From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013

Rev Solomon from USA writes: “I am a conservative Evangelical saved in 1965, ordained Pastor and Minister for the Gospel and family man. I am capable of reading Greek and Hebrew like any modern scholar today. I know myself stuff.

Since Pope Francis was chosen to lead the Church, I have watched his leadership style-he is leading the church in the right direction. I agree with his 10 reasons of observation:

1. The Church no longer offers anything meaningful or important.
2. The Church appears too weak.
3. The Church appears too distant from their needs.
4. The Church appears too poor to respond to their concerns.
5. The Church appears too cold.
6. The Church appears too caught up with itself.
7. The Church appears to be a prisoner of its own rigid formulas.
8. The world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past.
9. The Church appears unfit to answer the world’s new questions.
10. The Church speaks to people in their infancy but not when they come of age.

It is also a spiritual problem within the Evangelicals. I find it hard to understand the daily spiritual life of a local pastor or bishop in Kenya”.

Eugene from Jinja, Uganda writes: “Fr Omolo Beste I read with great interest your news dispatch on the concern of Sr Veronica about Pope Francis move to make the Catholic Church active and above all even to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Holy Communion. I know many conservative bishops, especially from Africa will not agree with him but to me he is the best pope so far.

In Africa the problem of polygamists refused to receive the Holy Communion, do you think in any given time this pope will allow polygamists, especially in Africa where the number seem to be to receive the communion?”

Both Solomon and Eugene have expressed fear that conservative bishops may not welcome Pope Francis move, Solomon is even more particular, the pastors and bishops in Kenya.

I may add here that it is not only pastors or bishops who may not be pleased with Pope Francis move towards making the church look active and be people’s church and no the one owned by the priests and bishops but also conservative Christians may not welcome his idea at all.

Whether Pope Francis may allow polygamous to receive the Holy Communion is something we should wait to see. However, as members of the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist amended and refined their final list of propositions to present to Pope Benedict XVI, the fact that one proposition on the Eucharist and polygamy did appear in a revised draft is already an indication that some African bishops would love to see polygamous receive the Holy Communion.

Cardinal Peter Turkson of Cape Coast, Ghana was even more practical. He proposed that the church’s teaching on marriage which requires that those entering the church break off polygamous relationships before receiving the sacraments be amended.

“You cannot simply say (to the man), ‘just let the others go and take the first wife,’ because that becomes an issue of justice. If there are children involved, you just cannot send away somebody,” Cardinal Turkson told reporters in an Oct. 18 press conference.

Sometimes a man wishing to break off his polygamous relationships is able to ensure the financial security of the women he is leaving; in some instances, he “can set up a small business for the wife and let her go,” he said.

“But then you have not taken care of another need (of hers), and that is the need for a sexual partner,” he added.

The cardinal said the church does not want to force celibacy on others, nor does it want to “expose them to prostitution” or “a loose type of living.”

The individuals involved have to decide if the woman would “be free to go and look for” another husband, he said, though when the woman is “at middle age it’s sometimes difficult” for her to find another spouse.

He said if couples decide to remain in their polygamous relationships, then the church in Ghana tries to offer them “spiritual communion until a clear solution” is found.

In an interview with Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria and president of SECAM, the symposium that brings together the Episcopal Conferences of Africa, John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan who also took part in the Synod as a pontifical appointee argued:

“We have become accustomed to saying that there are sinners that must not approach the Eucharist. And generally those spoken of, in the West, are remarried divorcees and, in the mission countries, polygamists.

There was wonder about whether these are the only serious sins. The divorcee may not receive communion, but can the oppressor, the exploiter, the politician responsible for the suffering and death of thousands of people who receive?”

During the second African synod deliberations in Rome, a lot of issues on this subject of polygamy emerged. There were some bishops who felt strongly that the Catholic Church in Africa needs to make special provisions for women who want to join the church, but are denied the sacraments because they are in polygamous marriages.

Bishop Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi of Sunyani, Ghana told the Synod of Bishops for Africa Oct. 8 that, because of a tradition established long before Christianity arrived on the continent, “many African women find themselves in polygamous marriages through, even though it is no fault of their own.

Bishop Gyamfi said the church’s practice of baptizing married people and admitting them to the other sacraments only if they are part of a monogamous relationship creates enormous difficulties for many women in Africa.

“The church needs to address this painful and unpleasant situation in Africa by giving some special privileges to women” who “through no fault of their own have become victims of polygamous marriages,” the bishop said.

Especially if they have children, women in polygamous marriages face social rejection and serious economic hardship if they try to end their relationships with their husbands, the bishop said.

In addition, he said, “in cases where women have walked away without the consent of the husbands and the extended families, the church has been cited for injustice, insecurity, breaking up families, fomenting disunity and destroying social cohesion.”

The real difficulties for the women and their children have discouraged many women from formally joining the church, Bishop Gyamfi said.

“The result is that, in some parts of Africa, many women attend church regularly and actively participate in all church activities, but are denied the sacraments of initiation, reconciliation and marriage,” not to mention “the many denied fitting Christian burial for not being baptized,” he said.

Receiving the women into the church without making them leave their husbands “will enable them to share in the peace and reconciliation offered by the compassion and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ who came to call sinners and not the self-righteous,” Bishop Gyamfi said.

When it came to deliberation and voting majority of the bishops voted against it, even though most of African bishops come from polygamous families. We are only waiting whether the pope will one time deliberate on the issue.

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