{"id":2135,"date":"2023-11-21T12:47:27","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T10:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/?p=2135"},"modified":"2023-11-21T12:47:27","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T10:47:27","slug":"mwalimu-julius-nyerere-a-politician-with-soul-and-a-servant-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/mwalimu-julius-nyerere-a-politician-with-soul-and-a-servant-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, a politician with soul and a servant of God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Pope Francis speaks of politics as a vocation and calls for more politicians with soul, who could qualify? One answer could be\u00a0<strong>Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the father-founder of Tanzania<\/strong>, also known by the Swahili name of\u00a0<em>\u201cMwalimu\u201d<\/em>,\u00a0which means \u201cteacher\u201d, because of the profession he had before entering politics.\u00a0<strong>The Catholic Church is currently reviewing Nyerere\u2019s life in consideration of beatification<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The forum will feature the lectures of\u00a0<strong>Dr. Ng\u2019wanza Kamata<\/strong>, co-author of the three-volume biography of Julius Nyerere published in Dar es Salaam;\u00a0<strong>Dr. Ethan R. Sanders<\/strong>, Professor of History, Politics and Political Economy, Regis College; and\u00a0<strong>Fr. Festo Mkenda, SJ<\/strong>, Academic Director of Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus.<strong>\u00a0Nyerere\u2019s son, Charles Makongoro Nyerere<\/strong>, is coming especially to attend the event in honor of \u201c<em>Mwalimu<\/em>\u201d<em>.<\/em>\u00a0Tanzanian Ambassador to Italy, H.E. Mahmoud Thabit Kombo, is gracing the event, as well the Jesuit Justice and Ecology Network \u2013 Africa (JENA) and the Fondazione \u201cFratelli Tutti\u201d.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"text-theme-colored2\">\nThe Servant of God \u201cMwalimu\u201d Julius Nyerere<\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>\u201cMwalimu\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Julius\u00a0Kambarage Nyerere<\/strong>, the first president of Tanzania (in office 1961-85), is a flesh-and-blood exemplar of what Pope Francis describes as\u00a0\u00aba politician with soul\u00bb<em>\u00a0<\/em>(<em>Evangelii Gaudium<\/em>\u00a0273). Born in Tanganyika to a Zanaki king, Prince Nyerere was also known by the Swahili name of \u201cMwalimu\u201d, which means \u201cteacher\u201d, because of the profession he had before entering politics.<\/p>\n<p>Nyerere fought for human-centered development, democratized education and health care, and maintained a deep respect for human rights and peace in a dangerous and unstable part of the world. A committed Catholic, he regularly meditated on the Scriptures, attended daily mass, and even translated liturgical texts into popular Swahili, while actively engaged in interreligious cooperation and vigorously struggling for a more socially relevant Church.<\/p>\n<p>Critics raise issues on some of his miscalculations, but admit that he led a life of integrity and simplicity, shunning the selfishness that marred much of local and global politics. Nyerere\u2019s practical wisdom and prophetic witness offers a liberating critique and creativity not only to African church and society, but also way beyond.<\/p>\n<p>In 2005 Bishop Justin Samba of the Diocese of Musoma and the Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC) requested the Holy See to declare Nyerere a saint. In the same year, Pope Benedict XVI declared Julius Kambarage Nyerere a \u2018Servant of God\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Live-streaming available www.youtube.com\/unigregoriana<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Pope Francis speaks of politics as a vocation and calls for more politicians with soul, who could qualify? One answer could be\u00a0Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the father-founder of Tanzania, also known by the Swahili name of\u00a0\u201cMwalimu\u201d,\u00a0which means \u201cteacher\u201d, because of the profession he had before entering politics.\u00a0The Catholic Church is currently reviewing Nyerere\u2019s life in [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"organizer":[21],"language":[29],"class_list":["post-2135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-society","organizer-pontificia-universita-gregoriana","language-english"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2135"},{"taxonomy":"organizer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/organizer?post=2135"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catforumroma.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=2135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}