PMS Directors in Malawi conduct First National Council Meeting in the 2025-2026 year at Nantipwiri Pastoral Centre in the Archdiocese of Blantyre.
By Fr. Peter Madeya (PMS National Director)
The International Secretariat sees physical meetings of PMS directors as essential because they: strengthen missionary communion, provide formation and guidance, allow reporting and evaluation, and help coordinate the universal mission of the Church.
As recommended by the International Secretariat the PMS Directors in Malawi held their First National Council Meeting in Malawi from 9th to 13th March 2026 in the Archdiocese of Blantyre. The theme of their meeting was PMS Directors be One in Christ, United in Mission. All the eight dioceses and National office attended this meeting. Malawi has nine PMS Directors including the National Director.
At the beginning of the meeting the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Blantyre Msgr George Buleya gave a powerful speech to the participants of the council meeting. In this speech he emphasised the importance of being one with Christ in our missionary work and also being united in our mission work. He said since all of us are working for the same Christ we have to avoid a spirit of unnecessary competition, and division among us. Unity is essential for effective missionary work. On the part of Evangelization he encouraged the Directors not to be satisfied with the already Catholic Christians we have but we must make sure that we are converting new christians in our missionary work for the church to grow.
In this meeting the Directors were giving reports of their missionary work. The reports covered the period between the last council meeting in November 2025 to this first National council meeting. In all the reports it has been observed that the directors are doing commendable missionary work in their respective dioceses. However, lack of enough resources is affecting them to do a lot of missionary animation and formation.
The Directors also discussed the preparation of the coming national centenary celebration of World Mission Sunday that will take place in the Diocese of Mzuzu on 3rd October 2026. In this discussion the directors agreed with the idea approved by the Bishop during the January plenary that for the sake of publicity of this event PMS Malawi should come up with two songs. They agreed that each diocese shall identify choirs to compose two songs in any local languages we have in Malawi. one song about pontifical mission societies and the other songs based on the 2026 theme of World Mission Sunday, “One in Christ, united in Mission.”
In the same meeting the Diocesan Director of the Diocese of Mzuzu, Fr. Thomas Gondwe, presented the budget of not more than 55,000,000 Malawi kwacha for the centenary celebration of World Mission Sunday in his diocese.
One issue of interest was the PMS Constitution. The Directors were happy that the Bishops approved the statues/constitution of PMS Malawi in their January 2026 plenary. The directors resolved that once these statues receive formal approval from Rome, it shall proceed with its official registration in the country.
One the message of Pope Leo XIV for the world mission Sunday 2026 the directors were given the translation messages of this year’s world mission Sunday into the local languages of Chichewa and Chitumbuka. Apart from this sharing the directors agreed that a Priest should be identified to give a zoom meeting of the same message. The priest should take into consideration the local application part of this message in our country.
In order to put into actual practice of PMS activities so that they can see the progress of their work the directors were given a session of the strategic plan of PMS that is ending this year of 2026. After this session the directors after evaluating the six objectives of 2021 to 2026 strategic plan the directors agreed with the idea of coming up with the new strategic plan taking into consideration the objective of the current strategic plan.
Last but not least, the directors had a chance to attend the zoom meeting organized by the international secretariat under the Pontifical Missionary Union society. In this meeting the director learned how to use Artificial Intelligence as the tool for missionary animation and formation.
Finally, before visiting the PMS projects of Missio Australia implemented by the Archdiocese of Blantyre, the directors were given the session of project proposal writing. In this session the directors were equipped with the skills of writing good project proposals for the missionary development of their respective PMS office.