Dear
Brothers and Sisters in the Consecrated Life and Fellow Missionaries,
INTRODUCTION
When I was asked to write this
letter to you I was in a dilemma concerning what I should write. On a second
thought I felt there would be no harm caused if I should write to jolt your
mind on this problem which is becoming alarmingly dangerous. I will begin with
two questions. Do you believe there is a declination in the membership of the
Catholic Church? How significant is it? In the last few decades the world has
witnessed an explosion of new sects. It is observed that many Catholics are
flocking into this these sects and our nation in Nigeria is not left out of
this phenomenon. Some time ago I was discussing this problem with some friends
and I can hear myself again saying to them that the population of Catholics
that flock to the Pentecostal churches cannot equate the number that is
baptized into the Catholic Church at Easter. I am tempted to believe that this
is the many in which many of us wave the danger off as a non-issue. Though I
have no official statistics record to back up what I said but I realized that
my reaction is only a way of consoling myself concerning the loss of our
Catholic members to these new sects. The manner of operation of these sects
could be likened to the story Fr . Lawrence Ogundipe, SDV told in the outline about their
poultry farm. He narrated that they bought five hundred day old chicks; kept
them in a room and went to sleep. The following day, they woke up to discover
that rats came from the roof to eat two out of the five hundred chicks. Well,
he said, it’s just two. But this continued until he counted twenty and then one
night the rats seemed to have come immensely to carry more, it was only then
that the one in charge of the poultry sensed the danger and arrangement was
made to put a ceiling board. They thought the danger was over, only to discover
that the rats kept eating the window frame to re-gain access, but were finally
blocked out and the chicks were saved. After reading this story, I realized
that my reaction to the case of Catholics leaving the Catholic Church for the
sects would never be the same again because being deeply touched by this story
I believe that if good measures are taken, we can keep our old members while
adding new ones. I further imagine the consequences if we do not give this
problem immediate attention. What I intend to do in this letter is to look at
why these Catholics are flocking out to these sects or so-called Pentecostal churches
and what can be done to check mate this.
IDENTIFYING
CAUSES OF THE DECLINATION OF CATHOLICS FROM THE CHURCH TO THE SECTS
Perhaps the flocking of Catholics
from the Catholic Church to the Sects today has something to do with the way
and manner in which we were evangelized. Taking a quick look at the history of
mission in the African Continent we will realize that the model of
Evangelization in Africa as well as universally has changed and may still need
to change. Prior to the 21st century, on the African Continent
mission or evangelization consisted of implanting the Church. The concept
“implanting the Church makes an allusion to the importation of a value from
outside and the agents who were implanting them mostly were foreigners.” They
were foreigners from the geographical, cultural and sociological point of view.
This factor conditioned the mission. The mission aimed at conversion as an
immediate result, concretely, the converts adopted the culture of the
missionary. They accepted his religious tradition, and for this same reason
they felt uprooted from their own culture.
The response of Africans South of
the Sahara to Christian missionary efforts in the later part of the 19th
and the 20th centuries were spectacularly positive as hundreds of
thousands of people all over the continent poured into the mission Churches.
The dawn of the 21st century finds these people again pouring out
into new foundations that call themselves Christians, but in essence differ
from their Orthodox predecessors. The case question here is: “Why are they now
flocking out of the same Church they poured into?” This trend has continued
down to this day. This centrifugal pull from the old Churches is most
remarkable in the modern phenomenon of Sects and Pentecostalism and makes one
to wonder what could be the attraction in them. Pentecostalism has a dual
effect of pulling the faithful out from communion with their old churches as
well as invading the Orthodox churches with their ideologies and praxis. The
Catholic priest’s ministry is not left untouched by this invasion as some
Catholic priests who have been schooled for about ten years in sound philosophy
and theology now tend to imitate the pastors of the Pentecostal churches in
their mode of preaching and their antics of hopping and dancing around the
altar. I have heard stories of Priests whose admiration for these Pentecostals
pastors has driven into watching them perform on television screens only to get
back to their room to rehearse what they have watched. Some even go as far as
buying video tapes of these pastors in order to watch and rehearse their way of
preaching and then come to reproduce this during their homily as Mass.
In the first place most of these
Sects are syncretistic in nature and this fact brings their ideologies close
the people in their cultural context since they already felt uprooted from
their own culture after accepting the religious tradition of the missionaries
who brought the faith to them. The attraction of Pentecostalism for these
people is constituted mostly in its emphasis on material prosperity, success,
and financial breakthrough. People want a coherent picture of the realities
that underpin their everyday world, they want to know the causes of their
fortunes and misfortunes in this world, and they want to have some way of
predicting the outcome of their various worldly projects and enterprises. We
live in a world of, “instant noodles”, “instant milk”, “instant soup”, “instant
this”, “instant that”. Since Pentecostalism is able to offer them all these, it
has become a very attractive choice for more people. The final communiqué of
1991 Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals described the challenge of the sects
as a changing phenomeno with alarming proportions.[i]
What I can identify as the
reasons behind the exodus of our Catholic members from the Church to these
other ecclesial communities as alleged by the strayed Catholics themselves and
the sects they flock to could be summarized into the following points:
·
-That
Catholics do not read the Bible.
·
-That
the Catholic Church does not give them what they really need.
·
-That
the Catholic Church does not wrought miracles so they seek this elsewhere.
·
-Some
mistakenly hold that the Catholic faith does not inspire a profound
spirituality.
We cannot brush aside these
points as mere insinuations but rather must be taken up as challenges.
THE CHALLENGES
POSED TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BY THIS PHENOMENO
We should not be too surprised at
what length these Sect can go in their methods to get Catholics to leave the
Church in order to be absorbed into these Sects. Such methods as described by
Cardinal Arinze, violate other believers or religious bodies’ rights to
religious freedom. They say things about others which are not true; they entice
vulnerable people such as the young, the poor and the uneducated with money, or
other material goods or with heavy psychological barrage and other pressures.[ii] It is true that people are hungry for the
word of God and must be fed but to the accusation that the Catholic Church does
not give them what they really need we should further ask the question: What do
they really need? Blessed Pope John Paul II In his address to the Episcopal
Conference of Brazil in 1991expressed his awareness that the spread of these
cults and groups depended on strong economic support and that their preaching
tempts people with deceptive illusions, misleads them with distorted
simplifications and sews confusion, especially among the simplest and those
most lacking in religious instruction.[iii] If what is intended by what they really need
here is material support or material up-liftment the Church is not founded
solely for this but rather for the integral salvation of the human person. [iv]
In the process of saving the whole person the Church also attends to material
needs but saving the soul of the human person comes uppermost in the scale of
priority if the choice is to be made between the souls and the body. This is
where the Small Christian Communities becomes very helpful to the Parish in
caring for her member. The Small
Christian communities will enable the priests to know his parishioners and all
the members to know themselves and the problems each one encounters in their
daily life and be able to proffer solutions from among themselves. In such
manner every member feels a sense of belonging.
The fact that these Pentecostals often appeal
to alleged apparitions, prophecies and miraculous cures poses a noteworthy
pastoral challenge both because of the spiritual and social malaise into which
their roots reach, as well as because of the religious elements, which they use
as instruments. To the question as to whether these Pentecostal pastors do
truly work these alleged miracles and if they do, are they really from God?
When the Pharisees and Sadducees asked Jesus for a miracle his reply to their
request was a rebuke: An evil and Godless people asked for a miracle. The only
sign it will be given is the sign of Jonah. (cf. Matt.16:1-4) As to whether the
alleged miracles come from God, I will reply to that with another reference
from the scripture which says: “test them by their fruits” (Cf.Lk.6:43-45).The
question that often come to my mind and which I think we should ask
Catholics who leave the Church for these Sects is this: “Is it the same God all
Christian Churches call upon when we pray?
If it is the same God that we call uponin the Catholic Church that these
other Christian groups also call on why then do they leave the Catholic Church
in order to search for Him in the Sects?
If it is the same God, why does He not answer in the Catholic Church the
way He answers in the sects? These questions calls for a deep reflection on our
part concerning how we can guide our Catholic faithful to help themdiscern what
exactly they are chasing after, God or
goods?. It is obvious that what many people search for in Religion today
is a utility God, a God who would serve their necessities, a commercial God who
distributes goods according to the requests.Sometimes I wonder what other
miracles people are looking for which is greater than the miracle of waking up
every morning to discover that we are alive.
Those who alleged that the
Catholic Church does not inspire a profound spirituality because of the use
texts in the liturgy are grossly mistaken in their judgment because the loud
noise and the frenzy employed in the
mode of prayer of these sects does not indicate a sign of profound
spirituality. One of the problems of the human person today is lack of interior
life, lack of silence. We need to teach people more on the importance and
culture of silence. The story of Elijah
who went out of the cave on Mt.Horeb to meet God is a good direction for us as
to where God can be found. Elijah did not encounter God in the hurricane,
neither in the earthquake nor in the fire but only in the gentle breeze.
(Cf.1Kings 19:9-18) Through the
discipline of silence, we Religious become the professional listeners to the
Spirit of God as He talks to us through the many signs of the times. The
silence practiced in the Religious life can be a very powerful guide to this if
they will share this aspect of their life with others who are not in the
Consecrated.
All these trends in the 21st
century society pose a lot of challenges for us all today. The presence of the
so-called sects is more than enough reason to examine deeply the pastoral life
of the local Church looking at the same time for solid answers and guidance
which will allow for maintaining and preserving the unity of the people of God.[v]
The greatest of these challenges is how best we can announce the Gospel message
in more relative, concrete and meaningful ways that would check balance the
drift from the Catholic Church to Pentecostalism. We will have to evangelize
with a novelty; our responsibility is for a new evangelization: new in method,
new in ardor and new in zeal.[vi] We would have to adopt a new approach, a
renewed and improved catechesis which would conscientize Christians to the
purpose for which God created them, which is: “to love God, to serve God, to be
happy with Him in this life and in the world to come”. A return to this would
bring about a return to the aim of Religion which is communion, rather than
explanation, prediction and control as found in the African Religious views
which are reflected in the ideologies of most of these Sects and Independent
ecclesial communities.
We are also challenged to
proclaim the Gospel as local agent to the local people so that both new
converts and old ones would not feel as if they are being uprooted from their
cultural milieu.
With the 21st century
technology of communication we are faced with the challenge of creating an era
of communion, therefore they must be technological abreast in the use of means
of social communication without abusing it.
It is noted that these Pentecostal Sects are very much ahead of us in
this area. Take for instance, the public address system in our churches; we all
know that these new generation communities know how to use it better than us.
We may need to look in to this in other employ it better in our churches.
In addition, the call on the
Church in Nigeria to embark on more vigorous and intensive evangelization like
the missionaries who brought us the faith raises new challenges for the Local
Church in Nigeria and the Consecrated people and all missionaries being a part
of this Local Church of Christ, a Church which is essentially missionary, must
therefore listen to the missionary mandate in its new dimension in the 21st
century and respond generously to it. We must feel the Universal missionary
responsibility that is proportionate to our vitality and charisms, we must
share the faith we have received.[vii]
CONCLUSION
Evangelization which is described as the
proclamation or announcing of the joyous message of the salvific event of
Christ (Lk.2:10ff) has the aims and objectives in the Church which is the same
as that of Christ and the apostles. Evangelization or Mission is not just about
preaching and spreading the Gospel message, covering more vast geographical
areas, or addressing the Christian message to more and more distant
populations, but through the power of the Gospel to penetrate hearts, alter
criteria of judgment, value systems, points of interest, line of thought,
source of inspiration and models of life for the whole of humanity, all that
are contrary to the Will of God and his plan of salvation.[viii] Evangelization also leads to the establishing
of the Church; a concrete human or local community – as a permanent sign of the
presence and action of the Risen Christ.[ix]
Evangelization, which was proposed by Christ to his disciples and to us today
by the Church, is one and the same reality, but the ways and methods of
carrying this out may differ taking into consideration the signs of time.
The mandate to evangelize therefore consists
in teaching people about God and making disciples. We are therefore not sent
merely to teach a catalogue of truths more or less necessary for salvation, but
to proclaim, to inculcate a new and global vision of the world, of things, of
men, of life and of history. So what is the novelty we Consecrated persons and
Missionaries for life can bring into the mission? I wish to remind you all that
In the past, Missionary Institutes have
been the means employed by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide for the spread
of the faith and the founding of new Churches and they remain “absolutely
necessary”, not only for missionary activity “ad gentes” , in keeping with
their tradition, but also for stirring up missionary fervor. These missionary institutes are hereby
challenged to revive the grace of their specific charism and courageously press
on.[x]
The Church in the sixth Chapter
of the document Lumen Gentium clearly points out that the Religious life is the
life of the Church lived at a special degree of intensity.[xi]
The Religious Consecration is a special way of living the life of the Church
hence the Religious life is essentially charismatic.[xii] The charismatic nature of the Religious life
is highly consistent with eager searching for new methods of apostolic presence
and for fresh undertakings. History witnessed to the outstanding service
rendered by Religious Families in the spread of the faith and the formation of
new Churches: from ancient monastic institutions to the medieval Orders, up to
the more recent Congregations. Today more than ever, the Church needs to make
known the great Gospel values of which she is the great bearer and no one
witnesses more effectively to these values than those who profess the
Consecrated life in Chastity, Poverty and Obedience, in a total gift of self to
God and in complete readiness to serve man and the society after the example of
Christ.[xiii]
(R.M.69). The lifestyle of the Religious without preaching or denouncing
anything but simply by being a Religious after the mind of Christ must be a
constant reminder to the people of God of what the Christian life is all about.
If the Religious life is properly lived people will stop in their tracks to ask
what they are about.
I herby make the clarion call to all
Missionaries and Consecrated person to WAKE UP. We must take part in the
response to this new challenge to the Nigerian Church by developing a wholistic
approach to the missionary efforts of our local church and make the appeal
addressed to this Church our own. Should we blame the sects for having the
potentials to attract our Catholic members to their ecclesial community or
blame those who are pulled out of the Catholic fold? We should rather blame
ourselves for not being able to protect our members from wrong indoctrination.
We would do better if we can apply the measures taken in the story of the
chicks that are being carried away by the rats rather than fold our hands in
helplessness while condemning these sects and their nefarious methods. Let us
together make the moves to protect our members from being swept off by the
Pentecostal flood and help sustain their faith. So what can we do to check-mate
this declination?
The Christian message, centered
on Jesus Christ who is always alive and present in his Church, must be taught
in its entirety, with simplicity and charity. This proposal is always new, and
certainly answers the needs of the human creature, but it always calls for
conversion of heart to the true God. We must look for authentic ways to
penetrate people’s hearts in order to speak the truth to these hearts, alter
criteria of judgment, value systems, points of interest, line of thoughts,
source of inspiration and models of life of our Catholic faithful.[xiv] Since what most of these sects do is to
undermine major articles of the Catholic faith or in practice deny them,
propose a man-made religious community to the Church constituted by Christ
himself, distort the Word of God and replace it with purely human words, then,
we need to be sure that our faithful are well grounded in their faith and the
practice of the Church so that they will not be swayed in their believe. To
achieve this I recommend on-going Christian formation through catechesis. To
implement this we need to look at the Christian formation of these people;
their conviction of faith; and a matching genuine catechesis which maintains a
connection between memorized catechesis and lived catechesis.
I therefore insist on the
necessity of promoting knowledge of Sacred Scripture rooted in the Church’s
tradition and capable of nourishing authentic spirituality and personal prayer,
and a liturgy and devotions which are participative and adapted to cultural
context. We must find ways of leading particularly the young ones and new
converts in our parishes find meaning, to discover or appreciate above all in
Religion their spiritual well being and their communion with God above the
attraction of Pentecostalism. If the
Church is not to be accused of being deaf to peoples’ longings, her members
need two things: to root themselves ever more firmly in the fundamentals of
their faith and to understand the often –silent cry in people’s hearts, which
leads them elsewhere if they are not satisfied by the Church. Religious and
Missionaries must listen to and distinguish the many voices of our times to
interpret them in the light of the Word of God in order that the revealed truth
may be more deeply understood and more suitably presented.[xv]
Finally,
I strongly appeal to my dear brothers and sisters in the Consecrated life and
fellow Missionaries, to be good leaders and models in faith to our brothers and
in the faith, for that is what God has called us to be. Let us always remember
that they look up to us for direction in the life of faith. Wherever and whenever Religious priest and
sisters and missionaries are becoming fans of Pentecostal pastors and importers
of the Pentecostal antics and spirituality into the Catholic Church then we
would be throwing
REFERENCES
[i]Isizoh Denis, Milestones in Interreligious Dialogue, Ceedee Publication, Rome, 2002, p.353.
[ii]Arinze Cardinal Francis, Pastoral Responses to the Challenges of Sects, An Address to the Extraodinary Consistory of Cardinals, April, 4-7 1991, in: Catholic International, 2, 13, 1-14July 1991, p.609.
[iii] John Paul II, An Address to The Episcopal Conference of Brazil in:AAS, Vol.LXXXIII, 1991/1, pp.65-70.
[iv] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate, RedemptorisMissio, LibreriaEditriceVaticana, Vatican City, 1991, n.31.
[v] John Paul II An Address to the Bishops of Mexico (CNS’s Translation) in:Origins, 20,24 May 1990, pp.27ff.
[vi] Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, The Church in Africa in Service to Reconciliation, AfricaeMunus, Ouidah, 2011, n.15.
[vii]Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, Rome, 1964, n.13.
[viii] Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelization in the Modern World, EvangeliiNuntiandi, Rome, 1975, n.19.
[ix]Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on Missionary Activity of the Church, Ad GentesDivinitus, Rome, 1965, n.6.
[x]RedemptorisMissio, n.66.
[xi]Cf.LumenGentium, n.44
[xii] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Vol.II, Directives for Mutual Relations Between Bishops and Religious in the Church, MutuaRelationes, Rome, 1978, nn.11-12
[xiii]RedemptorisMissio, n.69.
[xiv]Cf.EvangeliiNuntiandi, n.79.
[xv] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, GaudiumetSpes. Rome, 1965, n.44.
Thank you Sr. Osho, my Missiology Professor. Indeed, our methodologies in catechesis must. The most dangerous ones come from the way we have employed Catechism classes only as means to the reception of the Sacraments. You can see people who come for these classes, two weeks to the celebration of the Sacraments and still join to receive them. What is more, like the seeds that fell on rocky soil or on the street or among the weeds (Matt 13:20-22), they are easily taken off from our hands.
ReplyDeleteAs Baba Job would say, we need to go back to the root and rediscover ourselves. Let it not be said that foreigners who evangelized us in the past made more impact than we can make now even with all the opportunities we now have. May God help our little efforts and draw all men to himself. Amen.