From Botswana to Swaziland


A couple of days' ago I got a call from my office saying: "a group of 13 priests from the diocese of Gaborone (Botswana) are visiting Swaziland and would like to see you during the week". I must confess it was the first time that a group like that visited our diocese. It is not unusual to meet one or two priests spending some time in our country but never thirteen!

They came this morning and we spent more than an hour together. I was really grateful for their visit. 

They are all diocesan priests. Every year they go on holidays together for a few days. They have been in South Africa (Cape Town and Durban), Namibia and now in Swaziland.

I told them about the history of our presence in the country and then answered some questions about the number of parishes, social impact, presence of religious communities...

I also shared about the good memories of our Bishops' plenary session in 2016 in Gaborone for the 50th anniversary of the independence of Botswana. 

On their side they offered us very interesting information regarding the formation to the priesthood in Lusaka (Zambia) and Morogoro (Tanzania). At present our seminarians study in South Africa but it has not been easy to get "study permits" and at the same time, it is good to "diversify" as one of them said. "When there is a pastoral problem, we see it from our different study backgrounds" he explained.

I was also impressed to hear that they prepared themselves to visit Swaziland by learning a bit of Siswati.

From the "bishop's office" they visited our "Little Flower" (the church built in Manzini in 1928) and then went to "Hope House". 

Fr Mahazule, our vicar general, joined them. On Thursdays he now comes to Manzini from Mbabane and gives us a hand at the office.