Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Celibacy, Sex, Crime and Everything in between

Recent news stories have picked up at a very high speed. The news sells when it's about the priests on matters of sex, celibacy and all the packagings in that line and frequency.

The Church may think that settling the issues in private and paying the lost dignity is the better option, yet it ends up being a bitter option. Crime and sin is all mixed in the same boiling pot of men who were sex preys in the name of holy men of God.

The church has to examine the sickness of all in the Church. If the crimes were committed, it shows someone, somewhere slept on his job. Sometimes the more the crime the more the transfers.

It's unfortunate that the pain is so deep and even to address it needs courage, good listener and just being there in silence to count the many years of silence. The question is. Should I make noise inorder to be heard?

The  debate about celibate is good and needs to addressed by those who live it to daily renew their commitment of why they wanted to live that life in the first place, went through formation and constructed big walls to keep the Seminarians from much temptation of the world.

I do remember Card. Emmanuel Wamala of Uganda, sharing about walls and fences of seminaries.

He said "You can construct a fence of poles and wires, the poles will be eaten by termites, a high wall, one day it will be brought down...what seminarians need is to construct fences in their hearts."

There should be no mixture of celibacy and individual crime and think celibacy is a catalyst of crime. That is wrong...

As Seminarians are trained, they are year in and year out told what they are getting into and what it means for their lives.

Don't die with passion of marriage or women and then you still want to be a priest. There is no short cut to priesthood.

It's a long tedious, military like reconnoitering into inner soul search.

It requires much discipline and isn’t some journey of head only, but head, heart, body and everything in between to be intact and secure.

Like marriage, which is a covered dish, you have to open and see what is there. Celibacy is a mystery only understood and lived in deep prayer, because isn’t lived by the power of man but the Holy Spirit and everyday renewed to God.

This incidences have exposed many churches and Episcopal conferences to rethink about the formation systems as schools of hard knocks. What is happening behind those holy walls? What was meant by statements like: see no evil, speak no evil, talk no evil, feel no evil. It reached a time and everything went into silent mood.

Priesthood was respected and whatever a priest said then was Divine.

The priest couldn't be questioned and who are you to do that. Holy men are never questioned. In some cultures, bishops  knew what was happening but kept silent I guess for the dignity of the Church, or simply got flat footed, great dilemmas.

Much was written about Africans how they can't live celibacy, it's very hard for African priests. This was a sort of conspiracy against Africans while what was happening in Europe/America was another drama that the Church is today paying heavily through the nose.

The western explosion should be awake call for Africa to put its house in order.

The formation done in Africa is tough, real years of hard formation, any doubt on a Seminarian meant no vocation.

To some bishops, it was clear don't waste time to even step in his office once you are suspended and sent back to the diocese. Some bishops came be known as headmasters of schools of hard knocks. While in Europe life looked so easy, soft and freelance, because you would see when they get back to the diocese after studies to be ordained. They would be called America boys...they came with a brand...well informed, open minded and up in the air, compared to those formed locally. Humble, simple, approachable, kind. It was easy to identify who went to which seminary. As the scripture says, you will judge them by their fruits.

Celibacy is a discipline like traffic laws. You follow the lights and learn to be patient that you don't cross and cause damages.

Celibacy is not meant for all and once one is touched to serve God as a priest, there and then the ingoing accompaniment starts and assurances are activated.

That is why the formation team of seminarians has to be humanly rounded formators who know what happens out there, smart at SWOT analysis and strategists of church missiology, not saints or perfect formators who feel they have to bake holiness immediately from the Seminarians.

Most of the African cultures, you don't mention about sex in public, because they people can't comprehend why the priest has to talk about sex and he doesn't have a girlfriend, wife. That is a taboo, even to think of having a girlfriend meant many things to the Seminarians.

It doesn't mean that they were not to have them, but it looked awkward to have a girl when you want to be a priest. While in Europe it was normal to have girlfriend, go to the disco, feel a global citizen.

When this was narrated to the Seminarians, in Africa it was a scandal. How? In Africa... that was like myth yet it was true. You now know what we are dealing with here.

It may seem to be a European/ American problem, but it's a challenge to the universal Church. As we say, if you are not affected then you are infected. The church has to do a SWOT analysis of events and do compare and contrast.

The disease is bigger than the cure, some clean up has to be made. People are going to fall off their thrones, some will break, some will be wounded and of course many are resting in peace...let those who sleep in peace rest in peace. Why disturb someone sleeping unless you are out of your mind.

The big question is: is celibacy RELEVANT the answer is YES. Can there be a way of rebrand it? YES. HOW? Involving the parents in the formation team, catechists, and exposing the Seminarians to public schooling in public university, to interact with women, girls so as to do serious discernment, then Spiritual formation is blended concurrently.

The Seminarians should be subjected to internships, seminary exchange programs of different Episcopal conferences of Europe, Asian, America, Oceania...for six months after studies to know the global system thinking.

The bishops have to be fathers to the Seminarians. The Seminarians should fear the bishops or seen as a tough man as many may tend to portray themselves at certain moments.

The bishop is a father not a sex prey to the Seminarians. It's pain, sad if things turn out to be so. It's criminal and unchristian.

The bishops have to be professional in their acts, ISO certified and clear in their minds of their call as pastors of the ordinary flock, to guide the sheep not to eat the sheep like Samuel' sons in the temple and sacrifice.

One is either part of the problem or part of the solution. (#Ppvisualparishcommunity)

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