MISSIONARY TRIP TO LESOTHO—Reported by Emil Hagamu, February 17-25, 2010.

On Ash Wednesday, February 17, I left Dar es Salaam, capital of my home country of Tanzania, for a nine-day pro-life training session in Lesotho. This was my second visit to the small Kingdom.  The first one I made was in June of 2009 to plant the seeds of pro-life activism.  On this trip, I was able to help those seeds grow and develop to establish a strong foundation for the pro-life movement in this country.

New Seminarians for Life Group at St. Augustine’s Major Seminary

I spent four days at St. Augustine’s Major Seminary, the only major seminary in the country of Lesotho. There are four priests teaching and 39 seminarians studying there.

During the two-day training, I presented talks about life issues.  Topics of particular interest to the trainees were the development of human life, abortion, and condoms. It was difficult for some of them to comprehend the Church’s wisdom regarding its teachings on the issues. It seemed that the majority of the seminarians held the opinion that it was alright to use condoms in certain cases, such as by discordant couples (when one person is HIV-positive and the other is not) and for family planning purposes. On abortion, the general attitude was that abortion should be allowed in certain circumstances; for example, if the pregnancy is a result of rape.  For HIV-positive parents, the contention was that it would be proper to abort the baby in order to avoid the risk of infecting him or her.  It took me a while to explain why that postion was unacceptable. The seminarians had never had the opportunity to learn the truth of the Church’s teaching on those issues.

At the end of my presentation, a few seminarians volunteered to start a pro-life group. The advisor to the group will be Fr. Tobias Mariti, a strong pro-life priest who uses every occasion during his homilies to deliver the pro-life massage. He promised to work with me to strengthen the pro-life movement in the seminary. I gave the seminarians some pro-life materials, including the Pro-Life CD Library, The Facts of Life book, brochures and Precious Feet pins.

During my presentation on abortion, the students revealed to me that the Prime Minister had signed “something” on the Maputo Protocol (a dangerous piece of legislation that can lead to the legalization of abortion). They resolved to determine exactly what the Prime Minister had signed. If they learn that he had signed a law legalizing abortion, they said they will launch a strong campaign against it.

Audience with the Archbishop

On Tuesday morning, armed with HLI material, I confidently walked into the office of His Excellency, Tlali Gerard Lesotholi, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Maseru. He was very welcoming, and I briefed him on the mission of Human Life International. Fortunately, I did not need to explain much, as he already had ample information about the mission of the pro-life movement. I shared with him the abortion agenda contained in the Maputo Protocol.  The archbishop said he knew the abortion agenda behind the Maputo Protocol and had said something about it during the second African Synod in Rome, which took place in October 2009.  I also shared HLI’s experience in preventing abortion laws in Mozambique and Tanzania over the past few years. He very much appreciated the work of HLI and expressed readiness to start a pro-life program in his diocese. Then, he directed me to meet with the Secretary General of the Bishops’ Conference so we could plan how to jump-start the pro-life movement and begin pro-life programs in the Archdiocese of Maseru.

The Archbishop expressed concern that a law legalizing abortion might be coming soon to Lesotho, not through the parliament but through a court case involving the rape of a young girl.  Although Lesotho’s Parliament ratified the Maputo Protocol in 2004, and the Prime Minister acceded to the Protocol in the same year, abortion is still illegal, and any person involved in abortion is punished by law. The Archbishop’s concern lies in the fact that, if the court decides in favor of allowing the girl to have an abortion, it would set precedent for legalizing abortion in the country, just in the same way the US legalized abortion in 1973. Therefore, he asked if HLI could step in and help to stop the Lesotho Parliament from legalizing abortion.  The Archbishop wants to set up a strong pro-life program, which will involve educating the people of Lesotho on the evils of abortion and the sanctity of every human life regardless of how it was conceived.

Expanding the Pro-Life Movement

On Wednesday, I had the privilege of talking to two groups at the Catholic Secretariat of the Lesotho Catholic Bishops’ Conference. In the morning, I talked to 29 employees of the Catholic Secretariat (at the request of the archbishop) about the sacredness of human life and the divine origin of marriage and the family. I also discussed abortion, contraception, condoms, and sterilization.

They admitted that much of what I talked about was new to them and that it would be very helpful in their lives. I could tell that they had been affected by the propaganda of anti-life positions, like the acceptance of abortion in hard cases, such as rape, the use of condoms in discordant couples, and contraception for child spacing. My presentation changed them completely. They asked many questions, but, steadily and with God’s grace, I challenged their assumptions. In the end, after having been convinced, they expressed a great and immediate need to start a program against abortion.

When discussing abortion, we considered whether the practice was ever part of the tradition of our African cultures by determining if there are words for it in our native languages.  There are no words that mean “abortion” in any native African language, indicating it was never a part of the culture. They told me that traditionally there was no word for abortion in Sisotho (the local language of Lesotho), but recently they have invented one, a reflection of the current situation.

The population growth rate is rapidly decreasing in Lesotho.  According to the Lesotho Bureau of Statistics, the annual population growth rate between 1996 and 2006 was 0.08%, down significantly from an annual population growth rate of 1.5% between 1986 and 1996. There are many factors contributing to this phenomenon. First, many people are dying from AIDS. “The situation of AIDS in Lesotho is very bad, it is killing many people,” said one of the participants. Secondly, many people are using contraceptives for fertility control. Despite its failure rate, condom promotion is very high in Lesotho. Natural family planning is little known to the people. Thirdly, the Sotho people have engaged themselves in a life of consumerism, which is reflected in their regarding child birth as a menace and child rearing as a burden.  Fourthly, though still illegal, abortion is widely practiced. And now there is a strong move to legalize it. Pro-abortion groups are promoting it in the name of protecting women’s reproductive rights.  It is ironic that they attempt to legalize abortion in a nation where the population is already heading towards disaster!

That evening, I met Catholic professionals and challenged them to use their professional achievement to build the culture of life. Medical doctors can be very instrumental in decreasing abortion if they use their skills to save innocent human lives instead of take them. Lawyers were challenged to promote laws that defend human life instead of oppose it. Nurses, instead of dispensing contraceptives to their clients, could use their profession to educate people on the beauty of natural family planning and the ill effects of contraceptives.

This was A DAY OF JOY because:

• The Pro-Life Association of Lesotho was born, with the support of the Secretary General of the Bishops’ Conference.

• A program to challenge the government move to legalize abortion will be started soon.

• For the first time in all the pro-life missionary visits I have made, an Archbishop has taken the time to discuss pro-life issues with me at length and become personally involved in the pro-life situation in his country.

• For the first time, the Secretary General of a Bishops’ Conference has attended two meetings in one day and has taken his time to participate in the live discussions.

• For the first time, a pro-life movement is started at the Bishops’ Conference level.

Thus, my second pro-life missionary visit to Lesotho was very fruitful, especially regarding the active participation of the groups, the formation of two new pro-life groups, and the involvement of the clergy.

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the Archbishop of Maseru and the Secretary General of the Bishops’ Conference for their readiness to support the efforts of Human Life International, as well as to all the other people who helped make this trip so productive.  The sacrifice HLI supporters make for the cause of human life is bearing fruit. Thank you all, and God bless.