One day, we attended a funeral in one of the shanties in Ndola. The poor young man didn’t belong to any church……He was given to wine and chasing after every other skirt his eyes settled on. When the cold hand of death extracted him from the face of the earth, his beloved sister who happened to be “ba league” in a local parish approached the priest and asked him if the body of her brother could pass through the church for the usual earthly blessings.

“We can’t allow that!” he explaimed. “That would be against our doctrine. Your son ceased to be a member of the church a long time ago.”

And the rest, as they say, is history. Zandonda’s, (not his real name) remains were returned to the soil in a low key funeral ceremony.

Why are we saying all this?

Some social media platforms have reported that Lusaka Archbishop, Alick Banda is scheduled to preside over the church service and burial of sixtth President Edgar Chagwa Lungu. We have no means at our disposal to verify the veracity of this; however, if this turns out to be true, it begs many questions than answers.

As far as we can recollect, ba Lungu did was not a member of the catholic church, neither did he belong to any church! What therefore qualifies him for the honour of the ‘mighty’ Archbishop presiding at his funeral? Is it because he was powerful? Or perhaps, extremely rich? Suppose the deceased was a pauper from Chipulukusu, was the Archbishop going to breach the church protocols to accommodate him? Isn’t the Church demonstrating an ignominious scale of hypocrisy by going against its ethics?

The church must stop the hypocrisy of denying paupers sacred funeral rights, but instead do the opposite for the affluent and the powerful.

Anyway, who are we to be poking our nostrils in such issues? We live in a world of double standards!

Prince Bill M Kaping’a
Political/Social Analyst