Nigerian Catholic Bishop Calls for "serious renewal" among Clergy to Address Sexual Abuse Allegations

He added that sexual abuse of minors is also “a crisis” of living against the teachings of Jesus Christ, noting that “if there is any crisis in the Priesthood of any sort, it is a crisis of not following Jesus Christ and not living the way he teaches us to live.”

The Catholic Archbishop lamented that many innocent Priests and Bishops are being criticized based on “a logical fallacy.”

“Because of the misdeeds of a few, all of us, Priests and Bishops, are being criticized, and I call it a logical fallacy. We are guilty by association,” he said.

“The sheep are no longer sure whether their Clergy are shepherds, hirelings, or wolves,” stated the Nigerian Catholic leader, noting that the allegations of sexual abuse have resulted in “a well-founded skepticism [that] has arisen in the sheep versus their shepherds.” 

While acknowledging that “the Church has never been perfect,” Archbishop Kaigama expressed concern over a blanket condemnation of the Clergy, saying, “We have over 400,000 Catholic priests in the world, and we also have over 5,000 Catholic bishops in the world, and all these people are doing a lot of good work in very self-sacrificing ways.”

More in Africa

South African Catholic Bishop Known for Liturgical Reform at Conference Dies at 76

Read the article

“These good deeds, however, seem to easily evaporate in the judgment of people when the human failures of some Clergy occur now and again. One act of weakness of a Priest gets the media headlines,” the Nigerian Catholic Church leader said.

He added, “In fact, some media survive by identifying and magnifying stories of clerical scandals. Facebook content creators garner more likes by telling stories about Priests through unfair and untruthful generalization, intending in many cases to ridicule those who have chosen the sacred vocation and made vows of poverty, celibacy, or obedience.” 

The Catholic Archbishop, however, warned Clergy members not to assume that such criticism will simply disappear.

“Anyone in Church leadership today who is not preparing their Diocese or their Parish or organization or movement for this sort of exposure arguably is committing what I call managerial malfeasance,” he said.

The Nigerian Catholic Archbishop, who started his Episcopal Ministry in April 1995 as Bishop of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Jalingo, observed that while “there are many good, genuine, and hardworking Priests,” some members of the laity still raise concerns “about avarice, arbitrariness, materialism, greed, deceit, and the polarization of parishioners along ethnic, clannish, or social lines within the Church.”

“This is happening in our Church, in our Parishes,” Archbishop Kaigama said, emphasizing that “the difference between the Church and the secular world must remain very clear.” 

He added, “Nobody in their right mind, thank God, believes anymore that scandals are a tool used to discredit the church. People say, Oh, they are only telling lies against the church. Sometimes those stories are true.

“Let us hope that Church leaders have learned from all this to be more accountable for their actions, both public and private,” said the Archbishop of the Abuja Metropolitan See since November 2019.

He encouraged Priests to remain steadfast in their vocation, saying, “Let us not be discouraged. We must see what is going on as a pruning from God. God is pruning us. It is a needed cleansing. It is a season of purification and an invitation to grow to a new maturity.”

“We must understand this biblically and carry it in that fashion. We can say that the accusations against us, whether of a sexual nature or of materialism or of personality cult, are an invitation to grow to a deeper level of faith, compassion, and love,” he said.

(Story continues below)

The Nigerian Catholic Church leader further called upon the laity to offer Priests spiritual solidarity and to exercise fairness in their criticism, noting that most of them “have sacrificed so much in their constant struggles.”

He said, “There is a war going on inside the Priest that you don't know of. Some Priests, for 10 years, 30 years, or 50 years, and still counting, have kept on this struggle. Support them, dear laypeople. Pray for them.”

“See them as your brothers, your uncles, your elder brothers, and so on. Criticisms without love will create the very opposite of the synodalism and the synodal Church we desire. It's not a war between the clergy and the laity. It should be about the co-responsibility and collaboration of the Clergy, the Religious, and the laity,” Archbishop Kaigama said.

Nicholas Waigwa is a Kenyan multimedia journalist and broadcast technician with a professional background in creating engaging news stories and broadcasting content across multiple media platforms. He is passionate about the media apostolate and Catholic Church communication.