ICHEOKU says as Fela Anikulapo Kuti of blessed memory would say, "Religion na(is) politics." It was true then when he said and sang it as a song and it is even much truer today with a Pope in the Vatican who actively plays politics of convenience; and who chooses which American president to like and which one to hate. Just look at how dearly he held President Joe Biden and gleamed meeting him, compared to his growling frown when President Donald John Trump similarly met with him. If according to the doctrine of the church, thou shall not judge but love everyone equally, why was he openly happy to see Joe Biden but not President Trump.
The same pope that is supposedly a Christ ambassador on earth has maintained eerie silence while President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has been purging Christians in Nigeria, particularly those of them in Southeast and Middle Belt of Nigeria, majority of who are active Catholics. But despite the State sponsored and orchestrated killings and others sanctioned by the State, which have claimed hundreds of thousands of innocent Christians lives in Nigeria, the pope has largely maintained his silence and have never spoken out vociferously against the systematic ethnic and religious cleansing going on in Nigeria; neither has the pope ever called out or condemned President Muhammadu Buhari for masterminding the pogrom against Christians in Nigeria.
The latest of the atrocities in Nigeria is the refusal of the Nigerian government to declare well established and well known terrorists, currently being passed off as "bandits" as domestic terrorist, because according to the government, it is not yet time to so declare them because the government is observing "due process" to ensure that those bandits who have murdered over 100,000 Nigerians get their "due process" before being named for what they really are. But the same Nigerian government did not give IPOB "due process" before declaring them "terrorists" just within few months of their voicing out the need for fairness and equity in Nigeria. Has the pope said a word, nope.
Even the poverty ravaging parts of the world, particularly christians and Catholics could be partly assuaged if the Catholic Church could divest itself of some priceless holdings and use the proceed to provide palliatives to starving humanity. But no, it is only to play double talk, hide and seek as it benefits Vatican and at the expense of the congregants. Now instead of reserving judgment for the United States council of Catholic bishops on their planned censor of President Joe Biden, the same pope just cut off their legs by peremptorily "beatifying" President Joe Biden, anointing him a "good catholic" and you ask yourself based on what? Is he a good catholic because he is now president or a good catholic because he keeps a portrait of the pope behind his desk in the Oval Office.
As catholics we were taught in catechism that sins offend God and that there are "big" sins and "small" sins; that the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah happened because homosexuality is a sin before God. We were also taught that killing is one of the big sins. But here is a president who is pro homosexuality, who does not mind if over 300,000 babies are killed each year under the guise of "women's right to choose, it is their body, their choice" nonsensical. Here is a president who have told countless lies and issued series of misstatements which as catholics we were told are both sins. We were also told that receiving the holy communion under a state of sin is double sin.
But all these not withstanding, the pope was ready and in fact actually gave Joe Biden a clean bill of catholicism; and it is now all clear for him to take holy communion despite not being a good poster man representation of what catholicism teaches. Then we are told not to judge as judgment is for God to make. If this is the new operating standard procedure for the Catholic Church, then why don't everybody forget about living an upright life and wait for God to decide on the judgment day. Why all the effort being put in evangelism when a fully grown man who despite identifying as catholic snubs the tenets of catholicism.
This piece is not an attack on the pope nor the president; but that catholicism and being in good standing of the church be properly reclassified in order to avoid misleading and confusing double standards. It was the same way a divorced Kennedy and John Kerry were allowed to remarry when the church teaches that divorce is against the law of God. It is sad that this particular pope is not guided by the doctrine of foundational catholicism, but have been tweaking it as suits his agenda to transform the church into a woke culture accepted place of everything is ok all things goes bazaar. Why and how he became pope still baffles some ardent catholics and catholic watchers alike.
ICHEOKU is not saying that Joe Biden should be ex-communicated from the catholic church, but to declare him fully absolved of every anti catholicism behavior and stand on issues; and then went on to determine him as "good catholic" is where the confusion set in. If Joe Biden with all his anti catholic baggage is an epitome of catholicism, who then is the example of how not to be a catholic. One writer surmised a "good catholic" as a catholic who is having a personal relationship with God and living the faith in a vibrant way; who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ, the moral law and the precepts of the Church which Jesus built on Peter. Continuing, he wrote that good catholic is one who is "good" in the eyes of God", begging the question, did the pope look into God's eyes to know what God was seeing in President Joe Biden before declaring him a good catholic.
ICHEOKU says is just confused, people are confused and catholics are confused as to who then is a bad catholic if Joe Biden is a good catholic. Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence Rhode Island said in a letter to the pope imploring him to confront President Joe Biden on his stand on the abortion issue, which he said was an embarrassment for the church and a scandal to the world. The bishop followed it up, after the pope's convenient silence and calculated decision not to raise the issue with Joe Biden, that the church has lost its prophetic voice and no longer has a "John the Baptist" with the audacity to confront Herods of our day.
What a brave and courageous bishop and hopefully Vatican will not excommunicate him for voicing out so strong an opinion or treat him like the army high ups treated Lieutenant Stuart Sheller. It is probably nearing the finish line for the catholic church, the reason parishioners and congregants are deserting the church at such high numbers that too many church pews now sit empty during mass. People are constantly becoming fed up with what Mahatma Gandhi described as practice what you preach in his famous dialogue, 'I have read your bible, it contains so many good things, but you people do not practice what your Jesus taught and preached; and of course lived and died for.' It is not a good tiding coming out of Rome. It is increasingly discouraging to be a catholic in today's Pope Francis supervisory papacy.
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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