Lesotho celebrates 150 years of Catholicism
The Catholic Church in Lesotho is this year celebrating 150 years since the arrival
of the first Catholic missionaries from the French branch of the Missionary Oblates
of Mary Immaculate. The small African kingdom is a landlocked enclave, completely
surrounded by its neighbour, South Africa. The French missionaries were soon followed
by Canadian Oblate priests and Brothers.“What [the Canadians] put up there was now what one sees in physical infrastructure,” said Archbishop of Maseru, Gerard Tlali Lerotholi, OMI. “They put churches, schools, even the first Catholic university in that part of Southern Africa.”
Archbishop Lerotholi is the President of the Lesotho Episcopal Conference. He told Vatican Radio the Jubilee celebrating the 150th anniversary is remembering the past, but also looking to the future.
“We are very proud of that work done, but the challenge now with us, the locals, is how do we keep those institutions going?”
Listen to the full interview by Fr Moses Hamungole with Archbishop Lerotholi:
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