Nwakanma Diala Uka || I knew from the very beginning of the crisis that the church will mismanage it and I expressed such fears in earlier articles published in our local newspapers. This is because the church uses a command system of management like the military, where people are expected to chorus to their superiors “yes sir!, yes sir!, three bags full of yes sir, all correct sir!”. They call it discipline. Yet you find that in spite of all the “yessiring”, they still plot coups and vicious attacks against themselves.
In a command system of management, superiors expect to be obeyed without question, and failure to do this usually attracts severe sanctions. That is where the problem starts. Superiors can, and usually, hide under the official command cover to perpetrate very serious offences against the system and/or the subordinates and force them down the throats of the victims. Even complaining about such treatment would be another offence requiring severe sanctions. That is why it is very difficult to get JUSTICE in such a system. The emphasis is on discipline, obedience, and loyalty. While these qualities are good for the survival of an organization, it is equally clear that many smart alecs have made fortunes and built empires on the misfortunes of others hiding under its cover.alecs have made fortunes and built empires on the misfortunes of others hiding under its cover.
That is the root cause of the Episcopal crisis in Ahiara Diocese of Imo State. Over the years, a very smart clergyman who was lucky to be the first Igbo Roman Catholic Cardinal and, for a long time, an insider of the Vatican, succumbed to the temptation of Nepotism and Simony and succeeded in the appointment of about seven bishops from among his kits and kin, friends and accomplices, and distributed them over many dioceses in Igbo land and as far as Benin and Ogwashi-Uku, irrespective of the laid down process of selecting bishops in the Catholic Church. The game had succeeded without much ado, but when he tried it in Ahiara Diocese, matters came to a head. Both the clergy and the laity rejected the fraudulently appointed Bishop, and the Pope has since then been requested to change the appointment which is clearly irregular and fraudulent. But what do you find? Rather than address the issue in question, which is the fast spreading practice of SIMONY and NEPOTISM in the Nigerian church, which should be a matter of concern to all including the Pope and his Cardinals, every effort has since been made to browbeat the clergy and the laity into capitulation on grounds of OBEDIENCE to the Pope, who approved the fraud. So far this has not succeeded. The final result of this stand-off is the fit of anger exhibited by the Pope over the issue as reported in the Daily Sun publication of 15th June 2017.
It was reported that on June 8 at the Vatican, Pope Francis in a very angry and undiplomatic mood, threatened to suspend all the priests who are opposed to the appointment of Okpaleke as Bishop of Ahiara Diocese and also gave them an ultimatum to write personally to him asking for forgiveness of their offences and pledging TOTAL OBEDIENCE to him before July 9, 2017. In his anger, he showed that those he considered as “dangerous who want to destroy the church” are not those practicing the SIMONY fraud, but those opposed to it. He even dismissed opposition to the simony fraud as ‘tribal loyalties’ which he was not interested in.
What mattered to him was to see that the expanding church in Africa was obedient to the Pope of Rome. He said he had even considered the option of abolishing the Diocese altogether, but stopped doing so because he did not want to hurt the laity.
In my mind, the Pope presented a picture of himself as someone who is not in control and secure. In the first place, he was more interested in his Own need (obedience) and said nothing about the need of the complainants (JUSTICE). He did not even see any connection between the two needs; that denial of Justice can lead to disobedience and vice versa. By supporting the appointment of Okpaleke irrespective of the irregularities involved, the Pope is saying that he is careless about the legal and moral issues involved, and he does not want to confront the CABAL behind it. He, therefore, prefers to hide behind the veil of profeSSional ethics of Obedience to Superiors. He even talks about being given TOTAL OBEDIENCE. The very fact that he is demanding it shows that something is seriously wrong. If he does the right things, he will not DEMAND obedience but COMMAND it. However, TOTAL obedience is what a slave gives to his master or what the faithful give to the church and to God. I do not think that the relationship between the Pope and priests is on master/slave basis but purely on a superior/subordinate basis. So the priests owe him normal obedience and loyalty. Total obedience may require them to put loaded pistols on their heads and press the triggers. It is the foundation on which tyranny is built. The priests of Ahiara Diocese would be ready to obey him but he and his Cardinals are also required to obey the laws of the church which are binding on everybody, including the Pope.
It is said that those who worship God, worship Him in spirit and in truth but what we are seeing is a definition of Christianity by the Vatican which has little or no provision for the truth. Everything seems to be based on EGO and officialdom. With corruption so endemic in the church and so openly canonized by the Pope himself, what then is the relevance of the institution in today’s world? If the church is unable to root out evil practices in its system but prefers to convert its privileges into instruments of oppression of the poor and the lowly, is it actually Christian or Luciferian? What is clearly evident is that the rot in the church has reached the point where it needs a second COUNTER REFORMATION and the explosion that will ignite the process is not very far away now. God knows best when and how to cleanse His Aegean stable. To start with, the feudalistic and cult mentality deep rooted in the administration of the church should be abrogated and the system democratized to the extent of giving the local chapters of the church considerable input in the running of their own affairs and the selection of their own leaders over-centralization of power breeds tyranny and corruption just as we are witnessing in the instant case. The French Philosopher, Voltaire was dead right when he asserted that ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.
Even one wonders what OKPALEKE would be coming to do in Ahiara Diocese as things stand now. Is he coming on a religious- cum-spiritual mission aimed at compulsorily saving the souls of the faithful who have rejected him without their co-operation? The lack of spirituality in Okpaleke is shown by the fact that he is still hanging on to his fraudulent appointment up to now. He even prefers to be used as the devil’s instrument for the destruction of Catholicism in Ahiara Diocese. A spiritually-oriented person would have resigned and moved on with his life long ago. It would look like he invested a huge capital in getting the appointment and therefore has to wait to recoup his investment. There is hardly any other sensible explanation for his continued stay. Alternatively, he may be preparing to come as a conqueror or a colonial master to do the will of his bosses only and contribute to the cash flow of their already established religious empire in Ibo land and Edo. In all these, one thing is clear: He has nothing positive to offer the church in Ahiara.
It is still uncertain how this game will end. No party holds all the aces despite all the grandstanding. The Pope holds some, the Ahiara church holds some, and God holds the rest. We hope it all ends well for the progress of the church and the glory of God Almighty.
Chief Nwakanma Diala-Uka wrote this piece from Ahiara Mbaise, Imo State.