By EditorZambia
Archbishop Ignatius Chama’s recent call for Zambians, including Christians, to join a nationwide march against the proposed constitutional reforms has ignited a fresh debate not only about the limits of clerical participation in politics, but also about the dangers of priests substituting ecclesiastical guidance for personal activism.
Archbishop Chama’s message, delivered on Radio Lutanda’s Ishiwi lyakwa Kacema, framed the march as a “sacred civic duty.” Yet beneath the stirring rhetoric lies a deeply worrying departure from the Catholic Church’s long-standing caution against partisan agitation. 
The question confronting many Zambians is simple: Is Archbishop Chama speaking for the Catholic Church or for himself?
A Troubling Echo of Clerical Overreach
This is not the first time Zambia has witnessed clergy drifting from pastoral duty into political activism. History provides clear parallels and warnings.
In the 1980s and later 1990s, Archbishop Elias Mutale and Fr. Umberto Davoli became torchbearers for a brand of liberation theology that blurred spiritual leadership with political agitation. Their intention may have been noble, but the consequences were destabilising.
The Church, emboldened by newsletters, diocesan papers, and pastoral letters that increasingly scrutinised and condemned Government policy, grew so politically assertive that First Republican President Kenneth Kaunda accused it of acting as a de facto opposition party.
Whether Kaunda was right or wrong, the point stands: when clergy begin to direct political confrontation, the Church’s mission becomes distorted.
During revertion to plural politics, Zambia witnessed a volatile period when priests like Fr. Umberto Davoli openly admitted that Icengelo Magazine was backing the multi-party movement. “Power, when never challenged, is contaminating,” Davoli said. The intention again was reform, but the outcome was polarisation.
Zambia eventually transitioned peacefully to multi-party democracy.
But the cost to the Church’s moral authority was real. Liberation theology’s more radical advocates had stretched the clerical mandate beyond recognition.
Liberation Theology:
Liberation theology emerged in Latin America in the 1960s with a focus on the lived struggles of the poor. At its best, it highlighted injustice and compelled the Church to take social responsibility seriously.
At its worst, it lured priests away from pastoral care and into ideological combat underpinned by Marxist interpretations of society.
The late Pope Benedict XVI, among others, warned that some strands of liberation theology reduced Christianity to political revolution. The problem was not the preferential option for the poor, a core Christian value, but the method. Some of its advocates were, among others; shifted theological, emphasis from spiritual salvation to creating an earthly utopia, adopted Marxist frameworks that viewed human society primarily as conflict, minimised the transcendent dimension of faith, distorted biblical interpretation to justify political positions, and undermined Church hierarchy in favour of community-based ideological agitation.
Christian charity is voluntary and rooted in love, while Marxist redistribution is coercive and rooted in struggle.
The apostles shared everything, but they did so freely, not under pressure from Caesar.
Liberation theology blurred this distinction disastrously.
Is Archbishop Chama Repeating Old Mistakes?
Bishop Chama’s language, urging demonstrators to march on State House, urging youth to “be at the forefront,” and describing protesters as “the conscience of the nation,” raises a critical issue. Is this the Church speaking? Or is this Chama the activist?
The Catholic Church has repeatedly warned priests to avoid public partisan positions. The Vatican’s guidance is explicit: clergy may address moral principles, but they must not agitate politically, endorse protests, or mobilise citizens against specific government proposals.
Why? Its because when priests become political actors, they fracture congregations, distort moral teaching, and risk being perceived as partisan operatives rather than spiritual shepherds.
The Archbishop’s appeal comes across as a sweeping political call to action, not a doctrinal clarification. It urges citizens to march “when constitutional processes appear to bypass consultation,” despite the fact that constitutional debates are ongoing and involve multiple legal avenues for public participation.
Such a public, confrontational stance raises concerns that Archbishop Chama’s message reflects personal judgment rather than the collective discernment of the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), and certainly not a directive from the Vatican.
The Clergy and the Temptation of Activism
It is important to recognise that the Church is not forbidden from addressing governance. Pastoral letters like the historic 1979 document on “Marxism, Humanism and Christianity” offered thoughtful, measured reflections on public morality without mobilising citizens to confront the state physically.
The Church can, and should, question injustice, corruption, or constitutional erosion. But it must do so within its theological mandate, which includes, forming conscience, but not directing political action.
What Archbishop Chama has done is not a pastoral letter. It is not a doctrinal guidance note. It is not a collective episcopal position. It is a call to assemble at State House, the centre of political power, under the direction of a cleric. That crosses a red line.
A March Is Not a Sacrament
To frame the proposed protest as “the conscience of the faithful” and “a sacred civic duty” risks confusing spiritual obligation with political strategy.
Constitution-making is a legitimate public issue, but marching is not a sacrament. Marching is not evangelisation. Marching is not the liturgy.
Citizens may choose to march. They may choose not to. But when an Archbishop calls for them to do so in God’s name, he introduces coercion into an area where the Church has always insisted on freedom of judgment.
A Call for Clerical Restraint, Not Clerical Silence
Critics of Chama’s stance are not saying priests should be silent. They are saying priests must distinguish between moral teaching and political mobilisation.
The Constitution belongs to the people, but the pulpit belongs to God.
For Archbishop Chama to seize that pulpit to direct political action is to revive the very liberation-theology excesses that once strained Zambia’s stability and divided congregations.
The Church must uphold moral principles of justice, transparency, and human dignity without transforming itself into a protest movement.
The Last Word
Zambia faces difficult constitutional debates. Citizens should participate, argue, engage, critique, or support reforms as they see fit. But they must not be shepherded into activism by those whose calling is to shepherd souls.
Archbishop Chama’s call for a nationwide march is, at best, misguided. At worst, it is a dangerous revival of clerical radicalism that history has already warned us about.
Zambians deserve clarity from their priests, not calls to the streets.
