By Rev Fr Gerald Nwafor
Although the word ‘anti’ may sound negative, I want to remind one and all that what is not acceptable today in one clime may be the norm in another clime. The fact that we see something as ‘anti’ today in our community may not fly in the same community 25 years later. The fact that the Church is dynamic means it is a living community. It has some characteristics of a living thing, namely, change and response to stimuli. Fifty years ago, the proponents of those who forced their local musical instruments (ogene, udu, ichaka, and igba) were termed anticlerical because they wanted to bring into the Christian liturgical worship the traditional musical equipment, yet now that idea sounds ridiculous and bizarre.
The tendencies of today may be the foundation of tomorrow because of the dynamic nature of the Church. I offer as evidence the events of this August in one of the parishes in Igboland, where the priest had given the rules of the August meeting to the women of a particular village. The question is not about who is right or wrong, but the fact that some people were ready and willing to flout the request of the parish priest. While growing up, the Catholic Church was called Uka-fada (The Church of the priest).
The priest was the alpha and the omega; no one dared to oppose the priest, not to mention going in contravariance to his instructions. The priest was seen as the lord and master of any parish where he came to pastor. I remember one of the sayings in those days that portrays the poor version of our Igbo proverb to the dressing of a priest, “Ona adimma ka ikuku kue ka amara na fada yi trouser” (It is a good thing that the wind blows so that we can see that the priests wear trousers too). Those were the lofty impressions about the priestly office, which has been watered down heavily by anticlerical tendencies.
The priests are not consulted in some of the biggest decisions going on in the parish today because some parishioners think that they know better than the priest. This may be true in some areas where the priest is not well-trained to manage. But the fact that the priest was sent by the bishop to be the spiritual head of that parish, the parishioners should show some respect to carry him along. When the people in outstation or mission areas start building a Church structure on their own without due consultation with the center (the mother parish), there is every tendency for the people to think that this Church belongs to them.
We may talk about the spiritual aspect of the Church, but the material or physical components are very akin to the spiritual aspect of the Church, too. If you invest your time, energy, money, talent, and knowledge in something, you must necessarily by default care about it. Therefore, when parishioners begin to make the important decisions on the material aspect of the Church, there are tendencies that they would also like to control the other affairs of the Church without the stamp of the priest.
During COVID, we saw a trend where the congregation did not want to obey the priest in the simplest instruction of receiving the holy communion on the palms of the hand. Most parishioners confronted the priest, accusing him of not having faith that Jesus is greater than COVID-19. Some priests succumbed to the pressure and started giving out the communion in the traditional way. If the priest who called God on your behalf to transform the bread and wine is telling you to receive the eucharist by hand which is not a substantial change in the mode and modality of the reception, and you dare to stonewall him and go a step further accusing him of not having faith, you can see how far the lay faithful has gone into the tendencies enveloping the Church clerics.
I do not want to believe that people were ready to die when it comes to disobeying the priest, but that is what it seems to me because the COVID-19 virus was a killer known all over the world. The world was shut down, and the Church was part of the world. And a universal norm was created on how to open up slowly to avoid mistakes and calamities. The priest and the people were all in the know, but the people decided not to obey the call of the priest on how to navigate the apparent danger. If they will oppose a priest on the dangers thereof, what will be their tendencies towards theological doctrines that are not known to them?There are seven sacraments of the Church.
The priest would talk about all of them and the spiritual consequences of not keeping them. The length of time that the Church is taking to annul one marriage has pushed the young ones to wed in court and other institutions. When our young ones start valuing the court marriage, even when the priest is telling them that the marriage is a sacrament, is a sign of not obeying the voice of reason. Other sacraments are going under water, like the sacrament of marriage, but marriage is like an institution in the Catholic tradition where the elements of faith are nurtured from an early age. If the parents do not listen to the priest, there is no guarantee the kids will listen because the water was troubled from the source (Miri sin a isi gbalua).
Those August meeting women who disobeyed their parish priest for whatever reason are a sign that anticlerical tendencies are growing within the Church’s family, and we all should wake up to nip the virus in the bud.Finally, we should be open to some of the so-called tendencies because of the anthropology of man in all facets of life. Today, we do not have the lay faithful giving out Holy Communion during Mass, which may sound radical or anticlerical in our environment, but it is the norm in some dioceses because of the changing times and seasons.
We do not want to degenerate to the level of Miriam and Aaron attacking Moses in the name of fighting for the people, which was anti-Moses then, but we want a situation where Moses would agree that he cannot do all by himself and appoint 72 elders to help out so that he doesn’t burn out. Anticlerical tendencies we reject, but reformations and constructive criticism we SHALL welcome.
