to the church’s moral and ethical voice politicians should honour and respect such a call”.

Rev Matale said it is not fair that the church heeds their call for prayer but politicians completely ignore the wise counsel of Church.

She said the church’s role is not to pray for empty pursuits but to pray according to the will of God and also to pray for wisdom through our faith.