Catholics From Tanzania

"Families are kindergartens where priests, religious, parents and good faithful come from. If they are properly formed, it will be easy for them to respond to their vocation. The tendency in our society of young people who do not want to marry in Church or priests who renounce their ministry is being strengthened. These few events should make us reflect seriously and resolve these challenges as best as we can. We have seen stable marriages and families, courageous priests and religious. The few who go against their call to holiness should not make us change the ecclesiastical discipline that has existed for years."

"I call for intense prayers to be held across the country. This is so that God, who protected the sons of Israel in their 40-year journey to the promised land, may look upon us with mercy and kindness."

"There are Muslim extremists who want to eliminate Christians from society because they think that the only religion in Tanzania should be Islam. Of course these are extreme positions, which do not reflect the opinion of the majority of local Muslims. Among these, indeed, there are important representatives with whom it is possible to enter into a dialogue of peace."

"We have prayed and asked God to bring us the vaccine against the coronavirus and now it has been found, but we refuse it. What else do we want God to do for us? God's will is for us to live."

"Christ loves you and is ready to help carry your luggage if you are committed to him."

"Christianity is not innate or automatic. It is something we receive and learn through our parents, our family, our whanau, our parish community, and later on the wider Catholic community reinforces it."

"Thank God for the gift of life that is given to us, He loves us. He sent His son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us, so thank God for that."

"As a young Bishop in the 1950's I formed Social Guilds to prepare for independence. Now in the democratic process we should help form leaders. We should have forums of African Catholic professionals. Let us involve the lay leaders in our Church government structures. We thank our friends who have helped us so far to train our people, kindly continue to do so. The greatest investment for Africa is in its people. Their education will determine the future of Africa and the world at large."

"All we desire is peace and unity and love to reign among the citizens of Tanzania, irrespective of religious beliefs."

"We need to affirm continually that the lay faithful have a rightful place in the Church. They are indeed the agents of evangelisation as proclamation. There is already a lot of good work which is being accomplished by the laity in the building of the Church in our African countries. Many of our parishes and outstations have been founded and sustained by the untiring efforts of men and women lay Catechists. Christian families and the Apostolic movements of the laity are enthusiastically engaged in building Small Christian Communities which seem to be the best way for us of being a Church in our African countries."

"A good person, and a progressive leader who always championed collaboration with the government."

"The Church in Africa needs the courage of creating social conditions which allow people to reach their God given fulfilment. Within the Catholic Social Teaching Tradition which defines the common good as the sum total of social conditions which allow people either as groups or as individuals to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily, to attain reconciliation, justice and peace, we need to create the right social conditions for individuals and societies."

"A missionary be should bearable person, patient to wait for the right moment for the Spirit to work and not force things, the gospel message will make the people know it clearly and they will say we want a change here. The people will help you to change anything only when they become part of it."

"The causes of these violent acts are multiple. It is a complex situation but the question I cannot answer is that Christians and Catholics in particular are seen as a target."

"Let it be clearly noted, that dialogue calls for positive thinking about people. People should first and foremost be regarded as human beings despite their religious belief, and that accepting the other needs a kind of self-denial."

"In my diocese Catholics only account for 15% of the population, while the Muslims amount to 70%. In this situation direct evangelisation is not easy: as we witness to Christ through our social services, we earn the trust and esteem of the people gradually building an atmosphere in which it is possible to share the Word of Christ. We find this is the best way to be true Christians among a Muslim majority. However one cannot generalise. The world of Islam is ver complex and diversified, and where there are fundamentalist currents it is necessary to be very prudent. Fortunately Islam in my diocese is mainly traditional African school which is very open and willing to dialogue."

"We are convinced that the future of the Church depends on the quality of its priests. This is why our Dicastery considers formation, especially priesthood, as a priority, and is strongly committed to supporting not only formators but also the formation structures in mission territories."

"We all work not for ourselves, but for the Kingdom of God. If we can make this great organization, which are the Pontifical Societies, a family, then they will regain its former glory and renewed vitality."

"It is better to die of hunger than to receive aid and be compelled to do things that are contrary to God's desire."

"We are very proud of our priests. Of course we would need more of them. Most priests have more than one parish to care for but they are very dedicated and zealous. Our priests are poor and a life of poverty is a good means of witness."

"We celebrate the great work done by missionaries who came to Tanzania at Bagamoyo in 1868. They installed the Holy Cross, a Symbol of redemption from slavery, a symbol of faith to us."

"Crimes are born in our minds and in the end are put into practice."

"Dr Magufuli has so far shown a no-nonsense approach in taming corruption, laziness and the business-as-usual syndrome among public servants. This has endeared him to most Tanzanians. Whereas in the October polls he received only 58.46 per cent of the votes cast, the survey commissioned shows that if elections were to be held today, Dr Magufuli would win by a resounding 70 percent."

"While reiterating Tanzania's support to the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination, please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration"

"We are following the policies carried out by the new government. President Magufuli has the support of Tanzanian people. He is also very popular in other African countries. Now we see the optimism in Tanzania and this is very positive."

"Those criticising the president have nothing better to do. It is for the president to decide which meetings he wants to attend and which he wants to delegate to the vice-president or the prime minister who can also serve the purpose"

"Yes, we have one party here. But so does America. Except, with typical extravagance, they have two of them!"

"I have read and re-read the Arusha Declaration and found nothing wrong with it except perhaps replacing a few commas here and there... it was clear for some of us that it would only be a mad man who would stand up and defend the Arusha Declaration."

"Democracy is not a bottle of Coca-Cola which you can import. Democracy should develop according to that particular country. I never went to a country, saw many parties and assumed that it is democratic. You cannot define democracy purely in terms of multi-partist parties."

"Those who receive this privilege therefore, have a duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made. They are like the man who has been given all the food available in a starving village in order that he might have strength to bring supplies back from a distant place. If he takes this food and does not bring help to his brothers, he is a traitor. Similarly, if any of the young men and women who are given an education by the people of this republic adopt attitudes of superiority, or fail to use their knowledge to help the development of this country, then they are betraying our union."

"We in Africa have no more need of being "converted" to socialism than we have of being "taught" democracy. Both are rooted in our past—in the traditional society which produced us."

"Freedom to many means immediate betterment, as if by magic … Unless I can meet at least some of these aspirations, my support will wane and my head will roll just as surely as the tickbird follows the rhino."

"Here is a man who retired as a head of state and went back to his small village house to live a pension like any other public servant."

"Many Indian leaders were educated at British universities where socialist – often Marxist – economics was in vogue. This applied to other leaders of the Third World who had been educated in Britain such as Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania from 1964 to 1985, who also implemented Fabian and African socialist ideas. He had read economics and history at the University of Edinburgh. He enforced collectivisation, and when peasants resisted, he burnt down villages. The result was economic decline, corruption and food shortages. When Tanzania tried market economics, it recorded impressive growth: gross domestic product (GDP) rose 40 per cent between 1998 and 2007."

"Julius Nyerere...was the only head of state to offer his country an economic and political program for development that was anticapitalist, nonaligned, and based on grassroots self-activity...Anti-imperialists everywhere recognized the Arusha Declaration (1967) as a document relevant not only to Tanzania but to all newly independent African countries and some thought more generally: it was proposing development that avoided reenslavement via the capitalist market. It must be noted that not even the most astute and dedicated supporters of Nyerere's Declaration had as far as I know ever even mentioned what it says about Tanzanian women working much harder than men-and the profound implications of this for development."

"Small nations are like indecently dressed women. They tempt the evil-minded."

"Education is not a way to escape poverty, it is a way of fighting it."