The Deacon's Bench
The Washington Post this morning looks at a breakaway church in Kenya, founded by a self-proclaimed bishop, Peter Njogu who believes mandatory celibacy should be abandoned in the African church because a number of priests he knows have secret families:
Its growth in Kenya is rooted in opposition to the practice of keeping secret families but reflects a growing worry among some Catholics that the celibacy requirement — to many an nonnegotiable tenet of the priesthood — creates a harmful culture of sexual secrecy…
…“Most of our members are ex-Catholics,” said Njogu. “They are tired of the hypocrisy. Some of our people call us the ‘Church of the Future.’”
Nearly 20 priests and more than 2,000 parishioners have joined Njogu since 2011, he claims, mostly in the towns and villages that dot the fertile slopes of Mount Kenya, the 17,000-foot-high extinct volcano right in the center of this country.
“Now that I’ve come out, these other priests tell me, ‘The problem with you is you went public,’ ” he said on a recent Sunday after celebrating Mass. “And I say, ‘I am not the problem; I am the solution. Join me.’ ”
To his flock, he said: “This is where you find your freedom from all that hypocrisy.”
While Catholicism has declined in numbers in some former bastions in the West, such as Ireland, it is growing more rapidly in Africathan anywhere else. Africans make up nearly a fifth of the world’s Catholics. Njogu’s sermons hark back to Catholicism’s pre-celibacy era while appealing to the faith’s future in Africa, where he believes it will have to reconcile with local customs as it grows.
“No one in the Vatican understands the African soul. They do not understand that for the African man, priest or not, the worst sin is to leave this world without siring a child,” said Njogu. “Mandatory celibacy is thus the root of priestly sin, but they pretend all is well while their house is burning to the ground.”
The Catholic Church excommunicated Njogu after he defected for alleged “unbecoming behavior,” including purchasing land and speaking openly about his intention to marry Berith Kariri, who remains his wife.
“These priests are not sincere, they are pursuing personal interests,” said Father Daniel Kimutai Rono, general secretary for the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops. “There is nothing about ‘African-ness’ or ‘European-ness.’” The vow of celibacy, he said, “is about the vocation, about the call to serve God and the sacrifice which entails in serving God.”
Catholic News Service wrote about Njogu a few years ago:
Some priests who are still serving in the Roman Catholic Church said the issue of celibacy still was a great challenge to many clergy in Kenya and around the world. One priest who asked not to be named said if given another chance, many priests would choose to marry and at the same time serve God.
“It’s a challenge to us, but we keep on praying,” he said. “Many priests desire to have families and children of their own but they are unable to do so. Some even regret getting into priesthood and others still go ahead and marry secretly.”
However, Bishop Philip Anyolo of Homa Bay, Kenya, chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the church was not threatened by the few defectors. He reminded priests to remember what they have been called to by God.
“We are not worried at all. They are now not Catholic priests and they can go ahead and do whatever they want. But once you are a Catholic priest, there are rules to follow,” he said.
“The priests should remember that they were called by God for a special mission and they should focus on that and pray hard as they search for holiness,” he added. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”
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