THE BIG DEBATE ON ANGLIACN PASTORS BECOMING CATHOLIC PRIESTS

From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2013

One of our Dispatch News readers would like to know whether it is in order for an Anglican Rev. Jurgen Liias to cross to Catholicism and become a priest. He would also want me to comment on pastors who pray for money and what the government can do about it.

The answer to the first question is yes. In January 2012, Pope Benedict XVI created an ordinariate for North America as a way to welcome former Anglicans, their priests, and their parishes into communion with the Catholic Church.

The Rev. Jurgen Liias, who led Christ Church in Hamilton for 14 years before forming a breakaway Episcopal church in Danvers applied to the Vatican to be ordained into a new U.S. ordinariate.

Pope John Paul II also extended to Anglicans, including married priests, the opportunity to become Catholic in 1980. During the next 30 years, 100 or so Anglican priests entered the Catholic Church and were incorporated into local dioceses.

Liias, 65, is among the first wave of Episcopal priests who have responded to Pope Benedict’s invitation to join the Catholic Church through the ordinariate, which is designed to allow Anglicans to become Catholic while retaining elements of their Anglican heritage. Church officials describe an ordinariate as a parish without geographic boundaries.

Liias is married with two grown children and two grandchildren. Priests who join the ordinariate are allowed to remain married but must submit a written letter of support from their wives in their applications for ordination.

Liias’ wife, Gloria, a member of Christ the Redeemer, is not converting but is supportive of his decision. They have been married for 43 years.

On the second question, pastors who demand money before performing miracles for people in need-Watch Video: Pastor Caught Taking Cash For ‘instant miracles’ are taking the disparate situations of people who need help. Because they need help disparately, these pastors will make sure to use this opportunity to demand for money.

They will do all the type of drama to convince people they can perform miracles. The best example was in 2011 where a pastor paraded a semi-nude boy on TV announcing his HIV positive status before the congregation and programme viewers.

Dr Prophet Victor Kanyari made the young boy walk through a large congregation gathered for a church service/crusade while the boy was only dressed in long pants.

The frail looking boy was then left at the front of the church on full display after he was stripped down to a pair of shorts he was wearing under his long pants as he looked nervously on.

After Pastor Kanyari revealed the boy’s HIV positive status and exposed the boy’s frail body as “evidence”, the pastor proceeded to ask for a MPESA seed of Ksh310 to pray for the boy to be healed.

A cross-section of Kenyans cried foul after watching the programme and blasted Pastor Kanyaru and KISS TV for the programme. Many accused the pastor of child exploitation and endangerment.

In another incident six people with HIV stopped taking their medication and died after churches claimed God could cure them. Undercover reporters who posed as worshippers infected with HIV in south London were told that pastors could heal them.

In 2006 a Kenyan UK self-styled evangelical archbishop Gilbert Deya made the headline news. He claimed he could deliver “miracle babies” to infertile women in Kenya and Britain. He was later to be extradited to Kenya to face accusations of child abduction.

This could not happen because former Prime Minister Raila Odinga defended his miracle ministries, saying Bishop Deya was innocent. His wife had already been charged in court over related allegations over what was termed as the miracle baby scandal.

Mary Deya was sentenced to three years in prison over the theft of a child at Kenyatta National Hospital. She was to serve another two years on each of the two counts of giving false information.

Kibera senior principal magistrate Grace Nzioka said she was satisfied that the wife of Bishop Deya stole the child and gave false information that she had given birth.

The court heard that Ms Deya stole the baby boy from Kenyatta National Hospital on September 10, 2005.

Deya’s removal from Britain would mark the end of an extraordinary and long-running saga which saw him repeatedly claim in front of a devoted congregation and a sceptical media that he had helped give “miracle babies” to women who had been told they could not have children.

Guilty or not Guilty, Deya is perhaps the most controversial preacher in Kenya’s history ever since scores of children were found in his Nairobi home only for them to be traced from different parts of the country where they had been allegedly abducted from.

In a similar story, a video had been leaked of a couple of inglorious Nigerian pastor having sex with a woman who had issues with childbirth in a secret place! In the video as she was being slept with, you would hear her saying the prayers in the delta state language after the evil pastors: “Power, Enter, Claiming her spiritual pregnancy!

Similarly, in 2011 a Nigerian pastor promised to find husbands for women through prayers for money. Pastor Chris Ojigbani immediately blamed the press for misreporting his previous find-a-husband day of prayer which took place at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi last year. Each woman was required to pay Ksh 10,000 for prayer.

Pastor Chris Ojigbani came to Kenya in September 2010, when he was commonly known as the ‘Apostle of marriage’. Thousands of women flocked the KICC to get a glimpse of the pastor. Some of course wanted a taste of the promised blessings; ‘marriage proposal after proposal.’ None of the woman got a husband.

One year later, he was back, with a message to the singles. He had the ‘right knowledge for singles’. This was the year as he said the media attacked him with the ‘wrong publicity’ saw he could not make good harvest as the first prayer.

Two weeks a go 2 people died at Prophet Dr Edward David Owuor’s crusade healing prayers in Nakuru. Although Owuor agrees there is no conventional cure for HIV/Aids, but has been preaching to all and sundry that, through a series of amens and intercessory grunts, he can cure the disease.

Pastors are to target people with Aids because this is real business. In Kenya an estimated 2.3 million people out of a population of 40 million are infected with HIV – the virus which leads to Aids.

The vast majority of these cannot afford the drugs which help prolong the lives of many sufferers. In Nairobi there are many fake pastors who claim they can cure Aids through the power of prayer for some fee.

Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Twitter-@8000accomole

Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.

-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002

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