Church to render unto Caesar

Sacrilege. That is the only way to describe the case of a Catholic church being put up for sale.

If Jesus were to come back now, He would probably be as angry as He was when He found hawkers selling their wares in a temple in Jerusalem and whipped them.

The Catholic Diocese of Eldoret is considered one of the wealthiest Sees in Kenya.

Which is why it comes as a shock to many that one of its churches — Pope John XXIII — will soon be auctioned to pay a Sh26 million debt.

The church, which sits on 20 acres of prime land, will fall to the auctioneer’s hammer on Tuesday, October 28.

To be auctioned off with the church is a school — Mother of Apostles Seminary — which also trains priests.

The church is being sold because its management failed to repay the Sh26 million outstanding on a loan borrowed from the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC).

Place of worship

It means that hundreds of students will have to stop their studies and thousands of church members left without a place to worship.

The school has about 500 students with 79 candidates for this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination.

But chances are they might sit for the examinations halfway and be evicted as soon as the school is bought.

After the auction of the church and school land, the new buyer might continue running the school or demolish it altogether.

Besides the Sh26 million debt, a teacher at the school claimed he had not been paid in the past five months. “Children pay school fees and we are wondering why we have not been paid salaries,” said, the teacher who sought anonymity for fear of being victimised by the management.

He wondered why teachers and workers in most institutions in the diocese had not been paid salaries.

Sources said a prime plot adjacent to Sacred Heart Cathedral, which the diocese had bought, was up for sale.