from: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013
Nancy from Bahati, Nakuru, Kenya writes: “Fr Beste I like your homily on Zacchaeus tax collectors who repented to Jesus and returned back the money he stole from the people. Since we lose a lot of money like this through revenues, how does Kenya make its annual budget?
Fr I used to like your homilies with mwalimu Rurinja from Njoro on Radio Citizen every Sunday. I don’t hear you nowadays what happened, though I still hear mwalimu. You really know how to connect your homilies with current events”.
Willie from Nairobi writes: “Omolo Beste I read on your Facebook timeline that Pope Francis may make a woman cardinal how can this happen when women have been viewed negatively by the Catholic Church?”
This second question of Nancy has been asked by many people who used to tune to my homilies every Sunday evening on radio Citizen with mwalimu Simon Rurinja from Njoro. I used to give homilies when I was still in Nairobi working with People for Peace in Africa in conjunction with Blessed John Paul II evangelizing parish team. Since then I have been reassigned new responsibilities outside Nairobi.
Nancy it is very unfortunate that every financial year Kenya makes it budget on deficit due to massive corruption which is systematically tearing Kenyan economy apart. Currently the Government intends to raise more revenue to plug the budget deficit, estimated to be Sh356 billion.
And because cost of Kenya’s debt has increased by 14 percent due to corruption, domestic borrowing has doubled in the revised 2012/13 Budget to Sh164.9 billion from the previous financial year’s level of Sh83.4 billion. It means that much of Kenyan money is used to pay debts and borrowing at the same time.
Corruption is not only on Kenya revenues, it is in all sectors including transport where untrained and untested drivers who prefer to buy road licences rather than take a driving test have led to deadly accidents on our roads daily.
The majority of drivers on our roads hardly attended any driving school. For Sh7, 000 you can buy a driver’s licence from Times Tower brokers and be on the road the same day.
As Pope Francis also mentioned it in his Angelus message to the crowds in St. Peter’s Square, despite the oddity of Zaccheus’ action, it serves as a model for sinners who may feel far away from Jesus. Kenya can only improve economically if corruption is curbed completely.
Zaccheus was “despised” by the people of Jericho because of his occupation as a tax collector, and yet after he climbs a tree to see Jesus, the Lord “calls him by name and he is converted.
Willie you are absolutely right that is why Pope Francis may be a nightmare to conservative Catholics. Already an Irish feminist is causing a stir in the Catholic world as rumours are rife the married 49-year-old could be set to join the world’s ‘most exclusive’ club of cardinals.
Linda Hogan is being tipped as a contender to become the Vatican’s first female cardinal, a title which has never been held by a woman in history of the Catholic Church according to historians.
A former Brazilian priest, Juan Arias, was the man who first put forward the prospect of an imminent appointment of a female cardinal, when he wrote the idea was ‘not a joke’, in the Spanish newspaper El Pais in September.
He quoted an unnamed priest as saying: ‘Knowing this Pope, he wouldn’t hesitate before appointing a woman cardinal. ‘And he would indeed enjoy being the first Pope to allow women to participate in the selection of a new pontiff’.
Pope Francis is expected to name at least 14 new cardinals ahead of his first consistory – a formal meeting of the Sacred College of Cardinals – in February. The conclave currently consists of 100 elderly males, criticised in recent years for their mismanagement of child abuse scandals.
Hogan, who was a founding member of the International Association for Catholic Social Thought, is one of nine potential female cardinals listed by friend James Keenan, professor of theology at the Jesuit Boston College, on his Facebook page.
Along with Professor Hogan, two candidates are from Brazil, three are African, one is Australian, another German and the ninth is from the Philippines.
Pope Francis met with experts on women’s issue in Rome, affirming that the Church must continue to work for a more profound understanding of women and their roles. Conservative Catholics have struggled with all this, especially when he washed the feet of women on Holy Thursday.
Two young women were among 12 people whose feet Pope Francis washed and kissed at a traditional ceremony in a Rome youth prison, the first time a pontiff has included females in the rite.
The move has come under fire from Catholic traditionalists who say that the rite is a re-enactment of Jesus washing the feet of the 12 apostles before his death, and thus should be limited only to men. Traditionally, popes have washed the feet of 12 priests.Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.comFacebook-omolo beste
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