ZCBC STATEMENT Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! The Church has contributed to the formulation of Zimbabwe‟s constitution in a number of ways. It provided communities with awareness and motivation to input their views and ideas and then participated in gathering people‟s views that were consequently put together to produce a new Constitution that was endorsed by a referendum in 2013. Human rights, which are important sections in many constitutions, are largely originated and developed by the Church. These include among others; the ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas who promoted religious rights; Pope Leo XIII‟s 1891 Rerum Novarum that looked at human rights in their social context in respect of rights of workers, right to just wage, rest, safe conditions and form unions; Pope Pius XI‟s 1931 Quadragesimo Anno that gave positive formulation of human rights and emphasized the duty of public authority to ensure proper social and economic conditions; Pope Pius XII‟s 1942 Christmas Message that called for the restoration of the God given dignity of the human persons; Pope Pius XII‟s 1941 Christmas Message on democracy; Pope John XXIII‟s 1963 Pacem in Terris that enumerated human rights; and Pope Paul VI‟s 1967 Populorum Progressio on human development. The Christian Tradition, Old and New Testaments proclaim the dignity and life of every human being due to their creation in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). Outside the Christian teaching, the Holy Qur‟an asserts human dignity due to appointment of man to act as God‟s deputy (“Khalifa”) on earth. This background is important in the sense that it shows that constitutions, including that of Zimbabwe, have a strong biblical and church orientation. Chapter 4 of the Constitution i.e. Bill of Rights for example, is a simulation of the social teachings of the Church. The Constitution is therefore a church document hence the church must be very active in disseminating the constitution and educating people as part of its evangelism. It is my hope that this strategic document will be able to identify remote and marginalised local communities and their languages and device ways of reaching them. It is also my wish that the strategic plan will discuss the dissemination methodologies tapping from the CCJPZ‟s experience in participatory approaches and Training for Transformation (TFT). I hope this document will help local communities to engage with the constitution so that dissemination will not be an end in itself. It should be the beginning of a process of opening people‟s eyes so that they use the constitution as a tool and reference to help them out of passivity. The project should enable communities to be more literate in understanding and responding to their context; to ask and reflect on critical questions on the way things are and are supposed to be. I also hope that this strategic plan will encourage diocesan commissions, working together with the National Office, to establish local working or discussing groups in parishes that will be guided by the constitution and social teachings of the church. For example, if the constitution guarantees rights to development and God given resources, a Resource Governance (and possibly Stewardship of Creation) Working Group Committee could be created. Similar working group committees could be created in relation to other critical constitutional rights such as human dignity, human life, participation and others. 14