Is the Catholic Church in NIgeria for the Highest Bidder?
I have been tied down with the news of the tragedy in Nigeria. First, was the Bellview Flight 210 Boeing 737 Plane crash en route from Lagos to Abuja, on Saturday night, October 22nd, 2005. On that plane were some people that I have known in this life that are no more. These are my very close friend and a brother, John Moru, a former Seminarian of Saints Peter and Paul Major Seminary, Bodija, Ibadan, erstwhile of Benin Diocese. He left the seminary in 1995 or thereabout to pursue other causes which he actually excelled at doing magnificently until the tidings of death cut him short on the wings of the big human-made bird. Up on stairy heights, the Lord lifted John home to himself. John was, though he left ever before becoming a Catholic priest, was a priest-in-the-world, the kind that our baptism made us. He cut an image for himself saddling himself with the issues of human suffering, of which he made his own being and life an altar, upon which he was eventually sacrificed.
News of John's death ran my nerves down. Frozen, iced, my eye's mind felt it was like a phatom, a dream that was not true, but in fact was actually true. Real to the teeth. My entire being has not come alive since then, but I know his life was not wasted, he did something about the human condition that he was passionate about. One of the things that John noted to me when last I saw him in the Fall of 1995 (September) shortly before leaving the major seminary, was his low appetite for swallowing the kind of politics and witch hunting that was becoming the bane in the Archdiocese of Benin, prior to the creation of Auchi diocese. I tried to help him see that the Church, our Catholic Church was both divine and human, hence it was its human side that was actually manifesting, while its divine mission, ideal, and ministry was real and untainted. I believed it then, and so do I still do even now. However, I had understood that injustice in the Church is not often a palatable thing when you are at the receiving end.
My experiences with the Archdiocese of Detroit, with their racist ways of discrimination and dehumanization, the cowardize of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, regarding the same racism and noxious discriminatory practices at the Daughter of Charity's owned Seton Healthcare Network, Austin, Texas, that were directed at Nigerian priests (including myself) working within its Spiritual Care department, as a result of the manipulations and machinations of an American Baptist Female Chaplain, a Rev. Gina Bethune, director of their Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) programe enables me to understand that subleity in the face of injustice is a farce. I have learnt that while the Church is human, to be denigrated and degradated by elements and institutions of the same Church resembles being snowfrosted and sore.
Now, I fully understood one of the significant reasons that led my friend to leave the seminary. But given who he was, an hardworking and intelligent personality, he completed his graduate (post) studies and channelled his energies to become a priest-in-the-world fighting the poverty of Africa and Nigeria in full glare and placed his intellect, imagination, skills, creativity, charm, wit, and energy at the disposal of this goal. He died a sacrificial lamb with others of like mind, while returning from a workshop or promotion concerned about the issues of alleviating and eradicating global poverty. He died a man of faith and hope in the course of his life-work and in the causes he fervently believed. He continued to utilize even his acquisition within the seminary and placed it at the service of humanity and his immediate Nigerian society. He was true to self, to duty, to the empowerment of his community, and to humanity. He was courageous and upfront, and did not engage in manipulations. He died a martyr in the service of humanity, especially in service of the poor, suffering, and marginal of humanity, especially his immediate Nigerian ambient. He was, in spite of having left the seminary, marrying and becoming a father of a charming daughter, a witness to some golden ideal, driven not just by nostalgia and impulse, but by reflexive contemplation and examined action.
Yes, John loved his Church but had issues with his Church. He had issues with some of us, priests of his beloved Church, friends and brothers. His issue was that many of us are not fervent to the spirit and ideal of the gospel. John had many friends who were priests and he connected with them deeply. John's death also happened about the same time of a fellow Edo indigene. John we must note is a citizen of Edo State, but resident and was working in Abuja, with Action Aid International. The fellow Edo citizen, was First Lady, Stella Obasanjo, wife of the Nigerian President who died early Sunday morning of October 23rd, in Spain, following complications from what was assumed to be cosmetic surgery to her face. John and Stella might never had shared the same banquet table in life because, politics elevated Stella over and above John, as Stella's husband being also a former military leader of Nigeria, helped to shell her within the cocoon of the Nigerian who is who, the power estate. John was an activist whose concern was not the accoutrement of power, but in resolving issues of social imbalances and injustice. One commonality both shared interestingly was that they were both Catholics, brother and sister through their common baptism.
Stella's catholicity only emerged publicly after her death (truly faith is a private affairs) and it was a Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Matthew Kukah preaching a sermon at her interdenominational funeral service in Abeokuta, on Friday, October 29th, 2005, that made this all the more apparent. Kukah, a Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Kaduna, and former Secretary-General of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (the clearing house of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria), and Secretary to Nigeria's version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Oputa panel) and recent Secretary to the Nigerian Political Reformed Conference convoked by President Obasanjo earlier this year, would have us believe that Stella had a premonition of her death. Yes, Kukah painted a portrait of Stella as a 'Prodigal daughter', who returned to her father's house; the Catholic Church, following her recent marriage (regularization) ceremonies to President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Baptist, acclaimed Pastor, but a reputed polygamist. According to him, Stella had approached him to enable her get wedded to the First Nigerian so that she can receive communion. In conclusion, of this tale, Kukah concluded that Stella died a true Catholic, meaning she was in good standing in terms of the tenets of her Catholic faith and beliefs, because she received Holy Communion, hence his theory that she had a premonition of her death.
Well, if Kukah was an attorney trying to format a smart theory, his theoretical assumptions would have all easily and readily come crashing in the face of a rebuttal. But he is not, he is a man of the cloth. He is a high ranking Church official, who has been hanging too much around the corridor of power, so much that the incense of power has also filled his lungs, maybe with nostalgia. However, the point is a man of the cloth, a man called by God to act on His behalf and in behalf of God's people, he has a right to his opinion and to his functioning. But, certain things need to be filled in here to make the picture all the more clearer. There is a certain gap that his tale has created in terms of the time honored Catholic theology of our Catholic Church. This will enable us to know that the norms and tenets of our faith was not slabbed on the ignonymous altar of power.
First, I was wondering, under which diocese does the Aso Rock Chaplaincy belong? Are we witnessing a replay of Imelda Marcos phenomenon in using priests to further some noxious agenda? Is Fr. Kukah now the officially appointed Chaplain to the Presidency's Chapel? Has the theology and sacrament of marriage been toned down to satisfy the first family, because of their social influence and standing? I relate this because these were the issues that my friend John Moru struggled with that led him out the twin gates of the Bodija seminary, on his own volition. Was John to be substituted with the First Nigerian, known to have other women (married to other wives) in his life, would he easily have had his way to the altar to receive the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, without first the usual advice for him to get rid of his remaining wives (or concubines), before being wedded in the Catholic Church? However, John did not have to go through that. He married decently, marrying a woman he was in love with, honorably in the Catholic Church.
However, there are questions that are now of public interests, given the questionable wedding of our late Stella to the First Nigerian in the interest of public probity and ecclesiastical honor. Did Obasanjo get rid of his other wives in favor of Stella? When did he do so? Or was a compromised reach for him to just cage them outside of public view? Secondly, was the Archdiocese of Abuja involved in all these arrangements? Else, was Fr. Kukah transcending ecclesiastical juridical territories to carry out actions that are actually embarrassing to the Abuja archdiocese, and the entire Nigerian Catholic Church? Were and when was the President's and Stella's band of marriage publicized? Or was this an act of favor for the first citizens, to favor the President to have his ways at all times, even in things religious, hence watering down the tennets of our cherished and beloved faith? Which ecclesiastical authorities permitted Fr. Kukah to act under an ecclesial jurisdiction that is foreign to him?
The clear danger here is that once people in power are able to carve chaplains and ecclesiastics for themselves, outside the alloted juridical prescint of our Church, then they cheapen the divide between Church and State, and water down the sacred role of the faith, as they align it with purely secular interests. Therefore, political and secular authority, begins to devalue the Church and her social inputs, as defined by her divine mission and role as the conscience of society. My believe is that Fr. Kukah is a decent man and would sanction the requirements of our Church, and actually performed a valid pastoral function, as any conscientious priest would do, to try to bring home the lost sheep.
But I hope that this was not done at the expense of self-aggrandizing motives, in the interests of the coercing interests of hegemonic orders. I hope that the Nigerian Catholic Church has not become an entity for sale to the highest bidder. If so I am ready to be at the auction house, where it would be put up for sale by the power that be, at least to pay my last homages. I hope not. Rather, I hope that, in spite of all its human limitations, it would courageously remains an eternal embodiment of Christ's teaching and those of the Church's magisterium, and a non-discriminatory institution that validates the rights of all equally, without prejudice. Else, I know that my friend John would turn and twist wherever he's now lying. Should this be true, I would imagine John desperately trying to point to this in validating his postulation regarding his perceived imagery of ecclesial double standard to me. I hope such act does not desecrate the spirit of the dead, especially that of my beloved friend, John. Though, I mourn with the First family, I also hope that ecclesiastical protocols were followed appropriately in this matter.
News of John's death ran my nerves down. Frozen, iced, my eye's mind felt it was like a phatom, a dream that was not true, but in fact was actually true. Real to the teeth. My entire being has not come alive since then, but I know his life was not wasted, he did something about the human condition that he was passionate about. One of the things that John noted to me when last I saw him in the Fall of 1995 (September) shortly before leaving the major seminary, was his low appetite for swallowing the kind of politics and witch hunting that was becoming the bane in the Archdiocese of Benin, prior to the creation of Auchi diocese. I tried to help him see that the Church, our Catholic Church was both divine and human, hence it was its human side that was actually manifesting, while its divine mission, ideal, and ministry was real and untainted. I believed it then, and so do I still do even now. However, I had understood that injustice in the Church is not often a palatable thing when you are at the receiving end.
My experiences with the Archdiocese of Detroit, with their racist ways of discrimination and dehumanization, the cowardize of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, regarding the same racism and noxious discriminatory practices at the Daughter of Charity's owned Seton Healthcare Network, Austin, Texas, that were directed at Nigerian priests (including myself) working within its Spiritual Care department, as a result of the manipulations and machinations of an American Baptist Female Chaplain, a Rev. Gina Bethune, director of their Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) programe enables me to understand that subleity in the face of injustice is a farce. I have learnt that while the Church is human, to be denigrated and degradated by elements and institutions of the same Church resembles being snowfrosted and sore.
Now, I fully understood one of the significant reasons that led my friend to leave the seminary. But given who he was, an hardworking and intelligent personality, he completed his graduate (post) studies and channelled his energies to become a priest-in-the-world fighting the poverty of Africa and Nigeria in full glare and placed his intellect, imagination, skills, creativity, charm, wit, and energy at the disposal of this goal. He died a sacrificial lamb with others of like mind, while returning from a workshop or promotion concerned about the issues of alleviating and eradicating global poverty. He died a man of faith and hope in the course of his life-work and in the causes he fervently believed. He continued to utilize even his acquisition within the seminary and placed it at the service of humanity and his immediate Nigerian society. He was true to self, to duty, to the empowerment of his community, and to humanity. He was courageous and upfront, and did not engage in manipulations. He died a martyr in the service of humanity, especially in service of the poor, suffering, and marginal of humanity, especially his immediate Nigerian ambient. He was, in spite of having left the seminary, marrying and becoming a father of a charming daughter, a witness to some golden ideal, driven not just by nostalgia and impulse, but by reflexive contemplation and examined action.
Yes, John loved his Church but had issues with his Church. He had issues with some of us, priests of his beloved Church, friends and brothers. His issue was that many of us are not fervent to the spirit and ideal of the gospel. John had many friends who were priests and he connected with them deeply. John's death also happened about the same time of a fellow Edo indigene. John we must note is a citizen of Edo State, but resident and was working in Abuja, with Action Aid International. The fellow Edo citizen, was First Lady, Stella Obasanjo, wife of the Nigerian President who died early Sunday morning of October 23rd, in Spain, following complications from what was assumed to be cosmetic surgery to her face. John and Stella might never had shared the same banquet table in life because, politics elevated Stella over and above John, as Stella's husband being also a former military leader of Nigeria, helped to shell her within the cocoon of the Nigerian who is who, the power estate. John was an activist whose concern was not the accoutrement of power, but in resolving issues of social imbalances and injustice. One commonality both shared interestingly was that they were both Catholics, brother and sister through their common baptism.
Stella's catholicity only emerged publicly after her death (truly faith is a private affairs) and it was a Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Matthew Kukah preaching a sermon at her interdenominational funeral service in Abeokuta, on Friday, October 29th, 2005, that made this all the more apparent. Kukah, a Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Kaduna, and former Secretary-General of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (the clearing house of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria), and Secretary to Nigeria's version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Oputa panel) and recent Secretary to the Nigerian Political Reformed Conference convoked by President Obasanjo earlier this year, would have us believe that Stella had a premonition of her death. Yes, Kukah painted a portrait of Stella as a 'Prodigal daughter', who returned to her father's house; the Catholic Church, following her recent marriage (regularization) ceremonies to President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Baptist, acclaimed Pastor, but a reputed polygamist. According to him, Stella had approached him to enable her get wedded to the First Nigerian so that she can receive communion. In conclusion, of this tale, Kukah concluded that Stella died a true Catholic, meaning she was in good standing in terms of the tenets of her Catholic faith and beliefs, because she received Holy Communion, hence his theory that she had a premonition of her death.
Well, if Kukah was an attorney trying to format a smart theory, his theoretical assumptions would have all easily and readily come crashing in the face of a rebuttal. But he is not, he is a man of the cloth. He is a high ranking Church official, who has been hanging too much around the corridor of power, so much that the incense of power has also filled his lungs, maybe with nostalgia. However, the point is a man of the cloth, a man called by God to act on His behalf and in behalf of God's people, he has a right to his opinion and to his functioning. But, certain things need to be filled in here to make the picture all the more clearer. There is a certain gap that his tale has created in terms of the time honored Catholic theology of our Catholic Church. This will enable us to know that the norms and tenets of our faith was not slabbed on the ignonymous altar of power.
First, I was wondering, under which diocese does the Aso Rock Chaplaincy belong? Are we witnessing a replay of Imelda Marcos phenomenon in using priests to further some noxious agenda? Is Fr. Kukah now the officially appointed Chaplain to the Presidency's Chapel? Has the theology and sacrament of marriage been toned down to satisfy the first family, because of their social influence and standing? I relate this because these were the issues that my friend John Moru struggled with that led him out the twin gates of the Bodija seminary, on his own volition. Was John to be substituted with the First Nigerian, known to have other women (married to other wives) in his life, would he easily have had his way to the altar to receive the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, without first the usual advice for him to get rid of his remaining wives (or concubines), before being wedded in the Catholic Church? However, John did not have to go through that. He married decently, marrying a woman he was in love with, honorably in the Catholic Church.
However, there are questions that are now of public interests, given the questionable wedding of our late Stella to the First Nigerian in the interest of public probity and ecclesiastical honor. Did Obasanjo get rid of his other wives in favor of Stella? When did he do so? Or was a compromised reach for him to just cage them outside of public view? Secondly, was the Archdiocese of Abuja involved in all these arrangements? Else, was Fr. Kukah transcending ecclesiastical juridical territories to carry out actions that are actually embarrassing to the Abuja archdiocese, and the entire Nigerian Catholic Church? Were and when was the President's and Stella's band of marriage publicized? Or was this an act of favor for the first citizens, to favor the President to have his ways at all times, even in things religious, hence watering down the tennets of our cherished and beloved faith? Which ecclesiastical authorities permitted Fr. Kukah to act under an ecclesial jurisdiction that is foreign to him?
The clear danger here is that once people in power are able to carve chaplains and ecclesiastics for themselves, outside the alloted juridical prescint of our Church, then they cheapen the divide between Church and State, and water down the sacred role of the faith, as they align it with purely secular interests. Therefore, political and secular authority, begins to devalue the Church and her social inputs, as defined by her divine mission and role as the conscience of society. My believe is that Fr. Kukah is a decent man and would sanction the requirements of our Church, and actually performed a valid pastoral function, as any conscientious priest would do, to try to bring home the lost sheep.
But I hope that this was not done at the expense of self-aggrandizing motives, in the interests of the coercing interests of hegemonic orders. I hope that the Nigerian Catholic Church has not become an entity for sale to the highest bidder. If so I am ready to be at the auction house, where it would be put up for sale by the power that be, at least to pay my last homages. I hope not. Rather, I hope that, in spite of all its human limitations, it would courageously remains an eternal embodiment of Christ's teaching and those of the Church's magisterium, and a non-discriminatory institution that validates the rights of all equally, without prejudice. Else, I know that my friend John would turn and twist wherever he's now lying. Should this be true, I would imagine John desperately trying to point to this in validating his postulation regarding his perceived imagery of ecclesial double standard to me. I hope such act does not desecrate the spirit of the dead, especially that of my beloved friend, John. Though, I mourn with the First family, I also hope that ecclesiastical protocols were followed appropriately in this matter.
posted by Jesus is Lord at 9:19 PM
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