MALAWI: Bishop Nervi Catholic Media Centre officially opens
Montfort Media Center in Lilongwe
Archbishop Tarsizio Ziyaye of the Lilongwe Archdiocese in Malawi, recently opened the Montfort Missionaries’ Bishop Nervi Media centre in Lilongwe with a call to Malawians to embrace a culture of reading.
The Bishop Nervi Media centre is home to St Montfort Bookshops, Luntha Television studios and Montfiort Media newsroom in the capital Lilongwe.
“We talk about the culture of reading among Catholics and Malawians in general. Here is an opportunity for people to come and look for any reading materials for education and spiritual life. This centre is a house for both spiritual and social nourishment of individuals. It contributes to the development of both the Church and State,” said Ziyaye.
Unvailing the plague during the official enauguration
of Montfort Media Center in Lilongwe where the
National Catholic TV station TV Luntha is located
He added that the construction of the imposing infrastructure in the Capital City will foster the task of evangelisation as Montfort Media will be easily accessible from the hub of the nation.
Bishop Nervi Media Centre is an imposing structure in Lilongwe’s Area 2, a low density surburb located between Maria Goretti and Lilongwe private schools.
Superior for the Montfort Missionaries, Fr Felix Phiri, said the two media institutions housing the centre will focus on using modern technologies for dissemination of information.
Montfort Media and Luntha Television operate from Balaka but the construction of the Lilongwe office started in 2010. The opening of the new offices will help customers from the central and northern regions and neighbouring countries like Zambia and Tanzania not to travel all the way to Balaka for business.
Montfort Media was officially opened in 2001 by Cardinal Francis Arinze while Luntha television opened its airwaves in 2007.
Montfort Media publishes magazines (Together and Lamp) and a vernacular newspaper Mkwaso. This is in addition to printing and publishing social, religious and educational books. Luntha Television is Malawi’s only Catholic television available through the local free to air Malawi Digital Broadcasting Network Limited.
The building was named after late Bishop Luciano Nervi,( 1938-2005) an Italian Montfort Missionary, prolific writer and editor of L’Apostolo di Maria, who became Bishop of Mangochi Diocese and died suddenly due to malaria, after serving only a month in office as the Ordinary of the Diocese.
The Montfort Missionaries came to Malawi in 1901. Apart from Montfort Media and Luntha Television, they also ran parishes in the Dioceses of Mangochi and Zomba and the Archdiocese of Blantyre, and other properties including a spiritual centres at Namiasi in Mangochi Diocese (Malawi; a parish and a Marian Centre at Mphangwe in Chipata Diocese (Zambia).
Bishop Nervi Media Centre has been realized with the support of several donor partners including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB); the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI); Missio Aachen and Church in Need in Germany; and individual donors through collaboration with Eternal Word Television Network EWTN.
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By Godfrey Maotcha, Montfort Media
