The launching of the "Swaziland Council of Catholic Men" is the result of a journey that took... 15 years. Preparing for last Sunday's celebration, Mr Harry Nxumalo, one of the "founding members" shared with me about the "beginning" of the process (though, as you will see, it had been tried before)
"It was in the year 2000 that the late Bishop Louis Ncamiso Ndlovu presided over a meeting of all Catholic men at the Swaziland Catholic Centre hall, Manzini. He said he once tried before to establish an umbrella organization for all Catholic men, but unfortunately the idea died a natural death when those men who had been asked to draft a constitution disappeared and were never seen again. He wondered, he said, whether another effort to do so in the year 2000 would not suffer the same fate. He nevertheless requested that a Constitution Drafting Committee be elected with reasonable representation of parishes in our diocese."
The process started and during all these years different meetings were held in order to prepare the Constitution. At the same, at every annual retreat, the text was presented to those attending in order to get their input.
We all regretted the fact that Bp L. N. Ndlovu OSM who pushed for it and supported all the way would not be the one presiding the launching of the Council. Still, he was very much present. When we decided on the day of the celebration we never really checked which day it was. We just saw it was a Sunday close to the feast of St Joseph. Only later we realised it would have been Bp. Ndlovu's birthday!
