A new dispute has erupted in Chad over the government’s proposed revision of the Pastoral Code.
A recent communiqué from five southern dioceses has criticized the government’s draft, calling it a “peasant-killing” project that threatens national unity.
While revision workshops for the code have proceeded smoothly in other parts of the country, the southern region’s bishops have refused to participate. In a statement on August 31, they argued that the draft code is not only partisan but is “clearly against the interests of farmers.”
The bishops believe that supporting this project would threaten national cohesion. They called the document “a project of treason cynically assumed at the highest levels of the State.” The Catholic Church in the South has urged the government to create two separate, fair, and transparent texts—one for a Pastoral Code and one for an Agricultural Code—that would be developed in direct consultation with local communities.
In a response on September 1, government spokesperson Gassim Cherif rejected the bishops’ accusations. He stated that the government’s goal is to find “appropriate solutions for development and national cohesion.”
However, the government expressed concern over the bishops’ use of the term “peasanticide,” calling the word “a loaded expression [that] wrongly attributes malicious intent to the government and conveys a message likely to fuel mistrust, hatred, and division.” The government has since called on the bishops to reconsider their position and participate in the workshop.
This isn’t the first time the Pastoral Code has faced pushback. A similar draft, adopted by the National Assembly in 2014, was later withdrawn by the late President Idriss Deby Itno after it drew widespread criticism.
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