Church has role to play in integrity problems

I grew up at the feet of my maternal grandfather, a practising Catholic who rarely missed the Sunday Mass and recited the rosary every night before retiring to bed.

One of the happiest moments in the life of the man every child in the neighbourhood called Daddy was to finally know how to read the Dholuo Bible in his early 60s, with me as his little tutor.

For my efforts, I won myself a wise mentor most of my peers could only dream of.

As a life coach, he set very clear goals for me: work hard in school, get a university education, get a good job, help your mother, buy a car, and never marry an orudo (an uncouth wife).

I also admired his courage to speak out against any perceived injustice in society, a habit that earned him the nickname “Seroney” – after the former Nandi MP, Jean-Marie Seroney, who had served time in prison for opposing the Kanu-era dictatorship – among his colleagues on the local primary school committee.

The only moments I ever saw Daddy display signs of fear publicly were whenever he was faced with the prospects of missing out on sudo (the Holy Communion).

He would lose sleep or not eat properly if his eldest son working in Kisumu hadn’t sent money for otiko, the ticket issued by the local parish to certify one had paid up his or her regular subscriptions and for which one risked being denied sudo for defaulting.

The other category of sinners who risked such humiliation was the polygamists, who could also be slapped with the harsher punishment of being ex-communicated from the church.

SOCIAL INJUSTICES

Memories of Daddy’s struggles with otiko and sudo flooded back during Pope Francis’ visit to Kenya last week, which featured the contrasting events of a grand welcoming ceremony complete with a state reception on Wednesday and the Pope’s Jesus-on-a-donkey entry to Nairobi’s humble Kangemi neighbourhood on Friday.

During the huge open-air Homily at the University of Nairobi grounds on Thursday, I looked at the people who joined the short queue to receive Holy Communion from John Cardinal Njue and thought that here lies the salvation for Kenya.

With so many members of the country’s business, political and public service elite part of its flock, the Catholic Church certainly has a big role to play in solving Kenya’s integrity and governance problems.

When Pope Francis spoke out strongly against the perpetrators of social injustices like land grab and corruption, it was difficult not to imagine that he had many in that short queue in mind.

Unfortunately, even the passionate voice of the world’s most powerful moral force is unhelpful if the Church continues to accommodate the affluent members of its congregation and hit the humble village debt defaulters and polygamists with the harshest punishment.