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	Zambia's Monze Catholic Priest Found Dead Mysteriously By Mazuba Mwiinga A.N.D. [Zambia] April 3, 2007 http://www.andnetwork.com/index?service=direct/0/Home/story&sp=l270697 A Catholic Priest in Monze Diocese of southern Zambia was on Saturday found dead outside Monze Mission Hospital in an incident parishioners speculate to have been self poisoning though Church authorities allude the death to a meningitis attack. A Catholic Priest in Monze Diocese of southern Zambia was on Saturday found dead outside Monze Mission Hospital in an incident parishioners speculate to be self poisoning though Church authorities allude the death to a meningitis attack. Fr. Hamupunji, former Parish Priest for Zimba in Kalomo District, died unattended to by anyone before his body was allegedly found close to a day after his death. People close to the church authority in Monze in a telephone interview from Livingstone say that the church is keeping Fr. Hamupunji's mysterious death as normal as possible. A former catholic priest student close to Diocesan leadership and wished to be unnamed for fear of being misunderstood, said that Fr. Hamupunji's death is being treated with kid gloves "so that no one gets to know the truth behind his death". He said that the meningitis story making rounds in the church is a cooked up version to hide a 'scandalous version of what might have happened'. The source said that Fr. Hamupunji is suspected to have poisoned himself after learning that he had impregnated a married woman and might have received too much pressure from the church leadership and the husband to the woman. He said that the church in Monze is trying by all means to keep the matter from public domain due to recent past adulterous scandals that the church had been handling between Priests and married women. Officials at the Diocesan office refused to comment referring all queries to the Bishop's Assistant they did not want to name. Fr. Hamupunji's remains were buried on Monday at Chikuni Mission cemetery about 30Km South-west of Monze town. The church in Monze had come under heavy media criticism two years ago after a named catholic Christian Brother at Monze hospices and another diocesan priest at St. Mary's Parish were accused of breaking up marriages through their adulterous affairs with married women. The Brother has since been relocated to another institute outside Zambia while the Priest has been put on suspension pending expulsion depending on the evidence brought before the Council of Bishops at the Catholic Secretariat in Zambia's capital Lusaka. Diocese Bishop Emilio Partriaca is facing huge challenges with a number of his Priests embroiled in sexual scandals escalating since he took office close to four years now from late Paul Lungu who died two years earlier in a road traffic accident. Celibacy and chastity have been critical issues of debate universally in the church since former Arch-Bishop of Lusaka Emmanuel Milingo was ex-communicated by the Vatican last year for anointing the marriages of four Bishops in New York, US. AND – Correspondent, Livingstone, Zambia
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