Catholic Safaris - Botswana, mission, Catholic Church

Catholic Mission - Catholic Church in Botswana

The Catholic Church in Botswana is still very young, especially in the northern parts of the country. Only 5% of the entire population is Catholic. Most of them are living in the South, near Gaborone and around Francistown. In the North less than 0,1% is Catholic. The mission in Maun was started in 1981, in Ghanzi and Gumare in 2002, in Kasane in 2003. The Country has 2 dioceses: Gaborone and Francistown. Maun is planned as a third diocese in the future. Many areas are not yet touched by the Catholic Church - including the Bushmen population in the Kalahari Desert.

There is tremendous pressure of the sects, traditional African churches and recently Islam.

Botswana has one of the highest HIV-AIDS infection rate in the world and is facing many social problems like disintegration of marriage institution and family life.

The main challenge for the mission is the primary Evangelisation and formation of our people.

Financial self-reliance will take many years to build and is extremely important because the traditional support from Western countries is fast diminishing. The most difficult is to finance the infrastructure and to maintain it. That is why the Catholic Safaris project was initiated. We don’t want to ask for donations, we ask to help us to support ourselves.