Mutharika invites Pope Francis to visit Malawi

President Peter Mutharika has made an impassionate plea to Pope Francis to visit Malawi during his next round of tour of Africa.

Mutharika made the invitation when a senior Vatican official visited Malawi’s Head of State Thursday at Sanjika Palace in Blantyre.

“The visit by Pope John Paul the second left a profound effect on Malawians,” Mutharika said.

The Vatican’s secretary of state archbishop Paul Richard did not immediately say Pope Francis would come to Malawi or not but in his earlier speech, he praised Malawi for the freedom of worship prevailing in the country.

Bishops of the influential Catholic Church in Malawi are dubbed fathers of democracy because they were the first in 1992 to challenge former president and dictator Kamuzu Banda over bad governance and human rights abuse issues through a catholic pastoral letter and received death threats from the regime.

Politicians then were too scared to criticise Kamuzu Banda and his Malawi Congress Party following the death of four prominent politicians Aaron Gadama, Dick Matenje, Twaibu Sangala and David Chiwanga a decade earlier and other unexplained deaths.