Paul Obi writes the church must adapt to the present situatiom
“The principle of democracy is the recognition of the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as a gift from God, the source of law.”
Fulton J. Sheen
American Catholic Bishop, Professor and Philosopher
Growing up in the historical village of Kakwagom, in Boki Local Government Area of Cross River State, as political and social scientists postulated, after my immediate family, the Catholic Church was the second institution that afforded me the whims of civilisation. St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Kakwagom, is a befitting architectural edifice that straddles with civilisation in various ways. From the Church building, Handmaid of the Holy Child of Jesus (HHCJ) Novitiate, Convent to the hospital, it is more than a spiritual shrine; rather, an amalgam and epicenter of civilisation.
At the time of birth in the 1980s, it was White Irish priest of St. Patrick Missionary (SPM) that I met all through; it was only in the mid 1990s that Nigerian priests were posted to the parish. From Fr. Murphy; Fr Jim English to Fr Neil Campion, the Church was a great institution and influential. In all my sojourn, I have never witnessed any church architecture of old like St. Patrick in Nigeria except the Anglican Cathedral in Ikoyi, Lagos and the ones I saw in the United Kingdom. This year, 2022, St Patrick marks her centenary. In all, We grew up to know the Catholic Church as a great institution with all the layers and levers of power. The discipline, swift response to issues, protection, strategic planning, grooming mostly through education was fantastic and uplifting.
According to Vatican records and other statistical research, Nigeria and Congo Democratic Republic have the highest numbers of Roman Catholics in Africa. The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) since its establishment in the 1960s remains a formidable force of note. Through the Missionary Society of St Paul (MSP), the Nigerian Catholic Church is responsible for the propagation of the gospel in Africa far more than another congregation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its educational institutions from the 1930s till date remain the most outstanding institutions of learning, alongside health facilities. Beyond the bishopric dichotomy of the more than sixty dioceses spread across the country, its universality and oneness is a strength unmatched in many social circles.
Yet, the Nigerian Catholic Church has continued to be at the receiving end for more two than decades now, and the most victimized within the Nigerian quagmire. Beyond having its faithful who have occupied strategic positions including the Senate Presidency, ministerial, gubernatorial and other strategic positions, nothing much is known about the church rising up to the occasion to reset its critical role within the Nigerian state – now tilting towards the precipice. To the extent that even the Canon Code of Laws is now being abused with reckless abandon for political gains, specifically with the case of Rev. Fr Ejike Mbaka of Enugu Diocese. Over the last eight years, more than four thousand Christians and Catholics have been brutally killed by terrorists and religious extremists whose preoccupation is to decimate the Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria. No week passed, without a Sacristy, the Lectionary, a Cassock, or Chalice being soaked with the blood of faithful.
If there was any doubt about the Catholic Church being a deliberate target of the terrorists who investigation indicates emanated from Mauritania, Niger, Mali and other West African countries, the broad day massacre of faithful at St Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State bears the marks of a well orchestrated plan; an insidious and blood-soaked conspiracy cooked in hell. Since then, tons of priests, religious and faithful in Kaduna, Niger, Abuja, Kogi, Edo, Ondo States have either been butchered by terrorists, kidnapped and held upstage. In the midst of this debilitating situation, the Nigerian Church is lost about the solutions on how to avert these existential threats and attacks.
The normal response has been to issue incendiary press statements of assurance, weak in solutions, but ones that leave the faithful more psychologically wounded about their helplessness and hapless situation in the hands of Shepherds who ordinarily should shield them from danger Jesus Christ, in his ecclesiastical postulation in John 10: 1 – 21, same in Psalm 23 and other biblical provisions provided laid down that the antidotes to the role of a Shepherd. Nothwithstanding, among the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), no one has faced the brunt of terrorism as compared to the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Hassan Kukah, a daring and unperturbed Shepherd unafraid of the enemy. Kukah at a lecture recently argued that the prevailing rapacious attacks on Christians, particularly Catholics now compels that “Christians must move towards the barking dog.”
Since 2015, the Nigerian state has watched by, with high level of culpability, the increased killings of Christians and burning of worship centres in Southern Kaduna, Benue, part of the North, Ondo and Edo States in the South. In a strong worded letter to the United States (US) Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, the US Senate led by Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, James M. Inhofe, Josh Hawley, and Mike Braun frowned and rebuked the American government delisting of Nigeria from the list of Country with Particular Concern (CPC) in the persecution of Christians. Citing the terrorist attacks and the mob killing of Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu in Sokoto and her subsequent immolation, the senators maintained that, “Nigeria earns the dubious honour – for the second conservative year – of being the most deadliest country on earth for Christians.” Yet, this is a country, where Christians and Catholics cannot be said to be in minority, but their leaders are entrapped in the brazen form of docility you can ever imagine. Contrary to Fulton J. Sheen’s assertion, shockingly so, the Nigerian Christian community leadership is weak and afraid to recognize and defend “the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as gift from God, the source of law.”
Further, there is no dispute about the challenges the Church faces in this chaotic and click-quick world, but docility cannot overcome those challenges. As Kukah highlighted, there must be a pragmatic pushback beyond sermons and pious testimonies. Kirstin E. Heyer et al in their book; Catholics and Politics: The Dynamic Tension between Faith and Power stressed that the prevailing complexities of politics and human nature has compelled the Catholic Church to “encounter a more fractured reality than a pure unity depicted in doctrine, disclosing fallible departures from a commitment to Catholic universalism and a transcendent nature of its values.” They added that, more problematic for the church is the fact that, public engagement of the Catholic Church lacks “straightforward categorization.” This nebulous way of public engagement and its sloppy categorization of our socio-political events remains the bane of the Nigerian church. How then does the Nigerian Church chart its path from these crises and threats? How will the newly elected Archbishop Lucius Ugorji led CBCN leadership respond to these challenges?
If we must deconstruct how to move towards the barking dog as Bishop Kukah posited; we must first diagnose the Nigerian crisis as an anomie traceable to the chaotic, problematic, bigoted and sleazy political system and culture. In which, the Catholic Church has failed woefully to deploy her teeming faithful to cause reformatory and pragmatic change needed in a turbulent 21st century. Worst still, with history as our guide, many Catholics shared part of the blame for the degradation of Nigeria in many respects. Or can we forget so quick the role of the CBCN in 2015, and the deterioration of Nigeria since then? Somehow, with the help of Catholics, bigots have been elevated to high places in Nigeria who are now using their positions to aid or abet the increasing threats to the church in Nigeria.
The Nigerian problem far beyond the socio-economic challenges is deep rooted in our politics. The sleazy tendency to elevate men with questionable character, quintessentially clueless folks, ethnic jingoist and bigots to the oval office is responsible for Nigeria’s current postion. Beyond the pseudo-preachment that the Catholic Church does not get into politics, as 2023 general elections beckon, the church must fiercely take its place and stand. Or perished. Facing existential threats of monumental proportion, the Catholic Bishops must therefore rise to the occasion, or consign the church and her faithful to nourishment not of bread of life, but of Vaticum. Now is the time to end the docility!
Obi, is a journalist, researcher and fellow at the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Abuja.
