THE ROLE CATHOLIC CLERGY AND LAITY PLAYED IN ANNOUNCED NATIONAL DIALOGUE

PRIEST APPEALS FOR A REVIEW OF POLITICO ECCLESSIA RELATIONS

By Cameroon Infotrend

Reverand Father Joseph Awoh, Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Buea, Vice Chancellor of the Catholic University of Cameroon, CATUC Bamenda has pulled minds to what can be described as politico- ecclesiastical relations following a vitriolic reflection which he released on Pentecost Sunday 2021. As if to invoke the Holy Spirit for rejuvenation of the Church like on the day of pentecost, Fr Joseph critically examines every aspect of politics in Cameroon with the pastor at the center viz a viz the social teachings of the Church. The piece being shared and forwarded on social networks is captioned "THE CAMEROONIAN PRIEST TODAY: PASTOR OR POLITICAL ACOLYTE? 

Read him..

In 2018, the International Crisis Group

opined that the Catholic Church in Cameroon stood the best chance of mediating dialogue between the government and Anglophone separatists. However, the Crisis Group “briefing” identified an obstacle which they thought stood in the way of the Church playing this role. It stated: “At present, however, its public divisions, particularly between Anglophone and Francophone clergy, stand in the way of it playing a constructive role” . We, in the Church, have always been aware of our divisions, but I could not help feeling embarrassed by the proportions they had taken and by how they were actually undermining the work of the Church.

While divisions between clergy in the Catholic Church have often stemmed from ethnic prejudices, they have also been driven by the alliances which politicians have forged with some church leaders. Examples abound. The Bishop Ndongmo case of the 1970s showed that the friendship bond between a bishop and a politician were stronger than the bonds of the episcopate and the bonds of baptism. In the 1990s when Cameroon was making the difficult transition from one party to multiparty politics, an Archbishop celebrated Mass in Bamenda for victims of military violence and for respect for human rights and another Archbishop celebrated a “counter-Mass” in Yaounde.  

At this point in time, Cameroon is probably more divided than at any point in her history after independence. Most of us, priests and laity, wish that our bishops would speak with one voice and give us a clear sense of direction as to where the Church stands on the social and moral issues we confront on a daily basis: bad governance, Anglophone marginalization, school boycott, deep divisions in the Anglophone (Christian) communities, etc. But, alas, our National Episcopal Conference has not been able to speak on these issues, and many Anglophone Catholics have felt abandoned by the Church at a time when they need her most. True, the last two presidents of the National Episcopal Conference have spoken out against some of the excesses of government and the separatists, but their voices have been hushed and undermined by the contradictory statements of their colleagues or the deafening silence of the Conference on matters of life and death for fellow Anglophone Catholics.

It always takes tons of courage to call out incidents of injustice and human rights abuses anywhere in the world, but it is even more difficult to call to account perpetrators of injustice and human rights abuses in situations like the one we are living through in Anglophone Cameroon. The government and the separatists are likely to ask for your head on a dish! And, with the current divisions in opinion as to the line of action the Church should be taking, you will be hung up to dry should you incur the ire of either protagonist. I have already intimated above that while some Church leaders are thinking God, the Church and the common good, others are thinking tribe, power and influence, money and personal gain. St. Augustine wrote that the love of self has formed the earthly city or the city of man, while the love of God has formed the heavenly city or the city of God. These two ‘cities’ have totally different motives and goals in mind. Could the pull of the two cities in different directions be the reason for the discordant voices we hear in the Church when it comes to calling out the government on corruption, bad governance, human rights abuses, and injustice?

Every Christian, priest and bishop has a right to their political opinion and, like every other human being, they cannot escape ‘the political’. We believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of all of life, including our political life, so that being a good person or a good Christian is directly connected to our political systems and structures. To refuse to take a political stance is to take a political stance, which is another way of supporting the status quo. The question for the Christian must always be: how do I live as Christ wants in the current situation? And the answer to that question will sometimes (and in the Cameroonian situation, almost always) lead us to take a political stance – oppose injustice, condemn human rights violations, denounce marginalization, bad governance, corruption and the siphoning of public funds. So to live out our Christian lives as laity, priests or bishops, we have got to be political. However, we need to remind ourselves that being political is not the same thing as being partisan.

Many Catholics would agree that ‘partisan politics’ is what has silenced our prophetic voice as Church. But we don’t always have to be partisan to kill the Church’s prophetic voice. In a good number of countries in Africa, including Cameroon, there is a tendency among politicians to woo church men and women of influence, in a bid to have a platform, gain respectability, and lend a modicum of credibility to what they say or do. In the face of the covid-19 hesitancy, how many ‘prophets’ and ‘bishops’ have we heard preaching that we prayed for God to save us from this pandemic and the vaccine is God’s answer to our prayer? How many of them have received government ‘support’ to do so, and how many of them have been coaxed by some government minister to preach vaccine efficacy?

Politicians who lend support (as individuals) to the evangelizing work of the Church can do so from a good motive, but it is rare to find a political leader who espouses policies perfectly in line with Catholic social teaching. There is almost always ‘payback time’, almost always something the politician or their party will reap from a cozy relationship with the church leader or the Church herself. That is the reason why, in 2019, the Catholic Church in Kenya took action against individuals they believed were corrupt by rejecting their offerings and gifts. It was reported that Archbishop Philip Anyolo of Kisumu Archdiocese actually rejected a Mitsubishi Pajero SUV worth $40,000 from Deputy President William Ruto .  Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit, while speaking in a multisectoral initiative against corruption in 2019, warned ACK clerics against accepting corrupt money, when he said, “Let us not allow Harambee money to become a subtle way to sanitise corrupt leaders .” The Kenyan Church seems to have learned that accepting donations from corrupt politicians is courting trouble for the Church and undermining her moral authority. I wonder what they would think about Church leaders who actually go out to the politicians, soliciting donations and asking them to lead fundraising activities in the Church?

I don’t want to give the impression that all politicians make friends with priests or pastors for ulterior motives, but those of them who don’t are few and far between, which is why we have to beware of the Greeks when they come bearing gifts. Some people believe that the priest-politician interaction does less to spiritualize politics and more to politicize spirituality, and the current crisis has more than confirmed this belief in many minds. Most politicians that I know in this country and elsewhere care more about their popularity and votes than they do about the spread of the Kingdom of God, and one of the things that has gagged the prophetic voice of the Church in Cameroon is religious leaders speaking less as servants of God and more as friends of politicians or of the State.

As a priest, I know firsthand how frustrated some of my colleagues feel when Church leadership does not speak with one voice on some of the vexing issues of our day and they have to navigate these issues without a firm sense of direction, or when they and their flock feel abandoned to their own resources by the Church in the middle of a burning crisis. That notwithstanding, I still think that it is irresponsible for priests to use the pulpit to express their narrow, personal opinions on political issues, politicians and political parties, or to voice their disagreement with the line of action of the bishop. It is no secret that some of our Anglophone priests threw their whole weight behind the SDF Party when it was launched in the 1990s and a few did same for the Anglophone ‘cause’ at the beginning of the current crisis. There is no way we are going to preach on the gospel themes of reconciliation, justice and peace, respect for the life and dignity of the human person without making reference to the Anglophone Crisis and how the teaching of the Church applies in the circumstances. As I said earlier, the Bible always challenges us to apply the Word of Christ to our context with the question: how do I live as Christ wants in the situation in which I find myself? And I can answer that question, with all its political implications, without overtly taking sides with one party against the other, one politician against another. Our moral principles are enduring; politicians and political parties are transitory. Each of us is a politician but the difference between us and career politicians is that it is our faith that informs our politics, not the party line, not the God-fearing generous politician friend, not the tribe or ethnic group, and not personal gain of any kind

This country is crying out for priests and pastors who care about the common good, respect for human life, human rights, justice and peace, and Catholics want to know how Catholic Social Teaching speaks to these and other issues of current attention. We, priests and pastors, must speak the truth forcefully and charitably and, if that offends someone’s political sensibilities, so be it. Those of us who knew them look back with nostalgia at the days of Archbishop Paul Verdzekov, Christian Cardinal Tumi, Archbishop André Wouking and courageous priests who called out the excesses of government and spoke truth to power. These, and others like them, accorded the Church a moral high ground from which she spoke and the country listened. We look back to them with nostalgia because it would seem that priests’ and pastors’ abilities to provide moral leadership for the nation, to stand up to the political class and be the ‘voice of the voiceless’ has been seriously compromised by personal and material interests. We need the Church to be a diverse place where we work with others of different opinions and backgrounds around the common good and shared interests.  We need priests and pastors whose hearts beat for God and for His people, not political acolytes.

Fr. Joseph Awoh

Pentecost Sunday 2021