01 Feb 2019

Departed Bishop Boniface Setlalekgosi leaves a legacy that will be used to judge the surviving priests of the Roman Catholic Church in Botswana, Parish Priest of Serowe Roman Catholic Church, Father Sylvester Kaemana is convinced and equally worried.

Though he sits a collected figure on the opposite of his table and recollects fondly the love that the departed Bishop of Gaborone Diocese lived and spread, Priest Kaemana feels challenged at how his spiritual mentor and father had raised levels at the church and the subsequent expectations.

In fact, Bishop Setlalekgosi’s protégé is anxious that 'obviously people will gauge my input and that of other priests against his stellar performance'.

“Right now I’m pondering if we will manage to sacrifice for the church as he did,” Priest Kaemana says and underlines how Bishop Setlalekgosi breathed love to everyone despite skin pigment, background and many more inclinations.

 In all the acclaims he piles on his spiritual mentor, the protégé bows with reverence to the late first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Botswana who then became the leader of Gaborone Diocese when the Francistown Diocese was established.

Priest Kaemana dotingly recollects that wherever Bishop Setlalekgosi went, especially to the poor communities, people felt protected in his presence.

Having met Bishop Setlalekgosi sometime in 1978 at Our Lady of the Desert School, Francistown, when he was still a pupil, Priest Kaemana reminisces how the late Bishop influenced his decision to become a priest.

Eventually he applied for priesthood in 1983 while studying at Mater Spei College and was accordingly sent to The Roman Catholic Chisawasha Seminary in Zimbabwe to train for priesthood. It is the same institution that his mentor Bishop Setlalekgosi went to as he gathers vividly.

Bishop Setlalekgosi became a man who then influenced Priest Kaemana’s spiritual life as a man of prayer who reads the word of God not only for preaching, but for own self-growth. He glorifies his mentor for inculcating in him discipline of prayer and acting as per commandments of the word so that God could take control.

Despite the church not condoning the principles of democracy, Priest Kaemana gathers that the late Bishop Setlalekgosi, whom he appended as humble and selfless, valued consultation and extended it to those he led.

So committed to growing the church was Bishop Setlalekgosi that even in his ailment he was an active priest, so claimed his product in faith Priest Kaemana.

Priest Kaemana, who has a mouthful to laud his spiritual mentor, talks with benefit of hindsight how the leadership of Bishop Setlalekgosi got young men responding to the call of priesthood and the many he ordained.

A simple man who detested luxurious lifestyle, Bishop Setlalekgosi is said to have made ‘a lot of money for the church’ together with one Father John Corrigan. Actually, Bishop Setlalekgosi is credited for ensuring an increment in the number of church property, especially buildings.

All he ever wanted, his protégé talks in retrospect, was to grow the church, hence he valued small Christian communities initiative that seeks to help people grow in faith.

A hardened Christian, Bishop Setlalekgosi is said to have mobilised Catholics to stand firm against legalising abortion when calls were made agitating for its legalisation.

His bone of contention was that from conception, what grew in a woman’s body was a human being with all the rights other humans have.

At church, the consultative Bishop is credited with adopting a Setswana kgotla system where men in the church could sit and discuss matters of faith.

Not only was Bishop Setlalekgosi a loving leader, Priest Kaemana also hails him for ensuring a proper welfare of his priests. A case in point was when he (Priest Kaemana) did not have lodging in Francistown and Bishop Setlalekgosi mobilised the church to build a house for the church that could be put to his use.

“Lentswe la moswi ga le ke le tlolwa,” says Priest Kaemana in parting, rallying fellow Catholics not to disregard the legacy of the departed Bishop Emeritus.

Bishop Setlalekgosi was born in Goo-Tshosa, Serowe on September 14, 1927 and grew up in Mookane. He was ordained a priest on July 22, 1963 and appointed Bishop of Gaborone on November 30, 1981. He retired as Bishop of Gaborone on February 5, 2009. He died Bishop Emeritus of Gaborone on January 25, 2019 and buried at Christ the King Cathedral in Gaborone on February 1, 2019. ENDS