From: People For Peace
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NIROBI-KENYA
WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2011
In a scathing open letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Australian bishops sent to parishes across the country by the Catholics for Renewal that the church is no longer adequately inspires people is quite challenging. They railed at bishops to be more accountable, reject discrimination and do more listening to their flock.
The letter is coming at the time Pope Benedict has accepted the resignation of the cardinal heading the Vatican’s financial policy department, a move being seen as a further attempt by the Holy See to comply with international rules on money laundering according to Catholic News Agency.
Cardinal Attilio Nicora asked to be relieved of his administration job to focus exclusively on the financial authority. The report adds that there had been questions about possible conflicts of interests when Cardinal Nicora was named president of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority earlier this year, given his dual roles.
It is also at the time the family in Bungoma- Kenya, of Sophie Naliaka Kibanani, a 25-year old former university student whose whereabouts is now unknown to her family have sued the Opus Dei of confining her illegally so as to indoctrinate her when she was a student at Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya.
It is also to be noted that of recent days some Catholic faithful in China did not receive very well the move by the Holy See for excommunicating Father Paul Lei Shiyin of Leshan who was ordained a bishop without papal mandate. This comes at the time rumours are already circulating about another illicit ordination in Shantou diocese, southern Guangdong province, on July 14.
After thorough investigation and a clear warning to Father Lei, as well as informing the Chinese government, the Holy See has determined that Father Lei has violated canon law deliberately.
Father Lei, a leading figure in the Sichuan “open” Church community for many years, helped the local Church to restore its properties and expand its social influence, the observer said; thus, some priests and parishioners tend to think they need such capable leaders for the good of the Church from a secular perspective.
According to Archbishop Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver and well known in Australia, “the Pope is not CEO and bishops are not his employees…Instead, the Church is closer to a confederation of families than to a modern corporation”.
CathBlog – The Church is a family, not a corporation
To him there is a secular perception that the Church is acting like a transnational, global Corporation. This he insists has become so obvious that robust defences are being mounted. The Denver prelate made his remarks in a First Things article on Wednesday.
He began by addressing some of the common misconceptions about Church authority, relating how some Catholics who live in other dioceses have assumed that he has the authority solve a problem in their area. Those parishioners, he said, have even gotten “annoyed” with him for not becoming involved with issues outside his jurisdiction.
Two months ago Pope Benedict XVI had to fire Bishop William Morris of the Toowoomba diocese, west of Brisbane after suggesting the church consider ordaining women and married men.
Morris said he was removed because of a letter he wrote to his parish in 2006 in which he suggested that the church could help solve the problem of priest shortages by considering ordaining women and married men.
According to Morris however, he did not mean to advocate the idea that women and married men should be priests, but simply wanted the church to keep an open mind on the matter. In an open letter to his parish, Morris said a handful of people unhappy with his leadership used his 2006 comments as a basis for complaint to the Vatican, which then launched an investigation.
One thing is very obvious, that there are many challenges facing the Catholic Church in Australia currently. The decline in religious vocations, falling mass attendance, married clergy, female ordination and the role of the laity are all issues contributing to the challenges of the Australian Catholic Church.
The decline in religious vocations is partly due to the fact that clergy are not allowed to marry. Australian priests are pursuing many avenues in an attempt to urge Rome to overturn its ban on married clergy to try and eliminate the shortage of ordained priests.
Not too long ago the National Council of Priests wrote to the Vatican Synod of Bishops arguing that marriage should be no bar to ordination. They also asked the Church to readmit priests who had left the clergy to marry. This would make a difference but is not the only answer.
For the church to be inspiring according to Evangelical Pastor Norman, there are at least three essentials before a person can truly make a church their home:
1. People need a sense of belonging. This is more than a handshake or a greeting. It’s the sense that they are a part of the fellowship; that their presence matters, that their voice is heard, that they have something valuable to offer. It’s a sense that there are people there that care about them; that if they didn’t show up, someone would notice.
2. People need to feel that they won’t be judged. This goes hand in hand with the first item, because if they feel like they’ve been judged, they certainly won’t feel they belong. This is a tough one because we need to be very careful not to accommodate sin, but at the same time we can certainly understand the struggles people have and empathize with them, unless of course, we’ve never sinned.
3. People need to be challenged with the truth. It might feel good to hear what you want to hear, but people look to the church to guide them in truths of God’s Word. At no point should the church try to be “relevant” by watering down the gospel.
As the BBC reported a couple of years ago, some churches have been accused for varieties of reasons, ranging from racism, and discriminations among others, especially in South Africa where most churches are still discriminative even after the end of apartheid.
The majority of South Africans find the message of some churches deeply offensive, especially in the harsh landscape of the Northern Cape where the bread and butter issues – jobs and health worry the black majority.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
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00800, Westlands
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Tel 254-20-4441372
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org