The reported flogging of a widow by a Catholic priest in Anambra State has suddenly become an opportunity for those with an axe to grind against the Mother Church to bare their fangs. Why are these our breakaway brethren tacitly attacking the Mother Church and her faithful? Why are they exhibiting and harbouring this level of bitterness and hate in their hearts? Why are people always capitalizing on any issue from the Universal Church to unleash their bile and age-long hatred? Would hating, speaking against the Church change anything?
I didn’t see or hear any of them hawk around the matter of a Pentecostal pastor that defiled a four-year-old girl recently in Obosi, the way they are doing now. I equally didn’t see them condemn or talk about one pastor that denied giving a girl pregnancy in Onitsha recently same way they are calling for the arrest and de-robing of a priest who as a fallible being, flogged a subordinate for insubordination.
On a daily basis, we read and hear law enforcement agents parading pastorpreneurs for one criminal offence or the other. Some were paraded for burying human beings underneath their churches. Some others were caught defiling minors and impregnating people’s wives. We have also read different pastors’ wives coming public to talk about their husbands’ infidelity and sexual immorality. Have you heard such in a Catholic Church? The answer is no.
If then these people can devote same energy being used to attack the Catholic Church and her followers to talk about evils being committed by their pastors on a daily basis, the rate of their un-Christlike activities would have been reduced to the barest minimum. Why are they tearing their heads over a matter the Catholic Diocese of Awka has set out to investigate? Why not wait and watch them come out with their findings?
Flogging a woman, who, we gathered, charged at the priest and even delivered him hot slaps (Yet to be ascertained) is not enough reason to berate and lampoon the Church and her faithful over a matter between an employer and employee. Why are they hiding under the guise of fighting for the woman to spew lies against the Church? They can’t even ridicule the Mother Church. Hating someone who is by far bigger, better, and more organized than them is a waste of time. Why not hear out the parties involved before arriving at a conclusion?
They should stop using every little opportunity to rear their ugly heads and faces. I’m totally not in support of flogging a woman, but then I’m also not in support of the double standard some people are playing. Why denigrate the Church and her faithful simply because a priest reacted humanly? You people’s reactions amount to IGNORATIO ELENCHI.
So if a priest can misbehave, for that reason, a layperson that misbehaves becomes blameless and not deserving of their punishment? Is that what these people are trying to say?
From the statement signed by the Awka Diocesan Chancellor, I discovered that the priest is not even a diocesan priest. The only punishment in my thinking that Awka Diocese can impose here is to send him away from its diocese. Any other sanction can only come from his Superior-General in the MSP (Missionary of St Paul) who has the proper canonical jurisdiction over him.
Mmaduabuchi Onwumelu, KSJI, Anipr
