COVID-19: Why most ‘religious leaders’ must be called to order

From Charles Kaye Okoye

“The history of the Catholic Church is the history of Christianity. If we can ever give ourselves the gift of sincerity, every Christian can trace his or her root to the Catholic Church. If anyone wants Christianity to die a natural death, once the person is able to bring the Catholic Church down, that is all. So rejoicing at an attack on Catholic church is like stomach rejoicing that the head is being cut off.”

1. The truth is, there are some shame that are difficult to swallow, but it is either we swallow them and learn a lesson or we whitewash them, pretend they are not shameful until the day in which the shame itself will become ashamed of us.

2. If you have been following me on this space,  I am not that type of person that paint things. This is why I just want to express how I have felt so far with the way Christianity has been mocked and rubbished since this outbreak of Covid-19.

3. We must sadly recognize that while ministers are often called “men of God”, most of them interpret it to themselves to mean “God of men” and literally act accordingly.

4. Apostle Suleman must have seen himself as a god to be able to come to the public and declare that Pope Francis is an Antichrist, a devil, and a murderer of thousands that have died and still dying of Covid-19.

5. Has anybody really questioned him till date? Did you hear anything from the body called CAN? Do you think his members, even if they know that what he said is not just wrong but evil, will be able to tell him to his face? In fact, they will rather believe he is right even when their senses say otherwise. So what do you expect him to feel? He is a god that can’t be challenged.

6. I have also noticed that anything against Catholics gives lots of Pentecostals some sort of excitement (with some exception though). For most of them, whatever will bring an end to Catholicism is welcomed. How can stomach be angry with head because the mouth which is part of the head will always be the first to taste the food that will come to the stomach? How can the stomach pray for the head to be cut off? How can stomach not know that once head is cut off, that is the end of all of them?

7. The history of the Catholic Church is the history of Christianity. If we can ever give ourselves the gift of sincerity, every Christian can trace his or her root to the Catholic Church. If anyone wants Christianity to die a natural death, once the person is able to bring the Catholic Church down, that is all. So rejoicing at an attack on Catholic church is like stomach rejoicing that the head is being cut off.

8. A man with guns can order another man to jump into a burning fire and the man, despite having guns pointed at him, may disobey the orders. But a man of religion who has claim to the supernatural, will not only order the man, but to your shock the man might even be the one begging the man of religion to command him to jump into the fire.

9. Religion is powerful. Religion is notoriously powerful. Religion has claim to the Divine, but it is run by man. Any religious sect that has no structure that limits the powers of whoever is the head, can turn out to be a dangerous sect.

10. What could make people listen to one man commanding them to eat grasses like goats or to drink poison and die? What could make an educated man to give his only car to a man commanding him to do so in God’s name or to pay all the money he has into the church’s account?

11. Pentecostal churches brought a certain type of vibrancy to faith which is undeniably beautiful, but because it lacks control, structure and power regulation, it is as beautiful as it is dangerous.

-Fr Kelvin Ugwu, MSP, presented by Charles Kaye Okoye.