Transcript
Alright. You once said that in the village you came from it’s 90 to 99.9% Muslim. Yes. How were you exposed to Catholicism, and why did you convert?
Thank you very much. I am Archbishop Thomas Luke Msusa from the diocese of Blantyre, Malawi. I come from a Muslim family that’s before the conversion of my father and other relatives. And the village I come from is true that 99.9 percent are Muslims. And surely before I went to the parish, I was also a Muslim. And all my relatives, my father, my sisters, brothers, all were Muslims.
And, that time, very few from that village were going to school. I was among them because I could not get in school. The people were very poor. My father was very poor, so I could not go to school. Then I heard that the parish priest, the pastor, wanted young people or children to send to school so that they would go, they would be leaders in their own country, in their own society, in their own villages.
Most of the Muslims would not go to attend Christian schools. There was that fear that they would be converted to Christianity. I heard about it, and my father also heard about it, that the parish priest wanted children, to support them, in order that they should go to school. My father would not allow me. Even my relatives would not allow me. I was a Muslim.
But then, I wanted to go to school at that time, at the age of 8. I had to go to the parish 20 kilometers away from our village. The parish priest asked the catechists to go around to ask these poor families if they would send their children to their parish, only to assist them to go to school, not to convert them. No. So I went, followed the Catholic priest.
I went to the parish. I started school. The parish priest welcomed me very well, said, you know, what I want mainly was to, you to teach you, and you become leaders of your own society here. That’s my aim. That’s what he said was blessed.
So I started the school. At the age of 12, looking at my friends who were there, who were Catholics, sometimes I would follow them when they would go to pray. Sometimes at the grotto, some side inside the sometimes inside the church, they would pray the rosary. When there was mass, I would see them receiving the holy communion, the Eucharist. And then also, I would see them not serving at the altar.
That made me, want to be like them. Especially, I wanted to receive the Holy Communion. It’s when I said, no, I wanted to receive baptism. I asked the parish priest, I would become like, my friends to receive baptism and to receive the holy communion.
The pastor said, no, no, no, no. You are a Muslim, like the others. But these friends of yours are Christians. Their parents are Catholics. So that’s why they are receiving the Holy Communion. If you want, you should ask permission from your relatives, your father.
Then I had to go to the village again to say for me, Father, if you would allow me to become a Catholic, they want to baptize me, I want to receive baptism. My father said no. It’s a bad religion. Once you receive baptism, then you are in hell. You’ll be consumed by fire because it’s a bad religion. It’s a religion which, are those idols. I don’t want you to become a Christian, and don’t go there again. Stop your school. Be at home.
I didn’t listen to my father. I went back to the to the parish. The parish priest baptized me because I insisted. Then I was confirmed by the bishop. I started receiving the Holy Communion. I was so happy. I was able to help, to assist, during the during mass. I was so happy.
And later on, I wanted to serve, like what the pastor was doing. I asked him, “Pastor, how would I become like you? I want to become like you. I want to work as what you are doing.” Again, the pastor said no, no, no, no. You need permission from your parents, from your relatives.
Then I went again to my father who chased me and told me not to go back to the village. The relatives, even the chiefs of the area, there were so many, asked me not to be back in the village because I destroyed their culture by becoming a Catholic. I was not very worried. I went back to the parish. I stayed there.
Later on, the parish priest sent me to the seminary. I followed everything. I joined their congregation, which is called Montfort Missionaries Congregation. I joined them until I became a priest. This is the journey I followed.
During this time, during the time of seminary, surely nobody would like me to be in the village. They would not even give me food. Always, people were laughing at me, even singing songs against me, saying that, no, I was no longer a human being because I followed Christianity. But I wasn’t very much worried. I was encouraged by the priest, by the sisters, and some of the Christians who were at the parish.
Somewhere there at the parish because there are there were some Christians who came from very far from the area, who were already baptized, and were working as teachers, as nurses. This encouraged me to become a Christian, to become a priest.
Very nice. Great. Thank you. And I saw that you, your father also converted to Catholicism as well. Why did you do that?
Thank you very much. This is a very good story and a very good question. Of course, when I became a priest, not everyone was happy for sure, including the chiefs around.
But then when Pope John Paul the Second, who is a saint now, appointed me to become a bishop that was 2004 it’s when I saw a change in the lives of many of my relatives. When I was appointed the bishop, that time I was in Kenya, I was working as a missionary in Kenya, so I had to go back to Malawi. When the date was set for the consecration, I informed my father, my relatives, all at home, even the chiefs around, I informed them that this date would be a great day for me in the Diocese of Zomba.
And I asked them if they are they were willing to come on that day and they accepted. So, the diocese sent some transport to pick the people at home. It was about 150 kilometers away from the diocese. But, there was transport already given. The day came 17th April 2004, the day of the consecration.
People from home came in large numbers, including my father. After the mass, after the celebration, I saw my father coming towards me, and he knelt, and he said, “My son, I want baptism. I want to be baptized.” I said, father, you told me that if I joined Christianity, I would be in hell. Do you want me and you to be in hell together? Why now? You’ve been refusing me to be a Christian, to be a Catholic. Why that change of mind now? He said, no, I will I will not explain it now, but just baptize me.
Then I said, to be a Catholic is not easy. You have to be trained. You have to be instructed. Somebody should train you. And for an added catechism, it takes 3 years.
Are you ready, Father, to be trained in Catholic church? He said yes, I’m ready. So after everything, we had to look for a catechist to teach, my father and other relatives in the way of Christianity. They had to follow these Christian instructions for 3 years.
So from 2004 in April and 2005 and 2006, I do remember very well on this 31st December 2006, I had to go home, and I invited the other priests and the sisters, the religious, and the Christians who were there. I invited them for a big celebration, because during that celebration, the mass we celebrated, I baptized my father and other relatives. It was a joyful moment for me. But I had to ask him before, why? He told me, because my father was a preacher in Islam, an imam.
He was very famous. Yes. Very famous in preaching Islam, Islamic faith. So I had to ask him, but why that change of mind? He said, in our country, we have, Christian small Christian communities.
So the Christians, work together, live together in 10 or 15 families together. Then they meet every week. You know, they share the word of God because, no, having mass is very difficult regularly. They would receive mass once a month because of the, the long distances and a few priests. So my father said, he saw the lives of the Christians, that they were supporting one another.
In problems, they would be together. Moments of joy, they were together. So he said, no. He saw God in the lives of the Christians because they were always together supporting one another. That made him change his mind.
That’s what he said. He said, okay. If say if you say so, we will baptize you, but after, that get to instructions. So we baptized him after 3 years. He was so happy, and his name, the name given on that day was Abraham.
That’s the father, the father of faith. That’s why now he’s with me. I’m taking care of him. He’s 89 years old, a Catholic together with my relatives. And people other people are still coming in.
In our area, now we are we have about 50 Catholics. And we have a small church. I invite in Blantyre it’s a big city, but I always invite people to come and see where I come from. And they were very much surprised.
An archbishop coming from this area, very small church, but this is how I am, and I’m very happy.
So, let’s see here. And so next, I wanna ask about the Transformation Through education program.
Thank you.
Yeah. So, why did you choose to, help students at Namulanga Parish?
Namulanga Parish. Thank you very much. First of all, we really share the experience I’ve had that from the rural area and with the intention of the pastor who educated me, who said, I would like to educate you so that in the future, you would become leaders in your own society, in your own villages. That really impressed me very much because after my school, indeed, I became a leader as a priest, a leader as a bishop, a leader as an archbishop now.
And, also, I’m the chairman of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi. Eight dioceses means the whole country. So that dream of that priest to become a leader in society, if one is educated, is very true. It is who I am now because of education, with the assistance of God, who I am now. Therefore, when I went to Blantyre Archdiocese, a very huge diocese, 2,000,000 Catholics, a huge area, geographically very, very vast, and the population is so big.
We have 223 elementary schools and 39 high schools. High schools which lack infrastructure. We don’t have enough. We don’t have good infrastructure, but young people go there. So 223 elementary schools, we saw many young children, young people who go there up to grade 8, and they write examinations so that they would go, they would be sent or selected to go to high school.
Thousands and thousands of them, very intelligent young people, but with very few high school, high schools in Blantyre. And those who have not been selected to go there, they go back home. What do they do? Some of them, at the age of 12, 13, 14, especially girls, they get married. They have children because they don’t have anything to do.
They have failed to go to school. Not that because they are they were not intelligent. They passed the exams, but just the high schools are very few. That’s why the dream came to me, the initiative. Indeed, I have been transformed through the education I received.
Why can’t we assist others? To become to do the same. So this dream came, and he shared this dream with other people, and they got this dream, this initiative. Indeed, it is possible. If we seek some support, some help from elsewhere, and we build a very good school where we can have hostels, where we can have good classrooms, good teachers’ houses, good laboratory building, library, and fields for sports, that everything that is needed for high school is there, and we accommodate, at the beginnings, 400 girls and 400 boys.
That’s 800. They stay there throughout the school season. We give them some food and everything is found there. I believe these young people will be transformed as I am now, and they will become leaders in the society. Why in Namulanga, it is in a rural area, very far from the town, because with the shortage of high schools, young girls, young boys travel, walk 20 kilometers, 10 miles.
They walk on foot to go to school. Therefore, said this is not very good. It’s better that we should find such a beautiful school for them. And from 800, surely, the number will increase as we go along. That’s why we chose Namulanga.
Why? Also, that parish is very big, and we have land, land for that diocese, which so good that if we have the money, the resources we’re looking for, surely, very soon, the school will be there. We will construct the school, and it will be one of the schools. Once we successfully establish the school, we will go to another area to do the same so that these young people may find something to do after education. That’s why we are really looking for support in order to build a very modern school with all the facilities for the young, poor people in Malawi, in Archdiocese of Blantyre, especially in the area of Namulanga.
A rural area doesn’t have any high school. If you build we build that one. Surely, we will begin to transform these young people and become leaders in their own society. They will become resourceful. They will become empowered.
They will be empowered. And for sure, with a good income, Malawi will change. Their society will change to become a better society.
What challenges do children in the Namalanga area typically face?
Thank you very much. Malawi, as a country, is a landlocked country. People depend on farming, subsisted farming. People get income through agriculture. And the cash crop, which people grow so they can they can get money, is tobacco. But now tobacco is not allowed in the international world, international market.
So people depend on agriculture to get whatever, they can sell, and agriculture depends on the rain. If the rain doesn’t come, it means everything is bad, the crops. Now the people of Namulenga face a lot of challenges. One is because it is in the rural area, there are no such income generating activity, which can empower the the people, the families there to get money. Secondly, as I said, no high school around where the young people can go for their education.
And thirdly, because of poverty, these people are unable to send their children to a very far high schools in town because they don’t have money to pay for their transport or for their fees. So their children cannot go far with their education. The people of Namulenga face challenges because most of them really did not go far with their education. They depend only in agriculture. That’s all.
They didn’t go far in education. They are not trained. They are not educated. They are there only having this, agriculture as their commodity for their livelihood. Now the youth, if they are to go to school, as I said, even if it’s elementary school, they have to walk.
The children have to walk. Now during the rainy season, it’s very difficult for the children to go to school. So maybe 1 or 2 or 3 days, then to go to school. They’re going to go to school. They can’t walk.
Poverty, the poor situation as there were, some of them even don’t have good clothes to put on. So these are some of the problems they face. They lack of they lack food also. We can see in some parts of the year, like, December, January, February, most of the families don’t have food to eat for the day. So these are some of the problems these people face.
However, we believe that if we have that school, if we assist the youth, the young men and women there, once we build that school, and probably we may also ask, some support for scholarships, surely believe very soon, the area can change because we will have educated people who will be able to bring in some business in the area and the lives of the people be improved.
Alright. What can American Catholics do to help the Archdiocese of Blantyre and this high school project?
Pardon? What?
In this the the high school project. To build the high school, what can American Catholics do to to help? Is there anything we can do?
Surely, I have come here in, in America, in Chicago, these Diocese of Joliet, I have come with a hope that, really, I will meet people, Catholics, or any person of goodwill, to assist for the construction, for the establishment of this high school. I believe that, surely, there are generous people here.
There are kind people here. So I ask for your generosity and, money you have. We are looking for $2,500,000 for that school, which will be very modern in Malawian way. It will be one of the best schools in Malawi. To do that, I have come here to ask you, my dear friends, Catholics, Christians, and people of goodwill to support this initiative.
That’s why I go around. I go to the parishes. I meet individuals, those who have institutions, who have businesses, that, please, you open your heart. You assist the initiative in assisting us. You will assist the people in the country for their education.
Please, my appeal is, if we educate 2 or 3 people, we will educate the nation. And especially, they say in Malawi, maybe even here in America, if you educate a girl, you are educated a nation. So let us support the girl child and also the boy child to have a good school. In so doing, we will have helped the nation of Malawi. You may contribute as a parish, as an individual, as a company, as an institution.
You may support this initiative of transformation through education. I believe, really, it will happen if we all join hands together in contributing from $1 to $1,000,000 if you have, but contribute generously, your people from the diocese, from the parishes, from the companies, from any other institution, and as individuals. We will accept. You can send your contribution through the Diocese of Joliet. They will always give us the support you have given.
So we thank you for your contribution.
Thank you. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Yes. First of all, I would like to thank all those members who have listened to me and have already contributed for the establishment of Namulanga High School.
I have been received with, good hospitality here. I don’t miss anything. They give me food, transport, and they go wherever. Those who have organized this trip, really, I would like to say thanks. I’ve seen also that, the people are very kind.
They are very, very generous. They are very friendly. And with these, I’m very enthusiastic that the project surely will be established in Malawi. And once we finish, you’ll be invited for the inauguration of Namulenga High School in Malawi. We will say, come and see your contribution, where it has gone.
And, also, we promise that once you contribute handsomely, surely, your name will be written in one of the blocks in Namulena at Namulena High School. So I’m very happy that you have been a good friend. We have been good friends. You have welcomed me very well, and I just say God bless you all, and thank you for listening.
Alright. Thank you very much.
