Juba, South Sudan, Dec 13, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- A group of three priests and five laymen from the Archdiocese of Juba wrote Thursday to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples protesting the appointment of Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla as archbishop.
In their Dec. 12 letter, obtained by CNA, the group say they are indigenous and represent “the majority of concerned people of the Archdiocese.”
That day the Vatican announced the resignation of Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro, 79, and the appointment of Ameyu as his successor.
Ameyu, 55, was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Torit in 1991, and had been appointed bishop of the same see earlier this year.
The concerned people of Juba gave three reasons for opposing the appointment, charging that government officials and some Juba priests had conspired to promote Ameyu as archbishop for personal interests, and had influenced a Vatican diplomat to that end; that a local priest could have been appointed; and alleging that Ameyu has fathered at least six children.
They wrote that Ameyu “will not be accepted to serve as Archbishop of Juba under any circumstance.”
The situation calls to mind that in the Diocese of Ahiara, where a December 2012 appointment of a bishop from a neighboring diocese was rejected by the people of Ahiara. The Mbaise ethic group whom the Ahiara diocese serves objected that the new bishop was not Mbaise. That episcopal installation was performed outside the Ahiara diocese because of protests, and while Pope Francis in 2017 demanded the acceptance of the appointment, the rejected bishop’s resignation was accepted early in 2018.
The letter from clerics and laymen of Juba indicated that they had written to the congregation Dec. 10 asking for “dialogue over the serious allegations raised against Bishop Stephen Ameyu.”
“Given the genuine concerns based on the legitimate issues cited in our memo, we had honestly expected the suspension of the announcement, until further investigation can be conducted on the matter,” they wrote.
“Now that the misled Vatican has arrogantly ignored our concerns by choosing the path of undue confrontation, we have no other option than to respond with proportional means.”
According to the letter-writers in Juba, Archbishop Hubertus van Megen, apostolic nuncio to South Sudan and Kenya, “has dismissed the allegations brought against Bishop Stephen Ameyu and put the whole blame on Archbishop Paolino Lukudu Loro.”
Detailing a “series of conspiracies and briberies by some determined interest groups and lobbyists both inside and outside Juba”, the group said they have “substantial evidence that the Nunciature in Juba was heavily compromised by some officials from the government of South Sudan from its inception up to date.”
The letter’s signatories said that Msgr. Mark Kadima, the Vatican’s chargé d’affaires in South Sudan who was appointed last year, was given money and goods “to gain leverage over him,” and that they have evidence “some high profile politicians influenced the process by ruling out some of our candidates and worked to promote Bishop Stephen Ameyu.”
The group also wrote that they have evidence that some of the priests of Juba, “who are also polygamists, businessmen and senior government security personnel” worked to manipulate Msgr. Kadima to support Ameyu “who would … protect their personnel [sic] interests.”
These priests, the concerned clerics and laymen charged, divided several senior positions in the archdiocese, including vicar general, among themselves Dec. 8.
Secondly, the letter asks, “Who among our priests in Juba can be appointed bishop anywhere?”
It charges that priests from Juba were passed over for episcopal appointments in Yei in 1986, and recently in both Rumbek and Torit.
“Should we understand that the Vatican listens only when there are real violent threats attached,” they asked. “Otherwise, we still find it inexplicable why and how the local church of Juba, already blessed with over 30 local priests who have excelled in their pastoral, administrative and academic experience should be humiliated by getting a Bishop who has two concubines and six biological children. How can our mother Church go for this Bishop when some of our priests were disqualified on unfounded rumours of fathering only one child?”
Finally, the letter says that Ameyu’s having fathered at least six children “is common knowledge and does not need much prove [sic].” They charge that he has a concubine in Gudele, located just outside Juba.
The concerned people of Juba wrote that they are “a generous and hospitable people … kind hearted and straightforward people who do not tolerate any form of humiliation. We take long to react but once the gloves come off, it becomes difficult to calm things later.”
They maintained that their opposition “should not be misinterpreted as tribalism,” saying they have “no objection in having a bishop from outside the Archdiocese,” noting that most of their bishops have not been indigenous.
“Therefore, it should be the question of being Bari or none [sic] Bari, but rather appointing a good priest with right qualifications,” they wrote.
The Bari an ethnic group who are centered in Juba.
The protesters added that they are “not questioning or interfering with the prerogative of the Holy Father to appoint bishops,” but are “only against the manipulation and the buying of the process by politicians and other interest groups.
“We are against a person brought from outside just to promote personal interests while maliciously leaving out the qualified sons of this land,” they wrote.
The letter says that Archbishop van Megen and Msgr. Kadima “have gone so low and naïve that they have irrevocably lost the good will of the people of Juba,” charging that they have given in “to worldly pleasures to the extent of misleading the Propaganda Fide” and the Holy Father, choosing “to serve individual government officials and some lobbyists instead of serving the local Church.”
According to the protesters, Ameyu’s appointment had already been made while the consultation to find an Archbishop of Juba was being conducted.
They charge that the Juba archbishop “must be a visible sign of unity among all the faithful,” saying that this requires mastery of English and Arabic, as well as “ample knowledge of local language and the culture of the indigenous tribes of the Archdiocese of Juba: Bari, Nyangwara, Mundari, Pojulu, Lokoya and Lulubo.”
“Where does Bishop Stephen come close on these requirements,” they asked.
They charged that the nuncio, based in Nairobi, has dismissed their allegations against Ameyu as unsubstantiated, and believed those against local priests “without any investigation.”
“How can these men of God (Nuncio Bert and Msgr. Kadima) who are barely three years in our country pretend to know our priests more than us [sic] who live and work with them on daily basis,” they asked.
“We cannot overstress that there is absolutely no chance for Bishop Stephen Ameyu to serve as the Archbishop of Juba,” the priest and laymen wrote. They said that “there will be no cooperation by the clergy and faithful of the Archdiocese … he will be resisted tooth and nail on the ground to the point of abdicating the helm by himself. But he will eventually regret why he accepted the appointment as he will be spending the rest of his life in protecting himself rather than shepherding the people. We feel that the Vatican can still save the situation now instead of or having to eat its words the hard way later.”
They said the people of Juba are ready to close the doors of all churches in the archdiocese on the day of Ameyu’s installation, saying that “the Nunciature will have to hire government troops to scatter the protesting youth, children, priests, religious, women and other people of Juba. It will be a traumatic situation for the people of Juba since the installation will be over some dead bodies.”
They added that Juba’s indigenous people have said that “they will cancel all the contracts and withdraw all the lands they had given” to the archdiocese and the bishops’ conference.
The group also said that Archbishop van Megen and Msgr. Kadima are unwelcome in the archdiocese, and “will no longer be safe in our roads, land, churches and towns. They will have to rely on the protection of the forces whose interests they serve and seek to advance.”
They said the Vatican diplomats should have known “that the era of ‘Roma locuta est, causa finita est, is over and that is now time of ‘vox populi vox dei’.”
“Why should the fate of the Church in Juba be left to the mercy of Nuncio Bert and Msgr. Kadima alone. Why would the local church not have a say in the appointment of its own shepherds? … How and why can Nuncio Bert and Msgr. Kadima not know that the Archdiocese of Juba is not their chocolate to divide and give it to whoever they life?”
They also asked what experience Ameyu gleaned in less than a year of being Bishop of Torit, to be appointed Archbishop of Juba.
Concluding, they reiterated a desire for “dialogue with the Vatican while the appointment is called off. We are left with no option than to say that if the Vatican adamantly insists to have its sole way; there will be no way in Juba. Do it your way and reap the consequences.”
The concerned group wrote that “given that this question is so existential to us, we now turn to the Holy Spirit to do His work in the Church.”
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I hope the people of Israel come out of this safely. I had the opportunity to go there on a pilgrimage with my church in 2019. It was an immense privilege to walk in so many biblical towns and have daily Mass in all the churches. A beautiful and interesting place. The site of the crucifixion and the tomb was amazing to see and touch. Very spiritually moving. We were there during the Trump administration, and the American embassy had just been moved to Jerusalem. I was so sad to hear news of this attack this morning. Many of those living there are transplanted Americans. Please pray for them.
Israel will prevail, but at a cost. Things will get ugly. The Palestinians blame Israel for their misery and stupidity. Man for man, the Israelis put them to shame.
Palestinians are intelligent people but have been manipulated and misled by Hamas. It’s a tragedy.
Biden built this; he, Valerie Jarret and Obama. The finger prints are obvious. I wouldn’t be surprised at all that many of the munitions Hamas used were sold off from the Ukraine and have our insignias. There is no oversight and Ukraine’s government is the epitome of moral bankruptcy. This news just makes the Lacrimarum Vale that much deeper, darker and loathsome.
From Islamist anti-Semitism is behind Israel’s darkest hour since the Yom Kippur war, by Jake Wallis Simons, October 7, 2023:
Excerpt (with link omitted, bold style added):
In response, sensible voices must be absolutely clear: this was an anti-Semitic attack. It was of a piece with the pogroms carried out by the Cossacks, the Iraqi mobs during the Farhud, and the Nazis.
That last example is especially powerful, as a direct line can be drawn from Hitler to Hamas. During the Second World War, the extremist Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini, who compared Jewishness to infectious disease and Jews to microbes or bacilli, worked with Nazi officials to translate Third Reich ideology into an Arabic context and transmit it into the Middle East via radio, leaflets and other means. His twisted ideology rings loudly in our ears today.
Look at Hamas’s charter. Article 32 – a conspiracy theory which accuses the Zionists of wishing to take over the entire territory between the Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Iraq, an area of thousands of square miles – says: “Their scheme has been laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” To describe Hamas as being influenced by Nazi propaganda is insufficient. This is Nazi propaganda.
I don’t believe that this was a surprise attack. It is likely a “playing the victim” strategy.
Interesting comment, considering the Jerusalem Post is suggesting the attack is a contender for the greatest intelligence failure in Israeli history. “How did Israel fall so far to such an inferior enemy?” the tagline asks. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-765254
Perhaps you will claim that the JPost story is also part of the same strategy? A rabbi in Jerusalem claims that the earthquake in Morocco was caused by their king’s call for Jerusalem to become the Palestinian capital. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-761707
Seems like there’s no shortage of dotted-line thinking on both sides.
Which side do you think is playing victim?
After the British occupiers left Palestine, the United Nations 1947 Resolution no. 181 mandated the creation of two nations, Israel and Palestine, each with almost equal land areas. After wars and perpetual tensions through the decades the land area has been disproportionately made unequal by continued Israeli grabbing of Palestinian lands in defiance of UN and international laws leaving the Palestinians with only small portions that is the West Bank and Gaza even as the state of Palestine remains not fully established and sovereign today. While the Western media portray the Palestinians as the bad guys and terrorists, it is actually the Israelis who are so by their continued dispossession and dislocation of the Palestinians in violation of UN and international laws. Even present day pilgrims to the Holy Land can readily see the continued construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank contravening UN and international laws. Seen from this perspective, the modern state of Israel can be compared to China defying UN and international laws like the International Court of Arbitration that judged China’s grabbing of Philippine maritime territory as illegal. Palestinian militants rising against Israel mighty army can be compared to the Filipinos’ decrepit coast guard standing up against China’s bully coast guard as seen more and more on TV news recently.
There are many, many questions that need to be answered about the attack on Israel yesterday. How could a country with intelligence agencies renowned for their ability to infiltrate its enemies and allies alike be caught so flat-footed? This was a major operation and the Mossad apparently had no inkling that it was coming. That is very hard to believe. The surveillance and detection systems at the border were reportedly jammed by Hamas. If that is true, why did this in and of itself not cause an alarm to go off? Where was the world-class Israeli Air Force, which must patrol the relatively short border around the clock? Paragliders sailed right across the border after dawn had already broken without a sign of an Israeli aircraft, which could have easily picked them off. Even more incredibly, there is video of Hamas troops casually cutting through the border fence later in broad daylight with no cover and then streaming through with their pickup trucks and motorcycles in the open desert. Again, an airstrike by jets that could have arrived in a couple of minutes would have wipe these people out in an instant. This is either an epic and astonishing failure of Israel’s entire security apparatus or there is more to this story than what we see on the surface. I don’t pretend to know what happened and am afraid that no one is going to be seriously interested in finding out.
If Israel’s intelligence was taken off guard it should give us pause to wonder where our own defense system may have gaps. There’s no perfect intelligence department. We become complacent at our own peril.
The Gaza strip, and all Palestinian territory, is heavily infiltrated by Mossad, Shin Bet, and IDF personnel. *No way were they surprised.*
Israel either made or allowed this to occur–so that they could draw sympathy upon themselves, divert attention from the impending victory of gentile Christian Putin over Jewish Zelensky (bad PR for the Tribe!), and use this event as a pretext to wipe out the Palestinians.
The evidence presented thus far of an attack (fan para-gliders? really? unblocked and unnoticed truck and AFV attacks? really?) with attendant massive Israeli deaths looks suspicious and stagey–though there are probably some real Israel deaths as well. The bigwigs in Tel Aviv–and now Jerusalem–don’t mind killing (or allowing to be killed) a few of the lesser Israelis in order to advance Israeli goals of total dominion over the mid-east.
The effect of this will be to get the US to pony up even more billions for Israel (while Americans in Maui get 700 dollars for their torched homes) and allow Netanyahu to do what he has always wanted to do–genocide the Palestinians.
Also, the linking of the Palestinians to Iran will (of course) be made, and the US will now be easily induced to attack that country, especially as Biden needs a victory–since his proxy war against Russia is faring so badly.
Many Americans, including Christians are waking up however. They no longer believe the traditional 70s and 80s propaganda about dem Evil Iranians and dem Evil Ay-Rabs and dose good Israelis.
The US is a fast-fading empire. It literally does *nothing* right (see Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine). It is ruled by wicked and foolish men (and now women). But it does have, unlike Iraq, many weapons of mass destruction, and a mad beast is always dangerous.
Anyway, break out the popcorn and enjoy the Apocalyptic show! (I’m kidding, pray and make sacrifices for peace!).