Let me start by praising the efforts of Chikadibie Okafo at pointing
out without fear or favour the problem with Nigerian masses. I agree
with Chika a whole lot of 95% and the other five percent is what I am
here to correct. Having said this, it means that I am in agreement with
those areas this rejoinder fails to cover. Please pay more attention to
read up the middle chapters in order to appreciate my major arguments.
The area I need to touch concerns his take on Christian and particularly
Catholic teachings which does not also mean that they are tested
truths, but that they have reasonable explanations to which Chika
alluded to in the final paragraph of his article. I am also a Catholic
who grew up like Chika did and had to attend catechism classes in order
to receive First Holy Communion and be confirmed as soldiers of the
faith. But the difference between me and Chika is that after he was
confirmed, Chika restricted his Christian practices to only Sundays
Sunday medicine and that is what formed his incredulity.
Immaculate Conception.
Chika does not understand the Immaculate Conception or the reason why
Catholics pray through Mary. Here again, my aim is to provide the reason
behind it and you don’t need to attack me whether it is good practice
or not after all no one is sure of anything. You may be surprised to
learn that the person you call your father is not really your father,
yet u can kill for it before DNA test considering your faith in your
parents. Catholics believe that Jesus is not just the Lord, but God
according to John chapter one making allusion to Genesis Chapter one
verse one. If Jesus is God and God is Spirit, he does not have Flesh
because God is spirit.
Thus for Jesus who is God to come here and live with us, he needed
flesh and had to borrow it from Mary. Catholics also believe in original
sin which brought expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and
through which corruption of the flesh started. If Mary conceived Jesus
through sexual union, then Jesus shares original sin with us and if so,
he cannot save man from the same original sin. A blind man does not lead
a blind man.
Catholics also believe that although Mary’ parents Joachim and Ann got
her through sexual union; she was exempt from sharing the original sin
so that she cannot transfer the same to Jesus. In fact Catholics believe
that Mary’s body which is the same with that of Jesus knew no decay. If
Mary’ body decayed, then resurrection is rubbish since the origin of
that body also knew corruption.
These are just speculation but which are so important that once it is
disproved and divinity of Jesus denied, then Christianity not just
Catholicism becomes baseless. If Jesus is considered a man, then it is
either his coming is useless or there is no original sin making baptism
worthless. Even John wondered why Jesus should be baptised believing
that Jesus is God and does not share in original sin to need baptism.
But because Jesus had to borrow even his clan, he had to baptise as the
Jews did and became a Pharisee so he can have access to teach. Thus
Immaculate Conception has the divinity of Jesus at its base and once you
disprove it, Jesus’ cry on the cross ‘consumatum est’ might mean
another thing which humanity cannot just start researching again now
after all these years.
CATHOLIC TRADITION AND THE BIBLE: We have to understand that Catholic
Church has come through many ages, endured many schisms and heresies
and thus has amassed so much to teach both in morals and doctrines and
people should agree with me that you don’t teach these on Sundays within
just less than 30mins some priests deliver homily. The church knew this
and for the benefit of those who cannot read, avenues to learn these
teachings about catholic morals and doctrines abounds. The most
conspicuous of them is the Sunday evening instruction where the Bible
readings of the days are explained more in details and questions allowed
from the faithful.
We must know that Catholic Church’s calendar has three years
(AB&C) for Sundays and Two years (A and B) for weekdays where it is
presumed that a faithful that attends masses on Sundays for three
consecutive years must have heard or read the bible from Genesis to
revelation. Moreover if one attends morning masses on weekdays for 2
consecutive years, he must have heard or read the same bible from
Genesis to revelation. Thus in three years, a devout catholic must have
read the bible twice and if he/she attends the evening instructions on
Sundays, he must have heard or asked questions about in depths and
explanations of the bible.
But most Catholics do not devote the time they devote to frivolities
when they eventually leave the church. There are church laws, but people
do not keep them because there is no immediate punishment and thus they
fail to learn anything. But when they join secret societies, they can
even go to the extent of killing to keep its laws. Those who leave
Catholic church must ask themselves one question: “Was I active enough
and have learnt all and understood the teaching before in I ‘repented’”?
This is Just about working hard. There are people, who read just Igbo
literature, but they are influential people in the world today while
there are others who read Medicine, yet they could not get a good job.
Did you work hard where you started? If you leave Political science
where u don’t even read and go to medicine and work hard and be
successful, there is nothing wrong with Pol. Sci., it was about you and
your effort. So wake up and learn!
The Catholic Church has many other avenues one may learn and work out
his salvation which I cannot come here to recant but which those who
need should go and ask their Parish priests.
CATHOLIC CHURCH AND MIXED MARRIAGE: It is not true as Chika claimed
that Catholic ladies are not allowed to marry a person who is not a
catholic. Rather it is expected that permission must be granted by a
local ordinary before such marriages. Chika should have gone through
Cannons 1124 to 1128 before making his claims. The most apt of these
cannons are as follows: 1124, Without the express permission of the
competent authority, marriage is prohibited between two baptized
persons, one of whom was baptized in the catholic Church or received
into it after baptism and has not defected from it by a formal act, the
other of whom belongs to a Church or ecclesial community not in full
communion with the catholic Church.
Canon 1125 The local Ordinary can grant this permission if there is a
just and reasonable cause. He is not to grant it unless the following
conditions are fulfilled: Canon 1125.1 the catholic party is to declare
that he or she is prepared to remove dangers of defecting from the
faith, and is to make a sincere promise to do all in his or her power in
order that all the children be baptized and brought up in the catholic
Church; Canon 1125.2 the other party is to be informed in good time of
these promises to be made by the catholic party, so that it is certain
that he or she is truly aware of the promise and of the obligation of
the catholic party.
The reasons for these cannons are not farfetched. Catholic Church
believes they are the oldest Christian faith and hold the truth about
Jesus Christ (This they believe, forget about its veracity at least for
now). So to make sure that Catholics are not led astray considering the
warnings of Matthew’s Gospel chapter 24 and John’s Gospel Chapter 10,
such marriages and loss of faith is forbidden. If a Bishop in the church
believes that other Christian faith’s are making mistakes, why would he
leave his doors open for his faithful to join those faiths? If he does,
then it is better he closes his own entirely and join those others. In
fact it is those who are not sure of the veracity or authenticity of
their faith and teaching that would allow such defection with the word
“after all we are all Christians” Yes we are all Christians, but we are
not all true Christian faiths. Some has histories and original documents
in the original languages and cultures of Jesus who we worship, others
originates along major roads into big cities in Nigeria while others are
near the beaches in Lagos. The truths they teach are not the same and
if I am a Bishop, I won’t make laws that will mislead you into
understanding that the churches are all the same. However, the church is
not stopping any one physically.
Catholic Church cannot also be a one person’s church and thus may be
difficult for a priest to deceive you on personal grounds. But these new
churches can easily deceive since they have one man origin. I had such
opportunity when I came up to London newly and delivered speech in a
religious gathering. A pastor approached me with an offer to become a
junior pastor in training in his church, today I regret not accepting
that offer, because, man! he is now a rich man.
FATIMA APPARITION OF BVM TO THREE SHEPHARDS OF FATIMA: Let me start
by saying here that Catholic Church has both private and public
revelations. Bible is considered public which the Catholic Church
considers a must for every faithful to accept. Private relations which
include such mysterious appearances may be accepted by the church but
you are free to reject them which Chika here just did. Although some of
these things can be manipulated by overzealous priests (I am
philosophers and cannot be caught in such) the Catholic Church tends to
accept these private revelations based on their collaboration of history
and present events. For example, if the three children of Fatima were
not manipulated by overzealous adults, then it is hard to refute the
children’s story with links to the Second World War which ended the
following year and which they were even too young and uneducated to
understand. The Lourdes apparition also needs certain questions to have
happened when the catholic hierarchy was debating Immaculate Conception
and featuring a lady not educated to understand such things. Was this
Lourdes apparition also manipulated so as to show the divine support of
such doctrine? We may not know. But I have seen no disadvantage in
believing in them and none in rejecting them.
Considering the story of the children collaborated by the media then, I
don’t want to reject the story or accept it since there are
possibilities in this life. However despite all my philosophical studies
I find myself taking Jacinta the youngest of the three as my Matron
Saint. The children were separated and interviewed after each apparition
and most striking are two points. They were asked separately the colour
of Mary’s dress, the colour of her feet and the direction she took when
departing. While one of the children thought she wore white stockings,
the other thought she wore no stockings but her feet were white in
colour. They got the colour of her dress and direction of her departure.
While these details were not supposed to be occupying the minds of
children under 10years old in such apparition, they however collaborated
each other’s story.
With a critical mind though, spirits are supposed to be invisible and
these children were securely guarded once the story became public and
thus the veracity of these interviews may still be in doubt. Thus one
must not accept them nor believe in them. If Chika follows Public
revelations in catholic faith, surely that is enough and it does not
support political inactivity.
PRAYING THROUGH MARY: The Catholic Church believes that its family
are divided into three- the journeying church which represent those of
us here, the suffering church who died but have not attained heaven and
the glorious church who are heaven. In the same way prayers and honours
are reserved in the family based on where one is in the church. Latria
is honour or worship reserved to God alone because he is the head of the
church and is present in all three sections of the church. Dulia is
reserved to all the saints in the church for the trials they underwent
and become glorious. Hyperdulia is reserved to Mary the mother of God
because of her special role in the history of salvation which the church
represents.
Recently Grail Massage is trying to promote the sacred feminine
through a way I am yet to understand. But Revelation Chapter 12 seems to
refer to Mary and his role in the birth of Jesus. Just like the wedding
of Cana in Galilee, at the instant of Mary, Jesus performed his first
miracle. This sounds ridiculous because it presented Mary as a commander
or in fact above Jesus, but as Christians we believe in the bible and
that is bible teaching. Emotional plea does not transform into command.
Moreover, sometimes when I have not even paid my house rent here in UK,
my mother always makes request for those who need help and which I must
do something about. Ordinarily, I don’t think I would, but I find myself
planning in advance to accommodate those people. In the same way, if
Jesus obliged his mother here on earth why not now she is supposed to
have some authority at the instance of his son?
Catholics believes that she is the queen of heaven, no matter its
veracity, queens do have authority, not by their own power but by the
power of the people she reins over. Don’t forget too that all those
powers was left to peter to bind and unbind (read John chapters 19-21).
The Catholic Church through his head Jesus made Mary the queen of the
church and they believe that she has the power to influence Jesus
whatever they mean or understand by that.
Conclusion: One does not argue from a pointless point. We have to
start from somewhere in life. We need faith anchor in this confused
world and more especially in Nigeria. If you ask me, the truth we have
about God is not up to 1%, yet I am a believer, a strong Catholic. I am a
philosopher and I admired Socrates for dying for what he believed in.
Aristotle was accused of the same at age 75, but he ran away lest
government commit the same sin against philosophy the second time. Yet
he died the following year. They were not sure, but they had to believe
in something. Me I believe in God, Jesus and Catholic Church. These may
all be false but why don’t I start from somewhere in the face of nothing
better on offer?
What if we are just ‘dreams’ by a bigger being? The day he wakes up,
we cease to exist. What if human sufferings, death, western subjugation
of Africa are just minute in the scheme of things? Surely if these
suffering in life, the injustices of existence are paramount, God if he
exists would have done something about them. But believe me, the
apparent silence of God or his/her inactivity means that in the scheme
of important things, Nigeria and her situation occupy the lowest level.
Time for Kids to settle among themselves for their WHORTLESS toys if
they actually need peace or fight it out to claim what is theirs!!!
Okonkwor Joseph is a PhD student in Philosophy.
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