IF the Catholic Church does not control some of its priests, it will become more likely that the power of the Church - to control events in Zambia will become even more diminished.

Looking at the bigger picture, the Catholic Church in Zambia and the world over has its troubles.

But the Church also has much unique economic, cultural and historical strength - if the Vatican and its local leadership in Zambia can keep its eye on the ball.

Already, the country is experiencing what some commentators call "the rise of the rest."

The growth of non Catholic Church organizations in Zambia has taken on full speed just like those in other African countries with links to America, China, India, Brazil, Russia the Middle East and smaller actors, where they are all creating a world where these other, originally considered, small Church organisations are moving up to the Catholic Church's level of economic clout and self-assertion.

Apart from the numerous fornication and marriage interference accusations and court appearances of the various Catholic priests on the Copperbelt and other parts of the country, the recent defrocking of one of Zambia's most famous and once very influential Catholic Archbishop Milingo is perhaps the biggest crack in the local Church's leadership void.

And the massive, more than US$ 600 million, compensation payments to defiled young boys by Catholic priests in the USA and the recently revealed child molestations in Ireland that resulted in the resignation of several high -level long- serving senior Catholic clergy is another big blow in the Church's spiritual leadership problems.

Of course no other one Church can challenge the Catholic Church at every level.

But many churches can, and do, challenge the Catholics at one level or another.

A key development is that the very role of the Catholic Church in Zambia and the world at large is becoming less defined.

Even non-Church clergy, by this I mean the ordinary members of the Church, in Zambia are also wielding more and more clout in the name of the Church.

Examples include the Catholic priests' massive anti- Government outbursts and the open support to an opposition political party whose leader is Catholic.

On the more benign side, there are non-government organisations (NGOs) such as those that are driving much of the world environmental movement.

Indeed, near to 25,000 NGO representatives were registered at the recent Copenhagen climate summit talks.

And there are many within the Church that are driving the right to abortion and stem cell research against the Catholic Church's own teachings.

These are just some of the many big challenges the Catholic Church needs to address truthfully.

Many Catholics in Zambia have moved on to other faiths, especially Pentecostal or born again, as they are called citing the lack of spiritual fulfilment in the Church, and some also argue that the influence of the Catholic Church is not only waning on many of the most critical issues of our time in the country, but also have become very confusing.

And others say the Sunday Gospel teachings have become more of political rallies than spiritual healing.

They further argue that the traditional systems for addressing national and global issues among the Catholic Church are more ineffective now than ever especially in this rapidly changing technological age.

Thus there's an emerging innovative spiritual teaching power void.

This power void is being filled by a small group of players within the Church who are not ordained priests, which are referred to as "the superclass" - Or Charismatic's - a new elite who claim to be much better suited to operating as Super Christians and also claim to influence national outcomes than the vast majority of political leaders.

It makes for a two-edged sword.

Some of these new elite who are ordinary Church members are from business and finance, and are subject to traditional forms of influence and suasion, not to mention the rule of law.

Some, "are masters of new or traditional media preaching, some are religious leaders themselves who traverse the country on crusades preaching "Jesus Loves You" messages that are more appealing to the down trodden and poor, and globally, a few are top officials of governments that do have the ability to project their influence on nations.

Others of the superclass are members of "a kind of shadow elite - criminals and terrorists.

" Locally these have been seen to post distasteful columns and comments usually on politics and openly citing individual political leaders in the ruling party in newspapers and their magazines - all this they do - in God's name.

In both leadership and accountability, there's quite a difference between what we're dealing with in the Catholic Church in the developing world versus the developed world.

The Catholic Church in the developed world much of which is literate is having an increasingly hard time fulfilling the expectations of their flock.

Thus more and more, and on the international scale the Church is undergoing an almost lawless evolution to the extent most Catholic churches, in previously strong Catholic countries, are empty unlike the increasing numbers found in Pentecostal or fundamentalist churches in the same countries.

In the developing world, we see examples of some of the Church's priests involvement in the Rwanda genocide that has resulted in the continued destabilisation of the entire eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where small fiefdoms and powerful warlords rule much of the day.

In this instance, however, the Vatican was prompted to condemn the priests' actions and called on those who were involved to be punished as the law demands.

But despite this Vatican warning we still see it in the broken system of governance in predominantly Christian/Catholic regions of Angola and the recent shooting of the Togolese team is a good example, we saw it in the Liberian and Sierra Leone wars, also in Nigeria, and Madagascar where armed rebels are wreaking havoc for diamonds, gold, oil production and lumber.

Or coming home, we have to wonder how things will play out in the 2011 elections with some Catholic priests' open disrespect and continued involvement in the day to day hate politics in the nation under the pretext of talking on behalf of the poor.

We seem to see a situation where the church is associated with lawlessness.

They helped fuel despondency with the UNIP government with their persistent Pastoral letters, yet today the same priests say Kenneth Kaunda was a God- fearing man.

They helped quell the third term debate but they kept quiet when the New Deal Government with the help of the superclass a kind of elite members of the Church practised blatant nepotism and the abrogation of the National Constitution in trying to jail Chiluba and many members of his administration.

Some priests even helped preach for the unconstitutional removal of the DPP.

This crisis of instability and lack of control within the Church is compounded by the absence of a national or a global strategy to combat the asymmetric threats that the Catholic Church themselves face.

It's going to make for many more interesting developments - and opportunities for non catholic Christian churches - as we turn the page on the calendar and enter the new decade.