The Kenyan Catholic Bishop, who has been at the helm of Nakuru Diocese since his Episcopal Consecration in May 2023 called for a collective re-examination of the state of family institution.
“Let us give the family the prominence that it deserves. Let the parents understand their roles and duties. It's not about who is who, it's about the father taking his responsibility, the mother taking hers,” he said, alluding to the message of the members of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) on the family in their 2025 Lenten Campaign, which stressed the need for parents to embrace their God given parenting roles.
In the May 10 interview, the 57-year-old Catholic Church leader explained that raising children goes beyond being a social responsibility to a spiritual mission. He said, “It’s about the father taking his responsibility, the mother taking hers and working in unity to raise the children God blesses them with, and to educate them, not just socially, but also spiritually.”
He stressed that parents should teach their children “what it means to be human, to love, to care for your neighbour”, cautioning that if these essential religious values “aren’t nurtured in the family, we won’t find them in society.
“If parents instil these values in their children, we believe they will grow up understanding what the Church is, and what their role and responsibility are,” Bishop Oseso told ACI Africa after the Priestly Ordination Mass at St. Francis of Assisi Kiti Catholic Parish of Nakuru Diocese.
“We want to keep emphasizing the nurturing and training of families, we need to go back and see where we are failing, where we are not fulfilling our duties in the right way,” he stated, highlighting that a greater investment in family life and pastoral support will help to keep families strong.
Bishop Oseso reiterated, “If the family is strong, then everything will be good in the Church and even in society.”
Meanwhile, at the Second Pan-African Conference on Family Values (PACFV), which opened on Monday, May 12 in Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, with a call to unapologetically defend the institution of the family as willed and made by God “in the Garden of Eden,” members of the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum (KCPF) echoed Bishop Oseso’s emphasis on the importance of strengthening the family.
Speaking to ACI Africa on the sidelines of the five-day continental conference on family, KCPF chairman, Charles Kanjama, said, “When you have strong families you have good intergenerational relationships.”
Mr. Kanjama, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, observed that issues impacting families have also taken a toll on the youth, many of whom are now less firmly rooted in family values.
