An open letter to the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops on road rarely taken
Catholic bishops, led by Archbisop Martin Kivuva (seated, centre) address journalists in Nairobi on July 18 over the ongoing protests in the country.
Dear Men of God,
I greet you in the name of God the Father, His begotten Son; and the Holy Spirit whom He left with us upon His ascension to heaven.
When you appeared in the media this week to stand tall among members of the Kenyan clergy to poke the eyes of those who bear the highest responsibility for our untold suffering, you may not know it, but you left tears in our eyes with your act of spiritual courage and divine valour.
Ever since Kenyans went to the elections last year, we have been reminded, times without number, that this government was chosen by God and anyone who does not support it is undeserving of admission to the realm of the chosen few.
It is this dismissive tone of rejection that has pushed many Kenyans away from the house of the Lord – a situation exacerbated by the pin-drop silence of the Kenyan clergy whenever we needed their loud pushback against the politicisation of the body of Christ.
These days, it is becoming a common occurrence to find Kenyans staying indoors on Sabbath day painfully watching CBC paint dry, instead of lumbering to church to find politicians desecrating the pulpit with verbal intolerance against innocent members of non-chosen tribes, marginalised cultures, social class and political persuasion.
This week, when we saw you come out strongly to reassert your spiritual authority on the grim happenings that have befallen this country lately, we started hoping against hope that this act of gallant bravery was not a flash in the pan.
Dear Catholic Bishops,
The Church of Christ in Kenya is crying out to you to reach out to your fellow men and women of the cloth – who abandoned us midway through the struggle and chose the easy life of personal comfort – to return to their spiritual calling and save the body of Christ in Kenya from mass ridicule and personal shame.
A brotherly chat
We mention to you these hurtful issues because, as you ask for President William Ruto to find it in his heart to reach out to Mr Raila Odinga for a brotherly chat, Kenyans are also sending you to your fellow clergymen and clergywomen who have abandoned the Christian faith in a primitive quest for earthly riches.
Indeed, it would be an act of spiritual hypocrisy for you to ask the President to remain truthful to his calling, but excuse the unprofessional conduct of your colleagues in the profession on the other hand.
We have chosen to speak to you, candidly and generously, because we know no other refuge other than the church to which God left us to run to in times of physical meltdown and emotional trauma.
If this letter carries with it the harsh tone of resignation and fatalism, it is because Kenyans have reached their wits’ end and are hoping your voice of spiritual authority will save us from this arrogant, rough, insulting and imposing leadership.
Dear Catholic Bishops,
Kenyans are requesting you to come out and remind the police that not a single innocent child chose to be born in a slum.
Given a choice between sleeping in a leaking tin-roof shack perched on top of a flowing open sewer, and being flown to an international school by a chopper on taxpayer’s money; only a young Jesus Christ would not have picked the latter.
This week, God is calling out from high up above asking Cain why he accepted to be sent to the slums in plainclothes to attack and kill his brother Abel, when they all belong to one motherly womb and there were amicable alternative methods to address this malignant inborn jealousy.
God will judge the Kenyan clergy harshly for watching in silence as the government shed off its sweet tongue and metamorphosed into a fire-spitting dragon, mowing down her children with bullets and drinking from the chalice of their innocent blood.
The President has come out to clap for the police for their clean demolition job and none of you have found your voice to stop him and beg him not to dance on the graves of innocent lives whose only crime was being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Dear Catholic Bishops,
As you retreat to your respective parishes to celebrate the Holy Mass with your weary congregants, we beseech you to carry the same message of graceful empathy to any political leader who will be in attendance at your sanctuaries pretending to be holy.
Kenyans are deeply hurting from the unbearable cost of living made worse by the chest-thumping by those in positions of political power, and they need someone to implore the President to pipe down the politics and save this painful wound from festering into a terminal gangrene.
We come to you with utmost humility, fully cognisant of the fact that it is not easy to say those things you told the President on live television this week.
Knowing our country and the things that have happened to the courageous voices of reason before, we have nothing else to afford you, other than to continue putting you in prayer for God to protect you from harm and any form of spiritual manipulation that may tempt you to abandon us midway and choose the path of least resistance like others who came before you.
Gun-toting police
We have chosen to tell you these painful things we have been harbouring in our hearts because, unlike you who can be evacuated to the Vatican when gun-toting police come calling at your sacristy, most of us have no other country to run to, do not know anyone in high places, and have no airtime to call an emergency ambulance when a rogue bullet rips through the upper ventricle and shatters our spine.
But if you choose to bow down to other gods and abandon the spiritual flock to the political wolves, we plead with you to do us just one favour — warn us in advance, in time for us to run to the hills.
In a country where everyone is picking whatever is left of the crumbs from taxpayer’s largesse, we promise not to begrudge you if you asked God to take back His calling and let you free to do what makes your stomach happy.
