Catholic priests on Thursday said there are some people who are behind Malawi Muslim pupils’ bible desecration and they believe that “there must be some awful training given to these youths.” Malawi Muslim Official website can reveal.
Fr. Medrick M. Chimbwanya, a local priest told Catholic News Agency that since the incident, Catholics have feared violent attacks from some Muslim groups and he believes that there is a possibility that “we may have dangerous militants in Malawi in the near future.”
“The behavior of the youths has been an indicator of a danger in our midst. Normally, the primary school youth in Malawi would not have the courage of tearing up any book in the presence of their teacher, let alone a Holy Book,” he said. “My conclusion is that there must be some awful training given to these youths which if left unchecked, means that we may have dangerous militants in Malawi in the near future,” he said.
Representatives of the Gideons Bible organization have been distributing Bibles in a Catholic primary school in a predominant Muslim area, Mangochi and the pupils torn apart Bibles and then throwing torn pages on the streets while describing the movement as an “insult to Islam.”
However, Fr. Chimbwayna called on a grassroots dialogue with Muslim representatives in order to end misunderstandings and start to work together.
“I expect that there will be opportunity for us religious leaders in the area to sit together to discuss on how we can work together in this area without clashes,” said the priest.
Sheikh Disi, the leader of the Muslims in the region, called upon all the students to respect the faith of others. However, other Muslims were not happy, according to the CNA.
The CAN also reports that the Diocese of Mangochi, where the Bible desecration took place, is predominantly Muslim but has about half a million Catholics served by 59 priests. It has 255 primary schools, 34 kindergartens and 27 secondary schools, all of which are also attended by Muslims.
I believe the catholic priest's hatred for the moslems drove him into hasty and unfounded conclusions of 'millitary training'.
Much as I condemn desecration of the bible,we should avoid inflammatory statements and focus on what caused the proble and how to root it out.
But we have to understand them because the way Quran story affected us is the same as this one. But their hatred speech can not be entertained.
If those holy books were given to kids of different faith from the book, what should they expect? kids usually do not think rationally. If that action had been done by adults, then we should have blamed them…..However, we also need to teach our kids to respect other religion and to tell preachers to preach their religion to the adults when it comes to preach a religion to a person who is from other religion
They are doing it delebarately…..just yesterday, m'bale wanga anabweretsa bible akuti analandira kusukulu….You see? So, they just want to provoke us.
What does "m'bale wanga anabweretsa bible akuti analandira kusukulu" mean?
I am so sorry, i am not malawian so i do not the language however i have ineterest on reading this website.
OOO! Iam sorry. I was trying to mean that 'My wife's young sister brought the bible from her school saying she received from her teacher'
This is a very sad development.there is a need for tolerance which is a corner stone of Islam. however, it is wrong for the priest to allege that there might be an Islamic militancy in the future in Malawi. As Muslims, we condemn such behaviour from the muslim youth. Such actions are not expected from the muslim youths though we dont know what could have triggered such behaviour from them. there is a need for Muslim leaders to sensitise our youth on the importance of tolerance with our fellow human beings. just good behaviour and tolerance can even attract new comers into our religion as witnessed in Chikwawa.
I personally urge the muslim youth to be responsible in whatever they do and let their actions potray a good image of Islam.
Therefore, on behalf of every muslim I would like to apologise to everyone who is affected by the behaviour of our youths in Mangochi.
It is really sad…and we have to condemn such behavior. We have to be tolerant as you have said if we want people to respect our religion.
The Quran Burning saga was blown out of propotion because of the bloated media coverage it received. We have not forgotten that the pastor that initiated the matter who was almost bankrupt became rich through the moneies contributed by the sympathizers to the cause. While not condoning the desecration of the bible there is need to control the media coverage on the bible desecration story.
But the problem lies on that Media is there to inform. entertain and educate. So I think it will be difficult to control it form covering some stories as people need to be informed what is happening around the world.
This is a hasty conclusion.Which militant training is this priest talking about? Is he trying to bring islamaphobia? There are alot that we can say about priest from local to international level. Lest they preach peace rather than imflaming hatred in the hearts of other religious faithfuls. Learn to give remarks of unity.As for muslims we condemn the burning regardless of what caused the action.If i were that priest i could not say this but rather organise a caucus with muslim leaders to discuss the way forward. May Allah guide him to the true path of monotheism.
The Priet or Bishop needs leadership training.A true leader investigate a matter before accuse somebody or make any statement.Why the bibles were distributed at school instead at the church?
This is really very strange and hasty conclusion,shortcomings like these ones were supposed not come from such kind of people who have large numbers of followers who follow them,claiming to be the man of God all the times,why concluding like this, should we say that he was behind this conspirancy of distributing Bibles to school pupils,din't he know that we have right places where these kind of books are distributed? or is he part of this international group of ennemies of Islam who are working day and night hurting the emotions of Muslims around the world? Am really very sorry to say that this man is not qualified to be a leader of any kind of grouping.
I think some Christians just want to put muslims within the "blame zone". I mean, how could they distribute the bible to young kids. Did they ask the permision from the parents of these kids? THIS WAS THE LITIMUS-TEST GIVEN TO MUSLIMS!!. Anyway if these kids were ordered to do that, then that was NOT A GOOD MOVE.(The other thing i want to point out is the way the Priest has used the word "YOUTHS", I read on nyasatimes some weeks ago that they were primary pupils which means they were "KIDS"). So there is no common sense in distributing the Bibles to kids leaving adults aside.