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.”
[…]
Speaking interreligiously, the difference between fading Christianity and the rise of ISIS zealotry from within Islam is the revealed doctrine of original sin. Three points:
FIRST. this complex doctrine as examined by Ratzinger/Benedict in “An Introduction to Christianity”:
“Terms like original sin, resurrection of the body, Last Judgment, and so on, are only understood at all from this angle, for the seat of original sin is to be sought precisely in this collective net [!] that precedes the individual existence [!] as a sort of spiritual datum, not in any biological legacy passed on between utterly separated individuals. Talk of original sin means just this, that no man can start from scratch any more in a status intigritatis (completely unimpaired by history).”
SECOND, his meaning is, that for each and all of us, we all begin “within the framework of the already existing whole of human life [together!] that stamps and molds him.”
But Islam “start[s] from scratch” without either original sin or history, by dismissing even the era in Arabia prior to Muhammad as “the days of ignorance.” Likewise, in the West (!) we also disconnect and disintegrate into a resentful and post-progressive menagerie of superficial half-truths and worse–cancel-culture “ignorance,” mere intersectionality, and tribal identity politics. Where for Christians however, and as Benedict explains, God stands at both the beginning and at end of the totality of our entangling human history and situation: that is, before the “net” of radical Fallenness, and in the Giftedness of Redemption and Resurrection (Alpha and Omega, both).
THIRD, therefore, each person’s real dignity is found our spiritual and personal struggle–rather than in any accommodation (!) with a fallen world (e.g., by synodally undefining even morality?); or any un-accommodation (!) of our universal human community (e.g., under cultic jihad by ISIS). In our compact world a durable and lasting Fraternity depends, therefore, upon a complete understanding of our shared human nature and, ultimately, upon the reality of the incarnate and whole Jesus Christ.
All politics are ultimately theological…
Ethics and Islam are far apart. Though referred to as “the Religion of Peace”, if the designation wasn’t so unbelievable, it would be laughable. The true God of the Bible enjoins the believer to peace. It is a challenge at times, yet this is how we are to conduct our lives. Peace, not slaughtering our neighbours or those who disagree with us.
Psalm 11:5 The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
Romans 14:19 So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Jeremiah 22:3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
Proverbs 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Proverbs 10:6 Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
If a Muslim would like to learn of Jesus and the salvation that comes with belief in His name, it would be an honour to discuss Him with you.
God bless all who read the words of theLord.
The Islamic State Muslims of Congo hereby demonstrate that they can be as savage and cruel as their co-religionists in Nigeria. Francis will offer weak condolences and a vague condemnation of generic religious violence and fundamentalism. Noting changes.
The reality of jihad has faded in Western consciousness in the years since 9/11 (and especially since the advent of the woke and covid madness), but the threat has only grown. Africans, Middle Easterners, and others feel the sword daily. Atrocities occur regularly in the West as well, but they are merely treated as unavoidable facts of life that we must learn to live with. If anything, appeasement and surrender policies have only intensified. The open and constant warfare waged on Christians in the Third World will reach the First soon enough. The question is whether our political and religious leaders will even then allow us to fight back.
Question to the editors: Why doesn’t William Kilpatrick write on Islam here any longer? If he has retired, someone else should pick up the baton. The subject needs attention.
“The subject needs attention.” Indeed!
Maybe we ought to dialogue with Isis and accompany them in their sin. At least that’s what Bergoglio would advocate.
Dear Edward:
Let us join our hearts in prayer for Muslims, that they come to know the exceeding joy of following Jesus Christ, the saviour of mankind.
We are being tested and if we proclaim the Gospel to the follower of Islam, through God’s hand, some will find the truth that is in the Bible and put their confidence in Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Thank you for your sincerity and desire to strengthen the Church through the excellence that is Jesus Christ.
Yours in Christ,
Brian