About the role of the church in Zambian politics
I begin by saying that this is not an attack on anyone, any church but an opinion based on observations made thus far!
After these elections, there will be serious need of the leadership of Zambia’s Roman Catholic Church to seriously reconsider their role as a referee in Zambia’s political affairs. 
The Catholic Faith in Zambia is dominated by people of various ethnic groups, race and political affiliations. This church with whom I identify has had strong influence on the development of Zambia with its network of mission schools, charities and church presence in Zambia.
In politics, the Catholic Church has been known to influence public opinion through pastoral letters and coordinated church messaging as churches preach the same message throughout the country. Former President Kenneth Kaunda and many others later have been victims of political losses after going in conflict with the Catholic leadership.
For the first time in Zambia’s history, the Catholic church leadership has clearly lost influence over the population and its following. This is because for a persistent period of time now, they have misread the mood of the population and clearly taken sides in political battles. This is my observation and not an accusation.
With citizens in dire need of an independent body to counsel various political groupings, everyone was looking up to the vocal Catholic Church to reconcile people but some of its leadership allegedly influenced by certain individuals decided to clearly support one side and this led to disgust amongst a large portion of its followers and citizens in general. It’s very evident that some private individuals who have fallen out of favor with the current might have some influence over some members of the church leadership.
The biggest mistake of the Catholic Church was to organise and publicise a candle mass which was criticised by the ruling party. In its wisdom, the church should have either removed the candle 🕯️ from the mass or even invited all political parties to attend or even cancelled the mass altogether. There insistence to continue with the mass influenced negatively those they were perceived to support. Many people shunned the mass as they viewed it as a last political rally. Senior members of the opposition widely advertised this mass and openly associated the candle symbol (light) with the lamp (light). You might argue with me but deep down you know that. I openly advised to not do this. Zambians are weird in their judgements. They always conclude about things so it was easy for them to make conclusions even on this matter.
Another thing the church has failed to follow are the trends in its dwindling membership over the years. In the past, majority Zambians were Catholics but not anymore:
According to the Census of Population and Housing report from ZamStats, Christianity is the dominant religion in Zambia, representing about 98% of the total population.
The breakdown across major Christian denominations features the Roman Catholic Church at 17.9%, closely followed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church at 17.7%, and Pentecostal groups at 17.5%.
Major Denominational Breakdown
Roman Catholic: 17.9%
Seventh-day Adventist (SDA): 17.7%
Pentecostal: 17.5%
United Church of Zambia (UCZ): 9.6%
New Apostolic Church (NAC): 8.4%
Jehovah’s Witnesses: 5.6% Baptist: 3.6%
Other Faiths and Non-Religious GroupsIslam: ~0.5% to 0.94%
Bahá’í Faith: ~2.2%
No Religion / Secular: ~1.3%
African Traditional Religion & Other: <0.5%
Clearly no church dominates this space. There is also serious historical rivalry amongst church denominations and whenever one church takes a stance, it’s very common to find other churches take a different position. To avoid a perceived Catholic controlled government, many churches may even advise its membership to take a position opposite to what the Catholic leadership has taken. Then again, different members of the Catholic Church leadership might have different opinions.
My advice therefore is for the church to review its conduct because clearly its pastoral letters never carry the same weight now as in the past. We the people perceive it to be a party to the conflict and not a referee. Referees never take a sides. When they issue a red card, everyone agrees with it.
This is entirely my opinion and scholarly advice. Zambia needs a strong independent stakeholder to lead when political groupings are in disagreement.
Even the issue of the burial, the church should take a lead and guide. The church is about reconciliation and not establishing who is wrong or right. Jesus accepted everyone. So we call on the church to continue guiding us its children for the betterment of all.
We beg for forgiveness and mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ and ask him to show us a signal on how to move on.
Amen 🙏🏿
