A dangerous silence

BY HENRI MAKORI

Kenya’s The Star newspaper recently ran two major stories which, in my opinion, should have met with a strong and clear response from Catholic authorities here.

The first was headlined, “How the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse scandal affects Kenyans”. The second was a front-page report titled, “Cardinal Njue faces rebellion”, with the subhead, “Priests complain of dictatorial leadership”.

In the first story The Star merely recounted what everyone already knows about clerical sexual abuse—overseas. There was little on Kenya. The paper rehashed last year’s abuse allegations against well-known Italian missionary, Fr Renato Kizito Sesana. Police had promised to make the findings of their investigations public, but never did.

And then The Star made fresh claims against Mgr Cornelius Schilder, the immediate former bishop of Ngong diocese (which serves the famous Maasai). The Dutch Mill Hill missionary retired last year, reportedly on health grounds. But the report said, without citing any evidence, that he was forced out after a Vatican probe established he had sexually molested altar boys as while a priest and as a bishop.

The archbishop of Nairobi and chairman of the Kenya Episcopal Conference, Cardinal John Njue, was said to be aware of the case against Bishop Schilder. Again the report did not provide any evidence for this.

More curiously, neither Bishop Schilder, nor the diocese of Ngong, nor Cardinal Njue, nor the Vatican (represented in Kenya by papal nuncio Archbishop Alain Paul Lebeaupin) were ever reached for comment on the allegations.

The Media Institute, which monitors and defends media freedom, freedom of expression and media professionalism in East Africa, questioned the story run by The Star. In its weekly press review, the institute said there were many uncorroborated claims in the story. The organisation also stated that “journalistic ethics require practitioners to balance a story by giving persons adversely mentioned the opportunity to respond to allegations against them before publication”.

What is terribly sad, however, is that Cardinal Njue (who also happens to be the apostolic administrator of Ngong diocese), the Catholic Church in Kenya and the nunciature have not yet seen the need to come out to protest against The Star report and to set the record straight.

Days after that report, The Star ran the second story about the “doctorial leadership” [sic] of Cardinal Njue and alleged rebellion in the archdiocese of Nairobi. Things have become so bad that some priests don’t pick up Cardinal Njue’s calls, the report said. Although the cardinal’s secretary was quoted as denying the claims, the whole report painted a very bad picture of the leading bishop in Kenya’s Catholic Church and the country’s only cardinal.

Like in the Ngong diocese case, neither the archdiocese of Nairobi nor the Catholic Church here has come out in defence of Cardinal Njue and to clarify matters. Only four priests, all officials of the diocesan clergy association in Nairobi, wrote to The Star challenging the report.

The reports have obviously caused considerable confusion among the eight million or so Catholics in Kenya. You can imagine the amount of damage caused to the Church in a country where the media is rated as the most trusted institution. The situation has certainly been worsened by the silence of Church authorities.

The silence is unfortunate—and dangerous. When the Pharisees and scribes accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons, did Jesus simply keep silent about the claim (Mk 3:22; Mt 12:24)?

How did the Apostles react to the many lies told about Jesus and his work? And has the Church throughout the centuries failed to respond to those who attack it? The answer to all these questions is no.

When very damaging claims are made so publicly against Church leaders and there is hardly any response, what is to stop people from concluding that the allegations are actually true? That is one way by which people, slowly, begin to lose faith in Church leadership and, eventually, in the Church itself.