Letter to the Nigerian Catholic Bishops’ Conference – Blueprint Newspapers Limited

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Bro. Mbaka


Your Eminences,
Your Graces,
Your Lordships,

It is with the greatest respect for your high ecclesiastical office that I, a lowly and humble lay faithful of your flock, have presented this play with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). I know the implication of discussing the conduct of a priest of God in the public sphere and I accept responsibility for any punishable errors I may make during the course of this article. Only the demands of Christian charity have prompted me to address this open note to you.

I had chosen not to join those who, hidden under the rhetoric of “respect” for the anointed, refuse to advise and propose solutions to ecclesial hierarchies when they tend to stray on the rungs of the ladder. is our faith; yet they whisper and blame themselves.

I rely on the dual authority of Scripture and many church documents to perform this play within the limits set by ecclesiastical laws for a layman to discuss the conduct of ordained ministers of the church . I am also the example of the saints who warned: “interfice errorem sed diligere erratum” – “condemn the offense but love the guilty” as Augustine of Hippo put it.

2Thes 3:15 remains my watchword here; without neglecting Gal. 2: 11-13 where Saint Paul rebuked the Prince of the Apostles, Saint Peter, and going further he urged us to “Warn one another in all wisdom” (Col. 3:16).
This means that I will only speak to the extent that the provisions of canon law, synod and post-synod documents, papal encyclicals as well as apostolic letters allow me, as a lay person, to enjoy the royal priesthood of the faithful. I limit my expression to the permissible limits of existing laws by assessing and expressing my personal perspective on Mbaka’s recent entanglement and partisan politics.

The event of the past two weeks has put the Catholic Church in Nigeria in the spotlight for the wrong reasons for the third time in six years. The founder and spiritual director of Adoration Ministry Enugu Nigeria (AMEN), Rev. Father Ejike Mbaka, was again at the center.

In the space of 12 days, too many visuals of the popular priest have reached cyberspace. It would be a monotonous repetition, restoring the scandals here, since we have all seen and heard it.

I want to believe, His Lordship, Rt. The Rev. Dr. Calistus Onaga (Local Ordinary of Mbaka) relayed the situation to your secretariat.

As a child in a Catholic family that the Magisterium rightly defined as “ecclesia domestica” (domestic church), I was made to understand that the church is hierarchical. And unconditional obedience to this norm gives life to his membership in the Church.

As a catechumen, I read that the Pope, duly represented by the bishops of our dioceses, is the vicar of Christ. Therefore, whatever the authority of the Church (the Pope in collegiality of bishops) teaches us, we must believe, as a derivative of “ex cathedra” doctrine, which support their infallibility in matters of faith and morality. Adhering to and adhering to this standard explained why the church survived centuries of warring empires, crusades, internal and external turmoil, and more.

When I became an adult, the codes of canon law, conciliar and post-conciliar church documents confirmed everything I learned in my teenage years.

He summarized the teaching that only those who hold episcopal positions (bishops) participate directly in the priesthood of Christ. Priests do not have this privilege. On the contrary, they share the priesthood of their bishops. Thus, they (the priests) have the canonical obligation of unreserved obedience to their bishops. Anything less is marked as reported disobedience, and it violates their priestly vow of obedience.

From the above, one is tempted to ask: what is really happening in the case of Fr. Mbaka over the years? Has his diocesan bishop given his consent or has he exceeded his limits? How did you all sit and watch a priest become “author” and “definitor”, so to speak, of Catholic engagement in politics for nearly two decades?

From 2002 to date, Mbaka had thrown himself into a circus of murky political waters without being challenged by his superiors. He had spoken more like a politician than a theologian. During these periods he was under two bishops in succession. Bishops Gbuji and now Onaga. Could it be that none of them then saw the danger that his interference in partisan politics portended?

The revised code of canon law chapter III: section 287, subsection 2 states: “Clerics should not participate actively in political parties and in the leadership of trade unions, unless, in the judgment of the competent ecclesiastical authority, the protection of the rights of the Church or the promotion of the common good so requires. “

The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on November 24, 2002 under the prefecture of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) on certain questions concerning the participation of Catholics in political life declared: “It is not for the Church to articulate specific political solutions – much less to propose a single solution as acceptable – to the temporal questions which God left to the free and responsible judgment of each one. It is, however, the right and the duty of the Church to pass moral judgment on matters of time when this is required by faith or moral law.

He also taught that: “Pope John Paul II warned of the dangers that arise from the confusion between the religious and political spheres. “

This latter statement warns members / ministers of the Church against mixing up what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar (Matthew 22:21).

It was always the first point of trouble people have whenever a prominent priest or pastor enters politics.

As 2018 was the day before the general election, we heard your voice through your secretary, Bishop Augustine Akubueze, on August 7, warn us all, lay faithful and members of the clergy, to renounce the use of office liturgical documents of the church or its sacred instruments of worship. for campaigning or endorsement of political candidates. Yet Mbaka challenged him and endorsed Buhari / Osinbajo openly, while he rejected Atiku / Obi’s candidacy, with impunity.

There is always more to it than just using the holy worship altar to do this. He uses the sacred third person name of the Trinity to validate what should best sound like his personal feeling and sentiment. The mother church taught that all public revelations before and after Christ were consumed in the greatest divine revelation – “God became man for our salvation and lived among us. ” Thus, since the Incarnation, any other revelation or prophecy is private and never public. Regularly, Mbaka continues to use the name of the holy spirit as a magic wand to validate his privacy. ‘views’ on national or state political implications.

This turned his followers into an army of deformed Christians, who would have no respect for anyone other than their own. ‘Messiah’ prefigured in Mbaka. This is why they could label Bishop Onaga as a “kidnapper” and break into his residence to cause damage and desecrate the church, in search of their “Lord”.
All because Mbaka (undisputed) used the paraclete as a validator of his private revelations, giving it a public coloring. Today the monster has become almost irremediable. One person’s insubordination led to the insurrection of many, with the church at the end.

Everyone knows that the church in its orthodoxy is rich in rituals, protocols and exegesis, none of which has been designed to accommodate secularism or blasphemy. It has remained over the centuries a pillar of truth and moral conscience in the decadent world.

However, we are aware that temptations abound at the level of his stewards in the priesthood, drawing them to the side of the angel of darkness characteristically stepping in as the angel of light, making life more difficult for them.

We are not ignorant of such gadgets from the ancient enemy of man’s salvation, so all of you who are the teaching authority of the church in Nigeria should always stand up to guide and direct our clergy on the the right way to go in critical situations.

As royal priests in the secular order, we live in society at large. We are not confined to parish houses or monasteries like you people of the ministerial priesthood. Rather, we occupy the streets, markets, offices and other larger dwellings of human dwellings. We hear the speeches and criticisms of the ecclesial community. We feel their pulse. We bear shame as Catholics whenever our priests are involved in such a scandal. The burden of public stigma for such an error plies our foreheads.

CBCN please come to our aid.

The revised code of canon law chapter III dealing with the obligations and rights of clerics stated: “Clerics are to abstain completely from all those things which are unworthy of their state, according to the prescriptions of the particular law.” (Can $ 285 1). He went further by stating that “Clerics must avoid things which, without being improper, are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state”.

In Can. 282 of the same chapter, she exhorted priests to favor simplicity of life and to abstain from anything that has a semblance of vanity.
Brother Mbaka should be better acquainted with the provisions of this law. But here we are, seeing a different reflection. The allegations of his visit to Aso Villa to seek a contract in compensation for his support for Buhari do not speak well for us. He had dragged the church to a new low, which a press man like Reuben Abati might be daring to write: “Mbaka represents an emerging face of the Church, a living embodiment of the rise of utilitarian capitalism in the Church of Christ, and of the amalgamation of priesthood and hedonism. “

The subject of this piece is: “there is danger in sight.” The danger no longer concerns Mbaka. At least we’ve seen a video clip of his “apologies”. The danger is the thousand other young Nigerian priests who might be tempted to take this same path. Many seminarians can mold it. A handful of priests (who are Mbaka apologists) wrote lengthy epistles, trying last week to defend the indefensible. And this portends a danger to our future as a faith-based community, if its scandal is not rightly repaired to serve as a deterrent to others who hold a similar thought.

It’s time for a diligent root cause analysis to be done to nip future events in the bud. I wanted to suggest a review of the seminar training program in Nigeria. It seems that it no longer meets the needs of the days when we were in the digital age.

But when I remember that the same program produced your types (like Cardinal Arinze, Blessed Tansi and other holy prelates), I couldn’t help but wish it.

But I trust your charisma. Thanks for making the necessary.

Ogechukwu writes via[email protected]

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