Zimpapers Logo

By Bishop Erick Ruwona

There is a sense in which Father Prosser accepted the principle of freedom first and education later. Many of his students left school to join the liberation war. However after Independence he accepted them back with no question asked despite their age. Those who did not have enough funds to finance their education he provided bursaries.The good work meant highly subsidised education accessible to the ordinary people. For some celebrating the life of Fr Keble Prosser is tantamount to celebrating anarchy and the life of a rebel.

Reference is made to the way he canonically disobeyed his own Bishop (Elijah Masuko) and community decision to leave Zimbabwe and became an authority unto himself. However, this is typical of some saints and heroes. They are people who are known by their contemporaries to be extreme and radical.

In the end Fr Prosser left, the main reason given for his departure was that he admitted that “if he continued the school would close down” because it depended too much on his own personal resources which were dwindling and he left in 1990.

I also suspect that he could not abandon the young men and women who had come back from the liberation struggle who were thirsty for education. He did not trust new Pharaohs who did not know Joseph and maybe who may not understand the ex-combatants as they come back to continue with education from where they left.

He gave unreservedly and risked his CR community life for the sake of his passion for educating the African child.

Even attempts by Bishop Elijah Masuko to have Rev Vasco Musiwacho as his successor well after he left resulted in a conflict that sucked in prominent politicians such the son of an Anglican Priest, Edgar Tekere, and Didymus Mutasa who was raised by missionaries at St Faith Mission Madetere, Rusape.