CCA’s ESSAY COMPETITION

2009 The titles of this year’s competition were:
Either: A Church that promotes compassion to animals is one that is true to its core values. Discuss.
Or:  How can animals be included in the liturgical and pastoral agenda of the local (parish) church?

The quality of the entries for this, our second essay competition, was as high as for our first. It was difficult to decide on a winner, but the choice was made for one winner (who receives £500, plus £200 to his academic institution), one runner-up (who receives a special £100 prize) and seven others who were ‘Highly Commended’. All entrants receive one year’s free membership of CCA.

Winner: Rizinde Mahirwe Dieudonne of Tangaza College, Catholic University of East Africa, Nairobi, Kenya

Runner-up: Patricia Munn of Clun, Shropshire

Highly Commended:

• Caroline Adoch of St Edmunds College, University of Cambridge
• Sr Anna Cullen of Mt St Mary’s Convent, Exeter, Devon
• Fr Eriot Deo, St Paul’s College, Mbale,
• UgandaPaola Dekleva of Venice, Italy
• Rev Preb F. Vere-Hodge of Broadclyst, Exeter, Devon
• Mrs Marie Williams of London SE1
• Samreen Zahara of St Edmunds College, University of Cambridge.

Introducing our 2009 essay competition winner

Mahirwe Rizinde Dieudonne was born in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He joined the Congregation of the Society of the Missionaries of Africa, sometimes called White Fathers, and spent three years of philosophical studies in the Centre de Formation Missionnaire in Bukavu, DRC. Between 2002 and 2005 he spent one year of spiritual formation in Tanzania and two years of pastoral training in the Western Part of Zambia respectively.

In 2005 he enrolled in Tangaza College (School of Theology) in Nairobi, Kenya, a constituent of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. So far he has completed all the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and will graduate from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in October 2009. He is currently engaged in a one year programme for the Bachelor of Arts in philosophy.

Already a deacon, Mahirwe will be ordained as priest on 9 August this year in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Goma). In October he will be sent to his first parish in Western Zambia, the famous Barotse Land, where he knows the local language, Silozi. Our prayers go with him.

On learning of his win, Mahirwe writes: ‘Many thanks for your encouraging message. I am very pleased to hear that I have won the essay competition. Sincerely, I feel proud of myself tonight, but I thank God for having been able to share in the story of his great work of Creation through the essay. I promise to remain faithful to the Ark by reading more of its issues. I will be grateful to receive the prize money. I have promised God to use part of it to help at least two students from the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Goma) who cannot afford to pay their school fees because of the political crisis that is still prevalent in the area. In this way I will testify that the Ark is an advocate of a ‘culture of life’.

My college, which is basically a missionary oriented School of Theology, will be very delighted to receive its portion of the prize.

’Read the Prize-Winning Essay.

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