Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan on Sunday, Christmas Eve, at the Church of the Assumption Asokoro, delivered a homily on the importance of waiting patiently on God’s promise.
He seized the opportunity to further puncture the fake news about the Catholic church’s position on same sex marriage – follwing Pope Francis’ latest statement, which is mischievously being misrepresented in some sections of the media. Newsquest brings the excerpts:
Homily
The message that I give to you, it is true that I prepare them. I prepare my homilies the day before, and obviously, I apply those homilies first to myself, and when I properly grasp it for myself, I put it down in a way that I can share it with you. I do know that God has blessed me for about twenty-four years as a priest, and over forty years as a Bishop.
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So, we do not expect somebody who has been a Reverend Father for twenty-four years as a priest and forty years as a Bishop to stand on pulpit and talk rubbish or sing and dance. You expect to get the message of the gospel, and I do my best to do that and our priests are being taught and encouraged to do the same.
The controversy
I purposely refused to talk about this distraction, because I didn’t want that thing to affect our celebration of Christmas in any way. But simce Father Omale has provoked me, let me say a few words. I have spoken on AIT. I have spoken with Father George on his reflections. I even interestingly, spoke to the BBC, they came to my house. They came to ask me questions and I had the opportunity to explain to them.
The lady who came to interview me, started with a barage of questions and all the questions were useless questions because, they were based on wrong premises.
At the end, she told me that when I started replying, I demolished all the plans she had about what this interview was going to be and we had to just sit down and talk. I said thank you that you listened to me. I am glad that BBC listened to me because they are one of the culprits of what I am trying to say.
The confusion we have seen around is a most avoidable confusion. It ought not to happen and the main reason for it is simply a case of fake news, which was flushed across the meida, largely by the big media houses, CNN especially, followed by the BBC. And as you know, whatever CNN says, our local press here swallows them and dishes them out to us.
Put simply, CNN came out with a major breaking news that finally, the Catholic Church has caught up with with modernity. That finally, the Pope has changed his mind and is now allowing for guy couples to be blessed. In other words, recognizing same sex marriage. When I heard that, I said, wait a minute. Where is CNN bringing this from? They mentioned a document. I went straight to my internet. Luckily, these days everything comes out easily. I got the document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of faith, a congregation to which I belong. I am one of the members of that communication made up of about 20 of us all over the world. I am the only black man on that committee
So, I am in a position to authoritatively say what it is that the church has said, not BBC, not CNN. Unfortunately, in this case, CNN has blunderd. And the blundering in still hanging around in a way that for me, it is incomprehensive and I made it clear in my interview with BBC that I can’t understand that with all the money you have, with all the possibilities that you have, are you telling me that you couldn’t employ a good Catholic journalist who can read church documents and give you the right points? Or is it a deliberate effort to twist the arm of the Pope and to confuse our people?
You all know that homosexual lobby is very powerful. I am told that much of CNN is completely taken over by this LGBTQ homosexuals. So, any news that has to do with homosexual, they blow it. It is interesting thing that, exactly what CNN says the Pope said, is exactly what the document says is not to be done. The document continues to say that the doctrine of the Church has not changed as far as what marriage is, and defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, indisoluble and openned to procreation. That for us, is what marriage is, anything else, please give it another name.
And Pope Francis, is on record to have repeatedly said that we shouldn’t even use the word marriage for same sex. There is no such thing as same-sex marriage. The word marriage should not be bastardized. It means something specific, which is a gift of God from heaven, from the moment that man or woman was created., that’s God’s gift and let nobody destroy it.
The document itself is not an easy one because it is not a document that was actually meant for everybody to read. It was targeted at those who are involved in discussions on the theological and economical level. It is seven pages of very tight – 9 point size single spacing, in a very difficult language. I took the trouble to sit down to read it. It took me more than one hour but I read it line by line and at the end, I assured myself that the document has not made the blunders that they are saying.
In actual fact, the document was not written by the Pope. It is not a papal document. It is a document of a Vatican Dicastery. Why did it happen? I dont know. The only thing I can say is that, it has proved that very often, when we look at those news media, whether it is CNN, BBC, you are not listening to infaleble statements. They can be wrong and very often, they have their own agenda when they are pushing. The simple example is that if you read how they cover the war between Hamas and Israel, listen to CNN and listen to AlJazeera, you will think that they are talking about two different things. So obviously, each of these media have their own bias. We are happy when the international press shows interest in things Catholic and when they decide to publicise the statements or a teaching from our Pope, we thank them for doing it.
But when they go out to turn around what the Pope has said, and throw everybody into confusion, then we tell them, we are sorry, we don’t need you for that.If you have any doubt about something you hear about the media about your church, please, don’t disturb yourself. Go and find out from where you should find out. If you are able, find out the original document and and read it yourself. In these days, it is not too difficult for a majority of you here who are members of this parish, you are used to seeking things out from the internet. Go, there is Vatican website. That is where I went to get my copy of the original document.
In fact, the day after the document was issued, two things happened. The same department that brought out the document prepared what they called a summary. The seven page document was reduced to two pages of the main points of the document, in case anybody should miss out them. Because, they had seen the mischievious fake news going out. Secondly, the Vertican Press Office, came out with a special statement explaining this whole thing and saying that what you are hearing from the secular media is completely wrong. Till tomorrow, neither BBC has bothered to tell the world what correction should be made. Every time I have an opportunity, I insist that those media that have thrown us into confussikn, we deserve apologies from them because they have caused unnecessary confusion.
You know my brothers and sisters, at every mass, if you are a Catholic, we are praying for the Pope. We also pray for Ignatius, because he is the Archbishop of Abuja. But anywhere else you go in the world, anywhere, Africa, Asia, Europe, America, nobody says mass without praying for the Pope. When three billion people are praying for one man, you think that God is not listening to our prayers? And as a Catholic, our major belief is that the Pope is not just an ordinary man. He is not even an ordinary Cardinal. After all, you know what happens before the Pope emerges. The Pope is someone special. He is the successor of St. Peter and Jesus gave Peter a promise. You are the Rock, upon this Rock, I will build my Church. And the gates of heaven, not even CNN will prevail against you. We are back to the question of God’s promise.
If you are a Catholic, please, be calm. Your Church is in safe hands. That is what distinguishes us from other churches. We have never been in a situation where we say our church has been misled. For every church, they reach a stage where the Prophet and founder is considered no longer relevant. Somebody else will take over and start another and they keep starting another and starting another.
That is how the whole world is full of proliferation of so called churches. In fact, technically in our church, we don’t call them churches. Because there can be only one church. We are not proud for no reason, no, we have reason to be proud as Catholics. The only thing is that our proud is not based on our own merit, but it is God’s grace to our church. So whenever you hear anything that seems to disorganize your mind or give you any kind of fears, about what is happening to our church, nothing is happening to our church. Just say, let me find out and when you find out, you will realize that despite all pressures against the Pope to change, and some of the pressures are coming from inside the church. There are some Cardinals who are telling the Pope that it is about time we recognize homosexual marriages.
Thanks be to God, those Cardinals and Bishops who are saying so, are in a hopeless minority in the church of God. And in any case, wherever they are, even if they are from rich churches, they are not Pope. Only the Pope decides for us what our doctrine is. But what worries me is that a mistake has been made, a fake news has been put out. Every effort has been made to correct it, and here, the mistake has been allowed to continue to fly. My only consolation is that as they say, lies fly very fast, but they have a very short lifespan. It will soon be over and the work will continue. One good thing that has come out of this is that, it has given the church an opportunity to clear any ambiguities. Let nobody begin to wonder what is the position of the church on this matter. It is clear now what it is. Don’t forget, we are about the only church that has remained firm in this regard, as far as homosexuality is concerned. Many of the big churches have caved, have given in to what they call the modern thrend. There are Anglican bishops who are homosexuals openly and they will climb the altar with their partners. It turns my stomach when I see this.
The Anglican had ordained one woman Bishop who together with her partner, both of them in their ear rings climb the Alter. Of course, many Anglicans got disgusted with that kind of thing and decided not to follow them. We thank God in Nigeria, our Anglicans have totally disassociated themselves from all that madness. And not because we are Africans but because we believe in the scriptures. For us, the Catholic Church, we believe not only in the scriptures but in our doctrines and traditions. I don’t do that because of our African tradition for which homosexuality is an abomination. And in this matter, like I already made it clear to them, our African culture has become spiritually superior to their modern culture of Europe and America.
I don’t know whether Omale is satisfied, but you don’t need to read anything again. Just know that our church is in good hands and that our doctrine has not changed. We do not recognize anything called marriage between two men or two women. The only thing we say is that just like the church is not only for saints, we don’t say don’t come to the church. The only thing we say is that you cannot come and receive communion. But you can go to the church and receive blessings with everybody else. Remember, if you notice during communion, we say blessing for the mass is for everybody.
So if there is any homosexual in the church, at the end of the mass, I cannot say that this blessing is for all of you, except heterosexual couples. If their minds are okay with God, God will take care of them. But that is not the rule of the church. Don’t let this distraction affect your Christmas celebration. Any Mon Catholic who talks to you about this, tell them, shut up, you don’t knwonwhat you are talking about.
